JoshSweeney

Vegas Launch of MechanixLoop

On November 5th I flew out of Atlanta on my way to Vegas to attend CARS ( Congress of Automotive, Repair, and Service ) which is an ASA sponsored convention that is held along with NACE and SEMA. My mission was to assist Mathew Sweezey in the official US launch of MechanixLoop.com.

The event held much promise for us since we were not only going to have thousands of people walk by our booth but we would get to meet numerous industry experts, companies, and press. This three day adventure into the automotive industry would force us to rapidly adapt pitches, approaches, and goals.

First lets paint a picture of the convention and our location. Imagine a massive convention center holding hundreds of booths similar to any large trade show that you have ever been to. But, instead of being one big square it was more like an L shape with two rows straggling off to the side. At the very end of one of these two rows was our booth on an island. No booths directly on either side and only one behind. This was not the original plan but a few other exhibitors backed out which left us in this predicament.

For MechanixLoop, the plan had not changed. We would still draw people in to tell them our pitch. The only difference now was that we would have to work twice as hard since people would walk near the end or the row but not always down as far as our booth.

With a phenomenal pitch dreamed up by Mathew we pulled people in one by one to tell them about what we had to offer. By the end of day one we had received 20 business cards, swiped 67 electronic convention cards, and handed out a large but unknown number of MechanixLoop marketing cards. After a few hours we started to realize that the crowd was more diverse than expected. We focused mainly on repair shops but the crowd also included insurance agencies, teachers, and jobbers. Yes, “jobbers”. We didn’t know what they were either but we quickly found out. Jobbers are the people who sell paints and chemicals to shops. After a little more observation we quickly added a new pitch for each of these segments. When we flagged people down we would identify what part of the industry that they were in and give the pitch.

It was three straight days on our feet and pitching but overall this was a great experience. We walked away with over 40 business cards, multiple potential partners, and 242 sets of contact information from the electronic swipe cards. In conjunction with more than enough to follow up on for the next month I also walked away with more knowledge of trade shows than I ever expected.

Tags: asa, cars, mechanics, mechanixloop, nace, sema, vegas