Thinking ROI

So the budget is tight. That’s all the more reason to make an investment to attend the top trade shows in the water and wastewater industry.

I served on a school board for a term some years back years. My district was one of the few that sent its entire seven-member board to the annual state school boards association convention.

My contribution to the journey was to suggest that each one of us come back to the first board meeting after the convention and report on three things we learned there that would help us cut costs or improve education. If nothing else, I thought, the exercise would bolster the decision to have all of us attend, versus just a representative or two.

It’s amazing how much you pick up when you go to a convention or trade show with an assignment like that in your pocket.

Worth the trip

Why bring this up now? Because I remember seeing far fewer municipal managers than usual at last year’s Pumper & Cleaner Environmental Expo, sponsored by COLE Publishing, the publisher of this magazine. I’m guessing that was at least in part because the recession had made budgets tighter than usual.

Perhaps cities, villages and utilities decided to stick to the shows focused solely on the public sector, like AWWA, WEFTEC and APWA. Or maybe cost constraints kept a lot of managers away from those shows, too.

Whatever. The point is, you should go to your sectors top trade show, regardless what the budget looks like, and for a simple reason: The budget is only going to look worse if you miss out on seeing new ways to work more efficiently.

It doesn’t take a lot of learning to more than make up for a show registration fee, a round-trip plane ticket, and a couple of days in a hotel. Not when these shows are loaded with instructional seminars and with exhibitors offering new and better technologies.

Stay-home syndrome

Am I biased toward our own Pumper & Cleaner Expo? Of course. It runs March 2-5 in Louisville, Ky. Early registration costs just $40. But my larger point concerns trade shows in general.

For a variety of reasons, not all of them sound, the public sector is more sensitive to the private in responding to tough times. The mantra in city hall is that when budgets get tight, anything that looks extravagant gets cut. And traveling halfway across the country to a trade show, even if in Kentucky and Hawaii, can look extravagant.

But you should go anyway. Or at least ask, and in doing so make the case to your superiors for why. And the why is really fairly simple: Those who stop learning stand still, and those who stand still fall behind.

A good trade show is never an expense. If all a show did was cost money, why go? Trade shows in general would be out of business if they only cost and didn’t pay. Generally speaking, the best shows pay big.

Ask the right way

So the budget has been cut and travel and conferences are restricted. Ask anyway. You may get a “no,” but you can’t get a “yes” unless you ask. And ask the right way.

Don’t just ask for $1,000 or whatever it costs for the show registration and travel. Put the cost on one side of the ledger, and put the benefits on the other. Tell your superior that if you attend, you’ll come back with an itemized list of 10 things you learned that you can put to work immediately to help reduce energy costs, labor costs, vehicle costs, maintenance costs.

And a list of five more ideas that will improve customer service. And a list of five pieces of equipment that can save your department money — even if their actual purchase may have to wait a little while for better times. It might not work. But then again it could. And even if not, you’ll at least be able to say, “I tried.”

I hope to see you at the 2011 Pumper & Cleaner Expo.



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