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Code Word: 'Professionalism'
June 14, 2007
Boy, talk about touching a nerve. My June 4 op-ed in Tradeshow Week has gotten more of a reaction than any I’ve written so far. That’s still only three or four letters, most from ESCA leadership, but the names I was called in them shows the passion my opinion (note: opinion, not article) raised.
Normally, I’d chalk that up to political posturing and move on. But one letter, from Tom and Mike Nelson of Valley Expo & Displays in Rockford, Ill., gave me pause. Their parents started the business in 1972 with a $2,000 loan and a solid work ethic. They wrote: “Thirty-five years later, Valley thrives in this industry because of our dedicated staff who give their time, commitment, blood, sweat and tears. If there is one word to best describe our parents and the Valley staff, it would be professional.”
For Tom and Mike’s sake, I’d like to point out that nowhere in my column did I call contractors unprofessional; nor do I believe most of the individuals working in the contracting segment of the business are unprofessional.
As my use of the word “professionalism” in quotes indicates, I’m referring to the euphemism spelled out in the third paragraph of my column. It’s clear there that what I’m talking about is ethics and clarity in performance reporting brought on by the strict oversight that comes with outside scrutiny – in this case, investors.
I believe stricter oversight by outside parties wouldn’t be such a bad thing, and here’s why: Your customers, the exhibitors, think you charge too much, and often they still don’t seem to know what they’re paying for. I know this because, as I said, I speak to dozens of them each month.
I know contractors have overhead from things like warehousing materials and staffing service desks, and that hourly rates have a lot to do with labor unions, but somebody hasn’t done a very good enough job educating the exhibitor on this. Despite efforts made to itemize their service bills, people balk at paying $65 to have a lamp plugged in. Can you blame them?
And speaking of blame, I also never said in my column that I thought contractors were solely to blame for high exhibiting costs. In fact, I think the responsibility is shared by show managers and venue operators, who expect too many freebies from their suppliers. This is everybody’s problem to solve.
It's disingenuous to pretend I'm crazy or don't know what I'm talking about. If my comments start a dialogue about controlling costs, good. And if you'd like to invite me to that conversation, I'd be more than happy to join in.
Posted by Heidi Genoist on June 14, 2007 | Comments (1)
