We are no strangers to being out on the road demonstrating our products to installers and customers, we love it! It’s generally an easy sell as our products really do make installers lives easier…. however, this show offered an extra challenge given we don’t speak German!
The show ‘Solar Solutions Dusseldorf’ took place on the 27th and 28th of November 2024. We got there the day before to set up our stand. With International shows there is always the fear that the goods won’t have arrived but thankfully our wonderful office staff had organised things perfectly and the demonstration roof and materials were there waiting for us. We got set up, finishing around 2pm….. there was nothing left to do but go and sample the local Kellerbier!
The show itself was impressive, hundreds of exhibitors across 2 Halls. Many familiar company names and faces from the UK and Irish markets: K2, S-Flex, Enstall, Wagner, Clenergy, Aero compact, Segen, Libra to name a few.
We learnt a lot while we were there, learnt about the prevalence of slate in different areas in Germany, we also learnt about the current installation methods. We are confident that SpeedFlash will be a beneficial addition to the German market.
The first day was a slow start but we soon realised that given we were located near the back of the second hall it was just taking people time to get to us! By mid afternoon we were in full swing doing back-to-back installation demonstrations.
Whilst the language barrier made things harder, we were able to engage installers and got some brilliant feedback on the SpeedFlash® and InterFlash® products.
In addition to engaging with installers, whilst there we took the opportunity to engage with some of our mounting manufacturer partners, namely K2 and S-Flex on day 1. We understand that we need to educate German installers on the benefits of the products, but we also need to make the products available to purchase, we are hoping some of the mounting manufacturers can help us with this.
Day 1 was finished off with some nice German food and a walk around the Christmas markets.
Day 2 was much the same though it was even busier than the first day. We continued with the demonstrations again meeting lots of installers who were really impressed with the simple speedy slate roof installation the SpeedFlash affords. We got a few ‘We usually just say no to slate roofs, but this changes it for us!’……it doesn’t get better than that.
More meetings with mounting manufacturer partners, Clenergy, Esdec and Van Der Valk.
We were also approached by Keno and Sunbeam, two mounting manufacturers looking to enter the UK & Irish markets. They wanted to learn more about our products and hopefully we can help them with the weatherproof testing that they are planning to undertake.
As the show was coming to an end, we got chance to catch up with the guys from ‘Bird Blocker’ discussing some potential future joint opportunities.
All in all, it was a fantastic show which left us excited about the opportunities in Germany (plus Belgium and Luxembourg)
Now just to get the products on the shelves!