TEDA Vendor Advisory Meeting

Last month TEDA held their 22nd annual Vendor Advisory Meeting. This year it was held in Annapolis, MD. All nine TEDA members were in attendance, as were approximately 80-100 supplier teams.

I'm not going to review all their sales numbers, you can read some of that in the August issue of TechShop magazine. Instead, I want to share with you some of the comments that Rob Halbritter, Chairman of TEDA made to the assembly. He's an easy guy to listen to. He gets his point across easily. I think it's due to his many years as a teacher, in his LBMS (life before Mid-States). He talked about the changing dynamics of our industry, from the distributor's viewpoint, and focused on the manufacturer and the benefits of working together as a team to reach the aftermarket.

I'm going to paraphrase here, because I couldn't write fast enough to keep up with his talking. I also tend to interject my own comments, so don't take this as complete gospel from the TEDA meeting, it's more of a mix of Rob's speech, some of his comments, and my thinking about it:

The cost of windshield time and air travel is changing the way we do business, once again. E-mail is becoming a more frequent way of meeting with our customers. As a distributor of your tools and equipment, I want you to know that I feel we're all in this together. If we think that what we do today or did yesterday is ging to be sufficient fo rthe future, I think we're blindsiding ourselves. There are a lot of followers out ther in our market. We need to do some things differently - some people have some good ideas about how to change their future. But we have to get off our backsides and do something. Too many people in our industry still think they can continue doing business like we did 5, 10 or even 20 years ago. This is just not the case.

Our business is like a sharp knife - catch the knife by the handle and you can use it as a tool. But, you catch it by the blade and it can cut you to pieces.

We all have dreams - both personal and professional. The true business winner is a doer, not a dreamer. I would say the true business leader is one who can dream, and then make that dream a reality. I think you need a vision of what your business can be, or what you want it to be, before you can make it happen. Isn't there a phrase like, "I don't know where I'm going, but I'll know when I get there."? Well, that is no way to run a business in this tough economy, and during these tough market conditions. As a business leader, you have to have a dream, a plan, and develop the ways and means to achieve your dream.

The mom & pop business, that which was once our bread and butter, is going away very quickly. In some parts of the country, it is already gone, gone, gone. Our business used to be split pretty evenly between storefront and mobile jobbers. Now we need to add the internet into the mix. if we are to continue to grow, we need to develop new products, new markets, new customers. The members of TEDA are committed to 3-step distribution. If it runs on wheels, if it floats or flies - all these markets use your tools and equipment. We need to work together to capture the attention of the people who buy your products.