Skate Park Skiing Business Plan

SP’s business strategy is fairly simple, attract the experienced skiers and develop interest in beginners to try the sport at this new convenient location. To develop business for the beginner customers, SP must become a cheerleader for skate skiing, raising awareness about this new and exciting sport and encourage people to try it out. For the experienced market segment, SP must be successful in attracting people that would otherwise drive over to Bend to go skiing. Please see the following sections which provide more detail into SP’s strategy.

5.1 Competitive Edge

SP’s competitive edge is convenience. SP offers a very convenient skate skiing option to people of Salem, Eugene, Portland, and surrounding communities. Currently, in order to participate in this exciting activity, you must drive over the mountains to Bend. Providing skate facilities to a large population, and being the only one to do so is a true competitive edge.

5.2 Marketing Strategy

SP’s marketing strategy will be based on several different methods:

• Printed materials handed out at races: Information regarding SP and the services it offers will be distributed at various races (cycling, running, snowshoeing, etc.) This will be a useful exercise as many of the people that participate in these types of activities also have familiarity with skate skiing.
• Printed materials at outdoor retail outlets: These sources will be used because this is the place where people that participate in similar activities come to to purchase equipment, as well as collect information.
• Advertisements: SP will be advertising in several different local outdoor journals. These journals have a very targeted readership.
• Industry support: This will take the form of sponsoring races and clinics. These activities will be used to generate interest and increased participation of skate skiing.

5.3 Sales Strategy

SP’s sales strategy is quite simple, encourage new people to try skating, and get experienced skaters to come to SP instead of driving to Bend. By communicating with people of similar interests (people who enjoy other human-powered athletic activities) SP will be able to educate them on skate skiing and turn people into believers. SP will also be selling to an experienced user crowd. One way that SP will encourage experienced users is to have a race series during the winter to encourage competitive athletes to make several different trips up throughout the season to “test their meddle” against other competitors. The sales pitch will be a new and exciting sport that is fun and challenging, allowing athletes to maintain their fitness level through the winter months.

5.3.1 Sales Forecast

SP has forecasted sales to grow strongly and steadily for the first several years. This forecast is based on several assumptions. The first is that skate skiing is in its infancy as a sport. The sport was somewhat recently created, and just now are there venues being built, therefore the adoption/participation curve will be steep as more and more people become familiar with skate skiing. The second premise is that while the sport is in its infancy, there will not be a lot of competition from new venues opening up nearby. This is likely to be the case because it takes a special type of land to lend itself to a quality set of trails. If the trails are too hilly they become less appealing to skate skiers. Since SP has struck a special deal with the National Forest Service, they have secured the use of a special area of land that is perfect for skate skiing, recognizing that there are few other parcels of land nearby that lend themselves to as nice trails, or for that matter even decent trails. Obviously skiing is a seasonal sport and only occurs when there is snow. During the summer months the lodge will be used as a home base for day hikes through the mountains.

5.4 Milestones

• Business plan completion;
• Secure building and lease for trails;
• Opening day;
• First race in series;
• Profitability.