Sweet Home Alabama

Early in my career I learned an exhibiting lesson that I have carried with me ever since: Don't assume, no matter how obvious it seems, that someone understands what you need.

Years ago I was working as the contract exhibit manager for a Dallas-based company. It had lined up an independent trucker to move its display and some equipment from a Dallas storage warehouse to Orlando, FL, where we planned to exhibit at the Building Owners and Managers Association International Show. When the transportation company picked up the shipment, I filled in all the essential information on the bill of lading before sending the driver on his way. Or at least it seemed like all the essential information.

What I didn't write on the document, I discovered later, was a "deliver by" date. But I was sending him off with the exhibit two weeks before the show, and it was a two-day drive. It seemed stupid to need such an irrelevant piece of information. Why on earth would he want my stuff on his truck longer than necessary? But in the end, it turned out I was the stupid one.

Two weeks later when I arrived in Orlando, my freight wasn't there. I poked around and learned neither the general contractor nor the corporate shipping department back in Dallas knew where the truck was. "It will probably come tomorrow," I told myself as I settled in for the night.

By the next morning, just two days before the show, I still had no idea where my driver and exhibit were. So I got in my rental car and started driving. Maybe the truck had broken down nearby. Maybe the driver was sick, or was holed up in a hotel working off a hangover. I drove the same highway he would have taken to get to Orlando, checking every truck stop, rest area, and strip-club parking lot.

After 100 miles or so I gave up, fully aware I had a booth space to fill with something, and that something was probably not going to be our exhibit. By the time I got back, it was late, so I packed it in for the night.

The next morning, I hit the show floor and rented a back wall. I had one sign made with the company's logo, another sign that extolled the virtues of the missing equipment, and a third sign explaining that our booth was in transit. Then I informed my staffers of the situation.

When the show opened, we did our best to network with attendees, but it was hard to generate interest with a barren space. We limped along through day one and most of day two, but late that second day, the truck driver wandered in. "Where have you been?" I demanded. Apparently he had stopped off in Alabama to see his family, unaware that I needed the shipment right away because there wasn't a "deliver by" date on the bill of lading. I was incredulous, but I focused on getting my exhibit set up.

The show opened on day three with our exhibit intact. I was relieved, but I decided I was never again going to write a bill of lading that didn't read like a novella, just in case I ran into another homesick trucker.

- Tom Beardsley, contract exhibit manager, Los Angeles