Goody Bags – What is “good” about them?
It has been estimated that there are one million golf outings in this country per year. Well, in my best Forrest Gump voice… “I don’t know about that”.
But I do know that golf outing coordinators continually feel the need to price their outing low to attract golfers yet when it comes time to belly up to the registration table, there is ample, umm… “Opportunity to enrich your investment” shall we say. More on this in a moment.
This same committee, the ones who decided to price the outing low to attract the many are the same ones that decided to put together lovely little tokens of their appreciation for your appearance at today’s event.
There was a segment of, if not the entire committee, dedicated to what color the bags were going to be to hold these lovely gifts, who would pay for them, and what items would be donated to fit inside. As we know, more often than not, the items inside are not valuable and come with logos of local merchants as they were in-kind sponsors. Not really paying for the opportunity to have their stuff in these bags, but giving away stuff to save face and have their logo seen by the group.
Today there was a package of 5 tees on a little card from the local oil change place, a sampler of dental floss from Mackray Dental over on 4th street, an elephant shaped fan with the local Republican Candidate’s name due to the upcoming election sticking out of the top. A tube of Chapstick, a small bottle of SPF whatever and more tees from Zazzo Nail Salon as they are concerned with your appearance and a sleeve of balls from Zielke Muffler and a faded blue cap, like the younger kids wear with Epstein’s Bail Bonds beautifully embroidered in gold right across the front, kinda’ stuffed in the top almost as an afterthought which rounds out your gift bag. You know it was an afterthought because the elephant shaped fan keeps falling out and the bag is torn a bit down the side from the bill of the cap that you will never wear for fear of ridicule due to the fact that you have never been arrested and in need of being bailed out.
It is a shame really, because the committee really did a nice job and picked a lovely powder blue foil bag when they could have just went plain paper.
Oddly the pride of the registration table for the committee is passing out these blue foil bags. They spent a lot of time filling them and standing them up so nicely… but they seemed to forget one thing.
They priced their golf outing wrong in the first place. They priced it too low and they are in desperate need of players being generous to buy into all the stuff they are selling as they stumble through the registration gauntlet of smiling volunteers.
But players have these damn blue foil bags with Republican party fans falling out due to Epstein’s Bail Bonds caps not fitting in there so well. Every player is holding these fancy bags with both hands so as not to dump the precious dental floss or incur any more tearing of their pretty blue bag!
They are struggling to get to their wallets to continue to spend the money that the committee was so desperately counting on. Some are frustrated. Some leave their bags on the nearest flat surface or chair, some simply comment that they “will wait to see what the rest of their group wants to do” and leave before buying anything. But they leave with their goody bag.
Here’s the deal…. Goody bags are fine. But you aren’t passing out gold bars in them. The registration table at any golf outing on the planet is there for one thing and for one thing only. SPENDING MORE MONEY.
Don’t do anything that will hinder your players from reaching their wallet in record time, be it in their back pocket or in their purse because you have loaded up their hands with stuff, be it in the form of a “Goody Bag” or even “important” information on your cause.
Everything has a place. Players will find that stuff. Lay it out nicely on each golf cart seat, heck, it will end up there anyway after registration. Put any rules for the day, information on your organization; drink tickets etc all right there as well. Set the pretty blue foil Goody Bag right on top of their stack so they only have to move it once before it splits open.
By the time they are ready to sit down, they have made it through your registration table, hands free of clutter, their wallets are lighter and you and your group are financially far better off.
Heck, maybe someone will even slip on that Epstein’s Bail Bonds cap before they head out. Nah, what am I saying????