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INCENTIVIZING CAMP
Frank Fagan interviews Andy Pritikin
ver the past few years, more and more camps have begun offering incentives designed to help improve enrollment. At the same time, there are many camps still trying to decide if the practice is appropriate for their overall business philosophy. In some circles, the dialogue has made for quite the polarizing discussion. I wanted to learn more about incentivizing, so I turned to Andy Pritikin, Owner/Director of Liberty Lake Day Camp in Bordentown, N.J. Andy has been successfully employing incentives for several years, and he has become a vocal supporter of the process.
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What advice would you give a camp intent on starting an incentives program? My advice is don’t be self-conscious or too proud. We’re in the business of doing wonderful things for children, but we can’t do that if we can’t get kids enrolled in our camps. If we don’t have kids enrolled in camp, we don’t have money … and if we don’t have money, we can’t hire really good counselors, and we can’t do all the wonderful things we want to do. People lose sight of that. Have you ever seen a nice little store open in your town that offered a great product, but within six months they’re out of business? Why is that? It’s because they’re really good at making that product, but that was it. They weren’t good at marketing themselves and offering incentives that get people to walk through their door. That’s the same thing that happens with camps. Most of the people who get into camping are teachers, social workers, psychologists, children of camp directors. These are not traditional business peopl R(
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