No more corporate golf days please – we are innovative

Please – no more Corporate Golf Days!

It is sooo 1980’s. Is there really no other way to network with your clients or raise money for a good cause? And at the same time include ALL your customers? How about changing with the times and being innovative, fresh and creative?

Incredibly – most corporates organise an annual Golf Day. Could this possibly be because South Africa has more Golf Courses per capita than hospitals, schools and law enforcement staff – combined?

Presumably the marketing department or PR company has run out of ideas on how to get their clients together. When the dates of events are planned for the coming year – nobody has the guts to question whether a Golf Day provides adequate Return on Investment? Why do we not ask ourselves: “Should we not also involve our non-golfer clients (those people we have ignored over the last couple of years)?” Is it not fair to compare a Golf Day to a Bald Head Day, a Super Model Day, a Ford Fan Day or a Two Children Family Day? Point is – we EXCLUDE the majority of our clients.

I guess some of the reasons we keep on having these same-old Golf Days are because we can organise them blindfolded with our hands tied behind our backs. There is an age old recipe, a step-by step and fool-proof way to go about this:
1.Invite people for a four ball (put pressure on friends, clients and other corporates to sponsor a team or a hole)
2.When the golfers arrive hand them each a golf shirt and cap (in bright orange / shocking pink / neon green – it is our corporate colours after all). Ignore the fact that nobody will wear this ever again after today.
3.Offer them drinks or cocktails at every hole (handed out by beautiful girls dressed in short skirts and big smiles)
4.Provide halfway meal (chicken and salad – because golfers need a light lunch)
5.Finish off with a formal dinner where an MC (pick one of the 5 available for this type of job) tells old (and dirty) jokes and hands out more logo enriched cooler bags, umbrellas and torches. These prizes are taken home – to accompany all the other unused prizes from previous Golf Days.

Lest I forget: To keep all the exclusive guests occupied for longer – why not add an auction of sports memorabilia (or art that did not sell at a gallery)? This is a great novel idea – because auctions have the power to relieve business men of obscene amounts of money – all for a good cause and to make them look good and generous in the eyes of their fellow golfers (and junior staff).

You may rightly ask me: Am I anti-golf or even anti-golfer? Not at all – some of my best friends are golfers. I am questioning if there are not other ways to achieve whatever you decide the goal of such an event is. I am thinking out loud: Does a Golf Day lead to happier and more loyal customers buying more of our product or are the golfers more prone to recommend our company offerings to their friends?

And dare I ask – what does the 90% of our existing customer base (the wannabe golfers that are not invited or those clients that do not care for golf) that are excluded, think of our company?