Speaking in Orlando for the Attention Deficit Disorder Association Conference, I took full advantage of two major things.

One being stepping out of my suite at the Wyndham Resort to smell the must-be-at-least-50-years-and-thriving Gardenia bush at the bottom of the path.

Living in Calgary, I often linger longingly at greenhouses in the gardenia section - and resist bringing one home, again. It’s tantamount to murder, I figure, it being dry as a bone and cold, 7 months out of the year in Calgary, to pretend we can keep a gardenia well on a part-time schedule. Hubby and I along with our two dogs don’t huddle around our fireplace each night for nothing you know!

So needless to say it was a rare treat to be greeted by a fully-open red hibiscus before checking in, and wow…gardenia on the moonlit air? That’s special.

The second thing is a little less waxy and much less poetic. Coach Ken Zaretsky (right) who honoured me with the original invitation to speak - perhaps unwittingly - set off a marketing firecracker in my brain when he gathered a bunch of us to go to a thing called ‘Medieval Times.’

If you don’t know it, how to describe? Well, it’s a reenacted Knights of the Round Table show, over an ‘authentic-ish’ dinner that you eat with your hands. There’s choreographed sword play, lots of dry ice and lights, and my goodness, do the high school kids love it when the horses charge each other and someone is mock-killed.

The kind of fun I’d never partake in here at home, all low-key and relaxed-like in cowboy land.

So what was the marketing firecracker? For someone who’s not that mathematically inclined, I guess I do count fairly frequently, and guess what - so do the people who run Medieval Times, I found out.

Get this. The dinner show is done in a venue that’s just like a hockey rink. Instead of single seats in rows, there are rows of benches with space to eat and clang your metal drinking mug. The show we were at was completely sold out and packed to the gills. Apparently they all are.

How many people capacity per show, you ask? I counted a cool 1,000.

At $50 per ticket for a 2 hour show featuring not just actors but Andalusian horses, and a meal of roast chicken, spare rib, dessert, drink, soup and garlic toast…this isn’t out of the realm, especially for Orlando, or so I’m told.

In any case, you get where I’m going, right? I love startling myself like this. It just proves that scale is at work, no matter what businesses we’re in. I mean, if you aren’t creating something that’s scaleable somehow…it’s more along the lines of a craft, which is great, nothing wrong with that. And…it’s a useful distinction when it comes to how you manage your business.

Okay, math. $50 per ticket. 1000 seats. That’s $50,000 per show. They hold one show a day, and two per day on the weekend at this venue. (I’m not even going to go into all the venues they have.) So for the one venue, call it 9 shows per week. That’s 450,000 per week or $2 million per month.

Add this into the mix: multiple streams were definitely at work. Beer and Pepsi were included, but not anything else. ‘Serving Wenches’ (don’t be mad, that’s how they introduced themselves) regularly went by asking if you wanted to imbibe something else, at an added few dollars.

Did you want to buy your mug? Why certainly you could. And everyone got their photo taken - no asking, just taken - to be offered it framed in a souvenir card to take home. Nice merchandising!
I thoroughly enjoyed the Medieval Times show, although violence even prettied up like this isn’t my style. I didn’t however get as much into it as some of my companions - I guess the Knights of the Realm have lots going for them -how did I miss that??!

If you’ve read this blog awhile, or you know me at all from TeleSeminars or other presentations, you know I place a whole lot more value in the question than any answer. So here are a couple:

Putting aside the question of if you’d want to scale to this size or not for the moment…

Is your product or service scaleable? Could you - if desired - make it available to more people somehow?

(Add Associate Coaches? Train Apprentice Customer Service Folk? Buy a CD or DVD replicator that does more than one copy at a time? Is it time for you to outsource a piece of your service process?)

What’s a problem that your product or service offering creates, that you can help solve as well, in a separate additional offering?

(Cheering on Knights in Shining Armour is thirsty work! I’d love to know how much additional revenue Medieval Times does in drink sales - as with any good eating establishment, the money is in the beverages, right?)

The only trouble with Medieval Times that I can see is you have to go to Orlando (or one of their other spots) to visit. Hey! I wonder if they have a catering department?!

Thanks Ken, for a great time with friends, old and new.