Aaahhhh…..Summertime
A time for cookouts, beach days, vacations, and fun! Unless of course, you’re a blood banker. For us it is brainstorming, low inventory, and sheer stress on how we are possibly going to make goal. But don’t be fooled. This blog is more about the winter holidays than summer. Here’s why:
For most of us, the first “season of panic” starts right around the Memorial Day holiday. Schools aren’t hosting drives, usage goes up, donors get busy with life and we try to figure out how to make the magic happen.
The irony of this is that my phone usually starts ringing the second week of June and doesn’t stop until the end of August.
Why do we wait so long to get our safety net for summer? I truly believe it is because blood banking is such a reactive industry that we are busy dealing with March and April’s problems in March and April and we simply can’t think about summer yet.
So look, we’re here if you are scrambling and need help this summer, but my point here is, let’s get ready for Thanksgiving, aka the second “season of panic”. If you want to have a conversation, gather information, even go through the set up process, we can do that. Then, before you need it, you’re ready. It won’t take days or weeks or months to get set up because you’ll be done.
I have said in many speaking engagements that even though the 4th of July is very predictable, it sneaks up on us every year.
In an industry so impacted by seasonality, we owe it to ourselves to plan and be ready. Let’s just have a conversation about what it looks like to get set up and be ready. The “seasons of panic” do not need to be so stressful.
I look forward to hearing from you, soon!