Richard Marchbanks is the president of Gateway Exhibits, a turnkey trade show solutions provider. He is also a member of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) in St. Louis, Missouri. We recently talked to Marchbanks about adapting to the challenges of the global coronavirus pandemic and making the most of his EO membership. 

 

When COVID-19 struck and it became clear that major changes were coming to the trade show industry, what steps did you take?

We sat down as a leadership team to discuss what we had in unused or dead assets, and what opportunities we could seize with fewer employees.

How did you identify a new business model?

We realized that our sister company’s solvent supplier could formulate sanitizer. So, we reached out, got terms and within four days we had nine pallets delivered. We used our marketing expertise to get the word out and we sold out in a month!