Moscow Exhibitions: Booth design, trends etc

I just came back from an exhibition in Moscow, called Intercharm. The event was large, expensive and hard as usual. 4 days of 12-hour shifts with little sleep and a lot of presentation work. Since I work in St. Petersburg, some of the issues regarding this Moscow event were somewhat strange to me. Not that I did not know about them, but rather that they seem worth underlining to me.

The event takse place in the Crocus Center outside Moscow. The complex includes 4 exhibition halls a mall, a concert hall and a hotel. The hotel is a 3-star, but during the Intercharm, room rates went up to 400 USD per night. So, we had to live in Moscow and take an hour-long ride in the Moscow subway to the exhibition.

We had the booth designed by a St. Petersburg exhibition company we've been working with for over a decade. They are good guys, but the designer seems a bit lazy. Generally, I draw the booth oiutline in Google Sketchup and send them a Jpeg so that they know, what I mean.

They do the graphics, we approved the final design, which looked somewhat like that:

We have abandoned the idea of using standard-issue constructions, as it is very important to stand out on a major exhibition, given that forst-row booths are somehow NEVER EVER given to anyone except the big Moscow companies.  So, during the planning, my major concerns were:
- The booth should stand out
- The booth should allow to vizualise the goods
- The booth should have a large storage space
- The audiovisual systems should work all right durig the show

I designed some kind of an original system for this exhibition. Out company is not rich enough to compose a 2 meter wide screeo of 4 HDTV's mounted on a frame, so I found a cheaper solution. The wall of the storage room is actually a screen for the projector, mounted on the side of the tower stand to the right. The distance is about 4 meters, so, given the slight shade from the banner, the 3000 lumen projector provides a sufficiently clear picture. It has to be on top, so that the image does not get abstructed by people, working at the booth.

I used my notebook as a source for films, presentations and slide shows, while the camera, connected via HDMI allowed to show large images of cosmetic procedures on the improvized screen. This is very useful, when presenting products for the use on the face. In the nail business, not having a system with a camera feed on a large screen is suisidal.

I have my favorite sound system, composed of a 3 "in" mixer from Mackey, a SHURE wireless system and a  pair of studio monitors (I have been usiung the M-Audio BX 5A for the last 3 years). The studio monitors are powerful enough, still, they are small and can be used at home for the rest of the year. A total of 18 meters of audio cables allows to move the gear freely across the booth.

I always start the exhibition by taking a walk around, asking the neighbours, if the level of sound on my booth is comfortable to them.

Now back to the Crocus center.

Surprises are:
- Paid acess for trucks with exibition materials ($250)
- No printing facilities (only one copy machine at the service reception, making copies for 50 cents a page and printing for 90 cents a page. We always take a printer to the exhibition, as 1500 pages is not the limit for "suddenly run out papers".
- Bad food
- Paid wifi in the exhibition hall. Wifi acess costs $150 for 4 days for 1 computer and mobile internet fails frequently inside the exhibition complex.

Now to the market trends.
It seems that Russian cosmetologists and their clients have decided to go mad. I have repeatedly heard the following phrase: "Blah, you've got c-o-s-m-e-t-i-c-s! Ahh, that stuff never works. We are here for injection therapy only! Well, seems like most of Moscow's well-to-do ladies start having botox at 25 and a multitude of mesotherapy coctails, fillers, gels, placenta extracts, stem cell extracts and the like injected int their skin. This may sound stange for European ears, but it is generally true for the Russian metropolia. Take into account the fact that some cosmetologists often can't boast anything except a degree in nursing and most "injection therapy classes" last 2-3 days "on condition of a purchase" and you will get the idea of what a market that is.

After it all ended, I went to a knife exhibition to hear a lovely story of one of the knife-selling companies having had an exployee arrested right at the exhibition after the police managed to trick her into skipping the paperwork. =) Well, I am so glad I left Moscow for home!

Some new stuff - online Master's

I am currently working on an entirely new thing for myself, that is I have joined a Master's programe in Global Marketing online.

There is a long and sad story with my higher education, which has stretched far too long. Well, anyway, here is my story.

I finished my BA in Sociology in my home city of St. Petersburg in 2009 and wanted a Master's ever since. I rejected sociology right away, took a look at the language studies, but finally decided to take up business. So in september 2010 I won a scolarship for the Master's in International Business at the St. Petersburg State Univercity's Graduate School of Management (GSOM). It is a great school for Russia, member of CEMS and PIM. Shortly, I got dropped after the first semester. Reasons, well...

First of all they told us not to work at all during study. Easier said then done. My mom, who runs the business I still work for said "no + 2 hours of brain washing about responsibility". So I decided to live in a mode of "full time study + work", which proved just great. My week looked somewhat like this:

Monday: Study 9-00-18:45
Tuesday: Study 9-00-13-30, work 14-30-21-00
Wednesday: Work 10-00 - 13-00, Study 13-40-18-45
Thirsday: Study 9-00-10-30, Work 11-30-20-00
Friday: Study 10-45 - 17-30
Saturday: Study 9-00 - 13-00, Work 14-00-18-00

The timetable varied from time to time, but generally looked close to this. The strangest thing was that I did actually manage my studies till November quite well, staying in the middle and catching top grades in the more humanitarian disciplines. The Russian system is built around a symester, ending in exam sessions. From mid-november to December 29th we had 12 exam sessions, which effectively sum up each of the courses, studied during the semester. The rule is simple. 3 failed exams mean automatic expulsion. To the honor of the institution, I found no back door. Hell, I did search! I failed:
- French (Spent the night before the exam at work till 23-30, the exam was at 9-00).
- Statistics (as I went to the exam test, the road was blocked for half an hour to pass an official's cortege). I came 30 minutes late, they just gave me the paper and tooked it not a second later than the deadline.  The corect course of action for this case would have been: hit my head against a wall, go to the clinic, get the paperwork certifying the injury's time and date, go th the univercity the next day and file for late submission. The rules are the rules.
- Corporate finance. I am just dumb at international corporate finance.

I am very anxious about my Master's degree, which I have taken online at the univercity of Liverpool. I hope it goes be

Russia enters the WTO: now what?

At last, our holy motherland is entering the WTO. So wto? err... So what?

Let's take a look at what the Russian public expects of the WTO, shall we?

First of all, there is a strong public concern about domestic industry. WTO will destroy Russia's agriculture, flooding the market with GMO from all over the world and the government will not be able to do anything! Then, all the Russian factories will close down! Every business will ruin, people will get less money etc... Yeah, that means, commies are still strong round here.

Well, here come my conclusions for that:
- The key factor, preventing foreign goods from dominating the russian market is the Russian Customs service. Trouble is, the market HAS ALREADY BEEN TAKEN BY IMPORTS. We import all the electronics, most cars (though there is a number of foreighn brands manufactued in Russia from imported parts), cosmetics, pharma, construction materials etc. Why does it happen today when there is no WTO in Russia? Well, there is no local competition. There are about 1,5 companies in Russia manufacturing cosmetic creams, while there are more than 30 brands imported from Andalusia of Spain alone. Due to the internal conditions fo business, going into manufacture is considered a mad idea. So, with WTO-style (he-he) customs, all the changes we may get are: quicker deliveries, slightly lower prices. I believe, neither will occur actually.

- The Russian manufacturing facilities boast hordes of stubborn working class people. Semi-government owned factories of huge industial scale, these behemoths were constructed to employ entire cities. Literally. Their problems are: they often lack moden equipment, modern finance and modern thinking. Being what they are, such "city-forming plants" become political institutions, pressuring local authorities to subsidize them and the government to provide orders for them to complete. The most striking example of this is in the mili-production plants. Yeah, this goes like "We don't want to fire 50 000 people before the elections, so please, do order 5000 tanks, thank you very much". What is going to happen is Russia will still subsidize them, no matter what WTO courts have to say about this.

Well, finally. Private businesses. As I said, there are few mad men, who invested into manufacture. Nearly everyone either sells or re-sells. Well, with an opportunity of slightly lower prices, everyone will prosper, unless the government will invent something against that.

Future updates + some self-loathing

Earlier, I wrote about making myself do things. So I can have my own business in Russia. I need advice, bloody hell, lots of advice.

The problem is I am a lazy, self-dismotivated bastard. My wife wants me to quit my mother's business, but she wants me to do it for 14-year-old girl reasons, thouugh we are both 24.

Right. So, I havre these massage tools coming to the country and I expect the certificates soon afterwards. Now, my current problems are:

- I am the director general in a firm with little turnover from selling professional cosmetics, which I decided to make an online-selling range, rather than a saloon based one.
- I have to make my own money. No, I do get paid now, but as I said, my wife keeps telling me, she'd prefer 500 bucks a month with my mother at cannon shot distance.
- I don't have people to work with, as well as means to pay them. What this "company of mine" is now making just a bit more than my current salary.
- I only expect demand for the massage tools I am going to import.
- There is a chance, that if I follow my wife's demand and burn all the bridges, I'll find myself not making a living and choosing between selling the car to try to float for a couple more months or getting a job with a salary of $800 a month or even less.
- This mess also jeopardises my educational plans, as I am to start my Masters in global marketing online in August.

Well, what I want to share in the future:
- Problems of cosmetics market around the world
- How to turn creative management into a global crisis
- Democratic vs totalitarian market regulation system. Which is worse.

Stay tuned!

Kickstart: SMM, marketing or sales?

It turns out, I will most likely start with next to no starting captal and with next to no experience in venture capitalism. Shortly, sorry, bro, no money.

Well, here are some pre-business plan ideas. So I have found this supplier, who sells this simple equipment. I happen to know people, who will be looking forward to buy that from me quite quickly. So, clearly, the first steps will be about personal sales. Like, I get a batch, sell most of it, reinvest the funds, sell again.

The key elements for goods for this period:
- Not perishable. An item can be sold after a year in storage with no loss in value
- Light & compact. Cheaper transport fees, less storage space required
- Simple. No service support, no 50-page user manuals. The client knows what to do with the stuff

So, it crystalizes into:

- B2B
- Homogenious assortment
- Maximizing speed rather than quantity

Kick me!

Well, my life has been difficult over the past months. Now, I will have to switch from theory to practice. I also intend to use this blog as a "kick log" for myself.

So the situation is: I work for my mother's business and both me and my wife hate it. I tried to find a job, but with my current age and qualification, the situation looks quite hopeless. My top expectations were around $1000 a month, which is actualy higher than grads normally get.

Still, I want to go on my own, that is start and run my own business. So, here we go!

My options so far:

- Import and distribution of beauty industry supplies to Russia
- Cosmetics from the EU
- Massage rollers and stuff from China or the EU

My goals:

- Achieve a sizeable income by September
- Get free from my mom's grasp
- Use the money to: Fund my Master's and to purchase real estate in the EU\US\New Zealand by 2015.

I welcome any critical responses!