RSS FEEDLike it or not the World Cup is coming this summer and you need to be aware of it! 121 days to go apparently according to the FIFA official website. Whilst I am secretly an avid football fan, I am sure there are many of you who would not even give this a second thought.
Well from the 11th June at 4pm, South Africa will kick off against Mexico and the fun all starts, ending on11th July with the final in Johannesburg. From a business point of view this may affect your ability to get hold of people, as they suddenly have to be at a meeting at precisely 4pm (in the pub). Depending on how many penalty shoot outs we have to endure this time, clients may fall into periods of depression, denial or bouts of singing ‘it’s coming home’ while rocking backwards and forwards in their office chair; decisions on business matter will be far from their minds!
My advice is to prepare your business for a possible reduction in activity, if there’s anyway of theming your business then do it and embrace the frenzy, you never know we might actually win the thing this time (I know, ever the optimist!). Anyone for a football themed leaflet?
I used to work for a large law firm in London and we always found, as Kate says, that it was very hard to get hold of clients during the World Cup, so our marketing department decided to hold football parties for clients – we’d hire a room at a pub, put on beers and a bit of food, and invite clients to watch a match. It worked particularly well if we could invite, say, German clients to a match involving their home team and the friendly rivalry after a few beers was always good value. A good excuse for socialising with clients, and you get to watch the match as well!
Comment by Sarah — February 17, 2010 @ 6:26 pm