“Your Blueprint to Success” was this year’s slogan for the 54th IEC National Convention & Electrical Expo in Louisville, KY. Approximately 500 attendees took advantage of the numerous education courses as well as the trade show.
Here are some of our observations from the Independent Electrical Contractor group;
- The organization has grown into a very professional run organization
- Their education programs are considered extremely effective by the contractors we spoke to.
- While attendance was on the light side, the education seminars were well attended.
- The tradeshow had about 75 booths with Eaton, Schneider Electric, Graybar, WESCO, REXEL, and GEXPRO exhibiting as well as most of the industry top manufacturers.
- The main sponsor was The Home Depot, which should say something about pursuing small to mid-sized electrical contractors as a viable business segment.
- This year’s keynote speaker was Lt. Col. Rob “Waldo” Waldman. He did a great job melding the challenges of a decorated fighter pilot and the requirements for today’s contractor to face the new economy.
- Generally, contractors feel the economy has bottomed out and there will be a very slow recovery over the next 3-5 years. Many said the new construction market is very quiet. Many also indicated they have transformed their company towards more service work to survive. When asked how their business was, many responded “OK”.
- If there was any opportunity for new busy the contractors expressed energy savings. Many exhibitors were demonstrating products that fit this market niche.
Channel Marketing Group‘s Stan Rydzynski presented a seminar on marketing. IEC believes its membership needs to establish a marketing business philosophy to cultivate new profits in this challenging economy. CMG presented its “MARKETINGOPLY – Increasing Sales and Profits Utilizing Marketing Strategies/Tactics” program. Our program was received extremely well by the attendees. Many felt that with a slow / no growth economy and their adoption of diversified and service-driven business models, marketing was critical to their success.
Note: If you’d like to offer your contractors a value-added seminar, contact Stan at srydzynski@channelmkt.com to learn more.
2 Comments
Horrible Attendance..talked to an IEC exec from Cinnci, that spent $700 to bus 50 guys to the show, thankful for that!!
Will probably skip next year
Anyone that skipped this years IEC National Convention missed a great opportunity to network with peers and learn management and technical skills that when applied can grow their business and increase their bottom line. As always attending the IEC Convention was worthwhile for each and every attendee. I personally tend to focus on what I and other attendees got out of attending the Convention and not what those that did not attend missed out on. As always money well spent with an anticipated ROI of less than 6 months.
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