The Little Guy: Service Goes a Long Way
By Rachelle Crum -- Tradeshow Week, 4/24/2006
The world of exhibit transportation is flooded with dozens of companies, big and small. So, distinction is essential if one wants to stand out from the pack.
One firm that is distinguishing itself is Tradeshow Trish Transportation, which appears to offer an unorthodox approach to the marketplace.
It might be unheard of for some exhibit transportation firms to consolidate booths of exhibitors from the same area in the same truckload, provide constant show supervision — and send birthday cakes and thank you cards to exhibitors. But to Trish Huneycutt, it's all in a day's work.
Huneycutt, 36, started Tradeshow Trish in 2000 in Corona Del Mar, Calif. With sales and management experience from Nordstrom and in-depth knowledge of the tradeshow industry via father Gary's now-dissolved TSS Marketing, she began building a solid client base.
Now, with the help of one full-time staffer and a handful of part-timers, Huneycutt arranges booth transportation and takes care of show logistics for about 350 exhibitors who together exhibit at more than 30 U.S. shows each year.
These shows include Surf Expo, Action Sports Retailer Trade Expo — San Diego, Outdoor Retailer, MAGIC Marketplace, The World Shoe Assn. Show, Christian Booksellers Assn. Intl. Convention, BookExpo America and New York Intl. Gift Fair. Her bread and butter, Huneycutt said, is the action sports industry, many of whose companies are based in her Southern California stomping ground.
She said customers appreciate the savings that comes with consolidated truckloads to individual shows, and also for booths that will also appear at forthcoming shows.
John Barnes of Eugene, Ore.-based Harvest House Publishers, said his books and booth need 1 1/2 trucks to get to shows like CBA and BookExpo. And with that extra truck space, he said, Huneycutt will try to fill it up with a smaller exhibit from another publisher located nearby.
"She cuts our costs by grouping them up with us," Barnes said.
Huneycutt said she prefers to stay away from multiple cross-stock shipping, which essentially is having a booth transferred to another truck or multiple trucks on the way to a show.
"Our tradeshow booths go direct. Then we have a lot less chance of damage," she said.
Once exhibitors' booths get to shows, Huneycutt goes to the shows herself to take care of shipment labels, saving her customers the effort of going to the service area. She doesn't leave until the booths are on the trucks.
"I do all the stuff that (exhibitors) don't want to do," she said.
Customer Laura Lung of Bob Siemon Designs, which exhibits in NYIGF, said she appreciates Huneycutt's attention to detail.
"From the time the stuff goes on the truck to the time it goes into my booth, she's very involved and very accessible."
