Art of the Float

If you missed last year’s Float Conference, or if you chose to attend the amazing breathwork session that happened at the same time, and you missed Kim’s “Creating an Organic Sales Funnel” workshop, you’re in luck! In this episode, Kim breaks down a few key points about implementing some strategies to get folks to come back through the door again after their first float. You’ll hear some common challenges to getting returning guests, how to create a powerful offer that isn’t salesy, how to create “soft sell touchpoints”, and how to create a successful mindset to motivate your team (or yourself!).

It’s not just about creating a killer deal or setting quotas. Creating an effective organic sales funnel involves thinking about your why - understanding that you opened your doors to help your community find relief from the world and all that comes with the human condition - and remembering that “selling” is really just “helping”.

Be sure to take a few notes, and for your homework, try at least one of the strategies discussed, and then we’d love to hear how it goes for you! Send us a message so we can share it with the world!

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Cassie is the Founder of Deva Coffee joins the pod and spills the beans on why they created a coffee company who's current mission is to help fund float research! Find out why Deva Coffee is such a great pairing with floating and how you can sell coffee at your float center while supporting the FRC!

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It’s always a hot topic - hair dye! A recent conversation on the Float Collective (a Facebook group for float center owners) sparked some great comments about what we should include in our hair dye policies.

We invited Kat Roberts, owner of Surface Float in Canada, to join us and hash out the pros and cons of different policies, and what we should all know about how hair dye works - color molecules, stripping agents, and more!

Kat breaks down her white towel test, performed on site with anyone whose hair may reek havoc on a float tank, and Kim shares why a blanket time-period based policy might only provide a false sense of security. This quick episode is a must-listen for anyone who operates a float center!

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_WARNING: This episode includes a little language drop, so we don’t recommend it for little ears.

You’ll hear a bit about the great debate over transdermal absorption of magnesium sulfate, and how one floaty human is using magnesium chloride to supplement the float solution in an effort to promote absorption for health benefits, along with some concerns and questions we should all iron out before shifting the standard.

Other news includes floods across multiple centers and hair dye debacles, sprinkled with tidbits on some favorite tools and products to have on hand (including Fiberglass Stain Remover, vitamin C tabs, charcoal filters, a sump pump, and water leak alarms).

You’ll also be SHOCKED to hear the dates for the 2023 Float Conference in Louisville, KY. (Spoiler: Pre-conference workshops and events start on August 16th, and the conference is August 18-20!)

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New year, new flood? Yep. So many floods - at home, at the center, all over the world! This first-show-of-the-year wiggles and winds through all the adventures of float center owner life - balancing family time for the holidays, deciding what gift card strategy to use, how many times you have to clean up a flood, whether a staggered schedule is right for you, who is beating and who dodged cancer, whether that “COVID padding” during turnovers is still needed, and how things are going when trying to sell your center.

This year is off to an interesting start already! The crew is back and warming up for a big year with you!

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Show notes. Show notes. Show notes.

They want me to write show notes, so with an episode like this, that’s the best I can do. Show notes.

How do you write notes for something that covers frog butts, bidets, Caring Bridge, cancer, closures, floods, laundry failures, rock stars, and favorite socks — and write show notes?! I can’t do it.

If you’re looking for advice for running your float center, you might find some here - mostly centered around ensuring you have electricity for the bidet of our dreams, but otherwise, the takeaway is this – get yourself a network of friends who’ll be there to send you inappropriate photos when times are hard, who’ll bring up your secrets on air, and who will laugh and cry with you through it all.

Happy holidays, and happy new year, dear friends. This is a fun one. Sorry, Olga.

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How do you manage 6500 square feet and nine service modalities? Well, according to Tammy and Terry, owners of AquaSpa Float Center and Wellness Boutique in Oswego, New York, you hire a rock star team!

Their managers, Katie and Terry (yes, another Terry) also joined the conversation to share their insights on the day-to-day operations, and how they keep a seamless flow, how many staff members are on a shift, and how they deliver personalized service to each guest who visits “the sanctuary”.

This team certainly has created something magic in their community, and we know you’ll enjoy hearing all of their behind-the-scenes secrets about what modalities they love, those they regret, and what’s next - because they still aren’t done adding services yet!

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We’ve heard about VR and floating. Maybe you already have an opinion on it. Just hold that for now please. Our guest in this episode is taking VR a bit of a different direction - pairing it with meditation and biofeedback. Yep, we’ve heard about meditation and biofeedback before, but Healium puts allllll of it together in a new way!

Gloria is introducing this new technology at her studios, so the crew interviewed the Healium founder, Sarah Hill to find out what’s so special about it. Sarah has a background in TV news, and part of her beat involved covering traumatic stories. Eventually that led her to work with veterans, and as they started using virtual reality, they noticed a major shift - participants were FEELING emotions, not just watching things happen on a screen. It was a powerful discovery that led to her new program.

Sarah guides us through getting started with incorporating augmented reality and virtual reality into a meditation practice, as well as how her app is like a “portable, digital chill pill that prepares you for the float tank.”

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Many float center owners backed a Kickstarter project by Shane Stott to release a documentary about the benefits of floating. Shane was already fairly well known in the float world, having released a book called The Float Tank Cure, about his battles with anxiety, depression, and stress, and how his downward spiral led him to a lifestyle of drinking too much and trying to drown out the pain. He learned about floating and went on to create his own tank, posting his plans and schematics online for his followers. Eventually, that led to a partnership that launched Zen Float Tanks, a portable, home model. And because Shane wanted the world to know about floating, he set out to create a documentary highlighting his story, but also the stories of so many others whose lives had been improved by float therapy.

But it all fell apart. As Shane said, “Admitting defeat was the hardest thing for me.” He lays it all out on this intimate episode – battling pandemic challenges, inflatable paddleboards wreaking havoc on his production, having an “increased tolerance for disappointment”, cutting hundreds of hours of film down to just over 98 minutes, delay after painful delay, experiencing profound loss, and eventually… finding peace.

He says he felt like he was running a marathon that turned out to be an ultra. His finish line kept moving, but after listening to this story, it sounds like maybe he just crossed it. At least until he signs up for the next one….

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We all know that floating is a powerful practice, loaded with countless benefits. We’re often aware that we don’t want to promise too much, but one particular area where we might be able to talk a little more is about how float therapy can be beneficial for patients with body image concerns and/or eating disorders.

If you made it to the 2022 Float Conference, you likely heard Dr. Emily Choquette sharing the latest findings about how LIBR (Laureate Institute for Brain Research) is studying the impact of float therapy and anorexia nervosa. We were delighted to invited Dr. Choquette to the show to talk in depth about that data, as well as how she got involved in the work.

She shared that since anorexia is a particularly challenging condition to treat, and new treatments aren’t being developed fast enough, the research that had already been done on anxiety and floating was a perfect gateway to expand studies. Early research shows that even just a single float can promote positive changes in a patient’s perception of their body.

We chatted with her about what we, as float center owners, can do to continue to foster a relationship with the science community and how to talk about this benefit that could potentially help many individuals who struggle with body image or eating disorders.

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