20 Years of Trade Shows: What the Waste Industry Got Right (and Wrong)

SPEAKER_00 0:00It compresses a lot of information in a short period of time, which time is valuable for everybody that was there. But you're right, it's it's decision makers that are there and you're able to learn from the people that are capable and making those decisions, which I think is the invaluable piece.SPEAKER_01 0:24

Welcome to the Waste Nexus Podcast. I'm Brian Dolan. Somewhere to my left is Charlie Dolan. And this is our what are we? This will come out and we will be two or so months away from the Waste Nexus event. So if you're interested in that and learning more about it, it's on the webpage, or there's probably a pop-up or a thing below me or above me. It's there. You can check that out. That's an application event. Uh, so we keep out all the sales guys except for me. And then this is the podcast, which you can subscribe to and follow us along as we make fools of ourselves online. And joined today by Keith Conrad. Keith's uh been with us for what, two years now?

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Almost two years.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Yeah. Yep. And today we were going to go through a little bit of a history lesson, not because Keith has gray hair, but because we think it's interesting because Keith has been through a lot of how this industry has changed. And we were going to talk about events, trade shows, that kind of environment, and how that's morphed from when you started going to them when?

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Early 2000s. So about 2005, I think.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

The internet was out. So that was not an that was not a new thing. No, no, believe it or not.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

I was gonna say that's how I got gray hair, is 20 years in the waste industry.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

My kids do that to me, though. They'll be like, Dad, in the olden days when you're saying, come on, guys, what's going on here?

SPEAKER_00 1:44

This is still had rotary phones.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Yeah. I did have one as a kid, but you know, that's a long time ago. Oh man, I just did it. I just did it. I'm that old. It's a long time ago. Yes. In the early 2000s, what was the first trade show you went to? And you were in a waste company at that time?

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Uh yes. Uh so I went as a vendor, and I think the first one that I went to was TML, which was the Texas Municipal League.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Okay. And that's the municipality is putting on a trade show for vendors to come pitch them.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Yes, I think it's put on more by the vendors than it actually is the municipalities, though. Honestly, they get more out of it. The vendors do? Yes. Because they're entertaining their customer. They're entertaining their customers and looking for new customers as well.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

And entertaining themselves.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Yes. Yes. Yes. Is that definitely? Is that a uh golfing event or it is it is an everything event. So you have, you know, big private parties uh that everybody attends. You have golf outings, it's whatever you can get your those prospects or clients to attend and go to with you. Okay. So everybody's a trade show floor type thing too, or it really wasn't much of a trade show type floor thing. It was more of just like getting together. There were lectures and talks and stuff like that, but there wasn't like a big trade show floor.

unknown 3:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

So it was more of an event. And it was more about what you could try to get someone to. Everybody was competing for, you know, the the municipality's attention.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Oh, so you got this, you got what's the big county there?

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Oh, the the there were tons because it was for the entire state of Texas.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Yeah, but what's one of the names of the big county? Harris County, huge. So if you get if you get the municipal guy from Harris County to show up at your thing, you've won. Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. And if he gets too drunk and does something stupid, you lose.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

That's it depends on how bad it was.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Not that the Harris County guy did that, just as an example. I hear you. Okay. And so that kind of event back then, that's a single day, three-day?

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Yes, it was multiple days. I believe I think it was three days. Okay. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

And when you think about that event, what's the vibe of that versus like go forward five or ten years? Does that change much?

SPEAKER_00 4:01

It completely changed. Well, I can tell you perspective from waste nexus to that. Yes, it's definitely a big difference. That was you didn't have much FaceTime with the people that you were targeting and looking for, unless you got them on a golf course. Uh, but you there's so many, and that's a hit and miss on whether you're gonna get someone to do that. So it was more of an entertainment thing. And uh typically most of them were with uh your existing clients. Uh so there wasn't great uh outreach opportunities unless uh you had someone, you know, targeted and they happened to show up to your event because they didn't necessarily commit to attending your events. So it was like if they showed up, it was great. You go over and you talk to them, you spend as much time as you can with them. If they didn't, they got a better invitation.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

So you get a menu of things that they're invited to. Absolutely. And they pick and choose over that course of those few days what they want to participate in, what sounds interesting. Yes, exactly. Exactly. So, but is the marketing for that is is the distribution of the schedule through the host organization and you only kind of get like a bullet point to advertise what you're doing, or is there a back channeling of like oh there's it's gonna be really great to go to the golf thing. Are you going to the golf thing? It was absolutely back channeling. Yeah, yeah. And is is Bob going? Because if Bob's going, I'm not going. Or if Betty's going, I am interesting. Yeah. If you were a vendor not at that event, were you basically not in that market? Like were you nobody?

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Pretty much.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

I mean selling to those prospects.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Yes. Uh everybody everybody attended that.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

Yes. Had to be there. Yes. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

And then well, so then the when did the the big event put on by the multifamily company or whomever the end user was, when did that become a thing?

SPEAKER_00 5:56

I think that's probably started in the past 15 years, maybe even 10, now I think about it. Uh, but that is, you know, getting people to come speak at your events. Uh, and in order to do that, you pay a fee, which basically is paying for their event.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Yeah. Uh and it's put on as a dual purpose for the the the the vendor to pitch to the people and for the customer to give their own. Well, but the customer gives their own people a thing to do. Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

It's a perk for the employees. Yes, definitely is. Uh and it, you know, it's it's entertaining, but you're you're really there paying to you know, have that opportunity to interact with potential clients and and expand the relationship because there's always enforce what you're doing. Yes, there's always, you know, typically it's not someone entering that that's brand new. Yeah. Uh or if it is brand new, they've signed an agreement and they're looking to expand that relationship. And who started doing that first? You know? You know what? I have no idea. Uh I was remember the first one that you ever went to? The first one that I ever went to. No, not off the top of my head. I'm sorry. Yeah. It's been a few days, yeah, a few years. But yeah, for some reason, and I don't know if this is uh correct or not, but it was either Graystar or it was wood partners. Because I do remember the names have been around, yeah. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

But again, everybody has one.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

No. And they also do different styles, there's different approaches. So you have some that do like what they call a reverse trade show where you are walking around talking to their employees. Oh, interesting. Uh, where they actually man like a mini booth type thing.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

What's the swag at that type of event? There's no swagnings or something.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

No, no, no, no. Actually, some of them do uh do small little, you know, swag and stuff like that. But you know, they're also, I remember we would go around and we would give them stuff too, even though they were, you know, it was supposed to be reverse. It doesn't matter. You're getting your marketing materials out.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

That was always a fun part of when I went to the trade shows. I'd have to go around and selectively take things that were offered because it's all these kids when they all wanted something. And I couldn't go to somebody be like, Can I have seven of those? They're like, wait a minute, what? So do it on the last day of the trade show. Yeah, the last minute you could they wanted you to take them then. So I I yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Uh so I remember the the very first uh apartment association trade show that I went to uh was in San Antonio, and we set up our our table, and we were sitting there at the table, and this one, it was like I said, the very first one that I went to, and it was primarily targeted around maintenance staff. Uh and we were sitting there, and a lady came by and grabbed a whole handful of pens and stuck it in her bag, and then pointed to her friend behind her who walked up and grabbed a whole handful of pens. And I looked at my rep that I was with, and I was like, I think we need to move all this stuff off of the table.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

Yeah, yeah, because we have two pens left.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

Yeah. So anyway, but you have some like that, uh, that you know, there's they're goodie grabbers, yes, yeah. So and you deal with that, and especially the last day of the show. That that that's okay. But you want to get away. I don't want to go with all the marketing materials.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

Yes, exactly. There's a friend of mine online who was posting about this the other day that he's adjusted how he's doing trade shows, guy Gary, and he uh he's like, I I get tired of the people who come and just want the free stuff. He said, Someone tried to take the gorilla that he has as his mascot. You had to try track the guy down to get it back. Oh wow, yeah. I mean, that's uh it's it's a little bit in uh wild in that regard. Well, so when you get when you think back on those shows, has the technology aspect of it changed at all?

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Oh, definitely. Uh that I mean to shows nowadays, I mean, it used to be business cards everywhere, and that's that was probably the only way you really got in touch with someone or corresponded with them. And now you've got scanners, uh, you know, where you or you get the full list of all the attendees and things like that. That didn't used to happen. Uh so it was you had to go out and meet those people. You had to get their business cards, and that's what we used to always do. We'd stand out in the aisle. You know, that they had some of them would tell you that, you know, you need to stay within your your booth. No way. Yeah, you get out in the middle of it. Push me back in my booth. Go ahead. Yes, exactly. So then in fact, one of the things that we used to love to do was like, you know what, we're here to talk trash. And that way anytime someone would walk by, we're like, you know, you want to talk trash? Wanna talk about trash? You know, just anything that you could do to get their attention and get them to stop and then start that conversation and try to get that card.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

I'll admit that I uh really don't like having to do that. I'm not good at it. I've done as the person inside the booth trying to wave people down that are running live, fish in a barrel. Yep. Yep. It is it is the most demoralizing experience of trying to get two guys walking by having a conversation to pay attention to you, or 42 women who are going by in a group to break stride and pay attention to you. Because they never travel in a group less than 42. Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Yep. Yep. No, I'm with you.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Guys are never more than two. It's a strange thing.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

I I was at one last week uh with Rachel, uh, you know, one of our employees. And luckily, she is phenomenal at it. She enjoys engaging with people. So I I kind of just sit back and I wait. And you know what, if there's any overflow from her, then I'll get those.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Oh, yeah. And I you do it when you're there. Yes. Right. But the some part inside of me dies every time.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

I know it's not easy. I know. I'm the same way. I have to force myself to do it. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Yeah. And well, and you walk by, and uh the last trade show I went to was the big one in Vegas. And you'd see some people sitting there with their face stuck in the phone, not engaging, and you just go, Oh, you poor show. The guy in the booth sitting there, yes, and he's got his face stuck in his phone, particularly, yeah, and as a as a as a uh a vendor, right? Yeah, he's sitting there as a vendor, paid for a booth, and he's stuck his face in the phone, it's not engaging the crowd. Alternatively, you see people that feel like they've been put there by their employer to go walk around. So they're walking the floor, but they don't want to talk to anybody. So they're just walking like this, and they're okay, I'm gonna get a trinket from here, a trinket from here, and I'm at the end of the row, great, next. Yep. Yeah. Um the other the other guy I love seeing is the guy in the um there's two there's two sort of versions of it. There's the guy in the full suit decked out, right? Oh yeah. And you're like, oh, there's the finance guy. Yeah, or is the Patagonia vest guy. Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

And you're like, uh, okay, I know that guy. But yeah, and you've got to figure out there are archetypes. Yes, yes. And that it definitely helps you. But yeah, uh I I agree with you. Uh it's it cracks me up when you go by a booth and there's a guy with his laptop open, sitting at a table working on his computer while people are walking by and there's no one there.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

And it's for good reason. Sometimes you have to do that, I get it. But I've been by that booth four times today, and that guy's still doing the same thing all day.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Absolutely. That's why I always try to uh I try to keep a rule that you don't ever open your laptop when you're in the booth, and you try to stay off of your phone as much as possible when you're in the booth.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

What's the most unusual booth you remember ever seeing? And while you think about it, I'll give you my idea of an unusual booth. I wanted to do a booth that was a white box that just had a like a door with a little uh like iPad at the door that you know said enter your name and email to enter, right? And just this completely unknown what's inside of it thing. So that was my idea. But no, I I didn't have the budget for that.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

So I I've actually seen one like that. Uh it wasn't where you had to enter your name to get into it, uh, but it was a pretty ingenious booth plan uh that they set up to where you could have private meeting rooms. But in order to get into those private meeting rooms, you had to, you know, be a be a client or whatever, or sign up or be a prospect. So the probably the best and the funniest one that I saw was we were at uh in fact, it was just last year. They had the guys from Family Guy, uh, and they had Peter, and I forgot what his wife's name is. Lois. Lois, okay, Lois, mom, Lois, mom. They were hilarious because this guy, and in fact, I've seen him at other shows now because he's so good and he looks just like it, and he's funny and he engages with the people at as people are walking by. He they were hilarious. We got photos with them, but the their booth was packed because they were just the guy could be a comedian, and he was amazing.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

That's so much fun. Um, he had to do it for what six hours though?

SPEAKER_00 14:54

Yes, yes, and you know what? He never I never saw him out of character. Yeah, never saw him out of character.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Did one with the guy Kevin from the office, not at a trade show, they did it in like time. The glass box in New York, yeah. Yeah, and he was sitting there, you know, doing accounting work in a frazzled state. They went crazy, they had every character come back. Yeah, everybody come back, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Oh wow, yeah. It was pretty wild. But as far as like a an actual booth, I mean that was the most entertaining. Uh, but like, I mean, you know, at Waste Expo, you you've got you know front load trucks, you know, sitting in the middle of the booth.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

Caterpillar, yes, yeah, D9 tools.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Yeah, exactly. Just sitting in the middle of the show.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

I mean, those that's always amazing.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

We saw someone do a money machine one time. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've seen those. Yeah, I've seen those. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

We wanted to do one, but we couldn't figure it out in time, which was around this, around the time that we were going to one of those trade shows, somebody released something online, it was like an internet fat, where they put a webcam in front of a dumpster or something like that. And you could upload an image or a message and it would print on a piece of paper, go through a conveyor belt, get sorted, you know, either as like something to shred or burn, maybe it was what it was. And if it was shredded, it would go through a paper shredder. If it was burned, it would go into this like metal dumpster and it would light a butane lighter and it was when you watch a piece of paper burn. And I don't know, that seemed like a fun, stupid kind of game. I mean, there's so many stupid things. Oh, yeah. That'd be fun to have at a trade show, but there's probably a lot of a lot of complexity there. I don't think they they don't like fire at trade shows. Yeah, no, yeah. Well, so as you look back on that early time period, the trade shows shift, they morph waste expos now in every other year event type of thing. Thing we threw last year that is Waste Nexus as our own event, we styled that as a small, intimate, you know, sort of one-to-one event. Have you bumped into anything like that prior to that?

SPEAKER_00 16:48

Never. Uh so I thought that was the most beneficial non-trade show event that I've ever I've ever attended. Uh you got good quality one-on-one time with individuals. I think everybody took something away from that, learned something. And that's that's what it's really all about. Uh and most of the others, it's about, you know, mass quantities. Yeah, it's volume of over quality. Exactly. This is focused. And like I said, you it's valuable because you're actually learning something, and you're learning something from people in the industry.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

It's peer-to-peer.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Yes. But but that's the thing. That there's there was such a vast array of experience and people and different capacities that uh yeah, I mean, I'm I'm not even have saying having to say that you know, I'm biased, but we're biased, but it's okay. It was the best uh best event, work event that I've been a part of.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

The interesting thing to me is the quality of the people that apply. We get very few salespeople, yeah. And it's actually the upper level director style people who are said, okay, I'm interested to come to that and participate. They're not just there, they participate. And it's only they I think part of the reason that they're willing to do it is that it's so short. It's only a full day. Yeah. It's the evening before. I mean, you gotta fly in at some point, right? And then it's the day. Yep. And we had one guy who flew out that night. And he went, it was Wednesday night. He said, I I can make the 10 o'clock flight. I'm out of here. Yeah. Okay, enjoy yourself. Bye. Yep. Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

Yeah, it compresses a lot of information in a short period of time, which time's valuable for everybody that was there. But you're right, it's it's decision makers that are there, and you're able to learn from the people that are capable and making those decisions, which I think is the invaluable piece.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Seems like there's a couple different buckets if you're looking at you know what trade shows you participate in your own company in whatever industry you're in. You've either got the 12 to 36 months, whatever schedule the big show is on, type thing. You've got the somewhat selective exclusive aggregator throwing their own trade show. We were mentioning some from commercial. Yeah, the vet literally the customer throwing their own trade. You've got another bucket that we just talked about of Waste Nexus, which you know, maybe there's other things like that that are similar to it as well. And I think we've seen a little bit of in the COVID world, post-COVID world, there are some decent online communities in different subsets, different verticals, different niches that are you know, the Facebook group, the Discord, the Slack channel around some topic. I think there's a few of those for waste and recycling. And seems like that those those four buckets in my mind are kind of what you have to pick from if you're looking for some sort of network. Or you can just go on LinkedIn and say you're so excited. Honored and humbled. Honored and humbled at the new career change that you've made. Well, so Keith, did you hear about the dunk tank that we have this year that you signed up for? You don't know about that? No, I that's well, I missed that part. We'll just bring it up later. Sorry. You might have a few more applicants. We can change former co-workers. Exactly. You'll definitely have some more attendees, I can promise you. We didn't tell you about the outfit though. We'll tell you about the outfit. Excellent, excellent. It just gets better and better. Let it. Yeah, I think it'll be a good big hit. No, uh so well that um from our end, I think you know the goal today was to chat about some of this industry stuff that's gone on. I think that the interesting thing is to hear how that transition from had to be there, type of had to be there to a place that was a party, yeah, right, in some capacity, to now you know, Americans get teased because we're so busy on working, work, work, work. But these events are I think becoming more actual work events in some capacity.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

Um, and I'll be interested to see we could wrap up on this. I'll be interested to see, you know, they say waste expo is coming back for the year after this in Vegas, and I bet you it does. But I'll be interested to see how that show changes because they took a year off. Yeah. And that breaks a cycle. And I wouldn't be surprised if that event is completely different, maybe not next year, but the year after.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

Or is it there? Yeah, good good question. Uh yeah, I I think that uh everybody's starting to kind of figure out that you know what what is the value that really comes from it in a huge expense. Absolutely. Absolutely. And and that's why I think waste nexus is special. Is because it it's it's a limited you know scope. There's not all of the frills and fluff, but you have a tremendous amount of quality time and especially you know the the dinner that was fantastic. You know, it that was yeah, there was an expense to it, but it was really good quality time and quality conversations. It wasn't just you know, how's the family? You know, it wasn't there there were deep, meaningful conversations.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Yeah. We got to find out who went to the uh scene afterwards. Someone went to the casino afterwards. I gotta hear that story. I never cared. I didn't care about that. I was somebody wasn't invited to that. Somebody went to the city. I wasn't my scene. It wasn't my scene. Well, at the moment, the pirates are playing decently enough to it could be another exciting in a night before kind of setup.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

I I I I watched the game last night. That was impressive. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

Well, if uh you're looking to sponsor the the drink tank that uh the dunk tank that Keith will be in. Yeah, the drink tank. It's gonna be filled with beer. If you're looking to sponsor the dunk tank that Keith's in, let me know. We're happy to have a logo on the dunk tank for Keith. But if you're interested in joining us at Waste Nexus, please sign up online to apply. And I review those, so if you don't get in, that's my fault. Sorry. But that's in September, the 14th, something like that. Yeah. That sounds right. Sounds good. Close enough. Check the page. Yep. Keith, thanks for giving us a little history lesson today, and we'll uh be back for more history lessons on other items some other day.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Sounds great. Thanks.

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