It’s been about a week since I’ve thrown down a post and now is about as good as time as any.
I was in Nashville for the past 3 days for a roofing show. I reminisce back to the very first trade show I did with my dad in what has to be at least 12 years now. This was back when I didn’t know a slate ripper from a samurai sword. So we spend a few weeks making this peg board display full of all our tools and ship it to Vegas. My dad has me buy 3 fully equipped suits at Men’s Warehouse for presentation sake. The total was $800 for 3 suits which I still have in my closet and have worn 1 time each. We traveled with another roofer who was looking for an investment from my dad which only adds to the story.
We get to Vegas and we look ridiculous in our full suits selling roofing tools. Remember, I barely know what these tools do at this point. My dad brings over a buyer from one of the biggest roofing distributors and asks me to demonstrate how a few of the tools work on metal (I’m fairly certain he didn’t want to look dumb so he made me a scapegoat). When a 23 year old can’t do a demo right, it doesn’t look that bad on the company.
The better parts of the story were when my dad was gambling. He brought 10k to the house and would play 1k sessions. He got hot in on of them and was up 20k or so. Remember that roofer I was telling you about. He was looking for a 5k investment or so to get him started. Well wouldn’t you know, JC went hard and blew it all. I specifically remember he had a 5k or so hand, hit it, busted, and I quote, “at least I had the balls to hit it.”
So that was my first trade show I exhibited at and I’ve come a long way since then. Now I’m participating in board meetings for associations and people, shockingly and seemingly, respect my opinion. Our vendors appreciate our business which makes conversation easy. There are also new opportunities which I understand a little better each year. It’s always a little lonely traveling solo but it keeps me on point. It forces me to
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