What Not to Tell First Time Floaters

Floatation is a wellness therapy which attracts people from all walks of life, for a wide scope of reasons. If you work at or run a float centre, part of your work will be introducing floatation to first timers. What do you tell them? There are so many things we can say about floatation… so what are the do’s and don’ts of that introduction, to ensure we have happy, returning customers?

When it came to introducing people to the first commercial tank, floatation inventor and pioneer Dr John C Lilly had a rule of thumb: ‘Thou Shalt Not Program’. His message with this one liner was that you should avoid telling people what to expect, as your words can have influence over what they pay attention to during the experience, and therefore how they come out feeling.

There are so many benefits to floatation, as you’re more than aware of by now if you’re in this industry. Not only is the list of benefits long (and growing!), the ways in which people experience floatation (their 1st, 2nd, and 3rd floats, for instance) varies massively. No two people will come out feeling the same from a float session.

With that in mind, probably the most important thing when it comes to not ‘programming’ your customers, is not telling them how they’re going to feel mentally. Allow them to discover the wonders of floatation for themselves, however their brains choose to interpret and engage with the experience.

Apart from building expectations, you also don’t want your first time customer to have a bad experience because they’re giving themselves a hard time for not feeling relaxed enough, or for the fact that their mind remained busy for the duration of the float. The less thoughts of how they ‘should’ be feeling, the better.

Instead of talking your clients through how they might feel in the tank, you can focus on the practicalities of floatation, enabling them to get the most out of their experience. For our 5 top tips for the float rookie,” check out this blog post.

As the owner or employee of a float centre, you will encounter some first time customers who are hooked on all things wellness, and floatation is another notch on their belt of therapies they’re keen to try.

These are the customers who are already familiar with being” alone with their thoughts, perhaps they meditate or practise yoga, and who feel pretty confident in the realm of self exploration.

You’ll just as likely greet some first timers for whom this is their first toe-dip into the world of self care and wellbeing. They may have even been recommended floatation by a therapist or health professional for something they’re working through. For that reason, you have no idea how this experience is going to land – the results are so varied.

One thing which is more common than not after a float session; the customer will come out of the tank more relaxed than they went in, which is almost inevitable with the zero gravity + sensory deprivation + high magnesium formula of floatation.

After filling them in on the practical tips for a good float experience, why not let your customer then discover that amazing post-float feeling for themselves. Make yourself available after their session to talk through how it was for them; sometimes lending an ear to listen is the best thing you can do!