Coming Up For Air After A Busy Show Season

January, when most folks are embracing some quiet down time and maybe even Dry January, we embark on an exhausting road trip to show our products at many of the country's largest gift tradeshows. The lead up to these shows involves making sure our annual catalog is printed (without errors) and shipped to all the reps who sell our products and also to the show locations along with samples of new products to be ready for the first show.

The first day, Saturday, usually requires us primping the booth and training the folks who represent our products in their regions on any changes or showing them new items so they feel comfortable in presenting it to their retail customers. Then Sunday and Monday of the Atlanta show, known as VIP days, we're off to the races from 9am-6/8pm explaining and demonstrating our products to potential customers and showing old fans, who've bought the line for years, our newest items.

Energy and excitement was high most days but I have to be frank at the end of the first 7 days we were all feeling the pain of standing on concrete floors repeating ourselves over and over desperately trying to keep the enthusiasm up. On the last day we got to end the work day by flying home across the country, landing at 3am (EST). After a week of fitful sleep we crashed into our delicious bed. The bright side of the week is reconnecting with other brands and our customers, seeing the warm response to our cool items and having some tasty dinners to fuel us on so we can get up and do it all again the next day. 

A few days later I was off on a plane to Denver and the Rocky Mountain Gift Show - our first time exhibiting there. It's a very different show to Atlanta and much more relaxed so the dress code was a little more casual. Also, the first morning I woke up to SNOW! that had not been in the forecast when I packed. We managed to make some great connections and got to train a few reps who hadn't seen the line before - I'm hopeful for the business that will result. The highlight of that trip was meeting a long time customer for a store in Maine who was an absolute delight and the last night I managed to squeeze in a dinner with a dear friend whom I hadn't seen in 5+ years. 

Then it was off to Las Vegas on Sunday where I reconnected with Walt who had been there since Saturday and was still trying to shake a bad cold he'd picked up in Atlanta (or possibly from just sheer exhaustion post holiday season compounded with show season) We had three days in Vegas, reconnecting with West Coast customers and working on some key account business. There is some nice business percolating but some of the bigger stores take longer to finalize the order - we have to remember to have patience. 

While all this was going on our kid had headed off to Copenhagen for a college semester abroad so we had to squeeze in chats with her while remembering the time difference. We have a fun thing she makes me do where I send her pics of my different outfits every day - here's a small photo dump of the month of January.