MaternCo Operator Insights

A few years ago, we had a kid celebrating his birthday at one of our parks. He was a huge Utah Jazz fan, and his whole party was Jazz-themed. Unfortunately, not many kids showed up. I happened to have an Airborne shirt in my personal collection that had been signed by Joe Ingles and Jordan Clarkson. I liked that shirt. It wasn't sitting around the park as a promotional giveaway, and I certainly hadn't come to work planning to give it away. But I looked at this kid and thought it could make his day. So I gave it to him. The look on his face was incredible. So was the look on his parents' faces. That kid has celebrated every birthday with us since. His siblings have their birthday parties with us too. That's a great business outcome, but here's the important part: If that family had never come back, I wouldn't have regretted giving him the shirt. I didn't give it to him because I calculated his customer lifetime value. I gave it to him because he was a kid cel...

We work in an industry built around fun. So let me ask a simple question: Do you want your employees to be fun? Of course you do. We want the person at the front desk to be welcoming. We want party hosts who are energetic and engaged. We want attraction attendants who interact with guests instead of staring at the clock. We want managers who can turn a frustrated parent into a happy one. Then we sometimes build workplaces where our employees aren't having much fun themselves and expect them to clock in, flip a switch, smile, and create an incredible experience for everyone else. I don't think it works that way. My philosophy is pretty simple: Take care of your employees. Your employees take care of the guest. The guest takes care of your company. The company comes last in that sequence. I think that's important. Our Average Employee Has Been With Us About 20 Months Employee turnover is part of our industry. We employ a lot of teenagers and young adults, and for many of them...

We don't write up employees. That doesn't mean we don't hold people accountable. We absolutely do. We just don't call it a write-up. We call it a coaching . There's an important difference. The phrase "write-up" has become synonymous with punishment. Tell an employee—especially a 16-year-old at their first job—that they're getting written up and you've already changed the conversation. They're nervous. They're defensive. They're wondering if they're going to get fired. And they probably aren't thinking very much about whatever you're about to teach them. I tell our employees and managers all the time: Coaching isn't bad. Tom Brady was coached. Wayne Gretzky was coached. Lionel Messi is coached. The greatest performers in the world don't reach a point where they're too good to be coached. Why would we expect a 17-year-old at their first job to be any different? The purpose of coaching isn't to punish someone f...

The software works best when the operating decisions are made first. ROLLER is a powerful platform. It is not magic. It can handle online sales, waivers, parties, memberships, capacity, reporting and a huge chunk of the guest journey. What it cannot do is make unresolved business decisions for you. I have been through ROLLER implementations and I see the same mistake over and over: a venue starts building products before it has decided what it actually sells, how its policies work or what employees are supposed to do. Then every configuration question becomes an operational debate. The smoothest launches happen when the operation is clear before the setup begins. 1. Map the real guest journey first Walk through the major transactions from the guest's point of view: buying online, signing a waiver, checking in, adding food, upgrading a party, arriving late, rescheduling and asking for a refund. Then walk through what the employee has to do at every step. If the process is c...

Parties should be a repeatable sales and hospitality system—not a collection of last-minute favors. Birthday parties can be one of the best products in an FEC. They can also become an operational mess that eats labor, frustrates parents and creates nonstop exceptions for the staff. I have spent years building and rebuilding party programs. The biggest problem is rarely the room decoration or the giveaway. It is usually that the venue is selling one experience, the sales team is promising another and the party host is finding out what actually happened five minutes before the family arrives. A strong party program is not a collection of favors. It is a repeatable sales and hospitality system. 1. Stop making the package menu complicated More packages do not automatically mean more sales. Most parents want a clear decision with obvious differences in price, time, food, attractions and included guests. If you have seven packages, fifteen add-ons and benefits that overlap, the custom...

The expensive mistakes usually begin before opening day. I have helped open more than two dozen restaurants, bars and entertainment businesses. The most expensive opening mistakes usually happen long before the doors open. A lot of new FECs spend months debating attractions, paint colors and construction details while the actual operation is still a giant question mark. Then, a few weeks before opening, everyone suddenly realizes they still need pricing, staffing, party packages, food systems, training, policies and a functioning POS. That is backwards. Operations should be part of the build from the beginning. 1. Know what the business is supposed to make money on Before the floor plan is locked, decide who the venue is for, how long you want guests to stay and which products are supposed to produce the margin. Admissions, memberships, birthday parties, group events, food and premium attractions all compete for space and labor. A floor plan can look incredible in a rendering an...