Five Take Aways from BTA Spring Break in New Orleans

BTA SOUTHEAST REVIEW

SPRING BREAK- NEW ORLEANS March 18^th and 19^th 2016

This was the main focus and theme of the BTA Southeast event in New Orleans this year.

Are you embracing the managed IT services opportunities within your customer base — or are you leaving money on the table while risking having your customers stolen by the competition?

Managed IT services cannot only provide a new revenue opportunity, but can also help to diversify your services offering and protect your base. Many of your fellow dealers are moving in this direction or have plans to do so. A December 2014 survey of dealers by InfoTrends, the market research firm, revealed that 73 percent of the office technology dealers responding to the survey who did not offer managed IT services at the time had plans to do so. Plus, among the dealer respondents offering managed IT services at the time, 94 percent projected that their involvement in managed IT services would increase over the next five years. Are you on track with your managed IT services strategy? With a focus on managed IT services, the Spring Break event, hosted by BTA Southeast, will help you better prepare your dealership to claim a greater share of this burgeoning opportunity. 

An important message for the dealer community as a whole. While some of us have made the move to either develop our own in-house IT services division or partner with an external IT support company, this is a critical step forward in the ever changing office equipment industry survival 101 plan.

There were many excellent educational sessions on how to achieve these goals.

Here are my top five take aways from BTA  Spring Break 2016

1. Spring Break Sponsors- Each person at every sponsor booth I visited took the time to explain to me exactly what their company offered and how it could help my company achieve our business goals. They effectively answered every question I asked and provided new tools and capabilities that I have shared with my co-workers. Without these sponsors, the event would not be possible. I would especially like to give a BIG thank you for our P4P Hotel sponsors who were in attendance.  Print Audit (www.printaudit.com), Polek & Polek (www.polek.com), LCA (www.leasecorp.com), Muratec (www.muratec.com) and ESP Surge (www.espei.com).
2. Keynote Address- Dr. Steven Shepard “The Dance of the Generations”. www.shepardcomm.comFrom the “Silent Generation” of WWII who were adaptive because they had no choice to the “Baby Boomer”, Idealists of the 60’s who were the Lone Ranger generation.I will remember this the next time I am in front of the decision maker as I try to figure out which generation he or she comes from in history.Then the “Gen X” group who are nomadic-AKA the Jerry Maguire generation and finally the Millennials “Institution Builders” TEAM oriented. Dr. Shepard’s interesting dissection on how each generation has evolved in accomplishing their goals and how they think really clicked.
3. Andy Slawetsky- Educational Session “Reaching new heights through Social Media” http://www.industryanalysts.com/From Twitter to Facebook to your company’s website to Google and let’s not ever forget the importance of LinkedIn.If you are not utilizing social media to the fullest extent then you are not taking advantage of one of the best ways to market your company and sell your goods and services.  Great session Andy. I am re-reading my notes from your talk daily.His statement “Regarding the internet, what’s in front of you is now” really sends a strong message. Being current is the key.I must say that after this session I was re-evaluating all the ways to utilize social media that I had not thought of previously.
4. BTA’s Linda and John Allwood- What a great job putting BTA Southeast Spring Break together. I don’t know how you do it but what an amazing result. And thank you for helping sort out my hotel issue before arrival. You definitely took care of me as an individual and it will not be forgotten.
5. New Orleans itself. Since this is the first time I have been to the “Big Easy” it was not what I expected. I suppose the things on TV I have seen about Bourbon Street sort of skewed my perception. It is really a very charming city, especially the garden district, old architecture and history associated with such a unique place. I was fortunate enough to bring my wife along for the trip and everyone we met were courteous, engaging and above all down to earth. Considering the rowdy reputation associated with New Orleans we were pleasantly surprised. We definitely plan on returning in the future to spend more time exploring this beautiful destination.
6. Bonus Item- The Stomach Virus. Self explanatory. Other than this the trip was great.

-=Good Selling=-