The EDPA hosted a panel of Sales experts including yours truly..

1. September 2011
Inaugural Great Sales Debate is a success
The EDPA Midwest Chapter
hosted the first annual Great Sales
Debate on August 23, 2011. The
event, which was held at the Itas-
ca Country Club in Illinois, was a
heavyweight bout between some of
the best in exhibit sales.
The panel, which was moderated
by Dan Greene of Freeman, con-
sisted of an elite group of seasoned
account executives with years of ex-
perience in the industry. It included
Joe Houle, vice president of strate-
gic development for LAB Exhibits,
Chris Kappes, senior vice president
of strategic alliances for 3D Exhib-
its, Tammy Woods, new business Panelists for The Great Debate included Joe Houle,
development manager for Duo Dis- Chris Kappes, Rhonda Brooks and Tammy Woods.
play, and Rhonda Brooks, sales and order and respect was maintained seller relationship.
marketing representative of Eleva- throughout the event. Attendees included exhibit man-
tion Point. Kappes presented himself as an agers, account executives, business
Houle and Kappes came up with agent of change, preaching the need owners and some of the top exhibit
the idea for the sales debate months for new tools, training and social designers and builders in the coun-
ago, hoping that attendees would media to drive growth in the future. try. With each panel member having
walk away with valuable informa- Houle, who had obviously trained come from a different background,
tion on building sales in their own for the event, relied on his experi- there were plenty of vantage points
companies. Leading up to the de- ences building a multi-million dol- for everyone.
bate, Houle was instrumental in the lar book of business through hard The sold-out event, which was
planning and development of the work and the ability to read people. originally scheduled for two hours,
event. Both Woods and Brooks demon- went 30 minutes over and could
Greene directed questions dealing strated their expertise as relation- have continued much longer.
with both tactical and strategic sales ship builders through cold calls and The next event hosted by the
topics to the speakers, generating a the significance of service. EDPA Midwest Chapter, to be held
spirited discussion with the attend- Questions posed by Greene on October 25, will discuss the
ees. ranged from how salespeople dif- changing landscape of exhibit de-
All the panelists came out swing- ferentiate their companies from sign as demonstrated at Euro Shop,
ing as they strongly advocated their the competition to predicting how Exhibitor and Globalshop. This
views for a successful sales strat- tradeshows will evolve in the fu- event will be moderated by John
egy in the tradeshow industry. And ture to serve the global business Pavek, chief marketing officer for
although the debate was vigorous, climate and the evolving buyer/ Exhibitor Media Group.

2. December 2011
There was a memorable moment at the EDPA Golf Tournament. Christo-
pher Clark of Riverview Systems Group Inc. hit a Hole In One to win the
closest to the pin contest. Pictured here left to right are Craig Shelter of Di-
mensional Communications, Chris Clark and Joe Houle of LAB Exhibits.