Business, Marketing, and Life Advice for Play-Based Business Owners

To celebrate my milestone of reaching 300 Profitable Play Podcast episodes-- I did something a little different.

I dedicated my 300th episode to rounding up some of (what I consider to be) my BEST pieces of advice, that (and here's the catch)-- almost NO ONE takes or implements.

Because I have been doing SO much 1:1 consulting as I prepare to take a break to welcome our third child into the world in a few short weeks, I’ve been noticing a few things.

I’ve been noticing that...

  LISTEN To This Content On The Profitable Play Podcast Instead.

Now that it’s the end of June and we are fully in the summer swing of things- it’s happening again.

The summer slowdown in the indoor playground and play cafe industry.

And yes, I realize that for some of you owners– summer is BUSY season especially if you’re in a southern state or country where it’s too HOT to be outside right now.  But for the majority of owners I...

You may have noticed that I’ve been covering some HEAVY topics on the Profitable Play Podcast lately.

We’ve talked about regulating our nervous systems to prevent a lot of the health issues brought about by chronic stress which is unfortunately not uncommon for indoor playground owners. 

We’ve talked about handling conflict with customers and within our own teams, and most recently we’ve talked about navigating divorce as a business owner. So, like I said,...

Since we are already nearing the halfway point of 2024, today I want you to ask yourself a couple of questions that I have gotten in the habit of asking MYSELF if I’m feeling a little distracted or unmoored in my work or personal life, because it always brings my goals and perspective back into focus.

And I have gathered these questions over the years from various sources, so while I will try to give credit where it’s due, I truly have no idea where I first heard a few of...

When I first entered the family entertainment and indoor playground industry, the “norm” was for play spaces to just have set open-play hours where customers could come-and-go as they please without reservations. Our open-play hours, for example, typically from 8am-4pm on weekdays and 8am-12pm on Saturdays. During the weekday evenings and weekends we of course did classes, parties– all that good stuff– but here I want to focus JUST on open play hours....

One way to get a revenue boost and increase in foot traffic and online awareness for your indoor playground business in the spring time is hosting a Mother’s Day “Sip-and-Shop” event. 

I gave some tips on these vendor events on my YouTube channel a few years back in 2021, but I am going to add some updated suggestions and tips here in this article.

If you prefer to listen, you can get this content on the Profitable Play Podcast episode 278!

First, what IS a...

Something that I've always found as a business owner is that the stronger I end a year, the more powerful my launch into the new year is.

So even though we’re still in the first half of December, technically, I wanted to give you some action items to be sure you complete BEFORE the end of the year.

Now I know you’re busy– you’re probably juggling running your play space, attending all your kids’ holiday events, buying and wrapping presents, maybe hosting,...

In a recent video interview, I had the pleasure of speaking with  CPA and profit strategist Jamie Trull to discuss the legal and ethical considerations of hiring and paying our children in our businesses as owners.

This interview covers the various benefits of hiring your children (even as babies and toddlers!), age-appropriate tasks they can help with (like sweeping, organizing, light graphic design, modeling for social media images, etc!), documentation requirements, state and...

While I love releasing fun and lighthearted content around the holidays, I do have some topics on my list here that we just have to get through before the end of the year, OK?

So grab a coffee or a glass of wine, because in this article we are talking about conducting year-end employee reviews.

I am going to give you some tips based on what worked best for ME, but I want to emphasize here like I do so often– please feel free to take from this article what feels...

If you're planning to launch an indoor playground business but are finding it difficult to find a larger-sized location or if you are operating within a cost constraint (i.e. you don't want to pay a bajillion dollars per month in rent) and are planning a smaller-footprint space, this article is for YOU.

And if you're a current owner of an indoor playground facility or play cafe business and you're about to skip this article-- let me stop you right there.

MOST of these tips and...