My Trip to the UK's Largest Trade Show / 参加英国伯明翰消费品展览会

Established in 1950, the Spring Fair (UK’s number one gift and home trade event) is held at the NEC conference hall in Birmingham. Since it’s inception, it has grown significantly and today is the NEC’s largest event in terms of utilised commercial space, encompassing all 20 of it’s halls.

The Spring Fair is currently the UK’s largest trade show for presentational gifts and home products, welcoming over 60,000 through the doors of the Birmingham NEC over a course of five days. The show attracts over 2,500 exhibitors and buyers across independent, multiples, e-Commerce and department stores.

Me being a buyer in a gift company here in the UK, I attend this show every year for work purposes. I find it a great opportunity to connect with some wonderful individuals and discover many creative and diverse products. It is literally an explosion of fresh innovations, trend setting designs, expert-led seminars, in-depth industry insights and more.

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I happened to bump into a talk given by the fabulous Karen Brady, who is one of the UK’s best-known businesswomen. She is currently the vice-chairman of West Ham United Football Club. This led to her informal title of "The First Lady of Football”. Though most people will probably recognise her from television as she featured in the BBC one’s The Apprentice as an aide to Lord Alan Sugar.

Karen was the Small Business’s Ambassador to the UK Government under Prime Minister David Cameron. She is a regular columnist for Woman & Home magazine and even The Sun newspaper. She has published four books including two novels, with her latest being the bestseller “Strong Woman” released in March 2012 and focused on inspiring women in business.

Karen was elevated to the House of Lords as a Conservative life peer, receiving the title of “Baroness Brady”. I consider her an extremely intelligent and well-verse lady. A perfect role model for many people seeking to venture out into the business arena for the first time or looking to pursue higher personal ambitions. It was an honour to hear you speak on stage.

She gave advice & suggestions for success as a retail entrepreneur. She talked about management, leadership, and the importance of building a reliable brand image. I found Karen’s six key components that lead to success very useful indeed. They are:

Leadership
Ambition
Determination
Attitude
Direction
Positive

To finish, Karen said “Remember behind every successful man, there is always a mother in law!” I found that amusing and quite true, lol!

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Funny enough, I also met the Apprentice star Courtney Wood who was the runner up on Apprentice series 12 which just finished at the end of last year.

Courtney was exhibiting the products he designed, the company being "Bubblegum Stuff". So I plucked up some courage, approached him and said that I recognised him from The Apprentice. He was bit shy to start with but become quite chatty afterwards. He talked about his passion about his baby bottle products and that he was looking for investors to expand his business in the near future. A genuine guy overall and an absolute pleasure to talk to. Here is a selfie I took with him, haha.

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Below are a selection of lovely products from the show:

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Overall, it was a great show. I look forward to the next one.

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英国伯明翰消费品展览会始办于1950年，每年春季和秋季两届。该展会包揽了工艺品，礼品，玩具及家庭用品行业的所有产品，是英国最大的工艺礼品展览会。在短短的五天时间里，该展会有超过60000人参观，吸引了超过2500家参展商，实店或电子商务买家和百货公司等。

我作为一家英国礼品公司的买手，每年都会参加这个展会。 我认为这是一个非常好的机会与商品同行互相交流创意，多元化的新产品，参与专家主导的研讨会，了解市场新动向和时尚走势等。

在看展的时候，我意外地碰到了一个由名人Karen Brady发表的演讲。Karen是英国最知名的女企业家之一，她目前是西汉姆联足球俱乐部的副主席，也因此得了“足球第一女士”的荣誉称号。但我想可能大多数人认识她是因为她在非常受欢迎的BBC电视节目“学徒”里，作为Lord Alan Sugar的助手。

Karen出任卡梅伦英国政府里的“企业大使”，也是“女士与家庭”杂志与太阳报的常任专栏作家。她出版了四本书，包括两本小说，最新作品是2012年3月发布的畅销书“坚强的女人”，专注于激励妇女在商场上有所作为。Karen还获得“男爵夫人布雷迪”的称号。我觉得，对于许多寻求在商业领域获得成就的女士们，Karen是非常好的榜样！

Karen这次演讲主要是为希望成功的零售企业家提供建议。她谈到管理和领导能力，以及建立可靠的品牌形象的重要性。让我觉得最有启发的是Karen谈到的六个取得成功的关键因素：

1 /领导能力
2 /野心
3 /意志与决心
4 /态度
5 /设立方向
6 /积极态度

Karen在演说最后以很幽默的一句话结尾：“记住每一个成功的男人的身后，总有一个丈母娘！”非常有趣也相当真实，呵呵！

很巧合地，我还遇到了电视节目“学徒“里的明星Courtney Wood，他是去年年底刚播完的”学徒“系列的亚军。

Courtney在这儿展出他设计的新产品。我鼓起勇气走进他的展位，说我从“学徒”中认出了他。Courtney一开始有点儿害羞，但聊起天来很友好善谈。他说到自己对涉及婴儿奶瓶产品的热情，并寻找投资者希望在不久的将来可以扩展他的业务。以下是我和他的自拍照，呵呵。