"Help the guest in front of you."

I bet you're busy. I have heard nothing but good reports on this season, so far, and it is so good to hear after 2009! We, too, have been very busy and it has been fun, but exhausting. And, I but you're tired, too.

Service degradation. When you get tired, service level declines. I don't care who you are, if it happens to me (I'm an interaction addict, if you've met me, you know.), it happens even to you.

You simply cannot keep it up indefinitely. You also cannot expect your staff to do as well as you do. They don't have it in them.

If you know it's coming, train for it. To combat this service degradation, our policy is to "help the guest in front of you." We had a girl get flustered and quit because she couldn't handle the line of guests hassling her to "hurry up", "go faster", "why is taking so long."

My only advice to her was to "help the guest in front of you." I didn't realize that that's what we've been doing for years. I'd never thought of explaining it to anyone else.

Help the guest in front of you. When you boil down guest interactions and expectations, the guests just want you to deal with them until they are cared for and the personal transaction is complete. Give them your full attention. You can't multitask guest services or both parties will be upset.

You also can't help the next person in line until the person in front of you is done! So, stay focused, help the guest in front of you quickly and efficiently, and move on the the next guest. No matter how big the line behind them.

Train, model, and encourage. Your employees are people, too. They behave just like people do. They want to do well, but they don't know what to do. They watch to see what you do when you're stressed and busy, then they do it. They want encouragement.

Chances are that they have a lot of people in their lives who are mean to them and do not encourage them. What they are lacking in their lives is encouragement. Employees + Encouragement = Effective.

I hope you are crushed with guests this weekend. I hope you have to work your tail off. When you are in the heat of the rush and you start feeling the stress mounting as the lines get longer remember that all you have to do is...
Help the guest in front of you.

Have a great week.

Hugh

Reach us at: www.mazecatalog.com

Don't call an audible.

How's your plan. I spent a lot of time this year encouraging and guiding you through planning your fall harvest season marketing. So, how's you plan? In the thick of things, you should be referring to your plan and executing the tasks in it.

For instance, my radio advertising plan runs every week. Depending on the weather and specials for the week, I just record the ads and send them to the station to run. Our promotions come up on the calendar, and we knock'em down.

Don't call an 'audible'. In football, calling an 'audible' means that the quarterback looks around and changes the play called by the coach based on what he sees. Sounds like a good idea doesn't it?

In marketing, it's generally not. The reason is that you can't 'see' well enough this early in the season. Attendance might seem low, might seem high, but the real data is so limited that you are not getting enough information to change things on the fly.

Stick to the plan. It is so hard for me to do, too, but you've got to stick to the plan. Don't change your radio station, buy more ads, cancel ads, buy some 'fire sale' new ad you didn't plan for, or drive yourself crazy second guessing your decision.

At best, you'll ruin your chances of finding out what works. At worse, you'll cost yourself an arm and a leg to move from radio station to radio station, just when you were about to have played enough ads to convince the 1st station's listeners to come!

I can't see it either, neither can anyone else. Everyone thinks they can see what's happening - ad reps, your staff, your friends, you, me - but they don't. You really can't tell until the end of the season, and we all know that weather is really the biggest factor. Weather beats clever every time.

Consistency beats trickery. Your ads do not need to tricky - there aren't magic words - they just need to be on all the time, time and time again, hammering your message home, to whatever audience you are trying to reach. Stay consistent to the end.
I truly wish you the best, most profitable season you've ever had. As an industry, we have so much to offer the general public and this is our time to shine.

Stick to the plan. Don't call an audible. Remain consistent. That's the key to success.

Have a great week.

Hugh

PS Hayride Audio Systems. If you want them for October ORDER NOW!

PPS If you want to make it easy for groups to book your school tours and parties online, check out our online booking system at www.BookMyGroups.com. See it in action on our home website at www.MazeFunPark.com

PPPS If you missed the "Goal without a plan is a wish" live event, we recorded it for you to view anytime!

Reach us at: www.mazecatalog.com

The "Biggest Ever Times Infinity."

Life on the Farm

Record-tying 51 pound pumpkin picked this weekend. Yes, it's bigger than the girl!

The "Biggest Ever Times Infinity." In America, we just keep trying to make it bigger. 24-hr this and that, the biggest, the best, the Super Bowl of Whatever, the one-stop-shop, a local diner even says "World's Greatest Coffee", but I'd wager the owners haven't yet left town to check. Every weekend some car dealer has the biggest sales event yet. Whatever happened to simple celebrations?

Simple celebrations. It's this time of year that I get to enjoy people having simple celebrations. Just a family, together picking pumpkins and everybody cheers for the big pumpkin Dad brought back.

The youth group comes out of the maze and high-fives each other, quickly defending their collective honor against another team that exited earlier. Mom cheers for her preschooler who just learned how to pick an apple with Farmer Hugh.

These are the victories that really matter. They are simple celebrations, but life isn't a collection of "Super Bowl"-sized events. Life, real life, is made up of individual moments and memories.

Waiting for the big one. How do you live your life? are you waiting for the big one? It is a real feat to live for the little moments, the simple celebrations. Often I find myself using language such as, "If I could just...., Once I get to there, I'll really.... I just need X, then I'll be Y." When I think like that, I'm waiting for a "Super Bowl" to drop into my life.

Can you see how that kind of language easily permeates your life with a feeling that here and now is somehow not good enough? Simple moments aren't of value compared to the 'big one.'

It's a dream we chase, when it is already ours. You don't need a million dollars to pick a pumpkin with the kids; to work with a youth group; to relax for a day with your friends.

Cut the chase. Do you really need "The Biggest Ever Times Infinity"? Cut the chase. Chances are you already have the dream in your life. Keep your ambition, but don't be ruled by it.

I took 15 minutes out of a "parts run" on a busy Saturday to swing in and see my daughter's first soccer game. Maybe it was being a soccer player as a youth, but I almost burst with pride seeing her compete for the first time. They lost and it didn't matter. 15 minutes and I'll never forget it.

You can't live at the Super Bowl. We all know people who live in the Super Bowl. There was one shining moment in their lives to which they cling. The tell and retell the story of it with great passion, and you just want to ask, "But what did you do today?"

Today. Now. The present. That's what matters. Relive the Super Bowl moments of your life, but use them to empower your present life with the same sense of victory and possibility you felt back then.

There's only one Super Bowl. Simple celebrations are what life's really about. What's really neat is that once you start to see and appreciate those simple celebrations, you notice that there are a lot more of them. The Super Bowl is only on once a year and most people watch it for the commercials.

Talk to you next week,
Farmer Hugh

PS Pumpkin picking in the Pumpkin Patch every weekend. See the GIANT Pumpkin Express wagon here.