Business Sense

I couldn’t agree more!

They see the cost of oil go up, so the gas stations and supermarkets raise prices. They see their costs go up so they do the same.

True. As far as “business sense”, I’ll bet many of the dancers never heard of and certainly couldn’t define “supply and demand”.

Great post. So correct.

Agreed. There's two clubs here in Louisville that exemplify the difference here. Club 7 is upscale, expensive, and dead. The dancers won't even come out of the dressing room half the time, and management wants 200+ for a 15 minute room, and the girls want huge tips on top of that for doing nothing but dancing. I honestly think it's a front for something else. I wish it was a front for a whorehouse, but it doesn't even seem like it's that anymore.

Foxys is "low class" even though it's still nice inside, and much busier, though still not filled to capacity like it used to be. 165 for 40 minutes, 2 for 30 lap dance specials are common, and tips for more than dancing are reasonable.

PT's is high class and expensive too, but they are downtown where all the business high rollers tend to stay. Even they aren't as busy as they used to be. Prices are even more ridiculous than Club 7 though.

I don't argue with your conclusion, but I think the circumstances around the downturn in the economy are significantly different than 20 and 25 years ago. Those were both tied to businesses failing due to a shifting business climate, layoffs, wage freezes, banks tightening credit and loan terms, and other factors affecting personal income. Today, the problem is so much larger and so much worse. Our personal incomes are higher, but the cost-of-living is (proportional to 2007 & 2000) are exponentially higher. Government spending has skyrocketed post 9/11 and post-pandemic, taxes have increased multiple times, every American has fallen victim to "lifestyle creep" (e.g. I, myself, had no backyard pool, netflix, Amazon Prime, premium satellite TV, smart phone, boat club membership, HOA, and spent much less on vacations). Now, thanks to deficit spending, quantitative easing, welfare for 10,000,000-20,000,000 illegal aliens or more, supply chain disruptions, government regulations and oversight burdens, the financial pressure on each and every American taxpayer is beyond anything we imagined just a couple of decades ago.

So, I can understand why it may not be so simple for strip clubs and strippers to lower their prices in a bid to get more customers, when their operating expenses and personal expenses are higher than they have ever been; while in the past scenarios there was less inflationary pressure and more government relief available. However, I do agree with your conclusion that to continue business as usual without at least attempting to improve value and drive to customers to the business is a sure-fire plan to fail.

They would call this

Mansplaining

Some prior thread had the Lafler Curve discussed. Although it focused on tax rates vs revenue, the same could be applied to high price-low volume vs low price-high volume. Some point in the middle is the sweet spot for best revenue. The x-factor would be this thing called life-work balance. Yeah, a dancer could make 10% more by lowering her prices, but is dealing with 20% more customers and working longer hours worth it? That would be subjective factor that could take up an entire thread.

Too many younger people think strategizing and politicking are somehow equivalent to actually satisfying your promised deliverables.

Working 50’hoursna week is really an accomplishment if you are also raising a family. Basically it is like working 2 full time jobs. Those who don’t have kids have no idea what a work ethic entails.

Bacon!

I think being raised by a single mother in the projects who taught school 5 days a week; cocktail waitressed Friday nights; ran the elctrolux office on Saturdays and drove my 2 younger brothers on their 165 house Boston Sunday Globe paper route combined with practicing divorce law for 44 years gives me a pretty fair perspective on what everyone goes through, no matter who they are.

Over the years I have represented dancers. Like other young people, myself included, dumb financial decisions are prt of growing up. I never listened to anyone either.

Every expense I've had since 2020 now costs me a minimum of 30% more than it did in 2020. Food, utilities, taxes, maintenance on anything. Some have gone up over 100%.

How come my investments aren't making 30% ROI?!?!?!?!?!

I am glad I spent ten years up to 2020 going to strip clubs once a week because it is a declining industry now. There was a temporary surge in spending after the Covid lockdowns ended due to pent up demand but that only lasted several months. I feel like it is time to cut back on strip club visits because the value is not there any more.

Great post; I agree with your conclusion. But today the situation is somewhat different than it was the 20 years ago mentioned. Society has changed. I think there are fewer customers because there is less of an interest in strip clubs and it is not cost related.

Think of it this way. If the divorce rate should plummet say by 50% where you practice divorce law, you could try to maintain your income by lowering your rates to capture a greater portion of the fewer potential clients from other competing divorce lawyers. That strategy would result in a race to the bottom as other divorce lawyers began to lower their rates, too. Overall, incomes would decrease because there are fewer total clients available for all the divorce lawyers and lowering rates would only serve to further lower incomes. To maintain their incomes, divorce lawyers would have to increase their rates.

Strip clubs are in a similar situation. They realize the customers are not there and are hesitant to lower their rates. They need to do something different to increase the demand for their business, but what?

I gave up trying to understand the economics and business model of strip clubs and strippers a long time ago.
How can strip clubs stay in business with little or no customers or dancers, regardless of what they charge for cover and drinks? And how can a stripper make a living by paying to work a shift where she sits around on her phone all night and doesn’t try to sell any dances. Clearly there’s something else going on that I’m not seeing, like maybe the club is simply a front for money laundering, and the non-working stripper is there to meet one pre-arranged customer at some point during her shift. Otherwise nothing makes sense.

Shailynn wonders why his investments didn't go up 30%. The answer is that it took 6 years for the CPI to go up 30%. During that time, the S&P 500 more than doubled.

I don't think lowering prices always creates a race to the bottom. s prices drop, they will stabilize at a new level. A hotter stripper will make less, but still more than a less attractive one. With my business model no one can undercut me. I will always be more experienced and less expensive, because at this point in my career I have it et up where I rent from my partner and for my $350 a month I get a phone, his paralegal answers it, a nice office, internet and utilities. In exchange for that I keep all the money from my clients. The clients I get from his marketing genius website, I do all the work and give him a cut. Other than that its just me 2 phones and a laptop/printer. My cost of doing business is $10,000.00 year nd that includes everything.