Against the wall

Things are tough financially. They have been all year, but today the first day of what used to be the “closed season”, really brings it home. This is the point when even though all our countryside is free to access all year round, and more and more pay-for-entry places are open during winter, people have less opportunity to visit.

As an organisation, we aim for a 20% operating contribution, which is to say, that we want to generate from our operating turnover an extra 20%, which next year can be allocated to conservation projects. We’re way below that target right now, and we’ve only got the lean months to try and scrape a little of it back.

Why? Well the credit crunch hasn’t helped, but frankly, in my region, the biggest problem has been the weather. It rained, it seemed, all summer, and especially, it seemed, at week-ends and when we had an event on. Obviously we should try to be less dependent on visitor related income. But that learning point doesn’t help the present situation. My region is responsible for over half the operating contribution shortfall. What are we going to do, in these lean winter months to try and narrow that gap?

I’ve been thinking about what my team is able to do, and I’ve been charged by our regional committee and by our regional management team, to come up with a “tactical plan” in improve income. There are some no-brainers , investing in promoting the winter openings that are going on before Christmas.

This year, more of our houses will be open and dressed for the season than ever before, including Ightham Mote, where the Great Hall with be decorated with a traditional tree for visitors to enjoy from Thursdays to Sundays from 6 November through until 21 December.  At Bateman’s, visitors can enjoy a Kipling Christmas during the first three weekends in December.  At Standen, the original light fittings will illuminate the house while traditional decorations will add a festive touch, for four weekends from 29 November.  At Uppark, you can experience life ‘below stairs’ and discover how the servants prepared for the seasonal celebrations from 6 to 11 December.  And finally, from 4 – 7 December, Polesden Lacey will be treating their guests to a true Mrs Greville welcome with staff in period costume, decorations, festive music and a 16 foot tree.

But can we do more to change people’s perceptions that everwhere is closed during winter, and what can we add regionally to the adverstising and press releases that properties themselves are doing? Can we agree promotions with properties that give people 10% off on the shop for instance, and cane we market all the different offers that tea-rooms and resturants have on, under a simple to communicate regional theme? I think we also need to make sure that the properties are all doing what we may be taking for granted, devising their own appropriate offers, marketing them effectively not just with advertising, but in press releases and roadside banners.

And after Christmas, how best should we be promoting visits in January and February? We’ve already decided that the region will create a couple of calendars, one of things to do during half term, and and another for adults of all the lecture lunches and the like, and distribute them on-line at properties and in the papers (if we are lucky). We just tried a viral e-marketing campaign offering a kids go free voucher for this last half term, it’ll be interesting to see how successful that was.

One exciting thing may be happening. I’ve been banging on for years about putting our Father Christmases in his old pre-Coca-Cola costumes. Well… I hear he’s been routing about in his wardrobe…

Guidebooks

First of all, apologies for the short hiatus. My home Mac crashed last week running iPhoto (I blame my wife, which is unfair but it happened on her watch). All sorts of weirdness happened wih the finder, including loosing the menubar and dock, and clicks on desktop items having no effect. A Time Machine restore back to the day before didn’t help, neither did going back to the day before that. So, frustrated, I did a clean install, and now I’m having to rebuild my digital life from the Time Machine. Thus no posts about work stuff. I did however just download the new WordPress iPhone app, so remote blogging without the clunky mobile interface, here I come!

To business. I met with the retail managers from across the region yesterday to talk about guidebooks. Guidebook sales are down this year – down more than the drop in visitors we are currently experiencing. Add in that that measure is based on the income form guidebooks, not the unit sales, and its a pretty sorry picture. Prices have gone up, so units sales must be even worse.

It’s not the retail managers fault. Guidebooks are sold in the shops yes, but are most likely to be bought at the front desk. The retail managers have little influence over what goes on in visitor reception, but the the guidebok sales are part fo the shop’s bottom line, and thus effect the percieved performance of the retail manager. So I thought it was only fair to ask the team what they thought of the guidebooks as a product. Are they proud to sell it? Is it on sale at the right price?

Over all the shop managers were positive. Our guidebooks are a mixed bag. Newer ones are of course more highly regarded, and there are some very old ones still in (huge) stock. Retail managers would like to see guidebooks updated (with a new cover at least) every three years. They’d also like to make sure that the people selling the guidebook (visitor reception team members generally and volunteers) had a better knowledge of what was in the guidebook and how a visitor might use it. There is also room for some price flexibility, and some sites are experimenting with dropping the price to improve sales. They also thought a separate sales point after reception but before the main area of the visit would take some of the pressure of the reception team, if enough suitable volunteers to man it could be found.

Guidebooks are updated by a central team, at a reasonable rate. But I’m wondering if the region shouldn’t invest in a bigger updating push, to make sure all our guidebook product is as good as the best-sellers.

I get a letter

I wrote my first letter in my new role today. It was in reply to a comment from a visitor to Polesden Lacey who want to note her approval that she could still buy a Short Guide there. I ought to explain: a Short Guide is a large format gatefold style leaflet, printed in two colours, which was an alternative to buying a full guidebook or Book of the House, as we call them. In the South East region we stopped offering Short Guides at our properties a couple of years ago. After an experiment, during which we withdrew Short Guides from sale for a month, and sales of Books of the House went up. But I was glad to see Short Guides go for another reason. They were dreadful! Over long, wordy and worthy documents, that were a pain to read in low light. Not inspiring at all, and not free. It meant that at most properties, the only free interpretation on offer was talking to volunteers. Now, I think talking to a real live person can’t be beat. But some people do prefer to read rather than engage in conversation. Why should they be penalised?
I took the opportunity to try out somethng new at Chartwell. Its a large print introduction to the house, which visitors can pick up as they enter, carry around with them and drop off as they leave. Nothing new there. But I took the opportunity to strip out most of the words, creating a confuse introduction to the house and rooms with a 1000 word limit. It high lights just a few objects around the house as “Don’t miss” items, and left questions unanswered to encourage conversations with volunteers and deeper investigation. We evaluated it at Chartwell and it was a big hit, accessible, interesting and FREE!

Since that experiment, we’ve produced others at Batemans and Clandon Park. I love them. I’d recommend them for every property. It’s a real challenge to set – can you interpret you property in just one thousand words?

But back to my letter. Polesden Lacey kept selling the short guide because there are lots of changes taking place there, including a new visitor reception and, just released a brand new guidebook in a format that we call a Colour Souvenir Guide. These are less heavy than the traditional book of the house, in EVERY sense. More colour pictures, less grey blocks of text. They are cheaper too. They’ve been around for a few years, but the format is getting better and better. We wanted to be sure that the content was right though, and not just a cut down version of the old guidebook. So I helped the property team create a Learning Plan. I locked a bunch of property staff, volunteers and regional advisors in a room for a day, and together we identified the most important things we wanted to say about Polesden Lacey. Then we organized those things into three Themes, with an over-arching main theme, that will inform all interpretation for the foreseeable future. We used these themes to lay out the guidebook, and to commision the author. And the result? The only guidebook that the property’s very experienced Area Manager has read from cover to cover. And to think of the hard time he gave me for taking everyone away from their day-jobs for the planning session.

So, I had to thank my correspondent for her kind words about the Short Guide, but also inform her it is no longer for sale.