Have "the Games" Improved Your Sales?

[Pete Brindle]

For those of you who run businesses based around sales, how have you found that the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games have impacted upon you?

Have you found that you've had more customers than ever, or are your usual clients staying away because it's so busy around Scotland at the moment?

I would think it would be great for the hotels (I'm sure there's someone on here who runs a hotel) and shops etc, but perhaps not so great for other types of business. What have you found personally?

 

[eeyorebob]

It didn't impact too much on me, most of my business is online anyway

 

[Pete Brindle]

It didn't impact too much on me, most of my business is online anyway

Lucky then, I suppose. I have heard contrasting stories myself - some people say that clients cancelled because of the traffic, whereas others like shops and pubs said that they've never known business like it! So it really depends on what type of business you're in, from what I can tell.

 

[Gemma Rowlands]

No, in fact I had people rescheduling meetings to avoid the traffic. But I'm not too concerned about it, as it meant that I was able to take a short break. I would be interested to hear the point of view of somebody who's more involved in retail to hear what they have to say on the subject, because with the number of people around the place I imagine things were busy!

 

[Pete Brindle]

No, in fact I had people rescheduling meetings to avoid the traffic. But I'm not too concerned about it, as it meant that I was able to take a short break. I would be interested to hear the point of view of somebody who's more involved in retail to hear what they have to say on the subject, because with the number of people around the place I imagine things were busy!

At least you got to take a break. It's good that you're in a job where you could have a bit of time off when it was needed. I spent a bit of time in Glasgow itself and it was busy, but on the whole it was also very well managed. And I found that the atmosphere was fantastic, so many volunteers who were giving up their time for free to make the games a success. I feel our country owes them a lot!

 

[Mike Turner]

We had a drop in local business but more business than normal from tourists who had breakdowns etc. So much less workshop work but a bit more callout work. Not too concerned because it's picking up again now. Don't know why it had that effect, maybe people just locked themselves away for the duration to avoid the scrum, ha ha.

 

[Pete Brindle]

We actually saw a SLIGHT spike in business - because everyone is interested in involving groups of school kids, and we have music school kids in easy reach of Glasgow, so we were asked to do a couple of welcome concerts for the athletes. The centre got very well paid for them as well I have to say! It's all going into the fund for next term, and will hopefully mean that we can get some new and exciting projects underway.

When I wrote this thread, we hadn't yet been paid. Our concert coordinator deals with that side of things, just asks me do I want to do it, and I said yes because of the prestige. I didn't even realise we were being paid. But we were. And it was quite a lot as it turns out!

 

[Gemma Rowlands]

Pete that's brilliant, and I bet the kids were made up to be involved too, right? I'm having quite a busy few weeks now making up for lost time, so things have evened out for me. But now all the voting seems to be taking over people's thoughts - I can't remember the last time I had a conversation that didn't end up as an independence debate, but never mind, I suppose it is the most important decision the majority of these people will ever have made!

 

[Lauren Turner]

We made some Commonwealth Games merchandise to go alongside other things, and you would be surprised when you realised just how many will buy things just because they're related to what's going on in the city at the time. And, of course, there were a lot of tourists around as well, which really helped.

 

[Gemma Rowlands]

We made some Commonwealth Games merchandise to go alongside other things, and you would be surprised when you realised just how many will buy things just because they're related to what's going on in the city at the time. And, of course, there were a lot of tourists around as well, which really helped.

That's showing real initiative; taking a look at what's happening around you and changing small things about the way you work in order to play to the strengths of the situation. Did you make "team yes" and "team no" merchandise? Ha ha.

 

[Pete Brindle]

We made some Commonwealth Games merchandise to go alongside other things, and you would be surprised when you realised just how many will buy things just because they're related to what's going on in the city at the time. And, of course, there were a lot of tourists around as well, which really helped.

That's such a brilliant idea! So you're a good businesswoman then, making the most of any given situation that you might come across. You have the right idea, we should all try to do that a little bit more.

 

[WilliamBarnett]

of course, there were a lot of tourists around as well, which really helped.

 

[YbenDevis]

And, of course, there were a lot of tourists around as well, which really helped.