The market is rapidly evolving. Every month something is happening that will affect your business, and often those changes are so subtle that they are hard to spot. Each day, you go to work hoping for a great new business lead to walk in the door, or at least hoping that you won’t lose sales to the competition; and every evening you are visited by those nagging suspicions that one of your competitors is getting ready to deliver a big advertising campaign and launch some new products.
Maybe your business has been growing steadily right along with the housing boom, the boom everyone predicts can’t last much longer. You know that softener sales track hand-in-glove with housing starts, so you expect your softener business to drop when housing starts declining. It’s probably right about now that you begin to think about adding a new line or getting into another niche market in your area to smooth out your cash flow.
Maybe there are some small boilers in your market that you could be servicing. This business is nearly recession-proof. Perhaps there are some cooling towers in your area that need servicing too, or maybe a food processing plant that could use some help with its water. All that is standing between you and this business is knowledge. Face it, you don’t feel confident that you could take on this business because you don’t know the basics and you are worried about the liabilities.
WQA Aquatech USA Show
The right knowledge and the best products are not easy to come by. This gap may look like a chasm to you because you don’t know where to start looking and you don’t have the time to do the research. Well, worry no more. This past year, the Water Quality Association has reinvented its tradeshow to make it a true “Water Opportunity Show”™ for North America. The WQA Aquatech USA show is designed to bridge that gap and help build business. The WQA Aquatech USA show focuses on the household, commercial, light industrial and medium industrial markets. All of these markets share some things in common. First, the largest industrial companies usually can’t afford to go after these markets because the typical application is small, yet no less demanding in service, sales and main-tenance. Second, the margins are pretty good if you know what you are doing and avoid the mistakes that often come from a lack of knowledge. And third, these accounts often require the expertise of someone local. The WQA Aquatech USA show brings together all of these markets to help water treatment professionals direct their business into new niches.
Key Show Elements
Some key elements of the WQA Aquatech USA show are:
- More than 350 exhibitors;
- More than 5,000 attendees;
- Scores of education opportunities designed to train you and your staff in these key opportunity areas; and
- Many exhibitors offer consultations and seminars in their booths to help you launch into these new niches.
Location
The WQA Aquatech USA show is full of opportunity, so plan to attend the show from March 28 through April 1, 2006. The show will be easy to reach by air and car (located near O’Hare airport in Chicago) There are plenty of hotels and more than 60 top restaurants in the area, plus it is just a 20-minute drive to downtown Chicago.
Chicago is one of the top three convention destination cities in the U.S. for the water treatment industry. Chicago is a perfect blend of an international convention city and a huge market. O’Hare airport is the world’s busiest with direct flights to more cities and countries than any other airport. Within a four-hour drive are thousands of household dealers, industrial dealers, consulting engineers and end users. The Great Lakes area is the largest “problem water” area in the country.
I encourage you to attend. You can’t afford to hide under a rock; your competitors will be there. wqp
