• You will hear five different people talking about visiting trade fairs. • For each extract there are two tasks. For Task One,

Speaker One
Woman: Well, there seem to be more and more fairs, don’t there? And all apparently quite unmissable, which is fine, except I do actually have an office, and do need to get things done. So I try to be a bit selective. I try to make sure I’ve got my own agenda clear about what I want from a fair. With this one, for example, I wanted to see how our goods match up against our main rivals, by looking at theirs as if I were an ordinary customer.., noting the specifications and so on... basic market research, really. And it was interesting, gave me some ideas to take back to the office. Some of the brochures and other literature that I picked up at this one were quite striking, very high quality, and that alone made it worthwhile.
Speaker Two
Man: For me, fairs are a vital part of business life.., where else do you get manufacturers, suppliers, agents, everyone all milling around together? It’s certainly a great audience for the sort of talk I was there to do, and it meant I was able to communicate our values and commitment to service. Those are things our suppliers need to understand, so that we can get a full circle of quality from components to delivery and after-sales. And of course, I also had plenty of time to look around, do some networking. I realised there are places we haven’t considered as markets that we should be looking into. The currency situation means our prices could be very attractive outside our domestic markets and get us good sales. So, all very worthwhile...
Speaker Three
Woman: These fairs are getting so big.., it’s frustrating because you waste a lot of time just navigating your way around. I actually wonder how useful they really are in terms of achieving sales. Still, I have to say, that it gave me an idea for a couple of features we could incorporate into our main model, which would make it more attractive, I think. So that was a bonus, and to some extent made up for my disappointment about not securing a new representative, which had been my aim. I did talk to a couple of promising people who cover the Pacific Rim, but there were a lot of complications, different expectations... I realise it’s going to take a while before we can reach a concrete agreement and build a solid marketing strategy there.
Speaker Four
Man: To be honest, I relish opportunities to get out of the office from time to time.., it refreshes the mind, and you can get insights into what you’re really doing. I’m pleased this time, because I’ve come back with the realisation that we can save quite a bit on packaging - our new range of products are selling well, and in fact we’re getting bigger orders than we forecast, and the agents are very optimistic.., which all means we don’t need to package up units individually, and that’ll be quite a saving. It’s important, because it’s getting increasingly competitive all the time, with new products coming out almost every month. The other thing I’ve been trying for is better components, and that’s why my plan for the fair was to identify new manufacturers of processors, because I’m not happy with our present source.
Speaker Five
Woman: It’s amazing the way the industry is developing... I was walking around remembering such fairs just, say, five years ago, and thinking of how many of the products simply didn’t exist then. One of the effects of all this constant innovation is that to stay competitive you have to keep finding different marketing angles. That’s what I was looking for, some kind of fresh approach to expanding our customer base. In the office, I tend to become absorbed in staffing issues, so I need to get out among customers and competitors. Anyway, while I was there I spotted a way of getting value out of our database. There’s software available now which would enable us to analyse customer preferences and provide ’pinpoint offers’ for them.