Fuel Oil News July-August 2021 | Page 40

Shane Sweet

BIO :

Shane Sweet is principal of Shane Sweet LLC , a Vermont-based energy consulting firm to the propane , heating oil and motor fuel sectors . The company represents select products and services , works with trade associations , and , in April 2020 , co-founded VirtualPropaneExpo . com . In addition to 15 years in the retail oil and propane business , Sweet served as the executive for the Vermont Fuel Dealers Association , the New England Fuel Institute ( now the National Energy & Fuels Institute ) and the New York Propane Gas Association . Sweet can be reached at shanemsweet @ gmail . com .

At the end of May I was chatting with a colleague about how he managed to keep track of all of the industry events and meetings in his space . About a year ago he went to work for a different company . He told me that at his previous company he had received regular newsletters and notices from the various trade associations with which his prior company was affiliated . It was a good thing . I asked him how he was keeping informed with what was going on in his space now and he essentially said that he was in the dark . He had “ fallen off the lists ” of numerous trade associations and vendors .

As an experiment , I emailed him at his old company address . The email came back undeliverable . I ’ d wager that at some point someone ( trade group , vendor , customer ) other than me got the same reply and it appears that in some cases no one took the time to find him . An opportunity lost for the trade association or event host , as this guy for decades has been a regular attendee at oil and propane industry events . In my book , definitely the kind of contact worth tracking down .

He expressed frustration at the organizations not following up to ensure that their messages and event notices were reaching him . I remarked that , absent his obituary , someone should have followed up with him to ensure continuity of communication . “ Hell yeah ,” he said . Chasing down industry contacts who have changed jobs is still necessary for effective communications . Decades ago it meant chasing down a mailing address ; later it was a fax number ; and today it ’ s about tracking down a good email address or social media account . You would think that everyone knows you cannot expect a reply if the message never gets there , but here we are .

I rely on a database of tens of thousands of fuel industry contacts to get messages out for the organizations and clients I work with . “ A list is a living , breathing thing . It needs care and feeding ,” I said to a national association executive . He agreed .

Dozens of vendors , trade association executives and trade media I chatted with in May shared these observations about the ongoing task of keeping a comprehensive , accurate events calendar :

• The method for obtaining a view of what events are happening is , generally speaking , hit or miss .

• Most companies acknowledge that they spend considerable time and money paying someone to collect event data . My informal poll shows that generally no one person has the task , and the sharing of what good info is found is not the rule , but the exception .

• Trade associations are a good source of event details , but most vendors acknowledge that they are not members of EVERY association out there , hence an info gap .

• Share your event ’ s basic info with others , especially trade media , which cannot publish info that they do not receive .

• Websites for associations are not a 100 % reliable source of event data . Often event details just do not make it to the site .

• Companies acknowledge missing opportunities because they were not aware of events happening in their space , often learning about an event after-the-fact .

• Being aware of an event is just the first step ; getting an event into your Outlook or Google calendar--or the company shared calendar if there is one--is quite another . “ Add to Calendar ” is a function that people rely on .

I ’ ve said for years that we could use a simple tool that allows all the fuel and energy events we care about to be found in one place . In May I created a simple Google Form to collect basic event info and push the collected data to one place . No Fees . No user names or log-ins . No passwords .

Hopefully this will be something that anyone can contribute to and anyone can see . If you are an event planner or trade association that hosts events ; a vendor to the fuel and energy industry who needs to keep track of what ’ s happening and when ; or you ’ re a fuel marketer who attends events for education , content , or networking--please participate in my new experiment at www . energyeventscalendar . com .

Start date , end date , event title : that ’ s all we all really need . l FON

40 JULY / AUGUST 2021 | FUEL OIL NEWS | www . fueloilnews . com