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Why Open Houses?
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[quote]QUOTE: <i>Originally posted by Paul3</i> <br />[quote]QUOTE: <i>Originally posted by kchronister</i> <br />It goes back to the same point - if you're not prepared to welcome the public (warts, kids and all) with open arms, if you're not prepared to focus on the visitors rather than the layout and operation, if you're not prepared to fully focus on preventing... shall we say 'youthful enthusiasm' from causing damage, then what exactly is the point? What are you hoping to accomplish? why have an open house at all?[/quote] <br /> <br />The point? I can't believe you have to ask. [;)] The reason behind everything is...<b>MONEY</b>. Yep, cold hard cash. [8D] Can't live without it, especially a model railroad club. We charge admission for our Open Houses, and we charge table rentals to any dealers that show up (we can fit about 40 tables inside the club as of now). Our annual club budget is in the $30,000-range, and these Shows/Open Houses bring in almost half of our revenues. <br /> <br />Sure, we get something out of it besides money. We like running trains, sharing our hobby, hanging out with our friends and fellow members, talking trains, showing off our stuff, getting the next generation involved, all of it. But the be-all and end-all is money. Simply put, we need it, and Open Houses and Shows are the best way for a model railroad club to get it. <br /> <br />[/quote] <br />So why not simply knock the folks who show up over the head and take their wallets, purses and milk money? I mean, if you just want their money without actually being bothered with the whole thing, that's a much more effective way. <br /> <br />Seriously, you can't say that you're in it for money to a marketing guy... You get posts like this one! It's like hanging raw meat in front of a dog and saying "sit"... Not gonna happen... <br /> <br />You, my friend, have a marketing problem. And you are performing the chief A-number-one sin in my personal catechism: Failing to maximize your profit. For shame! <br /> <br />By invoking money, you've moved from the realm of visitors to that of paying customers. And as reasonable as the explanations you give here are, no customer in the history of creation ever gave a Boulder Dam about explanations. But the good news is that by focusing on money, any club, anywhere can - out of sheer self interest - remove any hint of any 'poor attitude' that could occur. <br /> <br />You need to modify your thinking about these folks. They're not visitors, they're giant dollar bills walking up to your door, ready to jump into your pocket. To me, what you have here is a group of people who are paying half your costs in return for 2 days of (very limited and seemingly somewhat grudging) access, while the members get the other 363 days, full access, for the same price... That's a sweetheart deal if I ever heard of one... But you can do better, can't you? <br /> <br />To my way of thinking as soon as you talk about clubs using open houses to make money, then there is no explanation for even one single member of those clubs to have one single second of anything but cheerful, helpful, happy attitude during an open house. You should be grinning like an idiot even as you wave bye-bye to funny hat boy, sullen number writer, and all the other assorted whackos and weirdos. They just paid for your fun the rest of the year! So smile, take the money, and give them their money's worth. Period, end of story. <br /> <br />Frankly, if it were me I'd be at the other end of the spectrum. I'm an absolutely shameless capitalist pig when it comes to these things: I'd be thinking of ways to kiss as much customer tush as possible during those days and see if I couldn't get more repeat customers, referrals, word of mouth and so forth. I'd want my customers to go home, get the neighbors and come back the next day. I'd want them to be going home to mark next year's open house on their calendar as a "don't miss" event. <br /> <br />I want them to pay 150% of the club costs! Use the extra to expand, buy new stuff, or just divvy it up amongst the members as payment for all the time and labor they've put in! <br /> <br />Gimme a busload of weirdos wearing various silly hats and carrying steno pads to write down car numbers - as long as their money's as green as the next guy's I'll greet 'em with an ear to ear grin. <br /> <br />And if some folks get turned on to the hobby at the same time (or at least don't get turned off it), that would be just awful too, no?
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