Don’t Overthink It: A Practical Playbook for Snohomish County Businesses This Summer

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Emily
If you run a business in Snohomish County, you don't need to become a soccer expert this summer.

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Kyle
You really just need a plan. This episode is for business owners and for how you as an event goer can look out for the businesses to support in your local community.

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Emily
Because the World Cup is coming with visitors, watch parties, weird match times, and we're all looking for places to eat, shop, gather, and celebrate.

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Kyle
And the good news is there isn't one right way to do it.

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Wendy
And so what we're telling businesses is don't overthink it. You don't need to reinvent your business. You just need to connect what you already do with what people are

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Emily
excited about. Today we're going to give you the simplest version of that with real examples from businesses already activating and the playbooks to make your business successful.

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Emily
Welcome back to From Pitch to Puget Sound, the practical guide to World Cup summer in Snohomish County and the region.

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Kyle
I'm Kyle, soccer history, culture, and the stuff that makes the game feel like more than just 90 minutes.

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Emily
And I'm Emily, here for the civic side, the clarity, and the what do I actually do next part.

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Kyle
Today's episode is really catered towards business owners, managers, and the people who suddenly got assigned. Go figure out some World Cup ideas in that random staff meeting.

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Emily
We're going to keep this simple. Three things. One, what kind of activations actually work? Two, examples from real businesses. And three, where to find the playbooks and toolkits that make it easy, including the stuff about what you can and can't say.

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Kyle
And if the first thing that you thought as you were listening to this was, well, I'm not a bar. I'm not a restaurant. What does this matter to me?

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Emily
Stay with us. This is for you. Okay, quick reset for this episode. When you hear World Cup activation, it can sound like you need a marketing budget, a giant TV wall, and a full on sports bar vibe. But for most local businesses, activation is really just hospitality. It's small signals that say we see you, we're ready for you, and you're welcome here. And the good news is you don't have to be a soccer expert to do that.

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Kyle
Yeah. And honestly, it's because what's happening this summer is pretty simple. People are going to be moving through the county and have a few predictable moments, not just during game time. And these are three customer moments where businesses can show up in a way that feels natural.

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Emily
Here they are. Moment one, pregame planning. People are figuring out where to meet, what to do, what's open, what feels fun, what feels easy.

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Kyle
Moment two, between match wandering. They've got time, they're exploring, they're looking for something local, fits in with the vibes, coffee, lunch, a shop, a place to kill an hour.

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Emily
Moment three, host match celebrating. They want a little energy, a place to keep the day going, or honestly, sometimes just a place to decompress.

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Kyle
And your business doesn't have to be about soccer to be part of any of these moments. You can be a bank, a boutique, a bakery, a clinic, a gallery, a gym, whatever. And you can still create a small welcome that makes people feel like they're in the right place for this World Cup.

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Emily
Because the win here isn't perfection. The win is you did one or two things on purpose and you made it easier for people to choose you.

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Kyle
Exactly. And if you're listening thinking, okay, you talked about all this activation stuff, but what does that actually look like? All right, we got you. Let's get into it.

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Emily
Okay, let's get to the core principle.

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Kyle
This is one of the things that helps keep you from spiraling.

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Emily
Wendy Poischbeg, CEO of the Greater Everett Chamber of Commerce says it best.

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Wendy
And so what we're telling businesses is don't overthink it. You don't need to reinvent your business. You just need to connect what you already do with what people are excited about. And so the obvious one right now is hosting a watch party, opening early for international games, creating country themed menus or drink specials, turning slower hours into higher energy moments. And I've seen places that normally wouldn't be busy at 7am suddenly packed because there's a match on and people want to experience it together. And that's another thing about the World Cup is these games are at all different times. And so you can see communities coalesce early in the morning or sometimes really late at night.

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Emily
That line, connect what you already do is the whole episode.

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Kyle
Because honestly, the best activations aren't complicated.

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Emily
They're specific

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Kyle
and repeatable.

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Emily
Here's a quick menu, not a to-do list, just options. Pick one. Watch parties.

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Kyle
Matchday specials.

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Emily
Early openings for international games.

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Kyle
A window display that makes people smile.

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Emily
A wear your jersey discount. A World Cup photo spot. A trivia question on the counter.

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Kyle
Or partnering with the business next door so it feels like a mini neighborhood crawl.

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Emily
Wendy even points out something most businesses miss. Matt Shimes create brand new business hours.

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Kyle
Yeah. Even if it's at 7am.

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Emily
Like 7am. And we know those soccer fanatics are out there. Let's make this real with examples.

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Kyle
First up, Nikki Koth, Director of Taproom Operations at Stoup Brewing.

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Nikki
We're opening, you know, for every single game. We have watch parties for most games. For us, I think it's like ensuring that people come. So booking more watch parties more than anything. Obviously, it would be great to just be open to the public and everybody can come in. But if that doesn't work, we're also available for like bookings and then just showing the game. And we're getting sound ready for all the TVs. We're trying to connect all the TVs so that they're in sync. In our Capitol Hill location, I mean, we're going full activation. Just I think anything in downtown, we're part of the unity loop. We are part of like this huge marketing efforts with Pride and also Seattle People World Cup. We are producing beer after beer. We're trying to be in everybody's beer garden. So because we're also brewery. So yeah, a lot of different activations.

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Emily
What I love about this clip is it shows the range. One location is doing open for every game. Another is doing full activation.

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Kyle
And that's a great example of scaling your effort to the location.

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Emily
And she gets specific about how they're actually marketing it.

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Nikki
We're honestly a smaller business. Like I think people think we're really big, but we do everything in house. Like we self distribute. We make all of our food from scratch. Like for us, it is a lot more of like a social media scale, getting newsletters out, trying to partner with other local blog writers. We rely heavily on like a lot of local people to help push. We have a lot of regulars. They also help us promote, but really a lot of it is just social media. Our marketing efforts are going to be like newsletters. I'm trying to get on like Capitol blog or there are some local blogs around here as well. Trying to get influencers in as well. So usually doing like in one of our other locations, we're doing like a media like press just on like we are a unity loop. We're doing watch parties. We're opening early. We're activating on the 11th, 15th, the 19th, 26th, so things like that.

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Emily
That's the move. Don't just be open. Tell people what's happening.

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Kyle
And if you can partner with existing soccer communities, even better.

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Nikki
Stoup Brewing are sponsors of the Ballard FC and Salmon Bay FC, which is a local soccer club. And it's really awesome. It's kind of right in our next door in Ballard, which is where we brew most of our, all of our beer. So through them, we're actually hosting watch parties as well for FIFA. They're connected to like Wombe, which is a really cool like bicycle activation company that like gets people riding their bikes from breweries to the event. So that's really cool. The GSBA is a really great alliance that helps us push like marketing efforts on their calendars. They'll usually host like really fun like cap hill talks to kind of push like what events are happening in the in the neighborhood. So there are a lot of like just like local, but also large scale like organizations that we're working with.

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Emily
The take away for breweries and all businesses is simple.

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Kyle
Find a community that already gathers and

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Emily
give them a reason to gather with you.

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Kyle
Now for a different example, coming from a non-brewery restaurant gathering perspective, we're going to talk to someone who has a little bit of a different perspective as a business owner.

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Emily
Next example is Cheryl Rose, owner of the Soccer Post in Everett. On Evergreen Way, they are a soccer focused sporting goods store.

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Kyle
And one cool thing about Cheryl is she's been through this before.

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Cheryl
Literally. This is my fourth World Cup actually as a business owner.

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Emily
And her advice is basically even if you can't afford tickets, you still can be part of it.

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Cheryl
I know a lot of people can't afford to go to games, you know, tickets are very expensive and the travel is very expensive. Just being a part of the watch parties and it happening here is highly recommended. You're going to see the enthusiasm, the passion,

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Cheryl
the sportsmanship, the patriotism from everybody representing their own countries. It's awesome. The World Cup is going to be very exciting and I think everybody should get out there and get a taste of it at least.

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Kyle
And then she gives a super practical example of what a business can do that's not complicated.

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Cheryl
And if you have questions, swing by the Soccer Post. Everybody that works there, you know, is fully educated in it. We just bought a big bracket play so we're going to keep track of the winnings and losing and stuff like that. We're going to have free posters to hand out to people coming in so you can keep track of the games at home. That's such a good reminder.

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Kyle
You don't need a massive budget.

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Emily
You need something people can take home.

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Kyle
Something that makes them come back to your business.

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Emily
And if you're thinking, what about smaller towns, city of Snohomish, Marysville, smaller communities that are not hosting watch parties?

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Kyle
We had a chance to speak with Jamie French-Bialek from the Snohomish Sports Dome, which is literally right in our own backyard. Someone who has a little bit of a family connection to World Cup history. We don't have a chance to talk about it right now, but we're going to get that into a future episode.

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Emily
Jamie's on a World Cup committee here in the city of Snohomish and they've been working on business development for some time.

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Jamie
And we're planning all kinds of different events. I'm going to have viewing parties at the dome. And so there's all kinds of different things that we're going to do in Snohomish. We sent out a survey back in February to every business in Snohomish asking them if they knew anything about World Cup, that their World Cup was coming, if they could help with World Cup, if they have any interest in being part of World Cup, any of the events, if maybe they want to be a sponsor down to like, do you want to do some window decorating, you know, things like that. And then you attend in the event that was my at my facility. I'm hoping that people are going to start seeing it more like with the market coming up or the market opens on the seventh. Like I have a booth at the market. And so obviously I'm going to be talking about World Cup and we're going to be talking about the different events that are going to be happening then.

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Kyle
And that's the play.

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Emily
As a business, think what can you realistically do?

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Kyle
Then build a plan around that, around what's already possible for your business.

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Emily
Before we get into playbooks, I want to give you one more example that proves the point. Activation isn't a sports bar thing. It's a welcome thing.

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Kyle
What's a way in which any business can say, oh, we can do this.

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Emily
Tammy Dunn from the Snohomish County Sports Commission gave this analogy.

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Tammy Dunn
I'll use the bank analogy that I have, an example, and only because the bank that I go to, that we bank with, they've had a trivia out at the teller. And so when I go to make the deposit of tags, I see a trivia. And so it's, you know, multiple toys. And I'm like, oh, okay. And I'm like, well, that's a great question. That's a trivia question. And I'm on my phone Googling it just to define the answer. So I think, you know, being able to, for like banks, being able to have like trivia at the teller and it's soccer related, you know, it could be who was the champion for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, you know, all kinds of different answers and questions that are year around soccer. You can go as far down as, you know, terminology to soccer. I learned that soccer has the terminology hat trick, just like hockey. I think those are some ways, if you're able to decorate a little bit, have some decorations of soccer is great. I think for boutique, you know, are you able to have some items that are soccer related? Maybe it's t-shirts that have soccer on them, soccer balls or some type of a soccer scene. I was thinking, you know, for artists, if there's a gallery, is there something that's soccer related or sports related? People may buy it. One time I went by a gallery and it, there was an artist that did a painting of Russell Wilson when Russell was with the Seahawks and I was a huge fan of his. And I actually, I was walking by and I actually bought it and went inside. So, you know, that can be that spur of the moment. So just being able to have something soccer related can get that spirit. Visitors aren't here for the World Cup, then they know that we're welcoming in just that soccer feel and kind of camaraderie, I guess.

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Kyle
That's honestly such a clean idea. It doesn't need to be expensive. It doesn't require you to change what you already do. Find the small moment that says, "Yep, we're part of the World Cup Summer 2 and come here if you're also a part of that."

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Emily
And it also solves a problem a lot of businesses have. You don't need a giant event. You need something people will notice, talk about for 10 seconds and remember.

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Kyle
And honestly, 10 seconds is all it takes to bring those people into your business. So take advantage of it. Okay, now, how do you get to that 10 seconds? If you've been listening and thinking, "Cool, I want more examples. How do I get those moments?"

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Emily
That's where the playbooks come in. And there's a few. The Everett Chambers Game on Everett Playbook and Toolkit, the Snohomish County Sports Commission's Business Engagement Playbook, and a handful of regional resources like seattlewfc26.org and the Watch Party Playbooks will include links in the notes.

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Kyle
This is going to make it feel like a cheat code for your business and finding success with this upcoming World Cup.

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Emily
If you're in Everett, Wendy and the Chamber have a full Game on Everett Playbook.

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Wendy
It is our practical guide that shows local businesses, organizations, and even residents how to participate in the World Cup experience here in Everett. And really, it just gives some practical tips of what you can do, what you shouldn't do, or ideas so you can get in the game.

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Emily
And she breaks down what's inside and why it's designed for regular businesses.

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Wendy
So the playbook is organized around four things. One is just understanding what the opportunity is. It explains why the World Cup matters, what it means for our region, and why Everett is in a strong position to benefit. We're part of a region hosting matches. We're expecting visitors to move between cities. And then there's demand for places to gather, watch, eat, and celebrate. Well, the next pillar is that activate, like how to get into the game. And that's a really important section. It gives real usable ideas around maybe hosting a watch party, running matchday specials, extending your hours, creating themed experiences, or even partnering with nearby businesses. And it's designed so any business can participate. It doesn't have to be just bars and restaurants.

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Kyle
That any business can participate line really matters and emphasizes who can get involved in this activity.

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Emily
Because the World Cup isn't just a bar and restaurant moment. It's an everyone moment. Here's the part that makes it easy to actually execute

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Kyle
the toolkit.

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Emily
Wendy explains what's inside.

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Wendy
So what is inside the toolkit? It's a mix of digital and physical assets. And they're designed to make participation simple and consistent across the city and long well past when the World Cup leaves the region. And so that includes social media graphics and templates. And that is so businesses can promote the watch parties, specials, and events quickly with the right branding. We've already got it designed, they can just fill in how they're participating, or post that right onto their social feed. We've got window ready posters and signage. And that can help activate these empty storefronts or activate storefronts. And it has a visible energy around those, including brand elements and campaign visuals that have everything that says game on Everett. And we also have physical items such as scarves, pennants, stickers, pennant strings, as well as coasters for restaurants and all with the game on Everett. And those are really intended, like I said, to work well past the World Cup. So Everett will have that brand long past.

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Emily
And then she adds the part business owners love.

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Wendy
At no cost. And the cool thing also is that you don't have to be a chamber member to receive a toolkit. You just have to activate and tell us how you're going to do it.

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Kyle
Free 99. That's huge. That's big. That's massive.

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Emily
And she makes the next step painfully simple.

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Wendy
You know, we've made it easy. Activation is free. You just need to tell us what you want to do. Go to the Everett Chamber website at www.EverettChamber.org and just sign up. The playbook is right there, visible. You can download a copy or simply view it online and fill in the form. Tell us how you're going to activate and then we'll send out a toolkit for you.

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Kyle
That was honestly so simple. Even a soccer fan like myself could have figured that out.

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Emily
Okay, quick TLDR. You want the simplest plan. Here it is.

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Kyle
Three steps.

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Emily
Step one, pick one activation you can repeat.

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Kyle
Not 10, not 20, not 5, 1.

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Emily
Step two, make it visible.

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Kyle
A sign, a poster, a social post. This thing is happening here, Signal.

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Emily
Step three, make it welcoming.

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Kyle
Make sure your staff knows what's going on. Have plenty of inventory ready. In your vibe, come in. We're glad you're here.

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Emily
And if you want to go deeper, don't freestyle the compliance part.

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Kyle
Use the playbooks. They're there to help you.

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Emily
If you're in Everett and you want the game on Everett playbook and toolkit, Wendy says to go to www.EverettChamber.org and sign up.

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Kyle
And if you're in Snohomish County, check out the Sports Commission's World Cup page at snowhostsports.org for their business engagement playbook and links to other resources.

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Emily
We'll link the playbooks and toolkits we mentioned in the show notes.

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Kyle
And if you're a business owner doing something fun, whether that's big or small, send us a note. We want to highlight these local spots that are doing it right.

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Emily
One quick disclaimer, always follow posted rules, licensing guidance, and official resources for the most up-to-date information.

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Kyle
Next time, we'll keep building your World Cup summer plan one practical story at a time.

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Emily
And this has been from Pitch to Puget Sound.

[00:19:07:20 - 00:19:11:06]
Kyle
Brought to you by the Snohomish Podcast Network. See you next time

[00:19:11:06 - 00:19:12:03]
Emily
on The Pitch.

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Emily
Quick note, this podcast is independent and not affiliated with or endorsed by FIFA or the FIFA World Cup.