The huge potential of exhibiting at trade shows

I once read a piece about the merits of exhibiting in a trade show, and it’s stuck with me for more than 15 years. The material can be applied to visiting a trade show as well as exhibiting at one. The author, Steve Miller, president of The Adventure LLC, presented a series of calculations to indicate the financial success of exhibiting at a show. I was intrigued by the hypothetical situation he described that seemed reasonable and logical.

It starts by multiplying the total number of hours a show will be open by the number of salespeople working the booth. If the show will be open 8 hr/day for three days, and you two salespeople will attend, you’ll rack up a total of 48 person-hours. Okay so far. You then multiply this figure by the number of prospects you expect each salesperson to garner each hour. Steve suggested six leads per person per hour, which seems excessive to me, but even if two is used, the final result is still impressive.

If we use the suggested 6/hr, we would finish the show with 288 qualified leads (48 X 6). Now, if an average of 10% of a company’s qualified leads result in a sale, and we multiply this figure (we’ll round it down to 28) by the average annual sales per customer, and the average number of years a customer stays with the company, we’ll end up with a total return on the investment for exhibiting at the show.

Steve’s hypothetical example assumes average annual sales per customer at $5,000, and that the average customer lasts 10 years. Our end result, then, would be $1.4 million generated by exhibiting at the show (28 X $5,000 X 10). Even 1 1/2 leads/hr would return $350,000.

Perhaps a similar type of extrapolation can be applied to attending a trade show. You invest your time away from work plus travel expenses. What you gain are ideas from dozens of exhibitors gathered in a single place. You can:

* compare one vendor’s apples to another’s

* look for solutions to current problems, and even look for better solutions to problems you’ve already solved

* learn how application problems similar to yours— but from other industries — were solved (opportunities to share ideas with colleagues may occur relatively often, but trade shows present an opportunity to cross-pollinate problems and solutions between industries), and

* take a few minutes to learn about companies or technologies you hadn’t investigated or even heard of before.

I’m not sure how to calculate the success of attending a show, but you might find something if you check out Steve’s website, at www.theadventure.com

Is e-mail a blessing or a curse? Yes.

It's no understatement to say that e-mail has had a profound effect on our professional and personal lives. People thousands of miles away from each other can send and receive detailed documents within mere seconds. This allows us to take on projects that wouldn't have been practical or possible only a few years ago. It has become routine for us to correspond and exchange files with people overseas. The only obstacle is the difference in time zones.

But on the other hand, e-mail can eat up a substantial portion of our workday. Most of the time and effort involved is going through unsolicited messages and separating the good from the bad. But not all unsolicited messages are spam. (However, the huge amount of these unwanted messages became such a problem that I had our IT department install a spam filter into my e-mail software.)

Many of the unsolicited messages I receive are valuable, so it would be reckless for me to delete them without further investigation. After all, many of the messages we receive come from co-workers, and ignoring these messages could get you fired — especially if they're from your boss.

But the problem seems to be that many people aren't very considerate. For example, when a co-worker became a father recently, he e-mailed pictures of his newborn son to his friends at work. No problem there, but one of the recipients sent a reply to everyone on the list. All he said was, "Cute kid." I guess he thought it was important for me and 15 other people to read his profound statement. Either that, or he was unaware he could simply reply to the sender instead of to everyone.

This addresses the root of the problem: Most people were not taught e-mail etiquette. E-mail just sort of happened, and users often don't put much thought into how they use it. When I went to our IT department for training on some new e-mail features, I discovered an area of e-mail etiquette I was guilty of violating. (When replying to messages with attachments, my reply still had the files attached.) I suggested to the instructor that she hold a class on e-mail etiquette. She said she tried to, but met with a lot of resistance. It seems that most people feel they practice good etiquette, and they know how to use e-mail, so they equate this with knowing e-mail etiquette.

When comparing the time e-mail saves to the time it consumes, I sometimes wonder if we'd be better off without it. But how about you? Does e-mail take up a substantial part of your work day? And do you feel that most of the communication directed to you is unnecessary?

Maintaining journalism ethics

Early in my editorial career (probably 1983) while working on a different magazine, I was given an assignment by Jim Z, the publisher. Assignments usually came from my boss, the editor, so getting an assignment straight from by boss's boss meant I'd better get it done.

A new advertiser told Jim that its gearboxes were being used by a power company in Tampa, Fla., and it would make a good story. The gearbox manufacturer offered to pay all my travel expenses, so the publisher told me to head down to Tampa to get a story.

Most editors would consider this unethical because it compromises the magazine's editorial integrity -- producing editorial to as a favor to an advertiser. I understood this, but my own personal integrity came into play because I wasn't about to write something with my name on it unless it met my own personal standards. Besides, escaping a brutal Northeast Ohio winter for a few days in warm, sunny Florida sounded pretty good at the time.

After I arrived at my hotel in Tampa, Walt Monreal from the gearbox company took me to dinner. Things didn't get any better because Walt didn't know what I was supposed to write about.

So the next morning he took me to the power plant, and we met with one of the staff engineers. The engineer showed me around the place, and I started asking him technical questions about the gearbox application. Fortunately, I knew enough about gearing to ask some probing questions, so I learned some objective reasons why the power plant was using that particular type of gearbox. Turns out, the gearbox used case-hardened gears instead of through-hardened gears. So my story compared the benefits of case-hardened gear teeth to those of through hardened, not about brand names or anything. Of course, I used the gearbox as my example.

So I got a good story and also a great shot for the front cover of the issue. The gearbox was situated at the top of a tall conveyor, and the background showed a panoramic view of the plant.

I also got a couple shots of the staff engineer checking the oil in the gearbox using a dipstick. Problem was, he had a huge Band-Air on his chin from having a boil removed a couple days prior. This was before the days of Photoshop, but I figured our photo expert, Ted Michols could retouch the photo. And he did. He ended up giving the engineer a goatee. Fortunately, he liked it, so all ended well.

Something I thought I'd never see

A couple weeks ago Mike Ference and I visited an advertising and PR agency in downtown Cleveland. The office is on the sixth floor, so, naturally, we'd take the elevator. We entered the Artcraft Building on Superior Ave., but instead of seeing the usual bank of elevators, we saw a single wooden and glass door with a button next to it.
I pushed the button, and within a few seconds, the elevator arrived. Much to my surprise, an operator was inside. I thought these were all long gone. But a second entrance to the building has another elevator.
The operator's name is John, and he said the building opened in 1919, so the elevators are 91 years old. I think John siad it was a shirt factory until the 1950s. It has since been converted to offices and studios. But the original elevators are still intact.

A preventive preventative

Since becoming an editor almost 30 years ago, I've enjoyed studying word usage. Why do we use one word over another?

Most of the time, we use similar words interchangeably, even though they each may have distinct meanings. Unfortunately, we sometimes use the wrong word. In my opinion, this is because we're not actually taught to talk; we just pick up our native language and begin using words we've heard in certain contexts many times over. If we hear two different words used in the same context, we may assign them the same meaning. When we become students of words, we want to differentiate similar words and their meanings.

If the difference is subtle, the misuse may go unnoticed -- such as using acquire rather than obtain. However, sometimes the use is glaring -- such as using literally instead of figuratively.

Which brings me to preventive and preventative. I have usually held the opinion that the word preventative does not exist. When the word popped up in manuscripts, and I would always change it to preventive. It just seemed silly to add an extra syllable to a word.

Then my daughter, Sally, chimed in with the same gripe, so I began a little research. Now, word usage and definitions are subjective, but I concluded that preventive should be used as an adjective, and preventative should be used as a noun. For example, "Changing your car's oil regularly is an effective means of preventive maintenance." Or, "Inoculations are an effective preventative against disease." In the first case, preventive modifies the noun maintenance. In the second, preventative is the noun itself.

I should probably share what I learned about my initial examples: obtain and acquire, and literally and figuratively. From my limited research, I reached the conclusion that obtain means to take possession of something deliberately, whereas acquire means to take possession whether intentional or not. If you buy a shirt at a second-hand store, you have obtained the shirt. But if there happens to be a $20 bill in the pocket of the shirt, you have acquired $20. Interestingly, most PR people announce that their company has acquired a smaller company. This implies that the acquisition was purely a stroke of luck, rather than the result of long and careful consideration.

I am always amused when someone misapplies the word literally -- especially if they are a communications professional, and, hence, should know better. I still remember an entertainment critic writing, "Her performance was so captivating, she literally held the audience in the palm of her hand." Either this performer had one huge hand, or her audience was composed of ants. Obviously, the writer meant to use figuratively. To me, when someone misapplies the word literally, it makes them sound like they're trying to appear smarter than they are by using big words they don't know the meaning of.

So when I am speaking of people who possess something, and I don't know if they obtained it deliberately or if it just fell into their lap, I will say that they "obtained, acquired, or otherwise took possession of" the item. I know. It's annoying, but sometimes I like to be annoying.

Airline humor

Kulula is an airline with head offices in Johannesburg, South Africa. I hear that Kulula airline flight attendants try to make the in-flight safety lecture and announcements somewhat entertaining. Here are some supposedly real examples that have been heard or reported (whether real or not, they are funny):

As with Southwest Airlines in the US, there is no assigned seating on Kulula flights. Passengers were apparently having a hard time choosing, so a flight attendant announced, "People, people we're not picking out furniture here, find a seat and get in it!"

On another flight with a very "senior" flight attendant crew, the pilot said, "Ladies and gentlemen, we've reached cruising altitude and will be turning down the cabin lights. This is for your comfort and to enhance the appearance of your flight attendants."

On landing, a flight attendant said, "Please be sure to take all of your belongings. If you're going to leave anything, please make sure it's something we'd like to have."

"There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are only four ways out of this airplane."

"Thank you for flying Kulula. We hope you enjoyed giving us the business as much as we enjoyed taking you for a ride."

After a particularly rough landing during thunderstorms, a flight attendant on a flight announced, "Please take care when opening the overhead compartments because, after a landing like that, sure as hell everything has shifted."

"Welcome aboard Kulula 271 to Port Elizabeth. To operate your seat belt, insert the metal tab into the buckle, and pull tight. It works just like every other seat belt; and, if you don't know how to operate one, you probably shouldn't be out in public unsupervised."

"In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, masks will descend from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask, and pull it over your face. If you have a small child traveling with you, secure your mask before assisting with theirs. If you are traveling with more than one small child, pick your favorite."

"Weather at our destination is 50° with some broken clouds, but we'll try to have them fixed before we arrive. Thank you, and remember, nobody loves you, or your money, more than Kulula Airlines."

"Your seats cushions can be used for flotation; and in the event of an emergency water landing, please paddle to shore and take them with our compliments."

"As you exit the plane, make sure to gather all of your belongings. Anything left behind will be distributed evenly among the flight attendants. Please do not leave children or spouses."

And from the pilot during his welcome message: "Kulula Airlines is pleased to announce that we have some of the best flight attendants in the industry. Unfortunately, none of them are on this flight!"

Heard on Kulula 255 just after a very hard landing in Cape Town: The flight attendant came on the intercom and said, "That was quite a bump and I know what you are all thinking. I'm here to tell you it wasn't the airline's fault, it wasn't the pilot's fault, it wasn't the flight attendant's fault, it was the asphalt."

Overheard on a Kulula flight into Cape Town , on a particularly windy and bumpy day: During the final approach, the Captain really had to fight it. After an extremely hard landing, the flight attendant said, "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Mother City. Please remain in your seats with your seat belts fastened while the captain taxis what's left of our airplane to the gate!"

Another flight attendant's comment on a less than perfect landing: "We ask you to please remain seated as Captain Kangaroo bounces us to the terminal."

An airline pilot wrote that on this particular flight he had hammered his ship into the runway really hard. The airline had a policy which required the first officer to stand at the door while the passengers exited, smile, and give them a "Thanks for flying our airline. He said that, in light of his bad landing, he had a hard time looking the passengers in the eye, thinking that someone would have a smart comment. Finally everyone had gotten off except for a little old lady walking with a cane. She said, "Sir, do you mind if I ask you a question?"
"Why, no ma'am," said the pilot. "What is it?"
The lady said, "Did we land, or were we shot down?"

After a real crusher of a landing in Johannesburg , the attendant came on with, "Ladies and Gentlemen, please remain in your seats until Captain Crash and the Crew have brought the aircraft to a screeching halt against the gate. And, once the tire smoke has cleared and the warning bells are silenced, we will open the door and you can pick your way through the wreckage to the terminal.."

Part of a flight attendant's arrival announcement: "We'd like to thank you folks for flying with us today. And, the next time you get the insane urge to go blasting through the skies in a pressurized metal tube, we hope you'll think of Kulula Airways."

Heard on a Kulula flight. "Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to smoke, the smoking section on this airplane is on the wing.. If you can light 'em, you can smoke 'em."

And my personal favorite:

After a plane taking off from Durban airport reached cruising altitude, the captain made an announcement over the intercom: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Welcome to Flight 293, non-stop from Durban to Cape Town. The weather ahead is good and, therefore, we should have a smooth and uneventful flight. Now sit back and relax... OH, MY GOODNESS!" Silence followed, and after a few minutes, the captain came back on the intercom and said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I am so sorry if I scared you earlier. While I was talking to you, the flight attendant accidentally spilled a cup of hot coffee on my lap. You should see the front of my pants!" A passenger then quipped, "That's nothing. You should see the back of mine!"

My hydraulic watch

Dave Barry was a humor columnist for the Miami Herald, and repeats of his columns still appear in my local paper, the Lake County News-Herald. Every year, Dave devoted a column to his annual “Holiday Gift Guide,” in which he wrote about the most ridiculous merchandise he could find. He attributed most of the entries to submissions from readers.
A few weeks before Christmas a few years ago, I pulled out the News-Herald and started reading Dave’s “Holiday Gift Guide.” After finishing the first column of type, my eyes jumped to the second column and found a gaping hole in the page — not missing text, but, literally, a hole in the page!
I questioned my wife about the missing segment, but she denied any knowledge of how an entire column of type came up missing. “No problem,” I said, “I’ll just go to the library at lunch tomorrow and read what I missed.” She quickly recanted, and insisted that this wasn’t the time of year for me to be doing such things. Obviously, then, she was planning on getting me something ridiculous for Christmas or my birthday, which happens to fall two days after Christmas. Because I had forced her hand, I figured she’d retaliate by making me wait the extra two days to find out what totally useless item I’d be stuck with.
Sure enough, come Christmas, I received nothing that was extremely unusual or impractical. So when my birthday arrived, among the gifts was a small box containing the missing segment of Dave Barry’s column. Also in the box was literature describing “The Hydraulic Watch,” and, of course, the watch. Rather than describe the watch, I’ll quote a few excerpts from Dave’s column. “It is a hefty hunk of alloy metal — that’s right, mister, ALLOY metal — made in China, a nation famous around the world for the quantity of its watches. . . This is not some wussy little foo-foo girly-girl watch that, when you want to know what time it is, you just look at it. . . When you want to know what time it is, you pull a knob, which activates a hydraulic piston mechanism, which raises a little cover, thus revealing the watch face. . . Geraldo Rivera buys these babies by the case.” Dave also sarcastically referred to the watch’s $19.95 price tag as being evidence of it being a quality timepiece.
As it turns out, the idea of bestowing this coveted treasure on me did not originate with my wife. My son, Adam, read the column, then pointed it out to her saying, “Mom, you have got to get this for Dad!” I guess they both figured the editor of Hydraulics & Pneumatics wouldn’t be complete without the "hydraulic" watch.
But the biggest surprise came when I actually tried the watch. Well, okay, the biggest surprise was learning that there was such a thing as a hydraulic watch. So the second biggest surprise was trying it out. It isn’t hydraulic at all! The cover is spring loaded, so pulling out a retaining pin causes a spring to snap the cover open. The two “hydraulic” cylinders are purely for show — and about as useless as a belt when you’re wearing suspenders.