August 2017

TrainerTainment Welcomes Kim Wheeler as Sales & Training Specialist

by Tech Support | Aug 31, 2017 | Press Release

Dallas, Texas –The TrainerTainment team is growing! Kim Wheeler has joined TrainerTainment as our newest Sales & Training Specialist. Kim has been part of the Family Entertainment Industry for the almost five years and brings an extensive background in sales and training to our company.

“TrainerTainment has built their success on helping others succeed through coaching, hard work, and fun,” says Kim. “Getting to be a part of a team that lives and breathes their core values and has a passionate desire to change the lives of customers is a dream come true. I am looking forward to making a difference in our client’s lives by helping them achieve success both personally and professionally… and having some fun along the way!”

All of TrainerTainment’s leadership team was able to meet with Kim during the interview process and all are excited to have her join the team.

“I’m very excited to have Kim join TrainerTainment in a sales and training role,” says Beth Standlee, Founder and CEO of TrainerTainment. “She was so passionate about earning a spot on our team and has such a heart for service, it was easy to decide she would be a tremendous addition to the TrainerTainment family and the clients we serve. She comes to us with a wealth of training experience and has most recently held a sales role in the Family Entertainment Industry. I can’t wait for people to engage with Kim. She’s a great connector and will be fully engaged in helping grow people and their businesses.”

Connect with Kim at kim@trainertainment.net or 210-204-3433 and receive a free mystery shopper report!

TrainerTainment’s Mystery Shopper Program evaluates current party programs, shops local competition, writes selling scripts, includes TrainerTainment party products, and provides weekly secret shopper calls to make sure the sales systems at your facility are implemented at the highest level.

About TrainerTainment: TrainerTainment focuses on training and coaching to enhance leadership, business strategies, promotions, sales, group events, birthdays, and company party programs. Developing people, implementing business processes that get results, and teaching teams how to create a thriving sales culture through great service are our primary goals. TrainerTainment is located in Texas and has worked at facilities in the United States, Canada, and Australia and has spoken at events worldwide.

For more information on TrainerTainment, please call us at 817.886.4840 or visit us at www.trainertainment.net

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Getting to Know TrainerTainment’s Laura O’Neal

by Tech Support | Aug 30, 2017 | team

What do you enjoy most about working with our clients?

Even though we are all in the entertainment industry, I appreciate the diversity of each client. In Social Media, each of our clients has a unique voice we try to capture when representing them. From a Business Coaching perspective, I love helping them unravel the complexities of their business and use their talents and individual strengths to take their businesses (for a lack of a better term) to the next level.

How long have you been in the FEC industry and in what roles?

I have ridden Beth’s coattails on this one. I’ve been a coach since the beginning of Trainertainment, as well as an outside trainer, business coach, and SMM manager for many of our clients proudly for 11 years.

What is the most significant thing you have learned working in the FEC industry?

Not to sound like a broken record, but I have learned the people in this industry are amazingly hard working, kind, fun, and did I mention hard working? To me, all the rest of it beyond the people can be taught or trained, but the backbone of this industry are its owners and staff.

Which of our core values resonates with you the most?

FUN. The reason I say that might be obvious, but for me, FUN isn’t always in the forefront. I have to work at it because we all work so hard and do so much. The greatest thing I get to ask myself is…”Wait, is this fun? If not, Beth would not approve.” How great is THAT????

If you could use technology to do one thing, what would it be and why?

I would use technology to obliterate technology. You think I’m kidding.

Would you rather explore a new planet or the deepest parts of the ocean? Why?

The ocean. I’m afraid of heights and fish are cool. What I really want to explore is the human brain. There is a movie about this and the name escapes me, but a little rocket ship goes inside a body and putters around. THAT would be an adventure that would be FUN and I would sign up for in an instant.

Where’s the Party At?

by Tech Support | Aug 23, 2017 | Birthday Parties

Though not a nationally recognized holiday for most, a birthday lands somewhere ahead of Christmas and the candy-filled, colorful costume celebration of Halloween as a kid’s favorite day of the year. From toddlers to teens, a special event where all the attention is on them, calls for putting a spotlight front and center on an experience that’s truly second to none. For a Family Entertainment Center, a birthday grants a golden opportunity to get your customers back in the door as a group, sharing the experience of a grand extravaganza and later spreading the word all over. Before you blow out the candles on the cake, follow a few simple best business practices below with a goal of repeat revenue on route to becoming the best birthday party location around.

Collect Birthdays Anyway You Can

Whether at point-of-sale or through an online marketing software such as FetchRev, collecting birthdates by the bunch is the first step to reaching your customers when they’re ready to spend. For example, sending out an email requesting your customers’ date of birth in exchange for an incentivized gift serves as an equal trade that pays dividends down the road. Putting their information directly in your birthday database allows you, as the business owner to promote your various birthday packages and discount how you see fit to get the party (no pun intended) firmly in place for all the fun.

Put a Focus on What Makes You Fun

Have the biggest trampoline park West of the Mississippi? How about the fastest go-karts in the greater metropolitan area? Perhaps, people come from far and away to enjoy those Instagram-worthy insatiable ice cream sandwiches from your on-site cafe. Whatever the best parts of your business are, identify the money-makers and crowd pleasing perks and promote your birthday party packages around them for best results. Not only are you giving the familiar guests what they want, but you’re earning all new fans of your features as well.

Check-In for the Celebration

Encouraging social media check-ins during, and online reviews after, their birthday experience is a winning way to spread the good word on a great time out at your center. Try promoting a fun hashtag that incorporates the name of your business on Instagram, or offer an exclusive day-of-party addition such as a complementary two-liter of soda for every 10 check-ins on Facebook from an individual party. For every positive review online, reach out to the reviewer and personally thank them for choosing your location for a birthday celebration. For each unfavorable review try to understand and rectify where expectations fell short in a respectful manner. As always, social media can be an invaluable learning tool for assessing your current birthday strategy and optimizing your special offers for best results.

FetchRev’s automated platform makes collecting birthdays and following up with revenue generating purchasable and claimable campaigns simple. Click Here to request a demo or give us a call at (877) 394-2410 today.

Coaching Leads to Success

by Tech Support | Aug 18, 2017 | Sales

This week has been an amazing leadership week for me. Do you ever have weeks where you think, “I got this!”? Yeah, they do happen, and I know there are times where we just feel like we are failing at everything. I’ve felt both the winning and failing this week and the week isn’t even over!

This past Sunday a friend and I got into a wonderful conversation about work. He has been with his company for the past year and recently was transferred to another department. During training, he felt like his trainer was going a million miles a minute and he was trying to capture everything she said. For the most part, he felt pretty confident until she popped by to see if he could do it on his own.

With the pressure standing over his shoulder, he felt paralyzed and made a couple of mistakes. What happened next is where I saw the difference between a great trainer and coach and one who will not be the next person to help someone succeed. She asked him if he took good enough notes.

As a training company, we realize people are going to make mistakes, especially in the days just after training. When a team member isn’t doing well, we take a step back and look to see how we failed in the training process and then coach them on how to do it correctly and be more confident for the future.

His next statement made me realize how important it is to have a trainer and coach. He told me he wants to know what he is doing wrong, how to improve, and what he can do to move up but is scared to ask because he doesn’t want to seem incompetent. Then he hit me with this, “I should know how to do so many things because I learned them in my days as a baseball player but it seems like I can’t implement any of them.”

That’s when it clicked for me. I asked him, “What is the difference between when you played sports and working now? You had a coach to guide you and teach you.”

I’ve written about this many times before. I have spent most of my adult life looking for a mentor or coach. So many of the most successful people in the world have a mentor or coach to guide them and that is why as leaders it’s important for us to take on that mentoring, training, and coaching our team members to be successful.

Imagine if, from day one, my friend’s supervisor went to him and said, “We are excited to have you on the team. We want to make sure you succeed. When you succeed, our team succeeds. I’m here to be your leader and coach.”

Having a coach has been such an amazing blessing for us at Trainertainment. Every week our coach Nancy has an amazing and important part in coaching us leaders about how to run the company. She always asks all the hard and right questions for us to succeed.

Part of what got me riled up during our conversation was that this is what we do! We coach owners, managers, supervisors, leadership teams, and sales team about how to grow their people through coaching and training. I believe every business has the potential to be successful and, with the right coach, I think even more can be extraordinary! Are you ready to become extraordinary? Call us and we will help you get on the path to success.