Road Shows
A few jobs ago one of the executives was a highly educated but productively worthless marketing guru. He talked all the high dollar words, but when it came to putting results on the board he usually came up empty. These guys with the V.P. titles and too big bank accounts drive me nuts - I’m all about results. So it didn’t bother me much when I learned he left the company under a “mutual agreement.”
Since I didn’t consider him a friend, I was surprised to get an email from him a couple weeks ago announcing his new company. He has bought the territory rights to most of the southeastern states to launch a new product and he’s taking it on a roadshow to promote it. He made arrangements with Sam’s Club to put up a display for one week at a time at rotating Sam’s Club locations.
So out of curiosity, I stopped by the local Sam’s Club to check it out and see if he was doing any business. I have to admit the display was nice and it was getting it’s fair share of attention from the shoppers. He had a 10 x 10 carpet laid out, four chairs - one on each corner of the carpet, and a nice, eyecatching backdrop with lights and graphics. The two blondes with big hair and bigger cleavage handing out brochures didn’t hurt, either.
Chatting with him in between customers, he told me that his cost of entry into the business was minimal. He bought the custom trade show displays from a company online called the “Godfrey Group” and couldn’t be more pleased with all the design help and cost effective solutions they provided to produce the most important part of his road show exhibit, the portable display wall.
So it looks like he is off to a good start and maybe has finally found his calling - out of the big corporate world and into entrepreneurism.