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By Nate Derby, 02/23/2010 4:54 pm

Corporate events are unique, complicated undertakings.  A much different breed of animal than tradeshows, a corporate event often has to drive home a compelling corporate branding story or dramatically kick-off a crucial product launch. Unlike association trade shows and conferences, where the general requirements are typically similar from year to year, a corporate event is a totally singular occurrence that needs to be unique, fluid and stunning each time. Also, the planning phase of a corporate event is typically much shorter and has many more contributors and owners who need to be fully included in the process, which results in additional levels of approval. This is why a Corporate Event mandates a different skill set from the general service contractor.

Unlike many other GSCs that have established partners or even their own internal experiential marketing business units that they are structurally required to drive business towards, T3 Expo does not have any arrangements, and we are open and willing to work with any third party provider. As a company we fundamentally believe in providing our focused brand of GSC services in collaboration with any experiential marketing and strategy firm, and making that effort a success. We are truly agnostic when it comes to whom we can and will work with because we have no interest in competing with experiential marketing providers. 

This philosophy provides us the freedom to recommend the BEST and the most EFFECTIVE resources and providers.  We realize and value and talent that third parties can bring to a partnership and are excited to collaborate with them to create the wow factor in a corporate event. We truly understand the unique needs of GSC to support a corporate event and have designed our service assets and products to function precisely, with maximum flexibility in this unique environment. T3 Expo is not an event marketing company. We are not an I&D house. We do not market ourselves as social media experts. This enables us  to work with the best providers, irrespective of business partnerships and structures, to ultimately deliver what our clients are paying us for: an event as successful and unique as their brand!

T3 Expo is committed to servicing all GSC facets of the corporate event with superior execution. Some differentiators:

• Furnishings: we are not constrained by the need to re-rent existing inventory from a warehouse. We collaborate with you and your partners get a feel for your brand and find furnishings, flooring and design that communicate the look and feel you want.
• Partner Booth Design: our award winning designers have plenty of experience working with local manufacturers in an effort to maximize design impact while also reducing budgets.
• Budget Maintenance/Adherence:  we’ve developed a suite of planning tools to monitor and track event budgets in real time, giving all appropriate parties the access to view and update changes.  We can adhere to any budget.
• Workflow: T3 Expo takes the time to truly understand the client’s team we will be working with, then and we will structure our team and workflow tools to specifically maximize efficiency.
• Extension of Team: T3 Expo understands that the experiential marketing company is our client and that our service is an extension of their team. We provide services to achieve the end goal of a successful event for our mutual client. We are not in competition with our experiential marketing/strategy clients.

T3 Expo brings in the best of breeds to make every corporate event a success. We are committed to providing the finest service to our clients and making the most of these relationships. As we said recently on this blog, at T3 a ‘laser like focus on the customer’ has been our philosophy from the very beginning; our core competency is to be your general service contractor.

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By Nate Derby, 02/17/2010 3:29 pm

Before striving to get a bigger piece of the action, the general service contractor should step back and take a good look at the present situation. Are current customers being serviced to maximize their needs, or are they looked at solely for revenue extraction and often left behind as the GSC reaches upstream.

Instead of trying to be everything to everyone – a branding company, an ad agency, a direct marketing provider, a social media maven, we need to find new and innovative ways to serve our clients better and focus like a laser on executing on that vision. Service is about talking to your customers, learning and understanding what their needs are and then building a solution for them. It’s about building a community that creates a class of exhibitors or customers that want to expand, rather than repeat.

Now is the time to really listen and respond to what our customers want – transparent pricing models that won’t leave them frustrated about hidden fees, hassle-free ways to interact directly with providers to answer their questions and solve problems in real time. Or maybe pricing isn’t their pain point and they want something entirely different from their exhibiting or meeting experience…but it’s up to us to ask them and find out. Every single exchange and conversation with our exhibitors and customers is an important part of the event or show process. We as contractors should not work to simply meet our customer’s expectations, but we should aspire to surpass them by providing fresh ideas that will maximize the return on their show investment.

We as GSCs need to reevaluate how tradeshows and corporate events are done at the ground level. We can save our customers a lot of money and headaches by perfecting the basics before trying to sell them higher level strategy or packaging options.

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By Chris Young, 02/08/2010 2:13 pm

A recent article in Fast Company about how WalMart is making significant strides in going green (who knew?!), got me to thinking about how we must all participate in this global business trend if we truly intend to make a difference. Like any industry, the tradeshow and event business is working hard to create green solutions. Especially when considering the paper products needed for padding and shipping packages and furniture, and the energy, exhaust and pollution expended during the shipping and warehousing process.

When we exhibited at Expo! Expo! back in December, one of the biggest ways we were able cut down on environmental harm was making the smart and simple decision of choosing a local supplier. For our exhibit, we worked with Foundation Fabricators and Brumark out of Georgia. Because they were in close proximity to show site, we all together avoided the packaging debris associated with long distance shipping. We also avoided using energy (and money) in warehousing, since we didn’t need to store anything. Because we wanted to create an impactful, elegant look inside our booth, we designed our exhibit using the following green options:

• Structural Panels:  made from 100% recycled post-consumer paper waste
• Carpet Tiles: 100% recycled flooring materials
• T3 Centerpiece: made with environmentally friendly products including green adhesives and corrugated materials
• Digital Signage: By conveying their message though video, T3 negated the cost and environmental waste associated with the usual printed marketing materials

We realized , as we planned and set up our exhibit during the show, that choosing green options aren’t always expensive. Sometimes it takes a little more creativity – but like WalMart uses the grease from their hotdog machines to power their trucks, it IS possible!