A travel-vlog style YouTube video by Mike Andes documenting his trip to the Green Industry Expo (GIE+EXPO). Mike travels (leaving Detroit), meets team members Liz, Lee and Chuck, inspects exhibitor setup on the evening before the show, checks that shipped booth materials arrived, stays at a rented Airbnb with the team, and reflects on the purpose and cost/return of attending trade shows (networking, relationship-building rather than direct franchise sales). He notes franchise growth (recently signed three locations and now at 58 locations) and gives rough event cost estimates (one booth ≈ $2,800; three booths ≈ $7–8k; total trip including team travel/accommodations roughly $25k).
Questions this video answers
58 locations
$2,800 (approximately)
Around $25,000 (including booths, travel, accommodations and food); he also estimates three booths cost about $7–8k
Chapters
Best accommodate larger rollover items. Wheels or handles first.
Hey, everyone, it's Mike. Welcome to another travel vlog. Back to the daily vlogs. Today we are headed to GIE the Green industry Expo. I'm traveling by myself. Liz and Lee are coming a few hours behind me.
And then Chuck, one of the general managers, is flying up from South Carolina. So it's gonna be a lot of fun and looking forward to seeing a lot of person. I've been to GI e one time before, but not as an exhibitor. That was two years ago. We went. Obviously, last year was cancelled because of the COVID So really looking forward to meeting a lot of you. And two years ago, a lot was different. We had just started a franchise. We had 10 locations. We just signed up three locations yesterday. So we're up to 58 locations. And it's just been a lot of fun. And I look forward to seeing so many of you and actually getting to see you in person instead of just via direct messages, emails, and live chat. So without any further delay, let's get back on the plane. We're headed out of Detroit now. Head over to.
We have arrived. So this is the evening before. All right. So I made it to the conference center. You can see no one's here really yet. This is just for the exhibitors. Our. The reason I came in early is because I have to set up the booths or at least make sure everything arrived here. So you can't actually bring stuff with you. You got to ship it in a couple weeks before. So making sure everything's at the booth. And then I'm going to meet up with Lee and Liz and pick them up from the airport. Just coming right down. Just like we drew it up exactly how we wanted this to go.
So this is what it looks like before everyone gets here. Before there's tons of. These are all the exhibitors setting up. This takes a ton of work. The amount of setup that goes into this for some of these companies is just incredible. Tomorrow, this will be just packed with people.
Now this is a brand I can get behind. Let's go. It's actually really cool. One thing that I like about gies, you get to see brands that you really don't really know about. It's kind of cool. There it is. Lawn care. Web design. And it goes to lawn care. There's all our junk, and there's the outdoor center. They're already getting ready. It's just crazy how much work really into just getting this all set up. This is like acres and acres of just tools, equipment. It's going to be a blast. Let's go. This is the Airbnb house. We actually rented the whole thing for everyone to be in and see how it looks.
Here it is. Let's go.
Like four bedrooms or something like that. So this is it. This is pretty cool. Down out of the kitchen downstairs here you got a whole other living room area. This will be fun. Sure. There'll be some good planning and strategy happen this weekend in here. Over on baby.
The electric mower. Okay. Oops. Oh. This is also a really good time just to kind of connect with the team. And so with Lee, Liz.
Don't hurt your back.
Chuck. That'll be here. We really don't get to be with each other very much, honestly, and just bounce ideas off of each other and see where everyone's working on. So it'll be valuable for that as well. So a lot of people ask me, are these trade show things, like, useful, whatever. And I actually don't think we'll sell a single, like, franchise or anything like that this weekend. That was cool. Backyard.
But there's really two reasons why we come to the show. And it's expensive. Like, one. One booth is about $2,800. So for all three booths, you're looking at like seven, eight grand. And then by the time you bring multiple people down here, the team and do all the accommodations and everything and flights, you're probably looking like 25 grand. I don't know, something like that. Food and all the rest of it. But there's a couple reasons why I do it. The first is I love these countertops. These are quartz countertops. We put them in our rentals, by the way, because they are. They last forever. But there's two reasons why we do it. One is the most important, and that is it's really a way to meet people and outside the virtual environment. So because I'm up in the Pacific Northwest, way up top left of the United States, I don't really get the opportunity to see very many people in person. And so it's just a nice opportunity for people to come see me and then also just connect with the people who I actually work so much and create so much content for. It's really, really rewarding on my end. And then also too, from. From Augusta standpoint in lawn care web design, sometimes people just need to see some real and in person. And so I don't expect any strangers to walk up this gie and be like, I'm going to buy a franchise. I'm going to completely change my business model and become a part of Augusta Nation. I don't really expect that, but what I do expect is people that have thought about it or looked into it and just need another person kind of bouncing off of and have questions that potentially might turn into something. But it's really not a direct sales type of I don't expect to sell stuff here. It's a matter of trying to meet other people, get to know some people, and hopefully build some relationships. So it's gonna be a lot of fun. Stick along for the ride and I'll try to make some of these videos each day. A lot of us probably talking to those of you who have watched the videos and listen to the podcast and just get to meet some of you. It's gonna be a lot of fun and look forward to it.
