The CastExpo trade show in St. Louis exceeded expectations and was more successful than the prior year's show in Orlando. Attendance was over 8,000 people, the highest in years, and many equipment vendors sold machines on the show floor. The Synchro ERP booth was extremely busy the entire show, with constant demonstrations and sales leads that kept the representatives occupied. This indicates that the metalcasting industry is experiencing an economic recovery.
Want to take your grammar skills to a new level? Email me:
alanbarker830@btinternet.com
The Grammar Roadshow dovetails a methodical approach to grammar with a conversational, 'need-to-know' style. We always start by asking ourselves what we want to know. I never run these slides in sequence from beginning to end; instead, we move around within the set as the learners' questions dictate. The length of the roadshow varies from 90 minutes to a day.
Want to take your grammar skills to a new level? Email me:
alanbarker830@btinternet.com
The Grammar Roadshow dovetails a methodical approach to grammar with a conversational, 'need-to-know' style. We always start by asking ourselves what we want to know. I never run these slides in sequence from beginning to end; instead, we move around within the set as the learners' questions dictate. The length of the roadshow varies from 90 minutes to a day.
How is the german digital industry doing? And how can we keep up with GAFA? And how do we make people care? Philipp Westermeyer, Founder of OMR, has the answers.
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Entrepreneurial flair when combined with effective marketing skill is a rare and powerful combination
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This lesson is about how Sage started, and how this particular case combined someone who had great marketing skills but also was a great entrepreneur: a very rare occurrence, particularly in the technology sector, and something which turned out to be a massive success story.
The Sage story - which has been told before but I think is worth telling again - is about David Goldman, a guy who had a printing works in Newcastle and who took on a visiting professor under a DTI scheme to do some technology work for him.
In this particular case it was to do a costing and estimating package for the print industry, based on software. As anyone in the printing industry will realize, it’s quite a complex process to cost and estimate a printing job, which could have various different colors and different lengths etc.
They produced this product and started to sell it, and then subsequently produced an accounting product, which was OK. I raised venture capital for them, as is my style: I invested my fee back into the company and became involved.
In this particular case, Amstrad launched the PCW, which was the first low-cost PC in the UK, at £500: within six weeks, David Goldman had produced a £99 accounts package to go onto the Amstrad. It was the beginning of low-cost software in the UK market, and the business just took off.
But where David was outstanding was that he understood marketing. He wasn’t hung up about the product per se. So for example, when people phoned up and said: “How do we buy invoices to work with your accounting product?”, instead of shrugging his shoulders, he said: “We’ll produce them!”, because he was a printer of course.
So he produced invoices and payslips, and when people said: “Well, how do we make this thing work?” not just: “How do we turn the computer on?” but: “How do we do the
month-end routines? How do we do some of the accounting functions that go with the software package?”, we started to advise them - and, significantly, to charge them for it.
In those days back in the early 1980s, it was unusual for software companies to charge for their telephone support. We did. And, of course, it’s become a massively important part of the Sage business, and a massively important reason why people bought, and still continue to buy, the product.
Then sales started to take off; so the bold decision to g ...
1. CastExpo 2013 Write-Up - By Shane Allen.
WOW! BEYOND BELIEF! WHAT A VENUE! WHAT A TURN-OUT!
EXCEEDED EXPECTATIONS! ECONOMIC RECOVERY IS IN FULL
SWING!
Everyone I talked to was comparing St. Louis to the prior CastExpo in
Orlando and how much better this show-and-tell was! Many think it might
have been to do with the venue, so many people took the opportunity to
visit Mickey Mouse in Orlando with the family in-tow that they neglected
really attending CastExpo. Plus, at the time, the economy was in the tank.
This year’s CastExpo was wild! Sandy of Tonkawa Foundry emailed that
she stopped by the booth several times, and each time there was "no room
on the booth" as everyone was busy doing sales leads. At times, there
were four demonstrations in process and metalcasters were lined up
begging for more. We could have used an extra hand or two or maybe
even three! Saturday and Sunday were the busiest of days and Monday
was not all that bad. The venue in St. Louis was ideal and the weather
perfect. Staring off on a Saturday really set the stage.
Daniel, the newest member of the team, certainly earned his stripes with
the number of on-the-booth demonstrations that he performed, especially in
Spanish. Simon and Chris were certainly kept busy with demonstration
after demonstration - one right after the other on the stand. At the end of
each day, I can safely say that the entire team was wiped out - just drained
of energy. I personally was in bed just after 8pm the first night and 9pm the
second night. Even Daniel said he went to sleep very early!
How do you judge if a CastExpo is successful? What the metrics used to
define a successful CastExpo. The number one matrix is always the
"conversion rate" of sales leads to actual sales. The second matrix is the
number of sales leads obtained on the stand - good solid bona fide "today"
leads. Although the "tomorrow" leads are very important as well as it does
keep the fire burning. The overall attendance at the show, 8,000+ by all
accounts, is an important matrix as well. Also, the number of equipment
sales is a leading indicator of how the economic environment is doing.
Much of the equipment appeared to be already sold as it was being setup
2. on the floor, and by the end of the show, it looked like all of the equipment
had been sold. This is the big boy equipment - costing hundreds of
thousands if not millions of dollars. I am sure there are "deep" discounts
on the show floor during the negotiating process as an equipment
manufacturer would prefer to ship the equipment to a customer instead of
back to the warehouse. Also, a very important indicator is the "quality-or
type" of person you meet with - is it the decision maker - what is their role
and goal in life? We came away having talked with the big boys - the top
dogs - the ones that approve the writing of the checks. We met the Head
Honcho of Dotson Castings who is the new AFS President and also met
with the IT Director for all of Waupauka Foundries. These are the movers
and the shakers. I do know that the top dogs of Bradken were there, but
we did not get to meet them, unfortunately. They were there purchasing
new heavy equipment.
So, in recap, the most important is the "conversion" rate into new sales and
I predict we will have a good conversion rate in the coming weeks and
months.
Shane Allen
Head of North American Office
Synchro ERP