Michael Ference Fluid Power Marketing

The closing session at the 2017 NFPA/ISD Summit in Nashville was presented by a very interesting speaker named Mike Rayburn.  You may have heard of him as he is a well-known Comedian, Guitarist, and Keynote Speaker.  He illustrates his message using laughter and his amazing guitar.  For more information about Mike Rayburn, just visit his website. The title of his presentation was "The Always Musical 'What If' Keynote Experience for Maximizing Opportunity and Experience.  Some of the key takeaways from his presentation included the key question of What If? Writing music you can't play, and being a virtuoso.  The What If portion of the talk challenges everyone to ask that question of themselves or their business.  What if we could achieve  - - - and then fill in the blank and work to achieve that stretch goal.   The challenge to write music you can't play, which Rayburn does regularly, is to set goals that you can't accomplish - at least...

I have heard a lot of discussion this week at the FPDA/ISD Summit about the future of sales and the supply chain.  One of the topics within that discussion is about using technology to communicate, including social media.  In the past, face-to-face selling and follow ups by phone and mail were the standard.  Those were the tools of the trade for field sales people in most every industry. Obviously, things have changed and continue to change in the area of communication.  I have even heard that communication trends have changed the actual need for field sales representatives.  Outside of serving existing customers, some experts feel that the value of face-go-face selling is declining, especially because so many people prefer to be contacted electronically. When I started in the business world several decades ago, the briefcase and telephone were two of the key tools of the trade for sales people. Ok, I am really dating myself here but you get the po...

The 2017 Fluid Power Distributor Association / International Sealing Distribution Association Joint Industry Summit is taking place at the Music City Center in Nashville.  With over 250 attendees, this year's event has grown to a very robust position thanks to the leadership of both associations. After a wonderful Welcome Reception at the Country Music Hall of Fame in downtown Nashville, the event kicked off with a presentation titled Economic Outlook for 2017 and Beyond by economist Chris Kuehl on Monday morning.  In this session, Dr. Kuehl discussed key indicators for the economy such as capacity utilization, the PMI index for optimism, and the Credit Managers' Index, a new one to me. Next on the Monday agenda were two UID-In-A-Day sessions by Mike Marks and Don Buttrey.  Marks, of Indian River Consulting Group, addressed how distributors must move quickly to address today's challenges.  He talked about innovation sand how the game continues to cha...

We offer many opportunities for our audience to read and review excellent fluid power content.  One of them is our series of e-books.  I would like to invite you to download and read our latest e-book titled, Proper Management of Hydraulic Fluid Systems. Here is a little of what you will find in this free download Follow these 5 simple tasks for efficient hydraulic fluid management Clean hydraulics: contaminant removal 5 Uses for a Hydraulic Filter Cart As I have mentioned in this blog before, we are committed to reporting on cleanliness in hydraulic fluid and have devoted our website Sealing & Contamination Control Tips  to the topic of keeping hydraulic fluid clean and sealed. Take a look at this new e-book and visit our website for the latest content on the subject of fluid cleanliness.

Fluid Power World will host two more informative webinars this year on timely and important topics. Fist, in October, we will conduct Pneumatic System Design. "The benefits of pneumatic power can be realized by following some basic pneumatic design rules for specifying air preparation units,   actuators and valves."  These words are taken directly from our recent article titled Pneumatic design 101:  Go with the flow  and you can find this article on our Pneumatic Tips. This article was contributed by Chip McDaniel, Educational Specialist at Automation Direct.  In this article, Chip gives some basic explanations of the advantages of pneumatic systems.  Our upcoming webinar on Pneumatic System Design will have similar content and further the discussion. Our final webinar of the year will be titled Proper Contamination Control.  Again, we have an  entire  website devoted to the topic of sealing and contamination cont...

In the midst of the current economic improvement for the fluid power industry, our November issue will highlight some very important fluid power topics.  The November issue of Fluid Power World will include: Mobile Hydraulics - Here is a review of the performance of mobile hydraulic systems in extreme environments.  Most construction and mining equipment work in harsh environments and we will examine how they stay productive. Pneumatics - Vacuum is used in many industrial applications such as packaging and automation systems.  This issue will take a little deeper dive into vacuum systems and components. Industrial Systems - Maintenance issues and controls will be reviewed in this focus on industrial, in-plant fluid power systems.  Both topics are essential to top performing machinery. Product Focus - we will have two.  One product group to be covered is protective devices used on many ports and connectors until they are ready to be put into use.  A...

We have some great plans for 2018 at Fluid Power World magazine and digital media network.   Of course, our print magazine has some very interesting and informative content planned for the year and I can send you our 2018 Editorial Calendar with some details. We start the year with our Leadership in Engineering issue combined with Design World.   Every advertiser gets a profile full page in this issue.   In May, we will publish our annual Fluid Power Handbook which is a keeper because of the tutorial information on a wide variety of fluid power components and related products. Our lineup for 2018 includes six other issues with a focus on many markets served by fluid power technology.   Every issue also features editorial departments such as Association Watch, Maintenance, Energy Efficiency, Safety, and more. Turning to the digital side of our business, we offer six websites and e-newsletters including Fluid Power World , Design World, Mobile Hydraulic T...

I am happy to report that the article that we promised to publish in our August issue about efficiency in industrial hydraulics came out very well.  Here is a link to our digital edition and the article starts on page 42 http://www.fluidpowerworld.com/august-2017-issue-set-forget/ In the article, Efficient design in industrial hydraulics, Contributing Editor Josh Cosford gives his interesting insights into efficient design.  The article also appears on our website and here is a link http://www.fluidpowerworld.com/efficient-design-industrial-hydraulics/ So we did deliver on our promise to have an article on efficient industrial hydraulic systems in August.  While you are checking out this article, why not take a look at the rest of our August issue.  If you would like to subscribe, click here .

What is sponsored content?  Well, as I understand it, sponsored content can take several forms.  It can be a custom printed publication, a white paper, e-book, webinar, or others. We at Fluid Power World  offer all of these forms of sponsored content.  First of all, I feel that our content is excellent and the main reason why our readers, who are fluid power buyers and specifiers, come to our magazine, website, e-newsletters, and webinars.  That is where we can best deliver our advertisers' sales message. However, to take content a step further and deliver information that is specific to one company's products or technology, we offer all of the sponsored content forms mentioned above.  Let me put together a custom marketing package for your company for 2018 including the following possible options: Print Advertising in Fluid Power World Web banners e-newsletters e-blasts White papers Webinars  Fluid Power Technology Conf...