Well that appears to be working – and we’re posting some fantastic growth figures (albeit off of a base that wasn’t ‘woohoo’ material to start with.  Hell next week alone we’ve got 400 people booked in across the 7 days to come and play paintball with us at TAG.

And that’s good numbers on a New Zealand standard.

So we’ve decided to mix it up a little, and next year we will be exibiting at the Armageddon Expo in Wellington.  It should be a bit of a laugh – we’re looking forward to it a lot – and the ideas of what we can do with our stand are flowing thick and fast.

I’ll try and post up a couple of times about what we’re doing in that space – but we’ve only got around 4 months to get it finalised.  The show is April 2/4 2010 – so book sometime out and see what’s happening.

You get all sorts on the field – asking for freebies, discounts – anything that can be asked has been asked.  We’ve got standard responses to most questions that people ask – but they do always get asked.

I’ve started doing the same sort of thing with my suppliers – a couple below for your reference:

Q – Would you like to advertise in our magazine? (Targetting a key demographic at a key time of year for us)

A – Sure, but only if you ensure that we are the only Wellington based paintball field that does.

Result – We’re advertising (with a quarter page ad) and will be the only Wellington paintball field in there.

Q – We’re going to have you pay the advertising bill in one installment (from a large corporate we advertise with)

A – How about we spread those payments out over a year?

Result – We’re spreading the payments over 10 months (or so), but have to move to direct debit (happy with that)

End of the day the message is clear – especially in these trying economic time – try and negiotate with your suppliers for more favourable terms, small discounts.  Be prepared to give a little as well – but it will make things easier in the long run.