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The 2015 Vegas Show was, once again, great.  Good attendance, lots of networking.  Not a lot of bombshells, no real big announcements.  But, a good show overall.

One quick thought.  As the show was finishing up on Thursday, I realized how many people I would still have liked to have visited.  I even texted a few people letting them know I had stopped by their booths but had missed them.  It’s hard to even fit in a lunch because the show is so busy.

As with a lot of shows, the second day is a lot slower than the first.  And, I heard from several exhibitors that Friday was much slower than Thursday.  I think Thursday can be a pretty rough night for a lot of people.  Too much food, drink, gambling and staying out late.  If you don’t have booth duty the next day, I imagine a lot of people sleep in or skip the show all together.

The dilemma is that there are so many people to see and so many meetings one would like to have that it is hard to jam it all in.  And Friday (the second show day) is just tough because so many people check out.

So, it seems to me that the day before the show is the day where you could do more networking.  The day before the show, people still are energetic, not all hungover and still have interest in conducting business.  As I mentioned in my last post, the Young Fastener Professionals held a networking event that really worked out well.  And, even though there was a bar in the room, all participants were still lucid and active as they had not attended the show yet, nor hung out at the hospitality suites and Bourbon Room yet.  I think there is a good opportunity to do more networking the day before the show starts during the day before the opening cocktail hour.  And, that show sponsored hour is just too short of a time to meet up with as many people as are at the show.  There should be a two hour networking event, maybe from 3-5 p.m. where people who want to gather to talk business could gather to talk business.  Cause, let’s face it, we lose a lot of people by Friday.

I attended the Speed Networking event hosted by the Young Fastener Professionals at the Vegas show on Wednesday. I think they have potentially hit on an event that could add some real value to the annual Vegas trip we all make. It really was not very complicated. Participants met at tables in groups of three people and then, after six minutes, people would rotate to new tables and it would be a fresh new set of three people. Melissa Patel of Field Fastener coordinated the traffic flow and did a terrific job for the YFP’s first attempt.  The rotation would be complicated to explain here, but at the event it was easy to understand and flowed well. Was it perfect?  No, of course not.  But that was mostly due to a few individuals forgetting if they were to move to a higher or lower numbered table. But, it was no big deal. Once in a while a table of three turned into a table of four, but nothing got broke and no fistfights broke out and everybody managed to still network.

Right before the event I heard someone had commented that they did not think the YFP would get all the people who signed up to actually attend because the YFP made the event free.  They were correct, not all 100 who signed up attended.  I can’t tell you how many actually showed up but it was absolutely enough to make for a really good event.  Maybe not 100 but I’d guess 70-80 people  maybe more.

The networking event  was a fresh, innovative idea done at the Vegas Show where very few new, fresh ideas are presented from year to year.  Candidly speaking, somebody should have done this event years ago and I give credit to the YFP for taking it on.  There was a wide range of ages at the event, which was really great.  Inside the Vegas show, its not easy for a younger person to go introduce themselves to owners and national sales managers  from a variety of companies, unless of course they already have some kind of existing business relationship.  I was at a table where a supplier met an existing customer face to face for the first time.  It went kind of like, “hey, I know your name, you’re one of our good customers.  I was hoping to meet you tomorrow”.  I saw people at the show run into people they met the previous day at the YFP event and acknowledge that they met at the event.  I ran into several of my new acquaintances at the show and even at the Bourbon Room Thursday night.  And while the Bourbon Room has its merits for gathering a large group of fastener people in one place, it’s not such a great place to hold a conversation or, for that matter, to hear yourself think.  No problem talking at the YFP event

The YFP event was productive, professionally done and could really be a great event at future shows.  And, knowing the board members Ryan Kertis, Bryan Wheeler, Aaron Shushan and Melissa Patel, I can pretty much guarantee you they are already talking about how to make it better next year.  For those who signed up but did not show, you missed a good event.  I hope this event gets bigger.  This was not a millennial event, it was a really good networking event that just happened to be put on by millennials.  So, don’t let the young people scare you and make sure to jump in on this event next time they do it.

Got in a couple days ago. Ready for the Big Show.  When ya getting here?

Don’t forget to visit the Buckeye Fastener booth at the Vegas Show for a cool, refreshing Old Rusty Bolt Beer!!  And tell them, Larry Kelly sent ya!

In my last post I asked about what was the “buzz” leading up to the Vegas Show.  I think I just read it in a press release on Industrial Distribution.  Fastenal, the company that has largely grown by opening up new stores, has purchased a multi-branch distributor  with locations in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.  Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?

Yes, Fastenal has purchased some manufacturers in the past few years with acquisitions of both Holokrom and Cardinal.  But I think this is the first time they have purchased an existing distributor.

This trend could shake up a lot of markets because I do think there are some pretty deep pockets here.  If they were to start buying up other distributors, this could certainly change the fastener landscape.

So, now we know where at least SOME of the buzz is coming from.

In the world of Twitter, if you type in #NIFSME you will pull up comments made by people in reference to the upcoming National Industrial Fastener Show and Mill Supply Expo.  Truth be told, you could also search by #NIFSMSE (adding an “S” for Supply) and find some posts.  Last but not least, search @fastenershow and you will get any Twitter messages sent out from the show sponsors themselves.  Among the comments you will get notes like “come visit us at booth ######” and a few comments about hanging out at the Bourbon Room on Thursday night.  There might be a couple posts about speakers that are being sponsored by individual industry associations.

What you will not find there is the answer to the question that was posed to me yesterday by one of my customers — “What’s the big buzz you are hearing this year about the Vegas Show?  What news is everybody talking about?”  This question was asked of me by the Purchasing Manger of a large, eight branch distributor who brings 8 or 9 people to the Vegas show.  People want to know, what’s the buzz?

Honestly, I have not heard much.  I think it will be interesting to see what people say about Lindstrom as the forge into new waters.  No big acquisition news, at least on the supplier side.  Then again, there is still a week until the show.  I hear a few rumblings on the distribution side.

Me, I’ll admit I’m kind of a curious person (i.e., nosey).  I like to listen what’s being talked about on the street.  But I get asked by a lot of different people just about every week.  Especially with @fastenershow right on the horizon. Guess we can talk about what we see the fastener market doing for the rest of 2015 as that seems to be the second question I get asked when I visit somebody.

I seem to do some of my best thinking while out mowing the lawn.  In July, I had to give the Father’s toast at my daughter’s wedding – the whole speech pretty much came to me while mowing the lawn.  Thank goodness the lawn has continued to grow and I have had to mow it or I’d have nothing to write.

So, this morning, I was thinking about the National Industrial Fastener Show which I usually refer to as the Vegas Show.  And for a lot of us we go year after year after year.  We work in booths, we have a few beers with industry friends, we meet customer for dinner or drinks and we catch up on what’s been going on lately.  We visit post-show receptions and, if we are not too tired, we wander over to the Bourbon Room for a little rock music, drinking and networking.  For certain, the opportunity to get out with customers and suppliers in a more casual setting than has a lot of appeal.  You can relax and sometimes speak more freely than you would in the office or in a “private” email.  Still, everything I just described is probably the same thing people do year after year after year.  In fact, I suspect some of us eat dinner, hang at bars or go gamble with the same exact people each year in Vegas.  I’m guilty of it.  Unless something comes up to interfere, I usually have lunch on Wednesday with a particular customer.  For the two of us, the fastener business is part job and part hobby.  Although slightly pathetic, we love the fastener industry and love talking shop and so we try to set aside some time in Vegas each year just to talk.  It is always time well spent.

While our lunch meeting might seem repetitive, our discussions are not.  My industry friend is constantly analyzing and reinventing his company.  He realizes there are things that his company needs to stop doing and things that they need to do more of and that’s the kind of stuff we enjoy talking about.  Analyzing and planning.  And I have some other industry friends like that.  They are always thinking and reanalyzing their businesses and their company growth is the result of the efforts they put into it.

So, a lot of us will be traveling to the Vegas Show next month.  For some, it will be “the tired old Vegas Show”.  Time to drag out the old tired booth and lay out the tired old literature and see the same people.  I’m often surprised when I encounter people who totally do not look forward to the show.  To some it is the “same old, same old”.  Me..I still feel like I’m an excitable kid.  I have sales calls I want to make before I go to Vegas so that I can build on them once I am out in Vegas.  I have people I want to introduce to other people when I am out there.  I like to think of myself as someone Malcolm Gladwell refers to as a “Connector” (http://gladwell.com/are-you-a-connector).  It’s like a puzzle and we are putting pieces in place to make next year better than last year.

As the year winds down, many of us will be in planning meetings for 2016.  They might be budgeting meetings or sales training or lunch and learns or technical training or whatever.  But companies will be planning and preparing to hopefully make 2016 better than 2015.  So, as you make your plane reservations and book your hotels for Vegas, what do you hope to accomplish while you are out there?  Why are you going out there?  Is it so see old customers?  Is it to find new ones?  Is it to visit existing suppliers or to find new ones?  Do you go to Vegas simply because you would be conspicuous by your absence??  Many companies will gather their employees together for meetings because that is when they are all in one place at the same time.  But, will you produce synergies by having them interacting and brainstorming or will you simply be telling them all the same thing at the same time…just like you could in a memo or email?  What can you do better by having them all in one place, interacting?  Why are you and they going to Vegas?

Certainly, writing all this is just a way of offering you some food for thought.  It’s not like I follow all my own suggestions.  Undoubtedly, some of you will catch me sitting at a slot machine or drinking a beer talking about my fantasy football team.  But I have good intentions of using the Vegas Show to make 2016 better than 2015.

Are you Vegas ready yet?  Next week is October and that is Vegas month.  I’ve made a list of the work days I have left before I leave for the show so I can see exactly how many days I have left to get the things done that I want to get done before the show.  Some people I want to see, some updates I’d like to get before I go to the show.  It is coming fast and furious.

Once again, I expect a lot of people will end up at the Bourbon Room on the Thursday evening after all the hospitality suites close down.  It is quite a competition that happens after the show on Thursday.  Several companies are trying to entice customers to come hang out with their staff, and consequently possibly avoiding other company’s overtures to those same distributors.  Kind of wish they’d all throw their money into a big pile and just have a great big old pool party or something.  STAFDA kind of has that down.  Charge a lot for the show but then throw a reception where everyone comes together.  Instead, fastener people kind of scatter to this party and that party and maybe to a dinner and then maybe head to the Bourbon Room if they have any energy left.

I’d like to come up with an alternative to the Bourbon Room in 2016.  While I like it well enough, the place is really loud, so much so that you can hardly talk.  Also, it is kind of jammed in there.  I still like the idea of a nice pool party.  And while I like classic rock music, we could probably use a change up on the music for a year.  Give it some thought and post some suggestions for 2016.

There have been several articles released recently suggesting that fastener sales have been flat or down recently.  The Fastener Distributor Index has had its lowest numbers in something like a year.  I wrote something similar a month or so ago based upon what I was seeing out on sales calls.  But, sometimes it is hard to generalize about a market because while middle America might be slow, the coasts might be booming because of strong aerospace business.  With some of the articles I have read, they refer to specific companies and their respective results.  Even the FDI is derived based upon the companies that respond and that number can change from month to month.

In my last post I mentioned that I enjoyed the All American Fastener Show because it enabled me to spend some quality time with people I do not get to talk to as much as I might like.  I spent some time with Brian Musker of Fully Threaded Radio and Fasteners Clearing House (FCH).  Brian explained to me that “drill downs” on FCH (the “S” is for scrubber) are down by 15% for the last four months, from May-August.  Brian explained that a “drill down” is when a user finds an item of interest on FCH and then ALSO clicks on the name of the person or company that is listing that particular item.  They are drilling down to see who actually has the item, which suggest they are truly looking for the item to see where they might get it.

I understand from listening to Fully Threaded discussions that there are over a million items listed on Fasteners Clearing House.  The number of users and the number of drill downs are substantial.  I told Brian that I think their tracking of “drill downs” might just be the most accurate indicator of overall commercial activity in the fastener marketplace.  While I think Brian was kind of flattered by my suggestion, he pondered it for a moment and offered, “I think you could be right”.

I’ve suggested before that Brian and Eric (Dudas) should present their drill down information as an indicator of fastener activity on Fully Threaded Radio.  My personal feeling is they have the best data available due to their extensive network of users.  So, the good news is as of the All American Show, Brian said the September numbers looked a little bit stronger.  Just a bit.  But that was early in the month.  Check back later cause those numbers might just be the best thing going.

I just returned from the All American Fastener Show held in Nashville and will report that, although small, the show was terrific.  Really, it was.  Heidi Voltrauer of Volt Plastics does a great job hosting this show and the exhibitors at the show love being there.  What the show lacks in size it makes up in…hmm…let’s call it intimacy.  It boils down to a two or three day event and because it is not a huge show the attendees get a lot of time to spend together.  I know that may sound like an apology for the size of the show, but it should not.  Exhibitors and attendees have time to actually spend time discussing business in a bit more detail. Heidi has a strong core group of exhibitors that support the show and were actively discussing with her where she will hold the next All American Show.  I had never spent time in Nashville till the show and I would be glad to go back and spend more time there again sometime.  But, I’ll just wait and see what Heidi comes up with next.  And, I truly think the show paid for itself which, in the end, is what you hope for from a trade show.

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