Let's be clear about what's beef and
what's baloney

Editorial

By Jim Irish

You've been reading about mergers and acquisitions, hardware chain competition, buying groups, supposed "anger" among suppliers about fall trade shows - even the "demise" of A.R.A.

Caution: these days, you gotta be careful that you don't lose your perspective. Isn't it about time we stepped back from this collective anxiety attack and review a few facts and conditions that seem to have been forgotten lately? Consider these points:

1) Contrary to some opinions expressed in a trade magazine recently, the A.R.A. annual convention is drawing as much as 60 percent of theentire international membership - a feat the majority of trade associations would be hard-pressed to duplicate. More important, the convention's value to its delegates is increasing, not decreasing. The A.R.A. board monitors this very closely. I read the evaluations, I study seminar attendance, I talk with rental people in the hallways, I meet with exhibitors - I know. The A.R.A. convention remains the most highly rated service among the membership, every time it's surveyed.

2) A.R.A.'s responsibility is not to protect you from your competition but to help you become more competitive in the marketplace. Take a look at the themes and seminar programs to be featured in the A.R.A Eastern and Western Fall Conferences: both focus on competitiveness. Read Rental Management: every month, it zeroes in on the issues that impact your bottom line. Study A.R.A.'s new "Rental Business Line" booklets about business planning, cash flow and the value of a rental/purchase option in your business. The tools to help you compete are all around you. But no mature trade association acts as a cocoon to shelter members from the outside world. The role of an association is to represent the industry it serves, not to protect one member from another.

3) The A.R.A. and the California Rental Association are not in competition for the hearts and minds of rental people or suppliers. Much has been written about A.R.A.'s decision to replace seven regional conferences with two this fall, and how that decision might impact the success of the CRA convention. CRA is a state association: its mission is to serve the needs of rental people in California. If that convention is a valuable service for California rental dealers, they will support it. I hope they do - it is important for rental people to support their state association.

And if A.R.A.'s conference in Salt Lake City holds value for A.R.A. members in the West, they will come to it. There is plenty of room for both associations to succeed with fall events as long as neither misinterprets its mission. CRA's business is state business; A.R.A's business is national and international.

Tell us what you think about these issues, but don't lose your perspective. Measure what you hear and read against your own experiences. And trust the facts, not the innuendoes.

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