- After three days, four if you count Media Day on Monday, I was pretty much finished. I had walked the convention floor dozens of times, handed out close to 200 business cards, and generally had my fill of spiels and presentations.
- Speaking of business cards, note-to-self: Order new cards for the NRA meeting. Incorporate the shiny new header as well as a QR tag...
- As much as I may wish it wasn't true, the "booth babe" is still alive and frequenting the booths of gun shows. I lost count of the number of silicone-enhanced, micro-skirt wearing women "helping" out in various booths; it's a testament to the adage that sex sells and the predominant gender of show attendees. It's worth noting that the "major" manufacturers don't have booth babes, folks...
- There are a *lot* of "tactical" gear manufacturers out there, with 5.11 Tactical and Tru-Spec being the industry standards. From pants with lots of pockets to molle straps on toasters, if you can dream it, chances are someone's already made it.
- Speaking of Tru-Spec, R. Lee Ermey sure gets around. Glock, Tru-Spec, SOG; the Gunny has his USMC hands in a lot of pies - and that's a good thing. We need more Gunny.
- Speaking of Glock, I picked up several new window decals for the (now paid off!) Dodge Eartf**ker. Driving through Cambridge is going to be eminently more satisfying now...
- There's a lot of really cool schwag being given out at the shows: pens, flash drives, keychains, knives, hats, shirts, hearing protection, etc. It's especially interesting because it gives me ideas for my 9-5 job as well. Schwag is schwag - most of it really is independent of industry.
- Holy smokes, there's a lot of beer at SHOT. Seemed like every time I turned around, someone was hosting a Happy Hour or having someone hand out free brewskis. This is also not dependent on industry, there's just more of it at SHOT. I felt kinda odd hitting up a manufacturer for T&E samples with a beer in my hand... (But not that odd. The rep had a beer in her hand too...)
- Lastly, this last piece really encapsulates what SHOT is all about. I'm sitting in my seat on the shuttle bus heading back to the hotel. Start talking with the guy sitting in the seat next to me - turns out he's an IPSC guy from IL, who also happens to run a company that makes bullets. He asks me what I do, I hand him my card, he's going to see about sending some bullets for testing. I get off the bus at my hotel and run into a gentleman from CA who's starting a new optics company. He can use the exposure and hands me his card, saying "call me for some samples". Two leads and I had already mentally closed out the "salesguy" part...
That is all.
6 comments:
If ya need someone to reload those bullets for ya..... :)
I think the most useful swag I ever got was thumb drives. In my business ('tronics manufacturing) part of the opening salvo between a vendor and a potential customer is manuals and component datasheets. Some folks offer CD-ROMS with the relevant docs, but the folks who give out thumb drives loaded with the same stuff get more attention.
Thanks for attending the show on our behalf. It's nice to hear there's a thriving industry behind what we do.
Now how do you get the Tax Write Off for the Trip? I'd be nice to see a post like "Shot Show: Your Federal Tax Dollars at Work."
Booth babes need jobs too! Are you going to fire them to increase your share holder earnings? You MA corporate raiders are all the same.
Gerry
Mopar,
Y'know, e thought *had* occurred to me... ;)
Booth Babes - I was at a Mechanical Engineering Design Show in Chicago a couple decades ago. A company was new plastic material they had developed. As part of their demonstration of it's properties they had covered the floor of their booth with the material and had a booth babe in a skimpy little outfit ice skating on it. She skated around doing spins, turns and even a couple jumps. She attracted quite a crowd.
One attendee started asking the salesman about the chemical resistance of their material in certain caustic environments. When his questions got to be too complicated for the salesman, he told the attendee he would have to speak to their lead chemist. At which time he got the skaters attention. Introduced her to the attendee and she started answering all his questions.
Post a Comment