FingerTec Newsletter

Tapping Two Markets At AFSEC 2009, Miami

(by Tamy Phoon, Assistant Marketing Manager)

Miami skyline

After 28 hours of travel, Regielou and myself reached Miami, Florida on the night of 27rd July to attend America’s largest security exhibition, AFSEC 2009. The weather in Miami was nice, though I was hoping for a much cooler breeze because we come from a country that has extreme summer all year long. But the beach side is awesome, just like what we’ve seen in CSI: Miami without Horatio, of course. Both of us were geared up to showcase FingerTec® at the Miami Convention Center the very next day.

In front of the Miami Convention Center

Miami is the perfect location to attract visitors from Latin America, the Caribbean Islands besides the United States of America. And that’s also the main reason Regie was assigned to this show. How did we split our tasks? When a visitor came and muttered "Habla Español?", he’s for Regie. If a visitor said “How you doin’?”, then he was mine.

Explaining the fact that we are from a small country in South East Asia was tough until Regie opened her mouth and spoke Spanish like I’ve never seen her before. I thought I was watching telenovela. I left the explanation part to Regie since my English didn’t worth a dime to these people. There were some visitors who quizzed her knowledge in Spanish just to make sure that she’s not cut and paste her conversation from Google translations.

The largest security exhibition in North America

The crowd was not impressive though it was claimed as the largest security show, maybe only largest in the Southwest of Nothern America. However, we met a few potential customers who are very keen to proceed with FingerTec brand. One pointer I got from a Puerto Rican guy was, communication is essential. It’s either English or Spanish; it must be proper written language. You simply can’t write a reply with “Thank you for interesting about our product,” it is such a turn off, according to him, which I totally agree. At FingerTec, the management always stress on good communication skills, not only the language, the tone and care for our clients must be taken into account as well.

All our samples were sold and we also received an order immediately after the show. It’s my hope that we will able to sell to Northern America in good quantity by end of the year.

Three things I noticed about Americans. First, they like to say “how you doin’?”, no matter where. Anytime your eyes meet theirs, “How you doin’?” It was weird at first but I got used to it after sometimes because Malaysian culture is not like that one! Second thing about Americans that I took notice was, they like to say “cool”. “Your products are cool.” “You are cool.” “That’s cool.” “Are we cool?” “Cool?” “Cool.” The third thing I noticed, they are very punctual people and the show was closed at exactly 6pm. There’s no 10 minutes leeway given to distributor to pack up, it’s 5:58, 5:59 and lights off! But all in all, Americans are cool people.

The largest security exhibition in North America

After America, we will be in Astana City Exhibition Centre in Kazakhstan from 25-27 August 2009 for Safety.Warning. Security. Mr Batyr at batyr@fingertec.com will be in charge of the show.