Planning for Trade Show Success

Greetings, folks, and welcome back to the Small Business show here. It's 2020 and we have no idea what to do for this episode.

We're leaning back on our plan B, maybe plan C and D. So we're going to talk about that today. For sure.

For sure. Yeah. Because we. We had a plan, we had a guest that couldn't make it at the last minute, and that happens, and you have to be ready for that sort of thing. And. Yeah, that's totally fine.

It's how sometimes these shows. Yeah. Sometime impromptu shows where we each talk about a few different things that are going on are some of the best shows that we've ever done. They get some of the best reactions from our listeners. So I'm excited to start recording again in 2020, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the year.

Yeah, same. Hey, before we get whatever this episode's going to be started, I want to reiterate something that you will have said at the end, which is email us at feedbackusinessshow co and tell us about your. It might be more interesting than you think, and we might want to have you on the show.

So.

Feedbackusinessshow.co. tell us definitely what you got going on and we'll say it again at the end of the show. Or Shannon has already said it at the end of the show. It's weird the way time shifts, isn't it? This whole concept of linear time. We could do a whole show about that, but we won't because that's not what this is. I'm Dave Hamilton, he's Shannon Jean, and this is the Small business show, episode 258.

Hey, Dave, how was CES?

CES was. You know, it's good. I. I hear a lot of people complain about Cesar, and understandably so. It's a mess, right? You know, there's 180,000 extra people in Las Vegas. It's right, after all, at that show.

All at all.

@ CES. Yeah. You know, it spans the entire length of the Strip with five convention centers that are official and then countless meeting suites and other convention centers. Like there's a convention center at the Hard Rock Hotel that is not part of ces. And actually the Hard Rock Hotel is no more, as of like, tomorrow or something.

Oh, really?

Yeah, they're changing it to the. The Virgin Hotel or something. But. But anyway, Harmon jbl. Now Samsung rents out the convention center at the Hard Rock and puts on their own pavilion there because they want to. You know, their. Their stuff would span so Many different pavilions at, at ces. They've got the automotive, they've got the, you know, the audio stuff. And, and they want to, of course, keep it all, like, on brand, and they want to have all their executives in one place, not spread around. And, you know, it's smart, right?

So they. Everybody. Or is it kind of invited guests, journalists, that kind of thing?

Invited guests and journalists. Yeah. And so, so there's like, there's all the, the official stuff and then, you know, all the unofficial stuff that just sort of. It takes over every corner of Las Vegas. And now I hear they're building a sixth official convention hall that they're going to use for Cesar. I don't even know what they're going to do with that.

That's wild.

You know, it's, it's fine. I mean, it. The thing is, if you go to CES with a plan, you are fine. Some conferences, you can just go and wander, you know, especially if they're not that one. No, because you can't. Somebody did the math before I went this year. They. I don't know, some email list I'm on or something. And they said, look, if you, if you take the hours that the convention halls are open for, whatever, four days, and you have no, no travel time between booths, and especially no travel time between expo halls, which could be, you know, an hour. If you get stuck in the wrong traffic or go at the wrong time or whatever, and you try to see every booth, and of course you don't eat or, or, you know, take a bio break or anything like that, you would have 23 seconds per booth to spend with these people. So an impossibility to see everything. And, and so you have to go in with a plan. And it.

Yeah, so let's talk about that. Yeah, We've done shows in the past about the trade shows, conferences, and I'm, I'm a big proponent component of them. I think they're very useful on a number of different levels. Not the least is, you know, connecting face to face with people that you may not get a chance to see, as well as just kind of reinvigorating yourself, getting yourself excited about your industry, that kind of stuff.

Totally.

But you're right, you know, without a plan, it can be a nightmare. And I have done that, you know, as I was mentioning, you know, you show up, you think you're going to walk around and make some great connections, and you're just one person in 180,000, and it's tough to make those connections. So how do you prepare for before you go? And yours will be a little different because you're also coming from a journalist angle. Is that the primary role you're playing at? That's a show.

That's the primary, you know, role is an interesting thing. If you put it in as the role of an actor, then yeah, that's sort of my, that's my, my, my door opener, if you will, @ CES. And, and there is a lot that I do in terms of coverage. I, you know, I try to put together, you know, 15 or 20 separate pieces from the show floor at CE or from my experience at CES. I actually spend very little time on the show floor, as we'll get to. But yeah, but, yeah, you know, that's, that's the thing. But there is, you know, ces, as with any conference, but CES especially I look at as a very big force of gravity. It brings a lot of people to the same general place, certainly, you know, the same two mile stretch of, of, you know, Las Vegas Strip or whatever it is. Yeah, and that's, that's handy, you know, if there's people that I need to see or want to see or feel that it is valuable to see. CES probably saves me 10 to 15 separate trips to go and see those people.

Sure.

You know. Yeah, so, so, yes, but, but using the role of journalist is definitely my primary function there, I guess. I mean, you know, I wear so many hats all the time. I don't know that there's ever one that I wear, you know, without others sort of being right under, right under the surface. Sure. You know, there's a lot of networking and that sort of thing. So, so my goal going in is y get some coverage, but also neat industry connections, either maintaining, you know, I call it relationship maintenance or relationship development. And that really is my primary goal. So there's the role and there's the goal. And my primary goal is relationships while I'm there. You know, new relationships and existing relationships just to keep people kind of moving along. So I always say that my planning for CES starts in November. Now, really, it probably starts in, I mean, I've already got my hotel rooms booked for next year because I've found that it's cheaper to buy or to rent, you know, a two bedroom suite at a hotel than it is to get two separate rooms. And with the suite, I get a living room in between. So I have several suites already booked for next year. I'll cancel the ones I don't need, but, you know, just the sort of. The being smart about how you're booking.

That makes sense. Yeah, I really like that too, because. Especially if you're bringing. Because we used to bring employees with us.

Yeah.

CS is. It gives you a place that you can a centralized. Okay. I've got this living room kind of thing in between bedrooms and.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You can hang out, you can meet, you can kind of. Okay, what's the plan for the day versus trying to do it like in a hotel lobby, you know, where it's chaos and that kind of thing. Yeah, I really do like that idea.

Yeah, it's great. You can, you can bring room service in one day if you need to get, you know, some work done and you can bring a breakfast in or whatever and. Yeah, so that's, you know, it's an ever evolving sort of thing. But that I've already got booked for next year because they don't put the CES pricing in until like May or June. So I try to get ahead of that and thus far it has worked. But really, my schedule planning starts in maybe a week or two before Thanksgiving. And I start looking through who's going to be there, who I want to meet with, and I start. The first thing I do is plan out where I'm going to be on any given segment of any given day. And at ces, I break my day down into three segments. Morning, which is basically until noon, you know, afternoon, which would go from noonish to say 5ish, and then evening. So morning, afternoon, evening. Where am I going to be at any of these points? Because the travel around Vegas is the worst time suck that you can have.

Yeah, it's terrific.

Yeah. Now, I've had some people in the past that have said, hey, I want to meet with you while you're there. What we've done is rented, you know, Hummer limo or something. And so you tell us when you need to travel from point A to point B and we will take you and give you your meeting with in the car on the way. So that's sort of the benefit of journalist. Yeah, exactly. Right. People that somebody with. I'm sure investors get the same sort of thing. But, but generally speaking, the downtime, you know, the travel time is. Is downtime. It doesn't have to be. And I've got an example of where that worked out really well. But so, you know, I plan that very carefully. I plan where I stay very carefully. We have found that staying at the Mirage is great because it's kind of in the middle of the Strip. And it's right across the street from the Venetian, which is twice the price for the rooms, but it's literally across the street, like Vegas, you could say next door and it could be a 20 minute walk. Yeah, that's.

Yeah, exactly. It's very, it can be very deceiving, especially late at night.

Yes, yes, yeah, but, but the, the Venetian is truly just across the street from the Mirage. And the Venetian is connected to the Sands Convention center and also all the meeting space at the Sands. And the Mirage is also right next door to Caesar's, which has a ton of meeting space. And the Mirage is where one of the bigger press events is hosted one of the nights. So it really is a good central place to be. The only thing it's not next to is of course, the Las Vegas Convention Center. There's a couple of ways to get there. There's a bus from the Mirage, there's a bus that runs all day between the Sands and the Las Vegas Convention Center. And then of course there's Uber and Lyft, which are, relatively speaking, a new arrival in Vegas, but makes, makes all the difference in the world. You can kind of get around if you, if you know what you're doing. So I plan my, my, my days. I break them up into three quad or three segments periods, if you will, if you're a hockey player. And, and then I, and I say, okay, this is where I'm going to be here, this one will be there. And then as, as all the emails come in or I think of the people that I want to meet with, I reach out, I find out where they're going to be and then I try and compartmentalize my meetings with them so that I can really make things efficient. And by and large, it works. There are three main press events that happen. They're these weird events. If you've never been to one, it's sort of hard to describe. I've heard somebody call them speed dating with the press. CES has one that they put on called Unveiled. And then there's two that are third party ones called Showstoppers and pepcom. And what it is, is it's kind of like an expo hall, but it's not. It's one big room, but no one has an elaborate booth. Everybody is just at a table and it makes it really easy to jump from one place to the next without having to deal with somebody has this flying car in their booth and all this other crazy distracting stuff. People are just there to show you and talk about their products. And the only attendees are press, which is great because assuming I'm there in the role of press, if I show up and you're there and you're talking to someone, chances are the second half of your conversation is relevant to me, so I can just eavesdrop in on that. And then when you're done, you leave and I get the first half of the conversation and then I'm ready to go. And it works out great. And it's super efficient. So if I can meet people there, I will not meet them anywhere else. Like, if they're going to be there, I don't agree to go to their booth or their meeting suite or anything like that, because it's super efficient and I can really make use of the time. And of course, I'm hearing about their products, but I'm also meeting with them as humans. So there's that whole relationship.

That's a big deal.

Yeah, that's being served. And so a lot of times I'll talk to people and it's like, well, we're probably not going to cover your stuff, but. Or at least not this week. But, you know, we're here, we're humans, we get to interact, and that's a good thing. So, yeah, no, that's great.

And I think from a small business owner perspective, I. I think you ought to try to get into a trade show or a conference of some type at least once a year, at least. Because, yeah, if there's more, you know, maybe regional ones or close to you, or, you know, if you don't want to travel as much that I think, you know, more is better. But the key is you have to have that plan. And I, I like what. You know, when we were going, we did a couple different things. One is we would use it as an incentive for employees that we wanted to reward by, hey, why don't you go represent us at this show? Sure, if. And sometimes we would be, you know, we'd have our own booth, and so we would let you know, hey, we need people to come work the booth. But other times it was just, oh, hey, we're going to ces. In the case of this show, why don't you come with us? This is what you want to do. And we would set. Set some clear. I hate to use the word goals because we believe in systems here, not goals, but we would, I would create a system where they could be successful meeting people at the show. And one of the things that I see a lot is that pre planning, I see it on LinkedIn. All the time. Some folks who I think are really good at it is the people over at Tech Defenders. We had member Gary Von Meyer.

Yeah.

On the show, one of the founders of Tech Defenders, and I see in their feed all the time, we're going to this show. These are the two people that are going to be there. Let's meet. Do you want to connect? You know, here's how to connect with us. And I love that because it's in their feed. Whoever's following Tech Defenders or these individuals, it allows you to, oh, hey, I'm going to be there. Why don't we, you know, let's, let's meet, let's have coffee, let's have a beer, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah, I think LinkedIn is a really great way to get that pre planning done, either with a post like that or, you know, go into your suppliers, LinkedIn pages or, or talk to your reps. Hey, are you going to this show? Can we get together? Can we meet? Are you guys hosting? Are you going to have a suite? You know, like you said, a lot of most things don't take place on the show floor.

Right.

It's a lot at hotels around the area. You know, different suites, dinners, you know, all that kind of stuff. So you want to try to get connected with that. And I think LinkedIn is a great way. Just your, your contacts in general, you know, send out an email and let them know I'm going to be at this, this show. Is there any chance that we can get together?

That's. Yeah. No. And, and people like it. But with, with what. As I found with ces, as I get into the, you know, probably second week of December, a lot of people's schedules are already full. Not, not completely full, but full to the point where I have trouble fitting them into my desired, you know, schedule by location matrix that I've come up with. Yeah. So that's why I start out early. And, and there, I mean, even this year, there were some folks that I meet with routinely and almost have them just, you know, put in my schedule at a certain time every year. And this year, you know, for whatever reason, I'm, you know, maybe I was a few days later or something, you know, who knows? And they're like, oh, yeah, sorry, that time's booked. It's like, whoa, Seriously? Okay. I thought I was, I thought I was one of the early ones. I guess not. You know, you got to be sure be on top of this stuff. So. So this year was a little different because I, because I had a few of those that I had to sort of detour around to get to. But, you know, you always make it work. I always leave room for, you know, what I like to call the audibles. Right. Where something comes up, as it always is going to when there's, you know, a week like that where it's like, oh, I definitely want to meet with that person. So suddenly I now need to squeeze something in that I just didn't plan for. But, but I did plan for it because I left room and. Yeah, you know, you always prioritize. If you've got a meeting with one person and somebody more important comes up, man, you know, that, that's on you to make that call. And sometimes it's like, well, yeah, I'll just cancel that one. People have meetings canceled at trade shows all the time. It's not that big of a deal, you know, so. Yeah.

And you know, from a small business owner perspective, maybe ce, a massive show like CES is not the most productive. Maybe it's smaller shows, you know, that are closer to you do, where you can have more of a bigger impact, you know, and, and it's like, oh, I, we used to do these educational conferences with, you know, school administrators because that was our niche for the repair of devices and that kind of thing. And you know, laptops, iPads, that kind of stuff. Yeah. And so sometimes, you know, we'd go to a show, a small, you know, regional show, man, and there would only be a couple hundred booths, but we would be busy the entire time and where you, you would really stand out, especially if you have a nice looking booth. And you know, I bought a, a pre owned trade show booth on ebay, you know, and always looking for a deal. We did a little bit of refurbishment, put some new signage up and it looked great. And it makes you stand out against the, the company that's standing there behind a folding table.

Yeah, right, right.

You know, and so you can have a big impact even at a small show because as we all know, one contact can make the show worthwhile.

Well, that's the key is, is just knowing that, that there's, you know, you don't have to extract or glean the same amount of value out of each person that you meet with. I will have some meetings and I certainly did last week where it was like, well, that was a waste of time. And you know, in terms of an opportunity cost, that was like 45 minutes to, you know, walk myself from wherever I was to here. 30 minutes meeting with you. Now I Gotta go split and talk to somebody else. It's like, well, it's fine. But other times, you know, you're there and it's like, oh, wow, if I didn't come to Vegas for this, I never would have gotten the opportunity to do X, Y or Z. And that's going to be the thing that, you know, helps propel my business forward. So, yeah, you just got to be just.

Yeah, you never know, you know, you never know who that person is, who they're going to introduce you to, who's going to mention the meeting that you had. I had a great meeting with, you know, Dave Hamilton, and, And he mentioned this, and you just. You just don't know where it's going to lead to. And it kind of comes back to. That concept we discuss a lot, is just getting yourself out there, you know, saying yes to things like this and meeting, you know, making new contacts and putting yourself out there. I think you can do some really positive things at some of these shows and conferences. And I know, Dave, I know you speak at a number of, you know, these kinds of events. And that's another thing. If you're. Your expertise in whatever field that you're in, many of these shows, I would say virtually all of them are always looking for speakers, people to host, you know, small events or sit on a panel. If you don't want to do something on your own and, you know, reach out to those folks that are organizing the events and get some exposure for your. Your business as well as your own personal brand. I think it's very rewarding as well to be able to get up there and talk about things you probably take for granted that, you know, the ins and outs of, whether it's manufacturing cardboard boxes, designing websites, designing stickers, building whatever.

Yeah.

When you get up there and people start asking questions and you like, wow, this is great, and you start providing information back to them, it really helps fuel your creative process. And it's good for the soul.

It is. I've often told our staff, people say, oh, this conference looks good, that conference looks good. And sometimes it's worth sending someone for the education value of a conference, or if they're going to be the type of. If you know that they're going to be networking in a good way, like, yep, that's great, it's a good expense. But all of those. Most of those things. Not all, but most of those things, you also have that opportunity to speak and you. They are not mutually exclusive. Right. You can. You can do both. And so I've often said if you want to go to a conference and you want approval for us to, you know, pay for it, get yourself a speaking gig. And that way they're promoting your name, too. And by proxy, our name. And that's a good thing for all of us, you know. Yeah, go to a conference and speak and still learn and still network and all of that. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't just have to be one of the others. So I love that. I have a great little anecdote that I want to tell about maximizing your travel time at a conference, especially one like ces. But first, I want to talk about our sponsors. Linode@l I n o d e.com SBS you know, no matter what you're doing with your business, you're gonna want a server to run something on. And when you're traveling, you don't want to have to be the one managing the server that's back in your office. You want a server that's hosted somewhere that's fast, that's reliable, that's managed by a team of people that manage servers for a living, not run your business for a living, because you're running your business. You definitely want to delegate this to people that are experts. And the folks at Linode are experts. They know how to manage servers. In fact, they know how to build servers so that they can be cost effective and still fast. They use SSDs for everything, for all the disk access, so that you know that your server is going to be running as fast as it can, even if you opt for something like, say, their Nano, which is just five bucks a month, still running on those fast disks so that you're not waiting for things. And if you like managing servers, you can. You can get to the command line on these and go to the terminal, as we Mac people call it, and do whatever you want. But sometimes that's not fun. And for a lot of folks, that's not even an option. Well, you don't have to worry about it, because Linode's cloud manager lets you set up your server without ever even thinking about the command line. You want to set up a WordPress server for your business, no problem. You just go in, you tell it you want to set up a WordPress server, and it asks you some questions, and then it does all the configuring that you or someone else would have to do at the command line. It's all done automatically. You want to set up a vpn, you want to set up all kinds of things. Check out the Linode cloud manager and see what you can do. Go check it out. Linode.com SBS is where you want to go because that gives you a $20 credit on us. And that way you can start without spending money out of your pocket. Remember, I said their smallest server is the Nano at 5 bucks a month. You get 4 months free with 20 bucks. So check it out. Linode.comSBS Our thanks to Linode for sponsoring this episode.

All right, so before you tell your. Before you. Before you tell your story.

Yeah, man.

So I just jump up on Linode's website and they have a page. I really like the way they do this. Linode.com/events, okay. And it shows all these events they're going to be at throughout the year. So if everything. Not just in the U.S. canada, some in Malaysia. So either they're either presenting at a conference or in some cases, hosting the conference. So, you know, again, great thing to have on your website. You know, a link that says, connect with us or events and go up there and post. Okay, we're going to be here. Here's who you contact. Oh, we're going to have a booth here. Here's. Here's the directions and how to, how to meet us. Really, you know, don't just. You got to talk about it. And even if you just go and, and wander around, this needs to be part of your plan, and you need to promote it in your company newsletter, let your suppliers know and put it up on your website. Yeah, I thought they had a great. A good way of doing it out there. I figured they would, so I just jumped over here.

No, that's great. Gosh. Yeah. Yeah, right. And that's one of the things, if you're going to these conferences, tell people that you're going to a conference. That's an important part of it. And definitely. So. Okay, so I had one day where I spent my morning at the Las Vegas Convention center, and then my afternoon was going to be at the Sands. So this is. I say that I avoid the show floor like the plague. And that is true, by and large. The show floor. The problem with the show floor at a trade show like CES is not everybody is there for the same reason. So for me, I'm there to kind of meet with people. But, you know, as I said, my role, the face that I wear is that of press most of the time. And. And so if people don't want to meet with journalists, well, then it's. It's much more difficult to get a meeting with them. But even if they do want to meet with journalists, there are other people on the show floor. Sometimes it's, you know, a distributor from Best Buy that's on the. On the show floor. And many companies will punt a meeting with a journalist in order to have a meeting with the distributor from Best Buy. And I understand that as a business person, right. So I try to go and get meetings where there's less risk of interruption because sometimes it's just some tire kicker or, you know, somebody that's got some idea that they're trying to pitch to the people and they get in the way. Because the show floor, once you're there, it's like, you know, I've had people like just sort of hang on while they walk me around and show me their stuff, and then they're asking questions and it's like, dude, okay, great. So I try to avoid it, but there are a few companies that I want to see and meet with that the show floor is really the only effective place to do it. So I do. I go to the show floor. I found this year, by accident, I left my. I wear glasses for distance, like for driving and watching TV or movies. And I also like to wear them on show floors where I have to see long distances to read, like booth numbers and things like that. So I was wearing my glasses, but I left my regular glasses in my hotel room. So all I had was sunglasses with me, which is fine. You know, I put them on, I can see it's brightly lit. It's no problem. And I realized the other problem with wearing a badge that says media on it is people want to pester you sometimes the people you don't want to talk to. And I realized, wow, nobody's pestering me today. And I was like, oh, I look like that jerk that's walking around with sunglasses on. This is great. So. So maybe that's a new. A new little tip.

Yeah, but.

So I had five or six people that I wanted to see on. On the show floor there and then met with somebody in the media lounge, which at the Vegas Convention Center. And then I had to. I had to go to the Sands to, to also have some similar meetings. And I took their little shuttle bus that runs between the two. It's fairly efficient and all of that good stuff. And you know that on the shuttle bus, you're going to wind up sitting with someone because they fill the bus and then send it. So there's no hope of, you know, being in a two seat by yourself or anything like that.

Oh, right, right.

So I, I sort of embrace that. And I always just sit next to someone that looks interesting and well, you never know. Right. And at least, at the very least you're going to have a decent conversation that passes the time as opposed to just sitting there, you know. And so this time I happened to sit next to somebody that looked interesting, this guy. And, and he was, and, and it was in a seat that was, there was two seats on either side of this bus, but this particular setup of seats was two facing two. So it was possible for somebody else, like to sit on the other side for a long drive. You wouldn't necessarily want that because you're sort of kicking each other, but for a short 10, 15 minute drive, it's no problem. And this woman sat across from us and we were chit chatting and talking about what we all did and she told us about this technology she had and it was like, wait a minute, this is really cool. I'll link to the video so that I don't have to go through it here, but they're using ultrasound to sense proximity and they've written the software that does this. They'll use the speaker and microphones in your smartphone to send and listen to this ultrasound. And as your hand gets closer to the phone, it knows that it's closer based on the way the sound reflection is happening. It means you don't need to have an infrared sensor in the phone. You don't need to power an infrared sensor. Right. Like all this stuff, it's just using existing tech that's in there. And she was telling me that, you know, they can get really granular with this. They're doing some tests where they can even detect a heartbeat with this, which is really cool. And, and I was like, oh, this is great. And so I did a little video where she demoed the product for me and the whole thing happened on this bus. It just turned out that she was the CEO of this company, Elliptic Labs, that, that, that, you know, that makes this software and they've been working on it for like eight years. I mean, it seems like a simple concept, but, you know, probably really difficult to code up. You know, lots of math and all that. Yeah, I would imagine. Yeah, yeah. But like, those are the kinds of things that can happen when you, you sit down on a bus and talk with people. And it, you know, I'm, I, I know this is going to come as a surprise, but I am, I am a natural introvert. I'm not necessarily shy.

I still, I still don't believe that.

I know.

I think it depends on the, the, the situation.

Well, that's it. I can be outgoing. I can be. I, like I said, I've, I've learned not to be shy. I wasn't always not shy, but, you know, you can sort of overcome that. But, but as an, is an, as an introvert, like, I need my, my alone time. I need my downtime. And, and that's what helps me recharge so that I can then go out and be this person in public. And it's not that I'm a different person, it's just, you know, I need that recharge time. So. But it, it would be very easy for me to just get on the bus and, and never talk to anyone like that.

And look at, and look at your phone.

Look at my phone or whatever. Yeah, just like, totally isolate. But, but I realized, wait, wait a minute. I can do that on the airplane on the way home. I can do that when I'm at home. I can do that tonight in my hotel room when I, you know, winding down for the day or whatever. But right now, I have potential opportunities all around me. And so let's, you know, let's, let's embrace those. Another way that I've factored that into my life is every time my phone rings, I try to answer it. Now if I'm in the middle of, say, recording a show, I don't. But if I'm at my desk, I don't have ever intentionally let things go to voicemail. It's always like, let's answer the phone, because you never know what opportunities lay on the other side of these things. So.

I agree, I agree. That's, that's a great story.

And tonight. Yeah. You got to maximize your travel time. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, sure. Yeah.

It's good stuff. Well, I, I know that I'll be better off at the next show from, you know, following your idea, planning and coming up with things and, and connecting in advance to people. And, you know, one of the things I had on my list today was to discuss is, what is your plan B? And in the case of, like, this episode, we had a guest that had to kind of drop out at the last minute. So, you know, we always have a list of topics that we, we want to discuss. And in this case, it just was natural because I, I love talking about the trade shows and CES because I've had a lot of success at those kind of events, so it worked out great. And as you, as our listeners know, Dave and I can talk about anything and. But if, you know, you need to have that backup plan. What if everything goes to hell, right? What are you going to do? What if. What if you fly? I mean, I've had this happen. I've. I've flown all the way across country just for a meeting and had the meeting canceled. Like, literally as I'm getting off the plane, same. What, what are you going to do to maximize your time and turn it into more interesting? You know, in my case, it's like, okay, what customers or suppliers are within a, you know, I was there overnight, what customers or suppliers are within an hour drive that I could drop in on and just out of the blue and come by or take, you know, donuts to, or, you know, that kind of thing and try to connect with people. But always thinking of that plan B. And I remembered I was a. I was a. A Boy Scout leader when my kids were growing up. And that is always, always being prepared and, and have a plan B. Because things don't go right all the time and you got a bunch of kids around that are just staring at you like, what are we gonna do now?

And I've learned to mitigate. Like, you're right that you should always have a plan B. Whenever I'm traveling, if I, If I have whatever the main purpose of my trip is, and it might be like you said, you're going to meet that one main supplier, like, that's definitely gonna happen. You know that. That's why you're getting on the plane. That's why you spent the money. You've carved out the time. But as soon as I know that I'm doing that, I start thinking about plan B right away. Like, well, before I leave the office and I reach out and I'm like, hey, I think I'm going to be in town. Are you around? That sort of thing. So that at the very least, I have it in my head who's around, who's going to be, you know, who's nearby. I'm already thinking I might even have plans with some of those people. But some of them maybe not, but, you know, a text at the last minute. I've gotten so many. There's one ad agency that we work with that we had not been working with. We were aware of each other, but had not been working with. I went to one place, I was on my way there to a different place that was like, sort of the plan A, if you will. And they, they texted me and they're like, yeah, look, dude, today's not going to work. We've all just quit and. Oh. So, like, yeah, we're leaving to. To like, start a competitor or something. Like, today's the wrong day for Dave to show up. That's bad. Even the people that are late left holding the bag. Like, they don't want me there today. They want me there in a few weeks maybe, but not today. So I texted somebody at another agency. I'm like, hey, I'm literally in the same area of this city that you are. I know. We've been trying to meet and we couldn't set a time. Let me know if you're around. And then I went and grabbed a slice of pizza because I was like, well, I was supposed to have lunch with these other people. So I'm finishing my slice of pizza and the phone rings and I answer it because that's my rule. And it was her. And she's like, have you eaten lunch yet? I'd love to get together. I'm like, of course I haven't eaten lunch.

Of course not.

Of course not. So I went and took. Took a few of them out to lunch and we talked. And now we do a ton of business together because we were able to have that human connection time.

So powerful, man.

Yeah. But you're right. You gotta have that plan B. And if you don't have one, you need to be able. Be comfortable with making one up on the fly. Chances are it's going to be fine. You know, it might be a little awkward like, like that one where I've already eaten and now I'm going to eat again, but.

Oh, dude, I've totally done that. Yeah. I. In. In one situation I can recall, I went to. I was trying to pitch a repair service for this very large company, and the day I showed up, the CEO got fired. And he was supposed to be involved in these meetings, you know?

Yeah.

And I. I rolled in. I'm just like, oh, okay. Well, what about you guys? What can we do? You know? Like, you. You want to go out to lunch? Do you guys need to go out? You know, da, da, da, da. Do you want me to leave for a couple hours and come back? But I was determined to meet with the people who I felt were ultimately going to make the decision.

Yeah.

Even if it was on a casual basis. I understand. Maybe I can't pitch this idea to you, but let's go and make a connection so you know who I am. And, and one of the things. And we later did some business with this company and one comment I Heard from this group of people over and over was that the reason we got the business was because I was very upbeat, positive and flexible.

Right.

It wasn't, you know, it has to be this way now I'm mad. I flew all this way. This. It was just like, okay, guys, I got. And you know, I think sometimes like saying you haven't had lunch when you've already eaten lunch, you know, you kind of have to go, hey, I tell you what, I have a customer down the road. I'm going to go meet with them. How about I come back after lunch or later in the day and yeah, give you. Give them some breathing room so they can. Okay, great. How about. Can we meet this evening? And you may need to just go kill some time, but you have to be resilient and, and flexible and creative about coming up with ways. And, and I wound up meeting with, you know, about half the people I was supposed to but turned into years of business. And we always would kind of laugh about, you know, at the CEO's expense, of course, that you remember how we first met when the whole place like, blew up when, when we showed up. And it works out great. So thinking about the plan B, thinking quick on the fly, if.

And if you're, like you said, being, being. You said being resilient, but also being flexible, like those, those two things just, just showing that, oh, yeah, I. For you, you know, yeah, you can be persistent and flexible and I think there's a skill to develop there. And a lot of it is just breathe, don't worry, you know, yes, this, the plan has been blown up. Let it go. Let it go. You know, what was the goal? The overall goal of the plan was to meet. Okay, great, you can, you can salvage this as long as you don't. You don't want to come across as desperate, but you want to come across as interested, you know.

Yeah, the main. Yeah. What I was trying to achieve in, in this situation was just to get that connection. I knew that I wasn't going to be able to make this, this pitch and, and try to get this deal done today. It just wasn't going to happen because everybody was in chaos. But you know, just trying, like, hey, maybe we can get a time to sit around and you're throwing out different ideas. I go, do you want to come back tomorrow? And they were like, no, no, this. And they. So, you know, being positive, staying positive, I think is a, has been a lifelong, you know, crutch that I lean on all the time when all hell is breaking Loose. When everything seems to be falling apart. If you can put some kind of positive spin on it and talk about getting through to the other side.

Yeah.

People tend to turn and look to you.

Yeah.

Oh, right. And so I didn't work there, but I was like, hey, well, you know, this opens up a lot of different opportunities for you guys, doesn't it? You know, and I. I can. I mean, sitting around having a beer with these people later that day, and. And they're like, well, yeah, actually, you know, and we talked about who could take over and what their plan was and why they did it in the first place. And it turned. I made some really deep connections with these folks, and they then championed our business based on the. That meeting. And we're like, hey, these guys can figure things out. And. Because we wound up getting an entirely different type of business from these guys than. Than I had anticipated. But, you know, we were flexible and resilient, and we got it and worked out really well.

So. Yeah, no, I've. I've. I've. You know, I. Like I said, I can be the guy that needs to be quiet and recharge, but when I'm in those situations, I'm happy, Dave, and I'm energetic 100% of the time. You know, it's just like, here we go. Like, let's just do it. And some people, even at CES this year, there were some people who have known me for a while. They're like, like, what is the matter with you? Like, you're always upbeat and you're always happy, and it's like, secret, man. Yeah. I'm like, wow, if you talk to my family, they'll probably argue with you. But, like, that's different, right? That's different. That's the thing is. Yeah. And. And they're like, gosh, you know, it's such a. And. And I had many people say, wow, it's such a pleasure meeting with you, because I. I know you're always going to be happy. And it's like, well, why wouldn't. Even if I'm not happy, like, I can put on a happy face for 10 minutes or even an hour, like, it's fine. No problem. Just go do it.

Yeah, that's right. And I think that, you know, obviously, both of us enjoy talking with people, and, you know, to your comments about you don't know where things are going to lead and opening yourself up, and when you get used to that and comfortable being in that role, not only can you connect on a deeper level, but. But you actually become kind of inspirational to people.

Totally.

Right. Because I've had people tell me that and I'm like, what are you talking about? It's like, well, just listen to the things that you're saying. And you know, I was speaking at an ebay conference a few months ago and I was talking to new ebay employees and I was just telling them, mega man, you know, you're really fortunate to work at this company. That then I was giving him all these reasons and, you know, the guy sitting, sitting next to me was like, that's really inspirational, you know, and I was like, oh, that's great. So, you know, putting yourself out there and talking and, you know, sharing your experiences and, and interjecting some laughter into it. You know, part of my things that how I measure success is can I laugh each day? And so I, I go out of my way to come up with things that we can, you know, laugh about. And you. It allows you to connect. It really helps to your. For your personal and your small business success.

Yeah.

So I for sure highly recommend it. So, you know, we'd love to hear your story. This was kind of on the fly. We're getting started for, you know, 2020.

That's right. Happy New Year.

Some. Yeah, Happy New Year to you too. We have some great stuff coming this year. I'm going to start talking about a business that I'm thinking about selling and I'm not sure whether I should sell it or not. I'm going to talk about maybe it's time to move out of California and move all our businesses and our real estate, which is a total. I'll need some help from our listeners on that front. And so a lot of stuff to talk about and some new things coming your way, which I, I think you're really going to like.

I think. Yeah, yeah, I've got, you know, I'm not the kind of person that thinks, all right, this year, you know, it's, it's. We've now turned a calendar year, so therefore I must do different things. But it always does sort of work out that way, you know, just because the way cycles work and all that. But, but yeah, we've got some. I was telling you before the show, we're doing some. We're approaching SEO in a different way. We're, we're really, we're bringing on an expert as well. What we're doing and, and kind of going in with beginner's mind. Even though we've been doing this for a long time. I think there's a lot to learn, so that's great. Yeah. One of the businesses really, it'll make a big dude. I, I, I if it doesn't make a big difference, we I will be able to point to something I did wrong and there will be a lesson there. But I, I, at this point in time, I don't think I've done anything wrong yet. So we will see.

Sounds good. Yeah, it's early. It's early. So it's early.

Yeah.

Something for sure. We all do well.

And that's, you know, that's the other part of this whole thing. You know, you talk about being flexible and plan B, you have to be comfortable with failure and, and you have to kind of be able to laugh it off. I mean, at some level, certainly different, different opportunities of failure are hurt more than others, but they are opportunities of failure. Right. So, so you have to kind of think of it that way. Like.

Yeah, go back and listen to we did a couple of episodes, you know, last fall, about the best mistakes and you'll hear some very successful people that have built very successful businesses talk about their mistakes and what they learned from them. Yeah. And we'd love to hear from you, you know. Feedbackusinessshow co make 2020 the year that you're gonna reach out to us and come on and be guest a on a small business show and talk about your business and everything you've learned, what you've done, whether you're a dog walker or, you know, you've built a real estate company, whatever it is. I'm on the hunt this year for unique business stories. I'm talking to some outdoors people. A woman that she loves to fish.com that I'm going to try to get on that runs a business all about her fishing, which I think is fascinating. So come on and tell your story. We'd love to hear from you. Feedbackusinessshow co. That's it.

All right, folks, thanks for listening. Thanks for yet another great year of the show and keep living that charmed life. We'll do it together. See you next week.