Edinburgh
The trip to Edinburgh proved to be fruitful for our guys as there was a great deal of interest from Scottish and Northern English repairers who enjoyed the chance to meet suppliers and see what was new in the trade. In attendance from Standard Engineering was our Sales Director Keith Malyon, Service Manager Nick Stewart, and lorry driver (we ran out of fancy titles at this point) Dennis Parkes. We managed to reduce our carbon footprint by combining the Exhibition with a few machinery deliveries north of the border.
Nothing quite beats actually handling new products does it? Whether you feel the firmness of a new brand of leather sole, the texture of new heels or the touch the sleek finish of one of our machines, no amount of advertising material can match actually physical contact with the products you use.
This is why we always encourage customers and prospective customers to attend Exhibitions and get a feel for the machines we offer. A better understanding of the power, tooling, extraction and paint finish can be gleaned from five minutes on our exhibition stand is often more fruitful than a dozen nicely worded, pretty brochures.
The next opportunity for you to come and fondle our equipment (!) is at Doncaster Racecourse on Sunday the 26th September, and you are all cordially invited!
This is also why we are keen to invite people to our showroom where they can put our machinery through its paces over a cup of coffee, and chat about how best Standard can help their company.
Wiesbaden
Keith and myself attended the German “Inter-Shue” Shoe Repair Exhibition at Wiesbaden on Saturday 20th March. We managed to catch-up with friends from several of our European associates including Götz, Mebus, Jos America, DSS and Hardo, as well as one or two friends from the UK.
Fortunately our British Airways flight to Frankfurt managed to evade the cabin crew strike over the weekend, and after negotiating the intricacies of the German train system (imagine the complex confusion of the UK timetable, except in a different language!) we arrived at the Exhibition at about lunchtime.
The Wiesbaden Exhibition differs in a number of ways to the Cutting Edge Exhibitions we attend in this country. Firstly it only happens once every three years. When it does occur, the exhibition lasts for two days, so there isn’t that surge of enquiries that you can get at Cutting Edge. Everything is more laid back because there is much longer to speak to everyone. Most stands also serve high quality German alcohol to their visitors, which could be a popular innovation here! Being courteous Brits we, of course, could not refuse any offered beverage.
Certain other differences like an exotic dancer doing hourly shows on one of the exhibitor’s displays may also be popular with UK repairers if the idea was transported to the Cutting Edge Exhibition, if less so with accompanying wives….
Given that orthopaedic and podiatry work is more prevalent amongst Continental shoe repairers, more of the exhibition stands were slanted in this direction. Staples of the UK repair trade such as key cutting and engraving were almost entirely absent.
All in all it was a worthwhile trip, and as we flew back at lunchtime on Sunday we had to spare a thought to those unfortunate people we spent Saturday evening (as well as Saturday night and a good deal of Sunday morning) with who had to be back on their exhibition stands on Sunday morning. Rather them than us!
Cutting Edge Exhibition
As you all hopefully know, particularly if you have read the above, this year’s exhibition takes place on Sunday 26th September at Doncaster Racecourse. This is a truly exceptional facility, which we used for the first time back in 2007. We strongly recommend you make the effort to get there if at all possible as we will be showing one or two new developments which may be of interest.
We cannot guarantee the exotic dancers or German beer, but, if quality, British-built repair machinery is also somewhere amongst your list of priorities, we will have something to interest you.
Gary Lewis
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