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I posted a note on Twitter last week asking people if July sales were still as strong as they seem to have been through the beginning of the year.  Every answer except ONE said that business was strong.  And that is in JULY that people are saying this, a month that commonly is slow due to vacations.  I was a little bit surprised honestly.  On almost every call I make I hear distributors say that all their costs are going up but then they add, “I’m just passing them on”.  I’m not sure if larger VMI programs have that flexibility to “just pass it on” but, at the moment, it doesn’t seem to hurting too many people.  Again, I’ll admit, I’m surprised.

And tariffs do not seem to be a big concern.  I would have expected all the talk of tariffs and “trade wars” to make more people at least a little bit uncomfortable.  But I’m not hearing it so far, other than the news regarding farmers.  I cover an area with quite a bit of coal business and Oil & Gas.  That area is just booming.  Booming!

So, we’ll just keep checking in and tossing out some questions on Twitter to check on the pulse of the fastener industry.  And, before you know it, we will be in Vegas talking about the latest news and rumors.

There is still time to nominate candidates for the Fastener Hall of Fame, but it’s getting close to the deadline.  Each of the last few years, Emerald Expositions has inducted one individual into the Hall of Fame that was founded many years ago by Mike McGuire and Jim Bannister and has always been associated with the National Fastener Show.  The nominees are evaluated by members of the Fastener Industry Coalition based upon the information submitted to them by “nominators”.  What they see is what they evaluate!

On the last edition of Fully Threaded Radio Eric Dudas made a pitch for adding more than one inductee per year.  The history of the HOF in online and, in fact, more than one candidate has been added in past years so it is a topic worth discussing.  Additionally, as with any decision, there will always be some disagreement on who is “most worthy” so adding more than one might eliminate some of the hair splitting.

Let’s be candid – if a baseball Hall of Fame committee were comprised solely of former relief pitchers, Dennis Eckersley would have entered the hall before Babe Ruth or Hank Aaron.   The positive thing about the Fastener Industry Coalition being involved is that it is comprised of association members from every regional and national association.  It is a fairly good cross section of the industry.  Still, choosing one person can be a difficult task.  Perhaps more important is that there were several years where no one was added to the Hall of Fame, and there are many, many worthy candidates worth considering.

If you think there is someone noteworthy that should be considered you need to act quickly.  Get your candidate nominated.

Maybe this next question would be better as a Twitter question (short and sweet) but — who do you think belongs in the Fastener Hall of Fame?  If you want to answer on Twitter, find me at @TravelingSlsman.

Also, here is a link to the Hall of Fame page on the Emerald Exposition website:

https://www.fastenershows.com/awards-events-page/hall-of-fame/

Spent the last three days in Chicago at the Mid West Fastener Association’s Table Top Show followed immediately by the NFDA meeting & ESPS Sessions.  Busy week, lots of people, great discussions.  All in all, a great week.  I’ve got quite a few comments so I’ll just dive in.

I think many of the people at the NFDA meeting were not necessarily at the MWFA Table Top.  Some overlap, but several that did not.  Both were good.  MWFA is one of the larger associations and they can fill a room due to their large membership.  Of course, if you sell to people in the greater Chicago area and Wisconsin, then it’s probably a better show for you.  There are a lot of complaints these days about Table Top shows that are poorly attended, and the MWFA continues to deliver attendees so this may be a Table Top with staying power.  Not all will.  Too expensive to drag your stuff out to an area and see 10-20 distributor customers.  It’s just harder and harder to get distributors to give up their evening or miss a day to attend a Table Top show, but the MWFA continues to deliver and that’s a good thing.  Their after show “bash” is convenient to the show, well attended, and just one more opportunity to continue to network in a relaxed setting.

The day after, the MWFA held its Golf Outing and I opted out of that as I’m a pretty bad golfer and had some other business to tend to in Chicago.  Seems like that went well and, really, what’s to go wrong when you get a beautiful day to go golf?  I ran around town and then ended up downtown at the NFDA meeting.

This was real interesting for me.  I’m a fairly new NFDA member and, as a rep, not necessarily a traditional NFDA Member.  And, I get it.  I’m kind of a territory guy more than a national guy – at least  for most of the companies I represent.  There are a few exceptions and that was one reason I thought I could find value by being a host in my own meeting room.  So, I knew I had a bit of a challenge as opposed to a company that sells nationally.  And still, I found the meeting to be very worthwhile and even the ESPS sessions (the ones I had) to be very productive.  I had distributor meetings where I was able to present new information on several of my principals, and I met with some suppliers who were  interested in hearing about my agency and how I go about my business.  Those were good meetings.  Another benefit of attending the NFDA meeting, and one that is probably the hardest to quantify, was meeting with many individuals who just stopped by my ESPS Meeting Room to chat, even if it was only for 5-10 minutes.  Many attendees had very full schedules and were holding meetings with some of their largest suppliers so they did not have a full half hour time slot to come visit me.  But I did end up spending at least some time with 5 -10 people I had hoped to sit down with.  Some stopped by the room, met one at breakfast, shared coffee with a few and,  because we are in the fastener industry, met with some over a cold beer.    I think when I sort everything out I will realize I made a lot of good connections at the NFDA meeting and you never know what can develop from those.

At lunch there was a presentation by economist, Alan Beaulieu, and that was terrific.  I’ve seen him (or his brother – they’re twins so it’s hard to know) at other meetings and I’m always impressed and enlightened.  He was very good.

I could write a lot more about the NFDA meeting but I’d like to finish with some of my personal observations on what is going on at the NFDA.  Historically, the NFDA has been know as kind of an old boys network.  And you cannot blame business owners and executives for wanting to get together with their peers who were facing the same challenges and obstacles.  It made a lot of sense to get together with people in similar situations who were going through the same stuff and compare notes and share some best practices.  But I think the organization is evolving into something different and trying to be more inclusive.  Clearly, they are partnering with other regional associations and trying to do joint events in different cities.  I hope this trend continues and the organization does become more inclusive.  Honestly, it is for their own good to do so.  With continued consolidation and attendance issues at some shows, it makes sense to be more inclusive – even if that means letting a rep in the group!

At the meeting, it was announced that Kelly Cole will be the new president for the upcoming year.  I’ve had a chance to get to know Kelly over the last few years and he is dedicated to the industry, to fastener associations and the guy cannot sit still (which I can completely relate to).  I expect to see the NFDA reaching out even further into the fastener community to get more people involved, especially with Kelly as the next president.

I invited one of my principals to join me in my meeting room for some of the ESPS sessions.  He was very impressed and told me he plans to encourage his company to join the NFDA.  I think it would serve him and company well to do so.  For me, I’ve still trying to figure out exactly how a rep can best navigate through the NFDA community to get the most out of it.  The ESPS sessions were a good step and were worth trying.  I’ve got a ways to go and look forward to continuing to fit into that community and that organization in a way that is good for them and me.  A step at a time!  I got to hang out with some great people and even spent quality time with some people I consider to be titans of our industry.  I highly value those conversations and their insights.  Truly.  Although I’m a fairly new NFDA member I did feel welcome and, for the most part felt like individuals reached out and struck up a conversations even if they didn’t know me very well.  For the most part!

When you first think of MSC you think of MRO products and cutting tools.  At least I do.  And, their big catalog too.   So the acquisition of AIS is interesting.  Without question, I’m not aware of all the capabilities of both companies but I had thought of AIS as more a VMI fastener supplier, for the most part.  When they purchased Great Lakes Fasteners in Michigan a few years ago, that seemed to be an expansion of territory but not altogether a different type of business.  While many of their products overlap, how they have gone to market would seem…well, different.  Could be a very good move in order for MSC to expand even more into the VMI marketplace.  And, in the end, everyone seems to be positioning themselves to compete on a bigger level with the Fastenals and Graingers and eventually the Amazons.

One other interesting note I read in Industrial Supply Magazine.  It said “MSC Industrial Supply has acquired All Integrated Solutions (AIS) from New York-based private equity firm High Road Capital Partners”.  I think we underestimate how much of our industry in now owned/managed by private equity firms.  So many of the family run companies are no longer owned by families even when there are still family members involved on a day in, day out basis.

Would like to see a panel discussion on this topic.  Hey Morgan, maybe right before the pool party in Vegas?

In response to my most recent post regarding Fastener Fair 2018, John Butler asked the question, “Will this show decrease the attendee numbers for Vegas”?  Interesting question, and one I am sure has been thought about by more than just a few individuals.  John’s comment was timely in that I was just thinking about the show in Vegas.  In fact, I just spoke with Morgan Wilson of Emerald Expositions checking in and asking a few questions about this year’s Vegas show.  Even before John posted his question, I had a lot of thoughts on this and related topics.

When I was asking Morgan about the Vegas Show, it occurred to me that there are several other events or shows I will be attending before that show.  Of course, I will be attending the 10th annual Distributor Social on May 17, held by the North Coast Fastener Association.  Always a great night!  Then I will be traveling to Chicago in June to attend the MWFA Table Top show, followed by the NFDA ESPS meeting.   And while that does fill up a few weeks in my schedule, it got me thinking about all the other fastener association events that different individuals are attending.

Right after Fastener Fair, a lot of people headed out to Arizona for the Pac-West meeting.  Next, I believe SEFA has a conference starting on Tuesday in Alabama.  After that, grab a plane over to Dallas to attend the Southwestern Fastener Association Conference & Expo on May 2-4.   As previously mentioned, the NCFA has the Distributor Social on May 17 (which happens to be the same day as MAFDA’s spring Golf Outing).  If you plan to attend that and then also golf in the Pac-West golf outing you will need to take an overnight jet as the golf outing takes place on May 18.  Quick trip back home to do laundry before you need to fly back to Chicago for the Mid-West Fastener Association Table Top and NFDA ESPS meetings.  And just so you know, if you plan to go to the New England Fastener Distributors Association Scholarship Golf Outing you have a scheduling conflict because, according to their website, the golf outing is on June 7.   Just so you know!  After that, you might catch a break until you make your way to Montana on August 9 for the Pac-West Fall Conference (which happens before their Fall Dinner Meeting & Vendor Showcase on September 11 in CA).   Need to pencil in a quick trip out east to attend the MFDA’s Golf Outing on September 17.

Now, if this were 2019 (and that’s a big IF) you’d be bumping up against the Vegas Show, because in 2019 it will start on September 17.  But, it’s 2018 so you’ve got another month before you need to think about that.  Not sure what other fastener association events are going on in October before the Fastener Show.   I’m certain that I missed a few but I’m done googling all the fastener association websites to look.  There should be one central clearing house for all of this.  John Wolz of Global Fastener News does a good job and there might be others too.  The Fastener Industry Coalition website is pretty good but it is up to each association to turn in their events in order for it to get on the site.  Would be nice to see it all in one place.

So, here’s a nagging question – how on God’s green earth does a national sales manager even attempt to get to all (or many) of these events?  It’d be a full time job!  How much time would you have left to actually visit customers who do not also attend these events?  Never mind if your company is a STAFDA member or has other niche shows to attend for specific industries.  Throw in your Fastenal Show, a Grainger event or an open house for one of the large national multi-location fastener distributors.  Brass fittings guys have several other shows they must attend.  Wire Rope hardware guys have to go to AWRF.  There are a lot of shows!

And, of course, none of this takes into account travel plans for those people who attend shows in Taiwan or Stuttgart.   Don’t forget to leave some time to take advantage of  the variety of fastener training events offered by the Fastener Training Institute or other associations.

At some point there will need to be greater cooperation between all the groups that throw these events.  Business has been good the last few years and that always seems to boost trade show & golf outing attendance.   Business is cyclical and if the economy slows down in the next few years I think some of these events will not be well attended.  Maybe we will see some consolidation or maybe some groups will just offer less events.

As a member of the fastener industry, if you are in a position to write off business travel you certainly have a lot of cool places you can travel.   On Facebook & Twitter, I see a lot of the same individuals who either get to attend a lot of these meetings and shows or are expected to do so as part of their job.  In either case, that’s a lot of frequent flyer miles & hotel points!  Still, I’m betting there are a lot of individuals who would vote for a few less events and a little more pooling of resources.

Below are some stats from FFUSA as provided by show management.  Again, I think it was an excellent show and Cleveland was a great choice for the first show.  There are a LOT of fastener distributors in Ohio and the surrounding states and clearly they showed up.  Great job, will be anxious to hear about plans for Detroit in 2019.

•       255 exhibitors

•       28,500 sold sq. ft.

•       Over 2000 Registrants

•       Top 5 US attendee states:  Ohio- 46%, Michigan, Illinois, PA, CA

•       Over 26 international countries represented

•       Over 700 attended the Rock Hof Party

•       Great turn out to the Education and Keynote panel

Top industries represented:

•       Aerospace, Automotive, Agricultural/Off-Highway

•       Civil Engineering

•       Construction

•       Distribution

•       Maintenance Repair

•       Electronics

•       Energy

•       Hardware/Furniture

Fastener Fair USA was held in Cleveland, Ohio over the past three days.  I’m probably going to be a bit biased as Cleveland is my home town and the convenience factor cannot be ignored.  Still, I think the show was great, especially for an inaugural show.

There were a lot of attendees from Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky.  Speaking with show management during the show, they confirmed there was a lot of activity from those areas but they also assured me they will share demographic information with me in order to see who else was in attendance.  Let’s be candid – I recognize the people from Ohio and the surrounding states whereas I cannot immediately identify people from Missouri or Connecticut.  It will be interesting to see the statistics.

What was impressive about this show was the number of individuals that were being sent by local distributors.  Many companies sent between 5-10 people so it was just not just the owners and managers at this show – it was also the “worker bees” who do not always get invited to other show.  Must also acknowledge, the show did have some feeling of being a regional show, but what a good region to attract.  The Midwest is still very distributor strong – there are a LOT of distributors in these states and a ton of them showed up.  Prior to the show there was quite a bit of advertising that end users were being invited to the show.  I know there were some there but not near the number of them as there were distributor participants.  Once again, maybe I did not recognize those individuals to know who they were, and this is where I’d invite some of you to participate and share what you saw.

I attended the opening panel discussion on the “Future of the Fastener Industry” and I liked it a lot.  Based on the feedback from the panel, two of the major challenges our industry continues to face is attracting young talent into our “less than sexy” industry and training individuals in our industry.  Fastener associations offer fastener training classes (North Coast Fastener Association is offering a print reading class with MWFA’s assistance the morning of May 17 before our Distributor Social, just in case you are fortunate enough to be returning to Cleveland for that event) and companies sometimes offer training, Brighton Best being the one I hear of most frequently.  But, I must repeat, training just keeps coming up over and over as a concern for the industry.  I spent some time to with John Wachman and Jo Morris at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and we discussed the Fastener Training Institute and the great work their organization does.  The number of classes and webinars they offer is impressive and very, very important to our industry.   Please consider supporting this group by participating and even donating.  They do great work but it is expensive to keep the organization running and growing – and we really need them to keep up the good work.  But, we will take this up another day.  Back to Fastener Fair…

The traffic at the show was really good.  As is usually the case, Day 1 was much more active than Day 2 but there were a lot of big name companies walking the aisles even on Day 2.  National VMI distributors sent a lot of people there even on the 2nd day.  Quite honestly, I got to spend more time with some people at the show than I am usually able spend at them when I visit.  The atmosphere was very casual and the show was a good size to hang out in the aisles without being overcrowded.  Again, I’m not sure how many distributors came from the east coast or further west of, let’s say, Indiana, but I can assure you if you sell to any of the large VMI distributors or many of the large catalog houses throughout the country – their people were there!!  And that is a great think for the show.  If you can attract decision makers then you will certainly attract suppliers.

Finally, I think the choice of holding the show in Cleveland turned out very good.  The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame reception was as good as one could hope for.  They had a band playing in the main area (Tim Vath of Solution Industries played bass for the band, adding a little fastener connection to the festivities) and everyone seemed to be walking through the museum taking in all the exhibits.  It was a great night.  Afterwards, people scattered for dinner and headed out to any one of the many great restaurants Cleveland has in the downtown area, all within walking distance or a short Uber ride.  Even the night before the show started, a large group of maybe 50-60 fastener people gathered at Punchbowl Social to do what fastener people do – network and share a cocktail or two.

All in all I think it was an excellent show. There were many suppliers from Asia, and I don’t know if they saw the traffic at their booths that some of the U.S. based suppliers were enjoying but that is something I’m sure they will discuss with Show Management.   I’ll share more later but wanted to get out my initial thoughts — and I welcome you to respond with yours!

I’m not an expert on tariffs but I do keep my ear to the ground to hear what is rumbling.  A note that passed my desk pointed out that President Trump’s next proposed round of tariffs would, in fact, affect HTS code 73181600 – the code for “Nuts made of Iron or Steel”.    That is correct, there could be a 25% tariff on hex nuts imported from China.  Folks, that a lot of hex nuts!  In fact, that might just be where a lot of all hex nuts you buy and sell are coming from.

This announcement was just made in the last few days. The Department of Commerce announced Section 301, which looks to impose a 25% tariff on some 1,300 HTS codes (import codes).  According to what I read, Section 301 relates to intellectual property that the US Department of Commerce says Chinese companies have stolen from USA companies.

Section 301 is still in the draft stage and the government is seeking public comments before a determination is made in May.   So, it is not a done deal yet.  But be aware, if this goes through you could be looking at a 25% increase in your price on nuts made in China.

See the following link:  https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/04/06/2018-07119/notice-of-determination-and-request-for-public-comment-concerning-proposed-determination-of-action

I’m looking forward to the Fastener Fair USA show in Cleveland.  It’s pretty much in my backyard so I’m very curious to see how it goes.  I can report that almost every distributor I talk with in NE Ohio, and many from MI are attending.  Doesn’t hurt that the reception at the end of day one is at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.  If you’ve never been there, I think you’ll like it.  Lots of cool stuff.

While traveling this week I was catching up on some Fully Threaded Radio episodes.  Always great stuff on road trips.  Just this morning I was listening to an interview with Charlie Kerr (Cleveland guy!) talking about tariffs.  Charlie always has strong thoughts (don’t want to call them opinions) on topics, and the tariffs were do different.  When he was asked how the tariffs will play out and how they will affect the fastener industry he acknowledged there is incomplete information and it is nearly impossible to predict what the affects will be.  He said predicting how they will affect business would be like picking a perfect bracket in the NCAA tournament (by the way, kudos to John Butler who won the Fastenerblog Tournament Challenge).

Fastener Fair has a lot of different programs including one session talking specifically about the future of the fastener industry.  Guessing maybe some of the panel participants might have a thing or two to say about tariffs and countless other unpredictable things going on today.  But I got to wondering…what’ll we all be talking about in the aisles of the Fastener Fair show?  What are the hot topics right now?  Import prices going up?  Are they stable yet?  Who’s buying who?  Just saw where Endries bought out my good friend Terry Delia when they acquired Branam Fastening.  Any other acquisition chatter out there?  How about personnel changes?  Lots of recent changes lately from the very top positions at organizations as well as with purchasing, sourcing, sales people.

Each year as we are gearing up for the Vegas show you can almost anticipate what topics people will be talking about.  By that time of year, you’d also have a pretty good idea of how the year had gone and might already be speculating about the next year.  This April show might throw us off a bit but I’m sure the aisles will be buzzing.  And then we get to hang out at the Rock Hall!  No complaints with that.  Heard there will be a band playing with some industry ties!  Rock & Roll!

Want to fill out one more NCAA Bracket?  Come join us and compete with your fastener peers.  Not sure what the winner gets but we’ll come up with something (other than bragging rights)!

http://fastenerblog.mayhem.cbssports.com/brackets