A
tongue-in-cheek letter from one of our traders but with a serious message.
Dear CEO,
I am a concerned trader (I know, you
have a few of those) and I have a simple request. I would like you to duplicate
the crowd that visited our market on Thursday 16th October.
That was the day that thousands of
delegates to a religious conference in Melbourne visited our market and sent
our sales graphs spiralling upwards. I know that it might be difficult to
organise 70,000 extra visitors to Melbourne every week but the impact of extra
people was so dramatic that it deserves your attention.
And I don’t really care how you get
those extra people to our market. You could hold greyhound racing in the car
park, parade llamas up and down Queen St or fly boomerangs up J Shed (and back).
You could hold a flower show, a chess tournament, or even a music festival
(there is a good idea). The Huffington Post includes, rock stars, religious
ceremonies, and major sporting events in its list of sure-fire global crowd
drawers. Melbourne already hosts those types of events. Seriously - whatever it takes!
I do have one condition. My business,
and many like it in the top end, is “modest and fragile”. That is not just a
catch phrase – it is a reality. My customers marvel at my ability to set-up and
pack-down every day and think I must be a very innovative and flexible
operator. The reality is that I follow exactly the same processes every day and
practice makes perfect. Even a slight change to that process requires planning.
So, please give me plenty of warning if you want me to accommodate a special event and be aware of my “modest
and fragile” nature. I am prepared to be flexible (particularly if you can
bring a tidal wave of customers) but I need consideration.
Thursday 16th was a
powerful reminder. Bring us bigger crowds and a whole range of very positive
impacts occur at QVM.
Yours
Faithfully,
Concerned
Trader
PS – if you
like the greyhound idea, can I have the bookie’s concession?