Vacation is two weeks away… for your kids! BUT you still have to go to work, punch the clock, and sell displays. It’s never easy this time of year, but our friends at Eco-systems have a solution. In May, June, and July, all inlines and islands are on sale. Plus, you can win cash. As in $111. See the details and contact Matt Wish (matt@ecosystemsdisplays.com) for a version you can email to your client database.
Someone once said that design is easy. All you have to do is stare at the screen until drops of blood form on your forehead. Truer words have never been spoken.
As a designer, how often are you asked to reinvent the wheel while the clock is ticking? What if that pressure had to do with redesigning a kit from Classic’s award-winning Exhibit Design Search? More and more designers are saying, “That damn thing has already been drawn. Wish I could get the model file. Guess I’ll reinvent the wheel again.”
OK, that’s not exactly what the designer says, as she sweats blood from her forehead, but you can guess the R-rated version.
Download Kits Models from Our ftp Site
Classic Exhibits has the cure. We will give you, yes give you, free of charge, our model files. However, there is a catch. There’s always a catch. The models are free. If you don’t see the model you need on our ftp site then simply call or email us and ask for the appropriate model file in the file format you want. That’s the catch.
Did I mention we give away hours and hours of our design time to you absolutely free and only ask for orders in return? I ask you, how many things in this business are actually free? Do you recall the time you took that roll of duct tape (thinking it was free) from the show floor and months later received a bill from Freeman for $125,345,000.00 + drayage. Geez, they’ve got cameras everywhere now don’t they?
Classic has offered this “freebie” for years and many distributors utilize it all the time. These are the same distributors who recognize there is a marked increase in the number of orders that close when their designer is in direct contact with their client. Classic Exhibits, always looking to make you more profitable, recognized long ago that not every distributor has room, either physically or fiscally, for staff designers. Our solution (which is also free) is to be your designer.
Quite simply actually. In a call with your client, Classic designers can be introduced as your staff, offsite, freelance designer, etc. Why do we offer this freebie? Katina Rigall, a Classic Designer, probably said it best in a past blog:
Want a 100% Success Rate? Before working at Classic, I was the lead designer at a custom exhibit house, and I had the opportunity to work directly with end-users on Every. Single. Project. It was truly gratifying to create designs that hit every request, the verbal and the non-verbal. You can hear the excitement in a client’s voice when the design strikes a chord with them — it makes them invested, it makes them attached, it makes them want it, it makes them BUY it.
I, too, have worked direct with the client either as a distributor’s designer or as a manufacturer’s designer. Hell, one time the client was with me at my side in front of my computer for five days. Every one of those deals closed. To be sure not all projects will go as smoothly as grass through a goose or even close for that matter, but you can sure see that the odds improved dramatically. Folks, that translates into money in the bank. Doesn’t get any easier than that.
So those are two of Classic Exhibits Design Department’s “no cost” services that translate directly into black ink for you. To be sure I haven’t covered all the technical know-how, but we’ve kept the process as simple as we can… just ask and you will receive. You can always email Designs@classicexhibits.com, and we will respond like greased lightning.
Classic realizes a designer can’t always avoid forehead hemorrhaging especially with client comments like, “I don’t know exactly, but I’ll know it when I see it.” But, if you make your model request a tear-jerker you just might get one of us to feel sorry for you and send you a piece of medical gauze to wrap around your head.
Inside Info: This guilt tactic won’t work on other exhibit designers as we can’t hear through the layers of gauze wrapped around our heads.
Mike Swartout
Design Director
mike@classicexhibits.com
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Based in Portland, Oregon, Classic Exhibits Inc. designs and manufacturers portable, modular, and custom-hybrid exhibit solutions. Classic Exhibits products are represented by an extensive distributor network in North America and in select International markets. For more information, contact us at 866-652-2100 or www.classicexhibits.com.
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Trade show experts tell us to never eat in the booth. It’s bad etiquette. From my experience, this arbitrary “food rule” is specific to North America. For example, at EuroShop, there was food everywhere, whether served to attendees or eaten by staffers. It’s time we dispense with this food hypocrisy. People are going to eat, so let’s agree on some guidelines. Some food is appropriate. Others not so much. Here are my suggestions of food never to eat/serve in your booth.
Potted meat, vienna sausages, sardines (in oil, tomato, or mustard sauce), saltines, and Milwaukee’s Best. Basically any canned meat sold at The Dollar Store and any beer that costs less than bottled water.
Rocky Mountain oysters, lutefisk, scrapple, geoduck, head cheese, turducken, chitlins, watergate salad, and chaudin. Plus, any meat you can’t typically buy at the supermarket (“Try these yummy rattlesnake nuggets!”).
Fish, ducks, pigs, etc. If it’s hanging in the window of a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, you may want to keep walking.
Brussels sprouts, kale, liver, venison, tongue, lima beans, spam, mystery casseroles, …. this list could be several pages long. Two more: Anything Served at the School Cafeteria on Friday or Anything Cooked by Your Weird Hippie Aunt.
Tuna fish, deviled ham, canned corned beef hash, bacon (sorry), garlic, onions, stinky French cheese, kimchi.
Pickled pigs feet, pickled eggs, pickled sausages… Heck, let’s make this easy and say anything pickled, except pickles.
Please add your suggestions. We all know that the more food that’s available on the show floor, the less we have to spend entertaining clients. I’m all for the day when a client says, “I’d love to go to that steakhouse, but I ate so much at the show I’m going to have to pass. Thanks anyway.”
No, thank you!!!
–Mel White
http://www.linkedin.com/in/melmwhite
mel@classicexhibits.com
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Based in Portland, Oregon, Classic Exhibits Inc. designs and manufacturers portable, modular, and custom-hybrid exhibit solutions. Classic Exhibits products are represented by an extensive distributor network in North America and in select International markets. For more information, contact us at 866-652-2100 or www.classicexhibits.com.
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