broughton EAP

With all the talk of recession and ‘testing economic times’ in the press recently, not to mention some of the industries leading players pulling out, this year’s RAC show was a bit of an unknown quantity. It was also the first real chance for everybody to get together and see how the industry was faring post downturn; what would attendance be like?  Would anybody be buying?

It came as no real surprise then that things started a little more slowly than previous years.  Maybe not in attendance (at least that’s what the organisers would have us believe!) but certainly in terms of how many real enquires we were getting on the stand.  However our new products received plenty of attention and the interest shown came from genuine leads not just ‘tyre kickers’ and this left us feeling confident for day two.

The second day of any show is always the busiest and most important and this was no exception.  Any concerns about the show that might have been lingering soon disappeared!  From early on the stand was so busy that at times the team struggled to see everybody and the quality of enquiry was perhaps the best we’ve had from a show.  People even tried to buy equipment straight of the stand.  Far and away the best day of the event for us.

Thursday carried on where Wednesday left off, albeit at a slower pace, with a steady stream of clients across the stand.  We did well with building up contacts and customers up until lunchtime when as expected it all fizzled out, and an ever increasing horde of menacing looking tradesmen gathered around the edge of the hall signalling the end was nigh.

The undoubted stars of the show for us were the new pieces being launched.  The two new water cooled splits and the air handling units seemed to have really caught peoples’ attention with their slimline design and massive duties.  The facilities management people being particularly keen.

The tried and trusted members of the Mighty Cool range also sold steadily as did some of the heaters.  It always comes as quite a surprise when, despite all the advertising we do, people come on to the stand saying “This is exactly what I need.  How come I didn’t know this type of thing was available?”  But that’s what makes a show such a unique and important part of the marketing arsenal.

But the real value of a show, as we all know, is not something that you can really quantify immediately (if at all).  The hard work of turning enquiries into sales only really starts when everyone is back in the office but the early signs are very encouraging.

A couple of positives we did take from last week were that there is still plenty of opportunities out there for RAC manufacturers if you are adaptable, look and work hard enough.  The government’s huge increase in public spending on projects such as the Olympics and the renewal of all secondary schools, plus the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan for example, is something our contract manufacturing division did very well out of, with four military contracts picked up already.  Now is also the time for British manufacturers to realise that we can now be competitive with the French and Italians and for allowing us to not only sell to the European market but also into our own market where we might previously have been undercut from abroad.

To briefly summarise then, we feel RAC 2009 was another big success for us both in terms of catching up with existing customers and expanding our network and we’re already looking forward to another great show in 2011.  You can’t escape the feeling though that it might not be to the same scale we’ve seen in the past and that the list of absences might, sadly, have increased quite a bit…