It’s also safe to say that the person teaching the “business class” has never owned a successful business before.  This isn’t always the case, but 99% of the time. I can guarantee they have never owned a successful paintball business.

This isn’t a slam on higher education but more of a common sense post.  The Degree you get from a college doesn’t make you successful, rather you make the Degree a success. Speaking of common sense, isn’t it interesting that big name colleges invite college and high school dropouts to speak at their graduation ceremonies. Doesn’t that tell you something?

So the main keys to starting a paintball field and making it a success is, always follow your dream, Take Action, put in the work to make it happen and don’t listen to nay sayers, choose to be great! Enjoy this video below about how I started my paintball company:

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So where am I going with this blog you may wonder. Well there is a lot we can learn from Tim Tebow’s situation in Denver and now in New York.

#1. Always be ready-  How can you book a party of 60 people if you only have 20 guns?  Don’t get me wrong, if you don’t have the money I don’t want you go steal guns. Simply find a way to get guns, for instance you may want to call some of your friendly competitors if you have any, and see if they will rent you any guns. Or some of the local paintball stores may have guns to rent.  The time to find out is now, before you get the call for a 60 person party.  Also , now is a good time to start buying one  or two guns a week, before you know it you will have a full fleet!

#2. You never know where you might be sent- Your current landlord may change his tune or worse die, and the new land owners may want you gone, overnight. Now that’s a drastic scenario I know, but the point is, you never know what will happen. Trust me, after 25 years I have seen the above scenario happen a few too many times. So what do you do? Always keep an eye out for a better location! If you see one, contact the agent and go kick some dirt. Touch base with the agent every 6 months or so and see what’s on the market. I know everything is perfect now, just like it was with Tebow winning the Broncos first playoff game in forever. But things charge very quickly, so be ready.

There is never a dull moment when owning a paintball field, that is for sure. Lastly, make sure to e-mail me when Tim Tebow comes to your field!

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEOS

” Capital in your business isn’t what matters. It isn’t the money that buys you a future; it’s your skills that buy you a future. Money and no skills, I’m telling you, you are still poor. Money and no ambition, where are you? Money and no courage, you’re broke. A little bit of money and a whole lot of courage is all we need.”

So let me remind you, it’s courage to start your paintball field that counts. Most People want to stay in their cubical and play it safe. But after all the layoffs over the past few years, the cubical isn’t safe either. So the real reason people don’t start a business is fear! They are afraid to change. Interestingly enough, courage doesn’t mean you are not scared, it means you do it anyway in-spite of your fear.

Also it’s important that you work on your skills while you are looking for funding. Remember we offer 100% Financing, however you must have the skills to run your paintball field once you get the financing. The best way to get skills is to read all our blogs and all our free tools at www.emoneypaintball.net In addition you can visit other paintball parks and take notes on what you like and don’t like and what you would improve. Lastly you can invest in some tools, like our bestselling e-book: How to Recession Proof your Paintball Field or use our consulting packages.

Just remember, have courage and get skills and the money will take care of itself.

So if there are 100 people that’s $5,000( at 2 days a week that’s $40,000 a month) Yes $40,000 a month, now minus a few employees at $100 a day, that leaves plenty left over. Insurance is only $150 to $300 a month and rent is $1,500 on the low end to $10,000 a month on the high end. So the big question is, if it’s so good, how come there are not more paintball fields? The answer may shock you.

The simple answer is, people would rather sit in their lazy boy recliner and watch reality T.V. then start a business. Less than 1% of Americans start a business in any given year, LESS THAN 1%!!! 99% of people think that sitting in a cubicle is security and starting a business is risky. I encourage you to challenge that mindset and realize that sitting in a cubicle is risky! How many people do you know that have lost their job and their unemployment is starting to run out?

The next excuse… I mean reason people don’t start a paintball field is because they say they don’t have money. Well we offer 100% Financing and if you have bad credit we can teach you how to get private investors. One new field owner I’m working with had a private investor calling him twice a week begging him to use his money!

Decide today to Take Action and start your paintball field, for more info check out moneypaintball.org

There are two great days in our lives- The day we are born and the day we take action on our dreams! How long have you been talking about starting your paintball field?  Make today the day!

Don’t worry, you don’t need to have a grand opening tomorrow. Just make the decision to open your field, why wait for New Years? By making the choice now, you will be so far ahead by New Years you won’t be able to turn back.

Staring a paintball field is the most flexible, most forgiving business there is, and you can still keep your day job. Check out www.moneypaintball.org today and let us make your dream a reality.

]]> http://emoneypaintball.net/blog/?feed=rss2&p=54 http://emoneypaintball.net/blog/?p=53 http://emoneypaintball.net/blog/?p=53#comments Thu, 29 Sep 2011 00:50:45 +0000 E-MONEY http://emoneypaintball.net/blog/?p=53 I had a chance to meet with Malcolm Gladwell yesterday and he gave me some great insights about the paintball business. What could Malcolm Gladwell teach me about starting a Paintball business you ask? And for those who have not read any of Malcolm books yet don’t worry, you will totally get this.

Malcolm reminded me that “good entrepreneurs are not normal.” Normal people work at the post office and never take a risk. Entrepreneurs look at a vacant building or empty plot of land and say ” we could build a great paintball park there.”

So don’t worry if your friends and co-workers think your crazy! Everyone thought Bill Gates, Steven Jobs, Micheal Dell, the kids from You Tube and the guy from Google were cray too! My advice is take the risk, start your paintball field, it’s worth it! Plus you may find out it’s actually riskier to stay in your cubical.

However if they don’t have a good time or worse you have some “haters” who don’t want your paintball field to succeed, these same communication tools can cause some challenges. Here are some key reminders to help you out:

Criticism will come, 100% guaranteed! The only way to avoid criticism is to not open or run a paintball field. On top of that stay inside your house and never come out and never talk to anyone. Ridiculous I know, but whenever there is movement there is friction. You can never keep everyone happy, no matter what someone will be unhappy. Just make sure it’s not you.

Below are the 4 types of criticism and some comments from me in ****

A) Concerned criticism. This criticism is based on genuine concern for you as a person. The person making the critique genuinely cares about your well being. Concerned criticism is helpful, considerate, and generally easy to accept.

***This usually comes in the form of family and friends who are worried about you and your crazy idea to start a paintball field. To help these people,  you can sit down and show them the numbers to help them understand how profitable a paintball field can be and that your not risking it all on some wild scheme. ***

B) Constructive criticism. This type of criticism is focused on improving your paintball field. It points out what is wrong in order to help you do better. It suggests alternative ideas and then provides encouragement and support.

*** Sometimes you can get this type of criticism from your customers and be so very thankful for it. This means your customers want to come back and that they like you. Otherwise they wouldn’t waste their time criticizing, they would just go play somewhere else. ***

C) Casual criticism. Casual or uncaring criticism is difficult to receive It is often blunt and opinionated and is frequently a result of poor judgment on the part of the critic. Often the critic doesn’t have the knowledge to successfully evaluate the situation. Because of this, casual criticism may be more false than true.

*** This is what most of the online criticism is. I have seen it countless times, horrific rants of people talking about how bad a paintball field is on a message board or chat room. Then when pressed by other members or people leaving posts they admit that they had never even been to the field and it was just a “friends” experience that they heard about.***

D) Confrontational criticism. This criticism is hostile and may be based on anger, fear, jealousy, prejudice, or similar negative emotions. It usually has an ulterior motive.

***WHEN YOU GET THIS TYPE OF CRITICISM, CONGRATULATIONS!! – YOU ARE SUCCESSFUL!!!!  : ) : ) ***

Make sure to check out all our paintball Starter Packages and our 100% Financing www.moneypaintball.org

The good news is, we can help you, every step of the way. Give our offices a call or if this is your first blog of mine that your reading check out www.moneypaintball.org

What size should my OUTDOOR paintball field be? The first thing to look at is how much land do you have to work with? Paintball can work on ANY and I mean any size of land. The smaller the space, the less options you have but you can still make it work.

If you are still looking at land and not sure what to get then here is what I would recommend. Get land that has the most drive by traffic or has signage available where lots of cars go by. It’s worth it’s weight in gold, trust me. Better to take a 2 acre lot that gets 200,000 cars a day driving by, than a 20 acre lot people can not find.

Next I imagine your wondering about the actual size of your playing fields. If not scroll down to read what my advice is for the correct size of a indoor paintball facility you should get.

For outdoor paintball fields the actual size of your field #1 depends on the type of customer you are looking to attract. If you want to attract 2% of the paintball market and cater to hard core tournament players then you will need official sized fields. The sizes are for the NPPL- 100′ x 180′ for the PSP 120′ x 170′  These are the sizes of the playing field sideline to side line, not net to net. You need to leave some room in there to move around.

If you want to attract 98% of the paintball market, then the good news is, the size of your fields does not matter. 80% to 90% of successful paintball fields profits come from players who rent equipment. The players do not care what size the fields are, they just want to have fun and play.

The formula for success and we go into great detail about this in our consulting packages is: You want as many various sized fields as you can get. You must have at least one preferable two speedball type fields near your entrance so Mom and Dad can watch and actually see their kids play. You would want these fields to have Money Turf as well so parents will know your a first rate operation and that paintball is a serious sport worth Mom and Dads attention and dollars!

Next you would like to have some bigger sized open scenario fields as well as some wooded fields if your land permits. Again the key is not the size but the variety!

INDOOR - “I found an abandoned Wal-Mart in my town….”- I get this one a lot, let me help you with the math. A typical ” box” store or Grocery store is approx 40,000 square feet or more. If the rent is $1.00 a sqf that’s $40,000 a month in rent. Plus you have to pay A/C, Heat lights, etc.  After 15 years of working with Indoor field owners here is the magic number. Do not pay more than $10,000 a month rent.

The challenge with paintball is that you need ” room” to play, the more room the better! However you have to pay for that room. Try this example. If you have a 20 people playing on a 20,000 sqf field that costs you $10,000 a month or if you had the same 20 people on a 10,000 sqf that costs you $5,000 a month which would you prefer?

The size of the field is irrelevant! It’s the rent! This works the other way, there was a guy I was working with who was working on a 50,000 sqf building for $5,000 a month! This guy didn’t have the funds to use all 50,000 sqf. Who cares! He can always grow into the space or use it for parking, the price is the key!

So again Do not ask what size field should I get? Ask: How much is the rent!

The other key for indoor is LOCATION! I really want to stress this! 50,000 sqf. is great at $5,000 a month but if people can’t find you it’s useless! The big challenge with indoor space is that if you want a low rent you are typically where people can not see you from the road. This why most indoors go out of business!  They get a building with too high of a rent and a bad location! You can overcome a bad location if your rent is super , super low but it’s much better to pay $8,000 a month for a building that 50,000 cars drive by everyday than $5,000 a month for a building no one can see.

I hope this helps, we look forward to helping you start a paintball field that is successful from day one. Check out www.moneypaintball.org for more info