Home Center Merchant

BILL FISHMAN

Bill Fishman & Affiliates

1'1650 lberia Place

San Diego, Ca.92128 lUSf as most retailers visit other relf rail ooerations in distant cities, as seminar diiector for the National Home Center Show I monitor as many convention learning sessions as my time allows.

One weekend I attended the National Retail Merchants Association convention in New York and the Northeastern Retail Lumbermens Association convention in Boston. My attention is usually divided between reviewing the room and platform facilities, the quality of the a/v presentation, the stage presence of the panelists, the contents of the speaker's subject matter, and the attention and reaction of the audience.

One interesting characteristic I've observed is that the more moture and sophisticated retailers in the audience are also the most avid note takers. It appears that the more successful the retailer, the more ready he is to listen and evaluate the concepts and experiences of other retailers. I'm sure that most of these note takers have the insight to overlook the puff and gloss of the polished speaker, and the nervousness and delivery of the novice industry panelist. They cut through and extract ideas that should be considered for their operation.

Working with selected candidates for speakers at a national show, I know how much effort the retailer puts into the preparation of his talk. He fears that his audience will be measuring him against the better speaking professional and comes prepared to be less "entertaining" but rather more descriptive of the successes andlor failures of his retailing innovations. Many of our panelists labor for months over their short addresses.

In Boston I moderated a panel of four