Your Industries Trade Shows are Boring

If you want to learn some great ideas, attend a trade show or a conference within your industry.

If you want to learn some revolutionary ideas, attend a trade show or a conference outside your own industry. In fact, go as far outside your industry as you possibly can.

I have had staff attend fashion trade shows to learn about colours and merchandising. If you run a clothing store – attend a heavy equipment show. If you run a specialty food store – why not attend a technology show?

I have attended conferences and learning sessions far outside my industry. We’re in the retail garden centre business and our profit sharing plan came from the manufacturing industry (modelled after the system is used by a major manufacturer in the US Mid-West). Our managing partners program is modelled after same program at a major North American steakhouse chain.

I find that every time I attend a conference within my own industry, everyone talks about the same problems and the same solutions that we have been doing for years. However if you attend a conference from outside your industry, you may find that the other industry has a solution to your problem already figured out and in practice.

Learn from others, take their best practices and adopt them for your own use in your business and you could potentially find something truly amazing and revolutionary inside your own industry.

Good luck!

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