Saturday, September 8, 2012

Dealer Event of the East for October 2nd & 3rd & AL East Pennant Race

Back in the grand old days of the copier industry, there were no dealer events and shows. 

Once every year a National Office Equipment Show would be held in the US, every other year the show rotated from an eas to west venue,  Back in the day the show was called NOMDA (National Office Machine Dealer Association).  I had the chance to only go to one NOMDA show that was held in Atlanta in the early nineties and it was an awesome experience.  Every copier manufacturer was showing their latest and greatest in copiers, fax machines and duplicators.  The after hour parties were also exceptional.  I can remember crashing a Ricoh party one night were the theme was to something to do with the Wizard of OZ.  Years ago when sellling copiers when someone told me that they were considering a Ricoh my favorite response was "whats a Ricoh"?  My times do change right?

Time changes everything and NOMDA is now known as BTA (Business Technology Association), BTA is the trade organization for Office Equipment Dealers. BTA has a long laundry list of exceptional services that are available to the Office Equipment Dealers such as legal services, advocating for the dealer channel (this would include many new laws that may be coming to states for hard drive data destruction and deletion), monthly webinars, education and a BTA Market Place.  The Print4Pay Hotel is now a BTA member and I'm excited about having access to additional information that can help me grow a bigger and better Print4Pay Hotel.  I've only scratched the surface of the BTA offerings, I recommend you go here and take a tour of their web site and become a BTA member.

With many manufacturers now offering their own dealer shows, the National type show has not been around for sometime, however BTA does a really awesome job of presenting District BTA shows and events.  One such District event is schedule for October (2012) the 2nd and 3rd in Rye, NY.  This event will open at 3:30 PM on the October 2nd with a keynote by Norihiko Ina, President and CEO of Kyocera Document Solutions (I'm going to ask him if they purchased the Sharp MFP division, hehe).  A welcome reception will follow at 5:30PM where attendees will get a chance to network and visit exhibiting sponsors (more than 30). October 3rd will see breakfast from 7AM-8AM, followed by opening comments and three education sessions. Lunch and then another 2 education sessions and then closing comments.

The BTA event is unique in that all of the events, seminars and exhibiting sponsors are all in the same room.  Exhibitors will also have door prizes and you'll need to be present to win, this creates an extremely fun atmosphere at the end of the show. After the show about 5:30PM buses will leave for Yankee Stadium where attendees will be able to take in one of the last ball games of the regular season and by all accounts it could be an awesome experience with the pennant race being so close! If you're interested in signing up, click here.

As we all know, we can never stop learning, knowledge is the key to driving profit and building your business, BTA provides an important service that will help dealers build their business while keeping dealers up to date with the latest trends and market information.  I will be at the show, I'll do some live tweeting, some blogging and an excited to be a part of the BTA experience.  If you're a Print4Pay Hotel Member or a reader of the mfpsolutions blog please make sure you say hello. I'll be looking forward to shooting the breeze with everyone!

-=Good Selling=-

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