ISA 2009 – Bringing the Fiesta Online
I recently attended the annual show for the Industrial Supply Association held this year in San Antonio. Much like all annual shows there was the typical convention center experience with aisles of 10×10 booths all lined up with sales exec’s that didn’t really look like they were having a good time or expected too much from the experience. The ISA is a very well respected member association and really does a fine job at pulling together the industry as a whole and setting up a first rate networking event, but something was amiss. Even with the tough economic times ISA members showed up in strong numbers to the event which speaks to the overall value ISA members get from the annual event.
What was missing in the whole event were B2B end customers. You had Manufacturers meeting with Distributors galore which is proxy for the supply chain in the Industrial Supply market. What you did not have was the flood of B2B buyers that would provide a clear direction and voice for the event. This is somewhat the result of ISA membership but also a misalignment with how B2B industrial buyers are not looking for the products that they require and the distributors that they will work with. Today’s industrial supply buyers are starting to leverage the web to find suppliers at a pace that the industry has not seen before. The truth is that most companies in the sector are not prepared to meet this new flood of potential customers in a meaningful way. Traditional directories and buyers guides are either still in the “Yellow Pages” paper format or at best an online list. Manufactures and Distributors in Industrial Supply today have very few online options to distinguish themselves with the very end buyers that they lust to have a meaningful conversation with.
In looking for an answer to this dilemma I found “the book” of attendees and much like the traditional directory it was a good list and a place to start, but no more than that. I started to look to compare like companies and found it impossible to accomplish this with just the book or frankly with their sparse 10×10s either. So rather than continue searching through the book I simply started to speak with those poor sales exec’s at their 10×10’s. Not too surprisingly, they were very eager to speak with me even if they were slightly groggy from the night before. It’s Fiesta time in San Antonio; if you haven’t been it is a little like Mardi Gras, southwestern style. What these sales execs were starved for even more than a coffee and an aspirin was a real conversation with a buyer. They can only talk to the folks in the other booths about the economy for so long before they simply lose their spark and start to focus on where that evening’s Fiesta will happen.
My questions were simple although somewhat self-serving as I wanted to understand how B2B buyers make their selections on products and distributors within the Industrial Supply channel. I do have a bias that the Industrial Supply sector at large is in desperate need of the type interactive directory driven marketplace that JAZD just so happens to lead the market with. So armed with all my self-serving bias I went ahead and asked these questions:
1) How do you interact with your B2B buyers online?
2) How do you separate your company from the rest online?
3) How much do you leverage online advertising and lead generation to build your business and fill your pipeline?
4) What would you like to be able to do to distinguish yourself online?
Not surprising the answers were largely that companies are not doing very much online although they now are starting to understand that they must change and leverage the internet to reach the market much more than ever before. They all were quick to mention that they knew the end buyer was getting very savvy with how to use the web in their buying decisions and that search was playing a greater role than ever. When asked about an interactive market that was built on a world-class directory platform I got strong interest and some passive resistance after they cleared away the groggy look from their faces. The ability to interact with real buyers in meaningful sales conversations and distinguish their products and services from others was as one distributor put it the “holy grail of industrial supply.”
After attending ISA 2009 I am even more confident that the marketplace is ready, and even waiting for an integrated online directory platform. I am very excited to take the feedback from the many buyers I talked to back to the team at JAZD and continue on our mission to provide the best B2B directory platforms in the world. JAZD will deliver a state of the art industrial supply directory market to the industry in 2009. More on that hot topic in future quips.
-Jamie Bedard