Editor's Focus

Representing one’s company at a trade show—let along preparing for it and following through on what has been learned afterward—can be a stress-inducing experience. The comforts of home must be left behind, sleep is usually sacrificed before and during the event, and a willingness to hear what customers have to say (whether good, bad or confusing) must be maintained throughout the two or three days of the event.

A bustling exhibit hall can be disorienting with its attendant noise and announcements. (A silent exhibit hall, it should be noted, is probably more dismaying, as it signals that the show may not be delivering on its promise of bringing together vendors and their customers.)

Yet while a trade show can interrupt life’s routines, the benefits of a well done trade show cannot be discounted. For scrap recyclers, the annual convention of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc. (ISRI) provides one of the best opportunities each year to stay in touch with their market connections and the wider issues affecting the recycling industry in the future.

The day-to-day rush to manage a business can leave too little time to consider long-range planning needs or to read and hear about factors that may affect one’s business two, three or five years down the road.

As publishers of a trade magazine, we like to think that our publication offers one helpful resource in the battle to look beyond daily buy/sell transactions. But additionally, the ability to leave the office for a few days and devote one’s attention to the wider industry can be a key benefit of a trade show such as the ISRI Annual Convention, which takes place this year in Las Vegas March 11-14.

Trade shows can also help future business prospects in another important way. Many scrap companies have firmly established relationships with other companies that they feel comfortable trading with or selling to. While on the one hand such trust-bound relationships are vital, on the other hand moving in a circle that is too small can leave a business owner with difficult adjustments to make if a favored trading partner departs from the business scene.

For a scrap dealer to move in a small circle is becoming problematic. Business owners and managers are assaulted with headlines and book titles reminding them that the economy is more global than ever before. Many scrap dealers do not need to be reminded, as they have seen consuming markets (and in some cases, generating customers) move further away. The new contacts made at a well-attended trade show can help widen that all-important circle.

Finally, the technology of processing and purifying scrap is not standing still. Processors who want the widest possible market offer the best metals chemistry or cleanest paper grades they can put together. As many have learned over the past two years, even though the price fetched can still be disappointingly low, there is always a market for a clean grade of scrap. A lower grade, on the other hand, may be removed from some purchasing schedules altogether.

The ISRI exhibit hall offers a temporary but fully leased shopping mall of vendors, one of whom might just offer the technological solution a recycler needs to improve the shipments being prepared.

So when the world comes together—or at least the scrap recycling segment of it—at an annual convention and trade show, forward-thinking business owners tend to pay attention.