Pretty but not switched on.
I was at a charity boxing match on Saturday night.
Not my thing usually, but a friend was getting in the ring to raise money so I thought I’d support him.
And I loved it!
I have always been against blood sports, but I was shocked by how quickly I got in to the blood lust of “Hit him, Hit him!” when watching a live fight.
Hmm, may need to harness that for business…
Anyway, to raise more money for charity, young attractive ladies were coming round to each table to sell raffle tickets.
Research (http://freakonomics.com/2013/10/16/charity-and-the-beauty-effect/ ) has shown that the best people to get high donations are pretty young women.
Particularly with men (and there were a lot of them there), it is pretty young women. And the charity had obviously understood this.
What they hadn’t done is briefed the girls (and they were girls) properly to get the most donations from each table.
They came to our table, with six of us sitting down at the times.
They were selling a strip of raffle tickets for £5, and we were all ready to buy.
Our young lady took money from four of the people on our table, but totally failed to see two people, with fivers outstretched, waiting to pay.
She walked away, leaving £10 on the table (almost literally).
There were 100 tables. If we assume a similar lack of attention from her and her colleagues at other tables, they could easily have left a potential £10 at each table, which could have been an extra £1000 for the charity!!
And if they had been at all savvy, she would have insisted (with a lovely smile) on everyone spending at least £10 on the raffle – “It’s for a good cause!”.
Make sure that you have the right people to do the job, but also make sure that you train them to do it properly and not leave your money on the table!