THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 19, 1996 TAG: 9609190342
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 76 lines
William D. Kee Jr. has quit trying to impress potential customers with bells and whistles at shows like the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce's BizExpo '96.
Kee's Beach-based company, Energy Consultants Inc., sells computer devices that help homeowners and businesses control their electricity demand. But nary a unit was to be found Wednesday at the company's booth at the Pavilion. Kee had to dig through a pile of product handouts to find a picture of one.
Instead, Energy Consultants drew people to its booth with boldly lettered signs that advertise big-dollar savings from its devices. And then Kee deftly maneuvered them to a loose-leaf binder on a table. Inside it are listed hundreds of his company's customers, a virtual Who's Who of Hampton Roads doctors, lawyers and corporate executives, listed alphabetically by profession.
``People look at this and say, `Hey, I know him,' '' Kee said. Soon, buyer and seller are engaged in conversation that often leads to a successful follow-up sales call.
A big theme for this year's BizExpo is networking - as in computers and telephones. But Kee has learned that success in selling depends on quite another kind of networking - the hand-shaking kind.
Names, faces, business cards, phone numbers, meeting and greeting, explaining, questioning: That's business in its most basic form. Shows like BizExpo, which continues today, are a concentrated form of all this, where thousands of people come together in search of the almighty sale.
Dr. W. Michael Wright was there. A Chesapeake chiropractor, he's a product designer in his spare time.
Wright and his wife, Candi, spent Wednesday collecting the names of potential customers for what they are billing as ``the first designer plant hanger ever offered in the plant hanging industry.''
Wright said he designed the plant hanger, called The Swivler, after his wife kept complaining that their household hanging plants weren't getting even sunlight and watering.
After designing a ball-and-socket system that enables the plant to be rotated, he spent a year researching and writing a patent application - and won it in December 1995. Since then, he and his wife have been trying to turn the invention into a marketable product. After having prototypes assembled by a Sandbridge woodcrafter, they set up a booth at BizExpo.
``We have an investor interested in helping us,'' Wright said, ``But he said, `I need you to go out there and prove there are people interested in it.' ''
If they secure the $100,000 to $150,000 they're looking for, he said, Swivler Designs will be marketing the plant hangers next year at about $30 a pop.
Not everybody was selling products at BizExpo.
L. Denise Breland was selling a concept: Just about anybody can succeed in business if he or she tries hard enough and keeps the right frame of mind. As a representative of Beach-based Wade Powell & Associates Inc., Breland's brand is Dale Carnegie.
She spent Wednesday collecting business cards and handing out brochures for the Dale Carnegie Course. On it were printed goals that the masses at BizExpo try fitfully to master every day.
``Speak more effectively - one on one or before groups.''
``Improve memory for names, faces and facts.''
``Widen your horizons and use the power of enthusiasm.''
Breland was a forensic serologist, analyzing blood and other bodily fluids for the Norfolk Crime Lab, before she joined the Dale Carnegie movement in May.
``I was tired of being stuck in the lab and seeing cops and lawyers all day,'' she said. Now she proselytizes for positive thinking.
Brochures and business cards ever ready, Breland delighted in the parade of people in the never-ending search for betterment. ``There are so many people who've stopped by who have a need,'' she said. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
MIKE HEFFNER
The Virginian-Pilot
A BizExpo '96 attendee carries a bag full of pamphlets and cards
handed out Wednesday at the Virginia beach Pavilion. by CNB