I am finally back home after being gone for 3 weeks and am taking a couple days off to settle back in and get my act together for a mad push to crank out orders. I promised a couple of you on here that I would report back on my double rally in Indiana so per their request - here it is.
Once again I learned alot doing these two back to back rallys. I hit a few home runs and made some mistakes along the way. Most of the mistakes I made were due to piss poor planning on my part. 1.) I under estimated the amount of table products to take with me. 2.) Because there were some large National vendors there I felt a little out classed by their elaborate booth set ups.
Sales wise I nearly doubled my orders from last year and finally made it into the 5 figure category. Coach owners were spending money big time with vendors and thankfully I got my cut. My free inspections once again was a plus for me and I converted a better percentage of inspections this year versus last year. If I had to put a finger on why sales were better I would probably say the economy. We had the same number of people in attendance, same location and same number of vendor hours. All the vendors except for two reported higher sales numbers.
On the planning front, I always sell table products ( the profits help pay for the entire trip and all the rally expenses ). I sell 303 Protectant as well as 303 Fabric Guard out of my booth. I ordered it all from MiamiMike and thought that maybe I had over bought as I had placed a large order. Boy was I wrong. I sold out of everything during the first rally and thankfully MiamiMike came to my rescue and bailed me out by drop shipping me more case lots of 303 products. I ended up selling all of that as well and ran out before the end of the second rally.
I dropped the ball on my custom made products ( mirror covers, step covers, windshield wiper covers ). I had the wrong colors or not enough of some items. I sold out of large wiper covers and took in numerous orders for mirror covers for custom colors, mainly because I had stocked the wrong colors. ( I screwed up making them in the wrong color vinyl as I was trying to use up some vinyl stock I had on hand ).
My seminars went very well. I had the biggest attendance figures at both rally's since I started doing these seminars. I was shocked when I looked out at the audience and seen the number of people. But on the down side, and as I concluded each seminar, I realized I need to split them and start doing 4 seminars instead of 2. I just do not have enough time to cover everything in one segment. So this fall I will design and then start conducting two part seminars ( 1 hour each ) on Interior/Exterior Coach care as well as a two part'er on Topper/canvas care and installation. The other part will be on fabric and awning failures. But the plus side of it all was that once again I was reminded that these seminars DRIVE sales BIG TIME.
Jessica, the girl I hired to staff my booth and also work part of the time for my buddy who had a booth next to mine exceeded both of our expectations. She was a rockstar. very professional, excellent with customers and a quick learner. I really lucked out when I hired her for the rallys and she turned out to be a Godsend.
Overall I am over the moon with orders/sales. The trip up there and my time out of the shop was well worth it. I came home with nearly a dozen prepaid orders on top of the " bill me later " ones and am now booked solid till the middle of July. I also have orders on the books for later dates so I believe the two rallys will drive sales into the winter months.
I have regrouped, wrote down all the changes I need to make and have tried to forgive myself for making a couple mistakes. I am my own worse critic and if I could I would kick my own ass. I look back on a few errors I made and can only say " you know better dummy ". Most would be happy but my OCD and perfectionism sometimes drives me insane. My expectations of myself can be extremely hard to live up to. Overall though I am happy with the results.
I am into the planning stages for next years rally schedule while everything is still fresh in my mind. I do know for sure I am changing my rally schedule for next year by dropping two smaller rallys and adding two big ones in their place. I may also add two new rallys as well. Hopefully by then I will have a new booth setup, new banners and will be loaded for bear. This year has provided me with alot of new information and opportunities to better the business.

Chris