Rob Carter: Visit the show and make your business stronger

Angling International owner Rob Carter writes: On the eve of the first ever Angling International LIVE, here’s a thought. Visiting a trade show strengthens your business. It’s as simple as that.

If you are thinking of visiting Budapest on September 26th-28th, don’t hesitate. Your business prospects will be better after the event than before. And in ways you don’t yet know.

I should know, because it has happened to Angling International on countless occasions.

I was once at a show in China, walking the aisles between appointments, and spotted a booth with English signs, an American-style logo and an array of rods with coloured grips. I had time before my next meeting and was intrigued. I didn’t know the name and it was rare to see an American brand at the show, so I walked up to introduce myself to the one representative on the booth.

He told me that the business was just launching into the angling trade with a new product but had big plans after succeeding in the golf market. This was the brand’s first time at an angling trade show. The next step would be to find new distributors across the world. I was quick to tell him that Angling International could help with that, and he was happy to listen to my pitch.

The company was Winn Grips. In total, that first conversation lasted no more than 20 minutes. Weeks later, Winn Grips signed up to advertise in every issue of Angling International for the next 12 months. It repeated that 12-month plan for two more years as it successfully ‘coloured in the map’ and picked up the distributors it wanted around the world.

One visit, one meeting, one new long-term customer.

Of course, as a visitor you also get to interact with other visitors at a show. Angling International has strengthened its business in that way too.

At the first ever show where we sent representatives of Angling International, we caught the attention of a talented and well connected sales manager of another publication. She was ready to switch jobs and made it clear she could add value to Angling International, although she had not heard of our launch until we had arrived as visitors at the show.

Within weeks we had signed up the sales manager. The appointment transformed our sales revenues in our first year, it opened dialogues with new customers and it set the business on its path to where it is today. And, without a doubt, it would not have happened without two visitors being at the same show and striking up a conversation on the show floor.

Here’s my point. On each occasion there was no plan to meet with those connections. In fact, none of us knew of each other’s existence until we were in the same hall together at the same time.

Over the past months of promoting Angling International LIVE, it has become clear to me that visitors to a show are motivated by certainties. Who are they guaranteed to see? There is some merit in that, for sure, even when the cost of visiting is small, especially from anywhere in Europe. It’s just one return flight or one drive of a few hours, one or two nights in a hotel, and free entry to the show. It’s a minimal cost to a business seeking opportunities.

But that cost is even more insignificant – barely a cost at all – when you consider the potential of the meetings you don’t even have planned. Meetings like the ones I have described.

There will be opportunities at Angling International LIVE that you have not yet considered. Not least because we are bringing a number of new names to a European show for the first time. And also because it’s the biggest opportunity in Europe for at least the next 12 months.

Of course you should make plans. Why else would we fill this issue with details of the exhibitors waiting for you on the show floor. But also, you should take a chance. Make that journey and talk to people you don’t know yet. There’s no telling where those meetings might lead.