USIndoor's Official Magazine is a quarterly publication, dedicated to owners, managers, program administrators and other professionals, startups and providers involved with indoor recreational sports facilities.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/373348
FALL2014 13 like mine, you probably need professional help–a skilled consultant. Among hundreds of other steps you may be familiar with, your sports consultant conducts the feasibility study and develops the business plan, which are necessary before hiring architects, engineers, contractors and others. Hiring your professional partners in the wrong order is very, very expensive. The most common first contact to make is with your state or regional Economic Development Commission. They may be able to help you in your search for land as well as provide information on financing, and may even have funds available for feasibility strategies and preliminary marketing. The state or regional EDC folks want you to succeed. A big mistake with the development sequence is to combine your favorite sports and your dream facility into a project that starts with an architect and some building quotes without conducting a feasibility study or consulting a sports professional first. Without the appropriate research, the building may be too big or too small, filled with the wrong sports, and cost way too much. A definitive development budget based on market demands is obviously in the first 10 steps of a realistic facility project. I have spent too much time over the years pulling poorly designed and financially devastated projects out of the proverbial debt pit–projects that could have been rewarding profit centers if the planning had started at step one instead of 557. And although you have given many hours of thinking and planning to the perfect sports facility, just remember that good business is based on good models. If you are a startup, you are probably not going to come up with a unique sports business that somebody else has not already tried. There are at least a thousand existing indoor sports facilities of every configuration out there. Look to effective business models that have been successful in markets that are similar to yours. You should also be realistic in developing your time frame. It is going to take much longer than you think to develop a multi-million dollar sports complex. If you haven't started your project yet, 2014 is out and 2015 is getting into the yellow zone. Be patient, focused, and persistent. Never, ever give up. Successful facility operators go after profit margins in their programming and products. Some sports are best left to non-profit facilities; others achieve results in for-profit facilities. It is all about margins. And like many businesses, we have our loss leaders (practices and rentals) to get people in the door, and we have more sophisticated product offerings (tournaments and birthday parties) to make the real money. So stop bothering the turf vendors and start with number 1 on your list. Endure the frustrating parts of starting a new business, and you will reach your goal of becoming a successful facility operator. Jim Cline is the Principal of The Goals Group, an indoor sports consulting firm, and a member of USIndoor's team of professional consultants. Jim is also the director of USIndoor's Certified Arena Operator (CAO) accreditation course. Jim has operated, designed and built indoor sports facilities for many years.