Week 5 more training and a Dealer Open House!

Yep, week 5 and a busy week, starting with a trip to Eagan for a meeting with a rep that sells packaging machinery. This one deals with machinery that helps companies with packing the empty spaces around the items they have in the box! Void Fill is what it is called.

This company uses Craft paper in various weights for its void fill, instead of peanuts and plastic bubble wrap or plastic air pouches. Much more environmentally friendly. Which more companies are interested in now, especially with rising costs of plastic based solutions. These machines take paper and crunch it into workable pieces to pack around things in a box. Pretty neat stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2EDeUgIxX8&feature=player_embedded

The link above takes you to an entry level machine designed to provide void fill.

After that 2 hour session it was back to St Cloud with some items I had to haul back up there.

Tuesday involved time in St Cloud and also a road trip east to visit a number of my accounts in Princeton and also Cambridge and into Ramsey MN, where I spent the night. The next day involved a trip back to Eagan office from the north side of the cities and pick up some supplies for some of my customers. Then back up north to Cambridge, and Mora area prospecting, and then worked east to Milica where I toured a specialized pallet manufacturer on an old farmstead where one of my good customers operates. I got a tour of the facility and what they do...very cool also.

Then to Foreston, MN to meet with another customer, where they mill wood for all kinds of cabinet manufacturers, in Minnesota...again another tour of the facility and seeing what products of ours they buy. Then back to St Cloud, to the office to prepare for my next road trip and to meet with one of my customers on some stretch film education for them and also to take some numbers down to estimate film usage and saving based on application by machine over hand wrap application.

Thursday started with a trip to Duluth for a delivery in route to Grand Marias, MN for a dealer open house I would be working at representing the products we sell to the Sawtooth Lumber Company, which started in the mid afternoon and ran into the early evening. It was a great opportunity to talk to contractors about the tools they use and also get their thoughts on a new air compressor I demonstrated, along with showing off some of our nailing tools! They had about 35 people show up and it went well, and I learned lots..and had fun visiting with the attendees.

I spent the night in Grand Marias, on the shores of Lake Superior in a Best Western hotel, the lake was pretty calm and enjoyed the sunrise over the lake this morning for a few minutes before I was on my way.
I also visited my dealer again and reviewed the open house event and then headed south to Duluth.

I arrived in Duluth just before 11:00 am and stopped there to check out the Arrowhead Builders Building and Commerce Show, and did some prospecting, and visiting with various companies at the show, had lunch and then headed home. Pretty much a quiet time, but a chance to reflect on the week and also to think ahead to next week.

As you can see a very busy week, long days but all good, and it felt great to get home this afternoon, and enjoy being home for a couple of days!