With Lamar Odom being found in a brothel, the business of sex is once again in the headlines.
Sex sells, but selling sex can be dicey
However as a $6 billion industry with high demand and steady growth, it’s a risk many business owners willingly take. Amongst the pitfalls are many legal obstacles, but the most expensive of all can be failing to manage a club’s public perception. Strip clubs make the money they do, not only because what they offer sells itself, but also because of the high-rollers they attract. As Mike Paul of the reputation management firm MGP & Associates PR put it, "The bottom line — and you won't get any company to say it — is that Wall Street and strip clubs are ingrained together and have been for a long time." This is true, not just for Wall Street, but for many industries with an entertainment budget. In these industries, business entertaining is the backbone of relationship building. In the world of, “It’s not what you know, but who you know,” strip clubs provide a tool for bringing in business and closing deals. This has been so common the IRS actually categorized it as a tax-deductible business expense. As a powerful tool in a business exec’s arsenal, controversy sprang up - with female employees suing for discrimination for being excluded, which severely crippled their ability to advance their careers. Not just from being excluded from the “boy’s club”, but also by their inability to bring in revenue because their participation, “might make clients uncomfortable.”
How Strip Clubs Fail
As easy as it is to sell alcohol and gorgeous naked women, it seems almost impossible major strip clubs would shut down for anything short of a police bust. Especially when female employees make as much as $400 an hour. There have been countless casualties of bad PR in the strip club industry, such as clubs zoned out of existence by conservative locals, and others for crossing that line between adult entertainment and prostitution. How a club hops over these hurdles often predicts not only how long they stay open, but also how profitable they will be compared to their competition. After all, strip clubs are affected by the economy. During the recession, budgets shrank all over the country, and this included corporate entertainment budgets and participation in events like the Super Bowl. As Mons Venus owner Joe Redner put it, “Even the Super Bowl can’t stand up to a dip in the economy. People have money to spend, or they don’t. When people don’t know whether they will keep their job, we suffer like everyone else.”
