Steve Wendt <<blueskyhg>>
writes:

http://www.groupon.com/learn

http://blueskyhg.com

I just completed a program with a company called 'Groupon.'

They've been after me to run a discount coupon program, and I finally said ok. I
needed no money out of pocket. They sold 335 hang gliding lessons for me in
three days last week.

My lessons are usually just $99, and we sold them for $49 to encourage sales. I
get $32, and 'Groupon'
keeps $18. Now, if I had to do it again , I'd tell them to just discount to $75
or so, as I'm not going to make hardly any money at $32 per lesson. But the
coupons are only good until April, so they won't interfere with next year and
full price lessons. It gives me around $10,000 of cash flow during the winter
months, as they pay you now, not when tickets are redeemed. I've already
received a check.

My experience with gift certificates and coupons is that only about half of them
come back to you, which gets my income back to $64 per lesson. But, mainly I'll
have customers over the winter that I wouldn't have had. And, now 335 people
know about me that didn't before.

As I mentioned, next time I will want to price it a bit higher and maybe sell
fewer of the tickets, but have a higher income per customer. They ran the
email/internet ad in the Washington, DC and Richmond area only.

It's a good way to get people to me without spending money up front for
advertising, and I'm targeting people who are going to want to try it, rather
than spend advertising dollars to the masses with less return.

John Matylonek in Oregon called me because he saw I was working with 'Groupon.'
He was thinking of doing the same, but was worried about selling too many and
not being able to deliver. I say, 'give me that problem.' If customers are
trying to get in and can't, I'll honor the ticket after April when I have
lessons that aren't full. A happy student buys more lessons!