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John's Journal... Entry 68, Day 2

click to enlargeHow to Plan a Corporate Trip

EDITOR'S NOTE: You can make more money, increase your business and build longevity in your relationships with your customers if you take them hunting and fishing with you. Many companies overlook this critical key in this day of bean counters, bottom lines and high-pressure sales. The better you know your customers, and more importantly, the better your customers know you, the more business each of you will do with the other and the better you can serve that customer. This week, we're looking at the reasons you should take your clients hunting and fishing, as well as ways to make your hunting and fishing trips more effective.

To have the most successful corporate trip, you must spend plenty of time planning it. Just showing up at a lodge won't insure a successful trip. Here's some of the requirements for a great corporate hunt:

click to enlargeWhen you hunt under the rules of fair chase, you realize that you can't guarantee that a white-tailed deer, a wild turkey, an antelope, an elk, a bear or any other wild game will show up where and when you want it to for your customer to harvest it. Find a hunting lodge that offers preserve quail hunts as well as hunts for wild game.

On a three-day hunt when you hunt wild game only, your customer may not have the opportunity to bag that bird or animal of his dreams. However, if he has a morning or an afternoon of preserve quail hunting where he legally can harvest 10, 20, 40 or more birds in a day, you know for certain that your customer will have the greatest quail hunt of his life, even if the deer, turkey, elk, antelope or bear don't cooperate.

click to enlargeOther businessmen tell what you need to search for in a quality hunting lodge.

"We like to take our customers to White Oak Plantation, near Tuskegee, Alabama, because the people there treat us and our customers very well," Rusty Nichols, vice president of operations at Nichols Concrete Equipment Company of Alabaster, Alabama, reported. "The facility has good accommodations, delicious food with nice rooms and plenty of activities for our customers to participate in after they complete their hunts or when they have time in-between hunts. The plantation offers fishing, sporting clays, a rifle range, quail hunting and some of the finest southern hospitality we've seen anywhere.

"Because of the way the staff at White Oak treats our customers, we've gone back for four consecutive years to this facility to do our corporate entertaining. Our customers tend to prefer a one-on-one guided turkey hunt or sitting in a tree stand to hunt a deer. If one of our customers doesn't have the skill to call in and take a wild turkey, then he's got a guide right beside him during the whole hunt that can help insure success. Most of our customers don't have the opportunities to go to places with as many turkeys as White Oak has where they can hear turkeys gobble every morning when they go out."

click to enlargeNichols mentions that during hunting and fishing trips, his company's clients tend to open up and tell Nichols how he can do a better job of providing his company's services to them and their companies, a critically important key to maintaining or increasing your business with a customer. According to Nichols, "Although we never talk business to our customers, often about lunch or dinner, the customer will begin to talk about what he or she wants from our company or how we can improve or do a better job of serving their company. But we always let our customers bring up the subject of business."

To learn more about White Oak Plantation, call (334) 727-9258, or visit the website at www.whiteoakplantation.com.

Tomorrow: Contingency Plans

 

 

 

Check back each day this week for more about Why Take Your Clients Hunting And Fishing...

Day 1 -Why You Should Take Your Clients Hunting and Fishing
Day 2 -How to Plan a Corporate Trip
Day 3 -Contingency Plans
Day 4 -The Place for Some Action
Day 5 -Important Things to Remember

John's Journal