Trade Show Ideas & Inspiration

If Harold Mintz Handed You $1 Million Dollars

Harold Mintz in a Tutu

If I, Harold Mintz, was your tutu wearing Fairy Godfather and handed you $1 million dollars, what would you do with it? This generous gift would come with one condition. You must spend 100% of it on your business. What would you splurge on?

Many of you have already gotten this question from me because I often ask it during my Distributor visits.

Below are your Top 10 answers (in reverse order). Do you recognize your response?

10. It’s a Schvitz-a-thon out there! Our shop is an oven for at least 4 months of the year. With the bay doors open and fans swirling you could still roast a chicken in the shop. We’d bring in some sort of air conditioning to make life more tolerable for our employees.

9. I’d bring back our showroom. We eliminated our showroom years ago so we could create additional set-up/staging areas. While necessary, we still miss the impact that our showroom had on everyone who saw/experienced it. It was our silent salesperson. 

8. Our website is ancient. We’d upgrade it immediately.  The first thing we’d do is engage with a professional developer to assist with revamping it. We know Prospects and Customers often go to our website, but we are underutilizing this blockbuster sales tool.

7. Add to our rental inventory. Our current rental inventory is ancient and sparse so we don’t offer rentals as much as we would like. We can’t do everything, but it would be nice to handle basic inlines and islands.

6. We’d boost our social media presence. We don’t post on social media as much as we should. We post large, cool jobs but forget about all the other tidbits that Clients and Prospects might appreciate. I’d hire a dedicated social media expert.

5. I’d invest in an LED tile inventory. Backlighting was/is hot. Just about everything going out the door these days has backlit graphics. LED is coming on strong. I’d acquire the tiles and the A/V experts necessary to travel with them.

4. Graphics. We’ve flirted with the idea of bringing in our own graphic production for years but never pulled the trigger. It requires a level of expertise and volume outside our current scope. That said… the influx of cash would allow us to dip our toes in the water or in-house graphic production.   

3. I’d boost employees’ salaries across the board. Everyone took a hit during the COVID Pause. When their salaries were cut, their work ethic increased. They treated this company as if it were their own. We owe them. 

2. More storage space. Our current storage space is full. We make good money on our active clients, and if we had more space, I could fill it with those types of clients. Cha-Ching!

And the #1 comment I hear when “giving away” $1 million…

1. We’d add more employees. I’d use a chunk of the money to find and hire a new batch of employees in all areas – PMs, Sales, Design and Production. Especially PMs.

What would you do with a $1,000,000 gift from me? Share in the comments.

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For 30 years, Classic Exhibits has been designing and building creative custom solutions for our Distributor Partners and their clients. As the largest private-label exhibit manufacturer in North America, we have the unmatched capability, capacity, and creativity to create 3D projects ranging from 10 x 10 inline displays to 60 x 80 double-deck islands. 

Find success on the trade show floor with an exhibit that reflects your marketing message. For more information, see www.classicexhibits.com and explore Exhibit Design Search or request a meeting with a Classic Distributor Partner.    

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