Easter, Bank Holidays and The World Cup – no time for ordinary business!

Since early April it seems that we have had nothing but interruptions to our regular business week. Starting with the Easter weekend, followed by two Bank Holiday weekends in May and now we’ve got the World Cup! On each of these occassions our job bookings took a hit and website viewing figures slumped. We are apparently still teetering on the edge of recession, we are allegedly in danger of the dreaded “double dip” and yet the UK seeems desperate to take time off with businesses actually closing early yesterday to watch the World Cup opening day on TV. When does the UK actually stay open for business?

We are fast approaching the holiday season and just when it’s coming to a close we will have the August Bank Holiday. This will be followed by 3 – 4 months of proper trading before it starts all over again with the very bizarre Christmas and New Year period. In this particular spell there are 3 official Bank Holidays and yet many businesses close for at least two weeks. What for? Who in their right mind wants to take time off when the days are short, wet, cold and dark? And how many nights in a row can you get off your face drunk?

All of these holiday factors make running a business very difficult with so many ups and downs and as you might guess, I find it all very frustrating. In the USA most private sector companies get only the “Big 6” national holidays and if the holiday falls on a Saturday then many banks actually forfeit the holiday. Annual leave is something that often is earned by length of service rather than automatic entitlement and the whole economy seems to be geared to work rather than play. What’s more, the people seem to like it. The country was built by people who were ambitious, forward thinking or who just simply wanted the chance to work hard and to earn a living. For the most part, the work ethic has stuck.

Our own business is very much allied to the advertising, marketing and promotions industries and that means that we are subjected to seasonal peaks and troughs. The likelihood of client companies spending thousands on a pop-up mail shot when their own prospects are on holiday is slim. The notion that a company might want an interactive mailer to land on a customer’s desk on the week either side of Easter is equally unlikely. The chances of someone planning a B2B promotion that will arrive the week before Christmas or at any time from then until the second week of the New Year are quite remote.

We might have 52 weeks in a year but realistically there are no more than 40 which are regarded as good for targetting B2B promotions for general business. On the other hand, of course, we have a totally disproportionate amount of enquiries for Christmas marketing projects which will run prior to mid December so that compensates a little.

However, thinking about all thgis has made me depressed so I think I might take a short break for a couple of days!