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Note: This text is a paraphrase. To see the entire interview you will need to watch the video.
Here is an interview I want to highlight this week that was conducted at the ExhibitorLive Show 2015 held in Vegas in March with Joseph Houle, VP, Strategic Development, ESI.
Mike Gray (Host): What brings you to the show floor?
Joseph H. (Guest): Well, there are two things that bring me here to the show floor. Meet with customers, that are our clients, exhibit managers, exhibit coordinators and second thing is the technologies that are coming out of the vendor side. We are seeing some real cool things this year that are not only going to enhance our experiences for the client but also to get the advantage in selling these entities, that haven’t been widely spoken about yet, to better the situation for the client.
Mike Gray (Host): Tell us a little about ESI?
Joseph H. (Guest): ESI has been around 32 years. I myself partnered 2 years ago with Robert Hopkins. We are basically trending in a lot of things in change. By change we mean that we are unlocking a lot of things that ESI was doing and I try to up the game like the new website that we launched just a week ago. We are the social media site on you-tube, our new Facebook page, fan page and also LinkedIn. The seminar that we were at yesterday and met Eric Lee, one of the co-founders of LinkedIn, who started a new company that is going to cater to this industry and that is one of the focal points to be here to learn about what his new company is going to be doing in the future.
Mike Gray (Host): If you had one thing you would like to say to the trade show community, what would that be?
Joseph H. (Guest): I have one word and that is “Global”. The sand box has expanded and what I am trying to say is today we have expanded nationally and internationally. It is a necessity as the program that we want to achieve and captivate, you have to have those capabilities in all those sectors like we have our headquarters in Chicago and another facility in Vegas, New York, Orlando etc. When I say facilities, I mean these are our partners. There is a good reciprocal, win-win for both parties and in this venture we are headed, we cannot do it alone and the Global aspect is that you have to have buy-ins from other countries so that they can validate that you are real. There are a lot of gaps that people do not realize what people overseas are looking for. They cannot understand as to why we are 30% higher than overseas in labor, construction and so forth. I comfort them and say that there a lot of extras here that happens in shops and the US dollar and this is what we have to explain them effectively which gives them the confidence to validate us.
As always please respond with your questions or comments and let others know about ExhibitorLounge.com. We will see you next week. Until then I’m your host, Michael Gray, telling you to relax in the exhibitor lounge.