Best in show: Utah companies shine at the outdoor retailer show.

• Author: Lewis, Di
• Position: Business Trends

Twice a year, thousands of businesses converge on Salt Lake City for the Outdoor Retailer Show.

The focus may be the same for every company, but the goals and the process are not. For locally based companies, the goal for the show could be anything from better brand recognition to meeting with retailers to launching a new product.

Getting ready for the winter show, the largest industry gathering in North America, is a months-long process. Businesses work hard to meet deadlines and have information ready to sell their products. Three Utah companies and one nonprofit explain what it takes to get ready for a show that can drive sales for the next six to 12 months.

Getting Started

Kim Sorensen never thought her husbands diet would launch a successful business, but that's exactly what happened. After shaking up a protein drink and still finding lumps of the mix, Steve Sorensen stopped by a store to get some wire and come home to create the BlenderBottle.

Seven years later, the company is launching its new product, the BlenderBottle SportMixer, an alternative to the classic model that's aimed at the outdoor market. This winter was the company's first time at Outdoor Retailer.

Having a new product to launch makes getting ready both easier and harder, says Sorensen, BlenderBottle co-founder and COO. "It was a massive amount of work to be working on both concurrently," she says. "On the other hand, it makes for an exciting show. It's just a lot more fun when you're launching a new product. Generating interest, obviously, is a lot easier when you have a new product."

For Dean Cummings, CEO of newly formed H20 Outdoor Gear, seemingly simple tasks like booth placement and public relations start six months before the show. Getting the samples ready to present to interested manufacturers is a solid year's worth of work.

Not everyone has the same amount of effort going into the run-up. For example, Gear to Grow, a Midvale-based nonprofit, didn't have as much prep work as other organizations, says J.T. Von Lunen, co-founder of Gear to Grow. Gear to Grow collects donations from outdoor companies of samples, returns, overstock and other gear and distributes them by need and use to 80 nonprofits around the country.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Because the company doesn't have to prepare a product, Von Lunen says public relations is the main concern. He wants as many companies as possible to know about the group and hopefully bring items to...