A business case for STLE’s annual meeting

Dr. Robert M. Gresham, Contributing Editor | TLT Commentary March 2009

Maintaining your ties to the lubricant community is one of the smartest investments you can follow in a challenging economy.

 

KEY CONCEPTS:
• Improving technical knowledge and maintaining ties to the lubricants community is critical during tough times.
• STLE’s 2009 Annual Meeting & Exhibition offers unique opportunities to marketers, researchers, consultants and senior managers.
• For individuals seeking work, STLE’s conference is a great way to establish contacts and reaffirm your technical credibility.

One of STLE’s core strengths is its diverse membership. A demographic breakdown of our society looks like this:

• Sales and marketing—38%
• Research/corporate R&D—19%
• Senior management—11%
• Engineering—8%
• Consultant—5%
• Maintenance—3%
• Others—10%

Everyone is concerned about the current economic situation, both globally and in the U.S. Some of us are concerned because our companies are or have announced major layoffs. Many members are concerned about their futures because their companies are either acquiring other companies or being acquired, leading to consolidation in some form. Others are concerned about lower consumer spending that leads to reduced sales numbers and perhaps plant closings. Still others are concerned that with all the federal government’s bail-out spending, budgets for government-funded research and development will evaporate.

In this challenging business climate, short-sighted members of the lubricants community might be tempted to view STLE’s upcoming Annual Meeting & Exhibition, May 17-21 in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., as an escapist boondoggle for golf, tennis, Disney World and a dozen trips to the cocktail lounge. Savvy business types, however, recognize that despite its resort location this year (following meetings in Calgary, Philadelphia and Cleveland) STLE’s annual conference still offers a dozen hard-core business benefits.

Following is a series of business reasons why members in specific business groups need to attend STLE’s 2009 Annual Meeting & Exhibition as a defense against an ever-challenging business environment. Let’s take a look at the various communities within STLE and examine why coming to Florida this May is one of the smartest moves your organization can make.

SALES AND MARKETING
What are the key issues for this important group of STLE members? First and foremost is increasing sales—that is Job one. How does someone in a sales position in our industry increase sales? Certainly by asking for the order, but how does the salesman get in the position to ask for that critical order?

First, he must get access to the customer, and then he must present himself, his company and his company’s products and services in a credible, informative way that positively differentiates him from the competition. To keep the sale, he must have the technical experience and skills to solve the problems encountered in the normal course of business: specification and quality documentation; shipping, handling, and storage; condition monitoring; lube program management; best practices and troubleshooting, to name just a few.


STLE’s annual conference offers a variety of technical and professional development opportunities you can’t get anywhere else.

Attending STLE’s annual meeting can help salespeople get the order, both directly and indirectly, depending on the individual’s particular business and resume. Attendance helps directly by positioning the salesman in a neutral environment where he can encounter a number of potential customers in the halls, meeting rooms, Commercial Marketing Forums and, of course, the trade show. Each of these venues provides the aggressive sales rep with opportunities to talk with customers, learn of their problems, discover new solutions to those problems, make a presentation of the company’s products and services and, for certain, ask for the order.

Further, there are other companies present with whom the salesman might partner to facilitate or finalize the sale. Examples for a lubricant salesman might be condition monitoring service providers, like oil analysis labs, filtration companies, central lube system providers, consultants or similar support products or services.

Indirectly, attending STLE’s annual meeting helps the sales rep get the order in a variety of ways. By participating in the society’s committees, education courses and similar peer-recognized activities, a sales rep can position himself as a credible individual in a complex industry.

Of course, what better way to accomplish this goal than by preparing for and taking one of STLE’s three certification exams? STLE-certified individuals are known to command at least 10% higher salaries because these salesmen can and do get the order. The more certified individuals a company has on its payroll, the higher its expectation for increased sales and retention of current sales.

This makes such good business sense that it seems like just plain old common sense. Attendance at STLE’s annual meeting also can help companies prepare their employees for certification through STLE’s education and technical programs, while at the same time keeping them in front of their customers at the trade show booth and related opportunities. In addition, salesmen can hone their presentation skills in the courses, technical programs, Commercial Marketing Forum and trade show booth.

Finally, both sales reps and their managers can use STLE’s annual meeting to benchmark their products and services, booths, presentations, literature and the like, as well as through information interviews with recognized industry leaders.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Let’s list the important issues for this critical segment of STLE’s membership: (1.) securing or retaining funding through presenting and publishing credible, peer-reviewed research, (2.) establishing a credible technical reputation and (3.) staying at the cutting edge of research in the individual’s major areas of interest.

Attendance at STLE’s annual meeting helps with these and related issues, both directly and indirectly. First, publishing in STLE’s journals, especially Tribology Transactions, and presenting the work to peers directly establishes the individual as a cutting edge researcher in a specific topic area. Transactions is an important journal, as it is highly regarded in the industry and enjoys a very high cite rate compared to competitive journals.

For the researcher, it is probably equally important to listen to the research presentations of peers to look for opportunities to collaborate with other research groups better positioned to investigate some aspect of a given problem. In addition, the opportunity to talk with peers about their research provides a valuable opportunity to exchange ideas, explain the thinking behind assumptions used in developing project hypotheses and talk in greater depth about the problems and issues involved in an area of scientific study. All of these activities can directly affect the conduct of an individual’s research, leading to successful solutions to problems and opportunities to publish.

Further, STLE’s annual meeting provides indirect opportunities for researchers. For example, interacting with the industrial community could result in funding for a research project by a corporation seeking in-depth understanding of an area affecting its business. Serving on technical and administrative committees helps to establish the individual as a thought leader in the technical community. This visibility makes it easier to attract students for research programs, funding for research and opportunities for collaboration.

Showcasing students in activities like the student poster program not only adds to an individual’s visibility and quality of research work, it also provides an opportunity to benchmark one’s students vs. peers and evaluate potential post-doctoral candidates. Finally, the trade show is popular with researchers because it helps them understand testing services and machines, learn about new products and expand their contacts with corporate people.

In addition, Taylor and Francis, STLE’s main publisher of books and Tribology Transactions, has a booth in the trade show. This is an opportunity to review new books on topics of interest and become involved with new book projects.

SENIOR MANAGEMENT
What are the key issues for senior managers that attendance at STLE’s annual meeting helps to address? The list is long.

First, almost obviously, is benchmarking vs. industry standards, best practices and, of course, competition for such things as corporate image, quality of employees, sales literature, research, presentations, products, services, trade show booth and overall company health and competitiveness.

Second, STLE is the place to look to the future by seeking answers to such questions as:

• Is our research effort pointed in the right direction for the company’s long-term strategy?
• If not, is there technology that can be licensed or companies that would make good acquisition candidates?
• Are there people or consultants who should be hired? Are there research groups in academia that could be funded to handle the more advanced problems?
• What are the new market opportunities or niches that our company should enter?
• What is the regulatory environment? Are there new regulations on the horizon?

Third, senior managers can develop credibility and industry relationships with actual or potential customers, vendors and thought leaders in the industry through serving on various STLE technical and administrative committees. Such relationships are an investment in the future to improve market awareness and to facilitate solving or resolving problems. STLE also is an opportunity to facilitate hiring new people.

CONSULTANTS
Attending STLE’s annual conference is a critical investment in time and money for this important part of our membership with both direct and indirect results. What are the critical issues for a consultant?

Of direct benefit, attendance at a conference where actual or potential customers attend, like STLE’s annual meeting, is a cost-effective way to meet with a large number of such people, to review ongoing projects and to talk about future projects.

Indirectly, attendance at STLE’s annual meeting increases the consultant’s visibility in the marketplace. Volunteering to serve on various technical and administrative committees further increases visibility and establishes credible relationships in a neutral environment. Presenting technical papers or teaching an education course establishes technical competence and increases visibility as an industry expert.

Finally, most consultants need partnering relationships with any of a number of vendors. Again, attendance at an STLE annual meeting provides a cost-effective opportunity for a consultant to enhance these relationships and, in some cases, schedule tactical meetings with customers or service vendors.

OUT OF A JOB?
Attendance at STLE’s annual meeting can help! According to Jeff Aulenbach, an ICF-certified career coach, an individual can do several things to repackage himself in the face of a job loss. STLE can and does provide these benefits.

The first step is to hold information interviews—learn who the industry leaders are and what they consider important to the industry’s survival. Where better than an STLE meeting to learn who these people are and to interact with them in the halls, discussion forums and trade show booths?

Second, unemployed professionals are urged to attend conferences where industry leaders go to see and be seen and to develop relationships with key people. Where better than an STLE meeting to learn who these people are and to interact with them?

If you can’t get on-the-job experience, participate in blogs and volunteer in associations and conferences. Where better venue than an STLE meeting to participate with key people on committees and to network with them? This is a chance to reach people who do the actual hiring, not just human resources personnel. Where better than an STLE meeting to learn who the people are who do the hiring and to interact with them? Tap into your network of friends in the industry to find opportunities.

In addition, executive-search managers in STLE’s membership regularly attend the conference. This is your opportunity to network with them—a critical step in finding a new job.

Finally, create your own Web site, Facebook and LinkedIn pages as a way to stay visible and interact. STLE’s Web site also has a Career Center where an individual can post his/her resume.

The case is clear. A challenging economy is not the time to reduce your investment in technical knowledge or weaken your ties to the lubricants community. Stay tough, stay focused, maintain your critical business disciplines—and I’ll see you this May in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.


Bob Gresham is STLE’s director of professional development. You can reach him at rgresham@stle.org.