For most people, things start to slow down around the holiday season as they reflect on and wind down from a crazy year (2016, you were a rough one). However, as you probably know by now, us Fishies aren’t like most people. There’s no slowing down here at Fish Consulting, and honestly, we wouldn’t have it any other way. What are us crazy kids up to this December? Well, since you’re dying to know…
IFA Convention
January is a huge month for the franchising industry with the annual IFA Convention, arguably the biggest franchise event of the year, kicking off on January 29th. We handle the PR for the Convention, as well as for the IFA Franchise Education & Research Foundation’s global program NextGen, so to say we have our hands full is somewhat of an understatement. While you’re sipping your eggnog and wrapping your gifts, we’re hard at work pitching media and promoting the event to make sure that everyone who’s anyone in franchising will be there. We’re not complaining – the IFA and the Annual Convention are immensely valuable assets to all suppliers, franchisors and franchisees in the franchising community, and as a PR firm specializing in franchising we’re thrilled to be representing such an important event and client.
New Business
The last quarter of 2016 brought in several awesome new clients for Fish, including the aforementioned (IFA) Annual Convention, BurgerFi, Always Best Care, Club Pilates, Gold’s Gym and The Gent’s Place. We’re lucky to be part of an agency that’s always growing and is a leading PR firm of choice for franchise brands nationwide across a diverse range of industries. When new accounts kick off, we like to dive in headfirst and immediately get started on showing our clients what we’re capable of. Slow and steady isn’t exactly our style. Needless to say, we’ve been busy bees this December keeping things moving on new and existing accounts alike.
Holiday Party
It’s no secret that work hard, play hard is our motto here at Fish. Every year we do it big with our annual holiday party, and this year was no exception. The two-day extravaganza kicked off at the office with the entire team coming together and enjoying each other’s company (not to mention enjoying a few bottles of wine and a few pounds of cheese and crackers). The following day we spent the afternoon doing a team-bonding activity. In past years, we’ve done everything from rock-climbing to taking an Orangetheory Fitness (#ClientLove) class, and this year we got together at Create Your Own Canvas to do some painting (and yes, drinking – are you seeing a theme here?). After we all let our inner Picasso’s out and painted a few masterpieces, we threw on our favorite party outfits and headed to Lobster Bar Sea Grille for an amazing dinner. One of the best things about working at Fish is Lorne’s commitment to company culture. I believe that a huge part of how we’re able to produce such fantastic work is because we all genuinely like working together and being around each other. Since several of our team members work remotely, the holiday party is a special time for us to get together, celebrate our company’s accomplishments and look forward to what we’ll be tackling as a team in the coming years. The only drawback this year was the absence of Fish’s resident mommies-to-be Jenna and Amanda, but we know they’ll make up for lost time at next year’s festivities.
PS: Big apologies to Bernie, who handles Fish’s finances, for the infinite toasts and rounds of drinks you’ll be seeing on the Amex bill – we had a lot to celebrate. It’s only appropriate that employees of Fish Consulting can drink like fish 🙂
R&R
We know that busy is good, and while we certainly had our hands full this holiday season, we also know the importance of relaxation. Luckily for us, we’re closed the week between Christmas and New Years, so all of us are basically forced to power down and recharge our batteries for the upcoming year. With so much going on, this isn’t always easy to do for an office full of bonafide workaholics (when we closed the office at noon the day before Thanksgiving, I told my roommate I wished we were open all day so I could get more work done and she looked at me like I had three heads). However, it is incredibly important to give our brains and bodies a well-deserved break after an exceptionally busy and productive 2016, which is my cue to wrap up this blog post and take my own advice. With work done for the year, you can catch us at the beach – this is winter in Florida after all!
