The award for Bertrand in the Best Home Technology Product category was the icing on the cake. A beautiful culmination of this huge and prestigious event. Straight out of American movies. However, it would be a gross simplification to say that Bertrand achieved some notoriety and success overseas only thanks to this award. Because - in my opinion - the recent very positive reception of the company, both in the USA and in Poland, was due to at least several factors, which I will try to present in the summary of the trip to Las Vegas.
First, the decision.
Well, because it all really started with her. Bertrand has already been to the United States as an exhibitor six times. In 2023, the company also exhibited at IBS, which resulted in some sales success in the following weeks. In such a situation, the desire to follow the blow is actually natural, but you have to be careful with your intentions. Look towards a budget that is not made of rubber. Well, the Bertrand Management Board checked it often. Finally, the decision was made: we will exhibit!
And it was the best possible decision.
Secondly – the place.
The hall where the fair takes place is huge. When you enter through one of several entrances to the area where the fair is held, you feel as if you were entering a huge Castorama. Stand after stand, each different and delightful, stretching far and wide. Yet each of the companies that exhibit at IBS dreams of their brand attracting the largest crowds. The visual aspect of the stand is also important - here, depending on the budget, companies focus on various noises - bells and whistles, i.e. more or less spectacular solutions. From dazzling and attention-grabbing LED screens, to large advertising banners hanging above the stand, some people invented miracles on a stick and it made a great impression. One company, for example, had its own space right next to one of the entrances. When entering the hall, it was impossible to miss their HUGE sliding doors that welcomed newcomers.
Well, that's right - the place. Where the stand was located, in what part of the hall, where exactly, all this also had a huge impact on how many potential customers would stop and enter. Last year, Bertrand had a larger stand, but located somewhere at the very end of the hall. This year, somewhat luckily, we managed to arrange a space more or less in the middle of the hall, right next to the stairs and the circulation route. Effect? The Bertrand stand was visible from at least several places - from above, from the side, climbing the stairs. Compared to the previous year, this was a truly colossal positive change. It certainly caused more traffic at Bertrand than during the previous edition.
Thirdly, the atmosphere at the stand.
Okay, your company is at the fair, it also has a great stand location - the key to success is ready, right? Well, not really.
Because you can have a great place, a beautiful, shiny stand with lively music playing, but you cannot forget that in addition to unique products, there are also people working in this fair space. When there are a million of these stands, when each one is more or less the same, when customers pass through most of them, and the chance that they will remember yours is not particularly high, it is these people who are on the front line who can make sure that the customer will look at your company more favorably. They can cause someone, interested in the offer but also delighted with the service, to send you an e-mail after the event. That's how it works. If a customer sees a hundred stands at a fair, if he talks to employees of fifty companies, which one will he remember best?
Atmosphere, commitment of all employees, professional, but not entirely standard approach to customers. This made customers visiting our stand feel at home, felt properly taken care of, and felt treated not primarily as customers, but as people. It was about small things, about such a proactive attitude reflected in the details - asking the customer how he feels, if he needs anything, if he would like to treat himself to a Polish delicacy sometimes.
Such small things, right? But believe me, it worked. Of course, we know that this is an event where we are looking for customers. It is known that each company wants to get as many of them as possible. Normal. Both sides know why they are there. But, yes, you just need to slightly go beyond the template in the conversation. Beyond the usual ones How are you?. Believe me, it really works.
Plus the atmosphere at the stand. We often had it quite loose and I had the impression that the customers liked it. Of course, this did not mean easing up on professionalism, I rather wanted to show that this conversation with the client, the approach to him, was not so painfully rigid. Only normal, human. We joked a lot, which also worked the other way around. We held competitions, gave away gadgets, and finally - as the only company at the fair - we had our own magician, Paweł, who surprised us a lot and also did our job.
Fourth – commitment.
A trade fair is such an event that you have to move fast. It's 9 o'clock, it's time to start, work counts. There is no room for sulking, for whining, for fatigue - there is time for that later. I have the impression that our team was strongly united by the fact that on Monday we worked at the stand until the very end, side by side, with the feeling that we could not fail. Therefore, when the "zero hour" struck, everyone knew that they could count on a friend if anything happened. Everyone was aware that when they needed a break, they just spoke and then went to catch a breath. And a friend replaces him. I know that these are lofty truisms, that any company can write about itself in this way. True. But I also know how much nerves, stress and emotions it cost us to finish the stand ahead of time, that it wasn't so colorful and fun, and I also know that it motivated us a lot to show that at Bertrand the power lies in the people. That's why we didn't spare ourselves while working. When going out to Vegas in the evening - neither. But in the morning, tight and ready, strong and erect like Optimus Prime, we did our job. We turned tiredness into a joke. We nipped whining in the bud. We solved our frustration and problems in the evening. That's why we had both atmosphere and commitment.
Fifthly – the product.
Unique. One that made a difference. He attracted attention. And it's not just about the Infratherm technology window, which won the award I wrote about at the beginning. Americans like unusual, non-standard products that are not necessarily cliche. And we, as Bertrand, had such a structure at our stand. It cost us a lot of time, strength and nerves to mount some of them on the stand, not to mention dismantling them, but we had great satisfaction when we later saw how much interest these products aroused.
I remember that long before IBS 2024, there was a lively discussion in the company about what to show in Las Vegas. Our offer includes a lot of different and really impressive doors and windows, so the discussion was not only lively, but sometimes even stormy as to what to finally send to the United States. I don't know if it was possible to choose better, then we would have to have a reference in the form of another edition, but I know, because I saw it with my own eyes, that the structures looked beautiful not only in our eyes, but above all in the eyes of those who honored us with their presence.
Personally, after the fair, I had one small reflection, namely that you can have a beautiful stand, you can have a great marketing budget, thanks to which miracles can happen at that stand, and that's great. However, the family company from Luzin, Bertrand, showed that you can be a slightly smaller player on the market, but build your advantage on other, not necessarily worse, advantages. For example, fantastic people who are involved in the whole project. And, as one of Bertrand's representatives in Vegas, I get great satisfaction from this.
