(Note: This story appears in the September 2021 issue of ED Magazine)
Industry veteran Jason Mohney of Deja Vu has branched out to establish an all-in-one industry consulting company, assisting club owners in an à la carte fashion via his new business, GoBestBiz.com.
He may be the son of an industry legend, but Jason Mohney has walked outside of his father’s shadow for many years now. In fact, Jason has established his own legacy, both as a successful club operator and as an industry innovator. Now, he’s taking his decades of experience and expertise and using them to launch GoBestBiz.com, a one-stop source for club operators to improve their businesses in several different areas including cybersecurity, SEO (search engine optimization) and web design, POS, entertainment training, back-office organization and so much more.
We had the opportunity to speak with Jason about the establishment of this new business, GoBestBiz’s key personnel, and the three specific services that club owners should be most interested in.
ED: What inspired you to start this brand new club consulting business? I imagine a lot of people in your position wouldn’t necessarily want to share their secrets or operating successes, maybe keep things a little closer to the vest.
MOHNEY: Being involved in ACE National as the (current) president, I just saw that there’s kind of a gap in club operations. There isn’t really a spot for owners and operators to go to kind of “plug and play” with key areas of club operation. So I built a business that’s sort of customizable to whatever an owner’s needs might be. It’s a bit like the Amazon website; owners can go through a shopping cart and pick up the things they want to learn or understand and not have to buy the entire package. Unless they want the entire package, of course!
ED: Is there anything else that inspired you to create GoBestBiz? Are there areas of club operation that are of specific concern?
MOHNEY: I felt that there should be something that the industry can use for security training, for hospitality training, etc. I could see that if we had something like this available to all owners and operators, we might have an easier time dealing with cities and politics and the issues that arise from operating in the adult nightclub industry.
At the recent ACE meeting at EXPO, I referenced cybersecurity, and suggested that clubs get their cybersecurity protections in place. But I know that some people there didn’t know exactly what I was referring to, or perhaps they didn’t know how exactly to address cybersecurity and the potential of having their POS systems hacked. And they likely won’t want some outside companies they don’t know going in and setting up their cybersecurity at their location. Fortunately, that’s something we can do for them; we can come in and set up their cybersecurity and set up their surveillance system. So we can be as simple as a security company, or as much as a full-service consulting company for them and help them with total operations of their business.
ED: From the initial point of thinking about this business to where you’re at right now, with the soft launch on July 1st, how long did it take to get GoBestBiz established?
MOHNEY: We all had a lot of time on our hands during the pandemic. GoBestBiz really came together when we had this extra time to work on it during the lockdowns and shutdowns, when everything was closed, we could sort of mind map everything out and lay out a strategy. And it’s a growing strategy right now.
ED: There are certainly club owners who may be skeptical about needing “help,” thinking that they’re “doing just fine.”
MOHNEY: All of us have our own ideas of how we want our business to operate and nobody’s right, nobody’s wrong. We just have our ideas that made us successful and got us where we were going. So our job with GoBestBiz is to take our ideas and plug it into your (existing) program, helping you to continue to grow your business. And if we can help with making some suggestions along the ways, and these suggestions work for you, then fantastic. If you don’t, if you want to stick to your business model, that’s ok, too.
ED: GoBestBiz offers a score of services, so clearly you’re not doing this all by yourself. Who are some of the key players at GoBestBiz?
MOHNEY: We’ll have all of our team profiles up on our website very soon, but it is definitely a team people that are experts in their fields. We have JC, who’s our technological/IT director. He’s the one that would set up all the security systems, work with your POS, work with your camera systems, your networking, all of that wonderful stuff. Then we have James Randall; he is our SEO and web design guy. He’s fantastic. He’s been with me since 2016 and created some of the best conversion-rate websites for clubs.
In the south we have Ann Kesler, in the Midwest we have Bo Wilhelm, our “Midwest Superstar,” who just spoke at the recent EXPO. We have Michael “Wolf” Abrams, a previous ED Award winner. And we have Ralph James who’s been working with me directly here in Las Vegas for the last eight years. And we hired on some new people that are brand new to the industry. Adia Bell, for example, came from an industry that was based around getting the best pricing for everything from candy to toilet paper, so that’s what she’s been working on behind the scenes.
We have a phenomenal team with 20-plus years of experience each behind them, in multiple cities and multiple locations. So using the brainpan of this group is pretty substantial and fantastic for organizing and helping clubs along. We’re also in the process of bringing on another executive that is an expert in the restaurant industry to increase our reach into the food side of operations. A lot of club owners have a club and a restaurant, so they want help with both.
ED: Of all of the services you are currently providing, which ones do you think club owners are most apt to want to take advantage of?
MOHNEY: The first thing they should be attracted to would be the cybersecurity system, because if they don’t have one in play already, they’ve left themselves open to liability from any kind of situation happening in their clubs to internet hacking, which is additional liability. They really need to have some sort of network protection for their POS systems or any of their online-based tech.
Next would be their websites. So many clubs just have terrible websites. They’re just poorly designed; so many of them are based around WordPress and that’s just an old program in regard to functionality and designs. They also aren’t very conducive for mobile (smart phone) applications, and that’s where the vast majority of potential customers will be viewing their sites from. It’s critical that a club’s website functions properly when being viewed on a smart phone.
The third thing, once we perfect it, will be bulk-buying discounts that we are very excited about. Saving money and protecting their money, that’s what should be interesting to club owners.
ED: Tell us more about these “bulk-buying” discounts. This seems like something that single-unit operators would be very interested in.
MOHNEY: If you’re a one-or-two-club operator, you’ve got little buying power to get the deep discounts that buying in bulk would allow you to do. Our bulk-buying initiative is based on the buying power of having 100, 200, 300 locations. We will want to offer strength in numbers, especially if you’re somebody that just has one or two clubs and you feel like you’re the little guy out there, that you don’t have any power, this can give them that buying power by being part of what we do with GoBestBiz.
ED: Another service you offer, as you mentioned, is website design, SEO, and web marketing in general. There are some owners out there who feel as if social media is no longer an effective marketing tool for clubs due to their limitations related to images, nudity, etc. Have you found other ways to utilize social media or other online marketing tools to help put butts in seats at clubs?
MOHNEY: Absolutely. That’s one of the biggest challenges is turning these lookers into people actually coming into the business, and that’s not an easy project because it’s not just a matter of posting pictures. That’s what we all got in the habit of doing for social media; these are our daily posts, this is what we’re going to do. And that’s not gonna make your social media successful for you. Social media as a whole is about creating an online personality and that personality should reflect your club. And those posts need to say, “Hey, this is what’s happening right now at the club and this is our personality.”
What is your club’s personality? That’s what’s going to get people to engage and say, man, I like this club’s vibe, I want to be a part of it. You have to have a personality, and people have to want to be a part of that club, that personality, and then go on your “excursions” with you. Your “excursion,” if you will, is to come to the club and be a part of the fun.
We have a phenomenal team with 20-plus years of experience each behind them, in multiple cities and multiple locations. So using the brainpan of this group is pretty substantial and fantastic for organizing and helping clubs along. — Jason Mohney
ED: What if a club is in a market where they go head-to-head with a Deja Vu or a Hustler Club location. If the club owner is skeptical about working with GoBestBiz in that situation, what would you tell them?
MOHNEY: Well, we’re all friendly competitors. There are certain areas of club operation that would be able to help a club even if they’re in a market with a Deja Vu club. And, yes, there are certain areas that we just wouldn’t be able to help them with, especially if it means driving traffic from our club to their club. But there’s nothing that stops us with helping them with their security issues, inventory, POS, training, or some of their other problems they may have.
Whether there is a Deja Vu club in their market or not, we’re still trying to make it a little bit easier for them to find the things that work best for the industry — “best practices” if you will, and we can help no matter if you’re a competitor or not. For example, if we’ve found the best inventory system, one that’s easy to use, why wouldn’t you want to use that simple system as well? Our industry doesn’t keep the same hours as other bars and restaurants, so you have to find the right type of inventory and POS programs that work on our schedule.
Or, in a time of spiraling payroll costs, we have solutions that we can help to cut your payroll down and save you some money in that area. If you’re in one of these states now that have minimum wage at $15 an hour, we have solutions to help cut your payroll costs out. There’s so many facets to the industry that we can help with, even if they’re a competitor.
For more information, call (866) 258-8055, visit GoBestBiz.com, or email adia@gobestbiz.com.