Back home again…

OK…I’ll be honest. I’m NOT back home again yet! I’m sitting in the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport on a 3 1/2 hour layover en route from Kansas City back to Harrisburg. But I decided to go ahead and put down my thoughts and impressions on the just concluded NTA convention in KC. I think it’s better to do this while it’s fresh in my mind, and I know there are a lot of people who asked what I thought of my first NTA. I shared many of these thoughts already with various people, but I’ll bring it all together here,

To be brutally honest, I was underwhelmed. I can remember walking into Marketplace at ABA in Grapevine. There was something in the air (no, not the smell of fear!)…almost like electricity, and it was everywhere. I felt like I was being continuously recharged and invigorated for the entire length of the convention. From opening ceremonies to the final dance/party, it was a non-stop BLAST. That was really lacking in Kansas City. There was no pervasive energy on the floor. In fact, I saw people sitting at tables literally asleep!

Part of that goes to the way appointments are scheduled…the most appointments I had in a row was three! At ABA, I had an entire book, with only the mandated breaks. That helped feed the energy level…when you go, go, go, you keep the energy high from adrenaline, or excitement, or whatever source it comes from. Here at NTA, with sometimes over an hour between appointments, I can see how people slept while waiting.

And some of it goes to people’s attitudes. At ABA, 99.9% of the people are friendly, welcoming, and genuinely interested. I did not get the same impression at NTA. I think there was more attitude per square foot in KC than I’ve ever experienced before. Maybe that’s a positive for some people, but I don’t do well in the presence of — well, I don’t even know what word to use here to describe it. But it wasn’t positive for me…

The food…well, that’s not NTA’s fault, but I will give our hosts their due here. KC, famous for their steaks and barbecue, featured the worst convention food I have ever eaten! As part of the Group Sales Seminar, I teach that you should never skip a meal, a function, or any opportunity. In KC, I skipped several, due to the abysmal quality of the food. Towards the end, I had Operators asking if I’d would please take them somewhere for a meal, rather than face this dreck one more time! Unfortunately, I had promised to sit at a Director’s table for the final Gala (”the Prom”), and couldn’t take them up on the offer! The only good food I had in six days was food I purchased myself outside the convention offerings (the dine-around at Seven Downtown was wonderful, the steak at Dave & Buster’s was great, and the wraps from Mac’s Wraps in the Crown Center were nothing short of amazing…never knew you could pack that much stuff inside a wrap!).

As a Seminar person, I volunteered to help monitor and introduce some of the Seminars at NTA, and they were mostly pretty bad. Poor sound quality, poorer presenters, and difficult scheduling made the ones I attended pretty useless, with the exception of one session on reaching Boomers that was very good. Again, when compared to the Seminars at ABA, there really was no comparison!

I know my team from the Scavenger Hunt is probably reading this, to see what I say about that. It was a blast…props to Marcus and his team (his company does this professionally, and I’d give them a link, but his card is somewhere in my luggage in the bowels of the airport)! But there were a couple of snafus…our team had two questions correct, but were not given a chance to defend ourselves. Instead, since “everyone else had this answer”, we were deemed wrong. It was all in fun, but the OCD in me reared it’s ugly head for a few minutes!

I guess it all comes down to one simple comparison between ABA and NTA. I’ve always been told that you should not expect to write business on the show floor at any convention…it happens so infrequently that you should just sell forward, and follow up to get actual sales. That’s where the comparison I have comes from…at ABA, I wrote a date on the show floor. At NTA, I received a cancellation on the show floor. Does that sum it up?

On to OMCA this weekend, and I’ll have to post my impressions while in the Detroit airport on the way home from Ottawa! And please…no offense intended towards anyone or anything. I will be at NTA in Pittsburgh next November, so I’m not writing it off in any way. It just doesn’t compare right now to ABA…

This entry was posted on November 7, 2007 at 8:25 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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