Q. This year once again my company took a small group of clients to lunch at Royal Ascot. Our guests included a couple of former clients we asked along for old times’ sake. These have both written not only to thank us but to say we can count them in for next year’s lunch as they ‘wouldn’t miss it for the world’. Fond as we are of these former clients, to be brutally honest we can’t afford to have them every year as we need to invite current spenders. Any thoughts, Mary?
– Name and address withheld
A. Tell them they were a great asset at the lunch and their names are definitely going into the hat for next year. When they ask ‘What hat?’, explain that next year you will have to draw names from a hat as the lunch has become a victim of its own success and is oversubscribed with willing participants, so the only fair way to ration the invitations is to draw names from a hat.
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