Page 82 - BCM June 2024

THE BEC INTERVIEW

You’re essentially talking about adding rungs to the and one. If you are successful at that, you will have an
ladder. incredible business. It is no more complicated than that.
We need to have a product for every level of bowler
— youth, recreational, the person who says, “I just need How have you been faring with employee retention?
to get my corporate team out there.” Most business Better than most, from what I’ve heard. You’ve got
owners want to get their people together outside the to hire the right people. We’re not looking just for a
office. They need to know our centers are an option. heartbeat. We’re looking for people who love the guest-
service business. Then we ask: How do we give our team
How have you gone about selecting the centers you’ve members opportunities for career growth and making
added to the Triple Shift portfolio? the position fit into their schedule? Our team-member
We’ve acquired fairly well-run locations with fairly base is a lot of parttime employees; it might be a sec-
good local reputations, so we’ve been able to build on ond or third job for them. We try to figure out how we
that. There’s always an opportunity to improve. One can fit into their lives.
thing we do immediately is to invest in the facility and
make it clear we’re there to improve it. When a bowling
center doesn’t invest in the roof or the parking lot or the
HVAC, and that is the perception of the community, it’s
a challenge for them to get comfortable with that. What
a terrible marketing campaign that would be: “By the
way, we now have a roof and a parking lot…” So many
proprietors let their places go, and if do you end up in
this downward spiral because you won’t have money to
spend on the things that will drive traffic.

So you’re not
looking for a
bargain…
We will buy
distressed,
underperform-
ing centers, but
it’s not our pref-
erence. You’ve
got to be doing
the basics. We
tend to be care-
ful in those situ-
ations. We like
to buy good Concord Lanes in St. Paul, Minnesota, is described
operations that on the Triple Shift website as “your destination for
have been well an unforgettable bowling experience.”
taken care of
and continue
pushing the legacy of that operation with a little more
scale that we can bring.

And you don’t seem overly concerned with the business
model of the locations you’ve been buying.
The only thing we don’t have are bars with bowling
lanes. No matter what your model is, you’ve got to take How do you find those people who love guest service?
care of your guests. You’ve got to take care of them with We never stop recruiting. We never put a “help want-
a clean facility and great service — and that’s the same ed” sign out. We are constantly recruiting 100% of the
no matter what your model is. In every one of our busi- time. I think that’s different than it was 10 years ago, but
nesses, the goal is simple: to get every customer in that it’s probably the way it always should have been.
market to come back one more time. From the league
bowler who comes in 150 times a year to the person Do you ever worry about hiring too many people?
who comes in zero times. We want to get them to 151 No. In every one of these businesses there’s a lowest

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