It's that time again......twice a year, the Balihoo team makes a trip national conventions for two of our large clients in the carpet industry, Carpet One and Flooring America.  This is the gathering place for local franchise carpet store owners to come together for all things hardwood, laminate, carpet and installation.  But convention isn't just about carpet, this is the place to make connections, meet peers, learn about new products and programs meet with vendors and most importantly (in our eyes), learn more about how to improve their local advertising to drive new leads to through their doors.  
 
As I booked my flight, my room and began to prepare for thetrip to DC, I was reminded of how the meeting and business travel industry has come under attack in the past few years.  I ran across this article, www.Meetingsmeanbusiness.com, which brings up some really interesting facts about the value of face-to-face meetings.

• For every dollar invested in business travel, companies realize $12.50 in incremental revenue. 
• More than half of business travelers stated that 5-20% of their company's new customers were the result of trade show participation.
• According to business traveleres across all industries, 25% of existing customers and 28% of revenue could be lost to competitors could be lost if customers were not met in-person.

Convention has proven time and time again to be the best place to educate store owners on the value of marketing, developing a media planning strategy and the benefit of using the franchise marketing software made available to them by their franchisor. 

We find it to be worth the time and investment to travel and build relationships with face-to-face meetings.  Hopefully all of our carpet store franchisees will feel the same.  See you at convention!