Discussion Notes from meeting w/ Mikail

[ngilmore]

Notes from Meeting:

Important information:

• Lessons:

  • Full day: morning and afternoon
  • 1:1 only, currently no semi/group/kids
  • no sophistication on scheduling or types of lessons
  • students are predominantly young adults
  • advanced beginner/intermediate level
  • Instructors choose what to teach

• Pricing

  • Flat pricing across seasons (no increase for inflation even)
  • $549 / full day 1:1 lesson
  • considered to be on the low end by client?

• Weather

  • Lessons open only when sure of snow quality, closed otherwise
  • Lessons are held with consistent snow quality but this has caused late openings a number of years due to "poor snow quality"
  • Temperature is in the "comfortable middle" - below 0 but not "too cold as to be uncomfortable"

• Instructor Compensation Model

  • Instructors get paid $100 / day to be "on call" PLUS 50% of revenues when they provide a lesson
  • ~20 Instructors
  • Extra Instructors available for days exceeding 20 lessons
  • Held a number of promotions
    • 36 Instructors
    • $499 / promotion lesson

• Sick Instructors do not get paid for the day

• Facilities

  • Shared slope
  • Students line up with all others on the hill

• Promotions / Advertising:

  • Word of mouth
  • Advertising on a small budget but consistent customer base

Areas of Interest to Client:

• Is he underpricing?
• Currently does not offer packages - but interested in the idea
• Slope fees in addition to lessons... opportunity to bundle with the ski slope?
• Open to different promotional campaigns and rate schemes
• Optimized staffing model
• Additional lesson types
• Wants a model he can adjust to change pricing and staffing levels
  • Maximize profit
  • Optimize staffing model

IDEAS (NEAL):

• Build optimization model for different staffing models, class types, pricing, and promotion
• optimize for max profit
  • eg.
  • put a promotion during periods of lower snow quality?
  • package lessons - 3, 5, 10, 20, ?
  • semi-private (2), small group (3-5), large group (6-10)?

Irrelevant information currently:

• Some people who stay at the lodge take lessons but not tracked
• wait times on the slope
• additional revenue models (eg. Summer skiiing, dry land training ,etc... considered different business lines
• Insurance offerings