P&Q: If producers are going to send people to ConExpo-Con/Agg, who are you sending and how many? How does your show approach compare to 2020, 2017 and other shows of the past?
JAMIE JONES (CAPITAL AGGREGATES): We’re sending mostly our upper-level people like operation managers on up. We do get a lot of benefit out of ConExpo. It’s nice to have the main vendors you buy a lot of equipment from in one space. A lot of times, we’re dealing with our dealers at a local level, but we don’t know the people supplying them.
RONALDO DOS SANTOS (ANDERSON COLUMBIA): We haven’t confirmed our schedule for this year, but it’s always a fantastic opportunity to learn about new technologies and do the networking.
JAMES MECKSTROTH (BARRETT PAVING MATERIALS): I think we’ve got about the same group that we had [going]. I’d say ops managers and that. A lot of our equipment directors and those types of people are still going to go this year. We were there in 2020 and, like everybody else, scooted out of there just in time. But we’re going to have a good showing there this year. I think it is great time to learn about the new technology and what’s available.
SHAWN BONNINGTON (VIZALOGIX): I’ve been to ConExpo enough times to realize that time is a pretty precious resource, and that there’s an allure outside and with new, big machines. That kind of lessens the travel in the upper deck, back wing or somewhere where you’ve got a 10-ft. x 10-ft. booth. You just don’t have enough hours in the day to send the decision-makers all the way up there with the app and the phone, looking through the directions to where you find a vendor.
So, what we do is strategically invest in more shows like this (i.e., the Pit & Quarry Roundtable & Conference). Because if we do get that one person who walks by the booth at ConExpo, more than likely they’re not the decision-maker. Maybe they influence the decision-maker, but more than likely they’ll forget about the conversation altogether – then throw it in their swag bag, and you never actually get the impact of going to a show like that outside of networking.
We’re sending a team out there to walk the floor, see the technology and make the connections. But we made a strategic decision that it’s more valuable to invest in sessions like this (the P&Q Roundtable) where you get to learn.
VINCENT ROCCO (AMCAST): You make a really good point. We do exhibit at ConExpo, but it’s easy to get swallowed up by larger booths – especially ones with a larger space and better locations. It’s challenging to get a really good location along the main hallways and corridors.
To kind of assist with that, we do a lot of work leading up to the show, promotions on social media and our print media with Pit & Quarry. We’re promoting our presence at the booth so that when we’re at ConExpo-Con/Agg, there are people who’ve already made a decision to come and talk to us.
We never go into the show thinking we’re going to sell stuff on the floor. It’s a lot of what’s already been said: It’s building relationships. It’s reinforcing relationships and creating new ones. It’s laying the groundwork for collaboration for that next year or the next ‘X’ number of years to start working together.
P&Q: What criteria do you guys use to determine if ConExpo-Con/Agg was a success or not?
DAVID CISZCZON (POLYDECK): One of the things we’re doing is measuring lead generation. We measure quotations. There’s going to be a little slag in there, but we’re going to measure orders based on those quotations from the show. We’re going to see how that works to see what our return is.
MCDERMOTT: A lot of it is assumption based, so we take our leads and conversations and try to determine the validity of how well our products supply to that sort of scenario. If we had a conversation to gather a lead for something that we had over the years to establish if a product goes forward, we’ll rate it on a scale of 1 to 10 to determine how applicable it is, whether it will work and the likelihood of us ending up with it in the end.
Then, we take that scale and put a dollar amount on it – one that we ultimately hope is above what we paid for the show. That’s the mark you have to hit, but enforcing it is assumption based. Still, if you’ve been doing what you do long enough, you can make that assumption pretty accurately.
PATRICK MESSMORE (KLEEMANN): One thing that is extremely different about this ConExpo versus past ConExpos is the level of engagement we see from the producers before the show even starts. They’re calling us asking us: ‘When would be a good time to come to the booth? Can we have a meeting set up? Can we go to dinner?’ That hasn’t really happened in years past. We’re seeing that the producers are engaging suppliers beforehand because they’re excited about coming to ConExpo.
