Adam Torres and Alexis Salamanca discuss Mega Mix Expo.
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Show Notes:
Listen to Mega Mix Expo coverage. In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Alexis Salamanca, COO, Logistic and Operations, explore the upcoming Megamix expo.
About Megamix Expo
At Megamix Expo, they believe that meaningful connections lead to powerful opportunities. Their event is designed to connect businesses of all sizes, fostering an environment of collaboration, innovation, and growth. Over the years, they’ve helped thousands of local businesses expand their reach, secure new partnerships, and thrive in a competitive market.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on be our guest to apply. All right. So today my guest is Alexis Salamanca and he is the. COO and director of operations over at Megamix Expo, which we’ve been talking about this we’ve been talking about this for a long time.
the event is going to be coming up on March 12th and March 13th. It’s at the Santa Anita park in Arcadia, California. Definitely want everybody to go pick up tickets. I’m going to be doing some live podcast interviews and some promo on. I’ll be there both days and I’m looking forward to it. enough of me talking here.
Let’s welcome you to this show. So Alexis. Welcome, man. It’s good to finally connect. Thank you. Thank you, Adam. Thank you for having me today here. Yeah. So you’ve been with the expo since the beginning and I want to maybe just start at kind of the beginning. Cause I’ve at this point in this series that we’re creating for the mega mix expo, you know, I’ve talked to people that have been there from, you know, this is their first year and they’re excited and they’re in there.
They’re telling me that the reason they came is because one of their friends came like in one of the previous years, but you’ve been there from the beginning. Like, how did this whole idea come about? Yeah. Well, thank you for the question, Adam. It came about with Tony and I, well, Tony and I, we’ve been involved in different groups all over the San Diego, Norwich County non profit organization, Chambers of Commerce, heavily involved in Chambers of Commerce.
We saw the Megamix Expo as a platform right after the pandemic to help those business . That were left behind the pandemic took a really big hit in all sizes of companies, a small medium enterprise, a small business minority in all companies, and with the track record that we have now working in different groups, we decide to create a platform that includes them that make them like a big family that we can call up.
So they make me say scope came as a. The boat to help businesses, the challenge that are being challenged by the daily operations. Mm-hmm . And we felt compelled to, stand up to, step up and create a, movement where they can feel not just understood, but we can provide them the, the, the help they need.
Mm. Expo came under that inspiration, like help one another doesn’t matter how big your business is or which flag or where you were born or what language you speak. A platform where everybody can collaborate and create innovative solutions to help one another. That’s how the mega meets Expo came. Hmm.
And so you know, I’m curious, even further back now that I know your history with Tony and that you two have been building for a long time. How did you get started as an entrepreneur? Like, where’d that part begin for you? Even before this, ’cause that’s interesting to me. I didn’t know you guys knew each other that long.
That’s amazing. Well I’ll tell the story with Tony, but , my journey became back in 2003 and 2003, when I was finalizing my studies of graphic design with a minority in weapon multimedia. Mm-hmm . I went to Cal State la. And when I was finalizing this, that my next question was, okay, what I’m gonna do after this career?
So I start going and working. I worked for companies for periods of three, four years, and I work in three main companies, caters for the entertainment industry. My major was focusing graphic design. In order to do that, I need to learn the basics. So I went to work for three different companies.
Companies that. Now they’re gone, but they left the legacy and the love for the graphics and design in my heart and by spending time to work in these companies, I gathered the knowledge to create a company called Aerob Style Design in 2003. Later on in the road, I was working on, fulfilling my dreams under this company, but I was working as a part time.
It was in 2000 when there was a massive fire of all the companies all around the tech rack, the tech rack. Oh, yeah, it’s like, so my company, the company I was more for was also affected by that, but I have the great opportunity to resign like a month before that happened. So he leave the doors open to these companies.
All the companies I work for. I left the door open to come back not that I was going to come back, but it gives me a lift. confidence that if something happened, I can come back. But it was when, when I started creating, when I started thinking about putting myself in the shoes of the businesses that need help.
So I started creating. Different marketing advertising , for businesses. And it was in 2009 that my business is start skyrocket. It’s not providing when the math was going down, by the way, 2009. So that’s after the next wreck. That’s the housing crisis, man. 2008 was terrible. I love to hear stories when somebody’s actually thriving in those times, not cause we want the times to be bad, but it’s just proof that you can still survive.
You can still persevere, you know. Yes, yes, indeed. I talk on experience, but I survive because I start putting myself in their shoes. Sometimes we don’t see how people are doing until we take the step. Okay, let me see myself in their shoes. How can I, what can I do? How can I help?
So I start putting myself in the people that were suffering at that time and I create amazing marketing strategies and my business was going up and I was helping the community because it’s not about you, you, you, right? Yes. It’s about helping. The ones that need the help. So I, start working as a volunteer for a chamber of commerce, a local chamber of commerce, and I start providing them the tools that they need.
What was working for my business. I pass it on because in life, if you don’t pass on those blessings that you receive, you’re not going to get any more. That’s my conviction. You have to. share it If you don’t share it, it gets lost. And when you get lost, nobody gets an opportunity to implement. So I start passing all those.
I joined a chamber, the San Gabriel Chamber of Commerce, became president for the San Gabriel Chamber of Commerce, advisor, different positions in the chamber, but I got the opportunity to help this small business when I did that later. 2017, 2015, I met Tony and Tony was corporate office supplies, corporate.
We clicked, we connected really good and we start passing leads on one another. I say, Hey, I have these leads for office supplies. And then he say, I have the list for printing. It came to the point that we got to join forces and create a corporation called Office of Solutions. And under that operation, that may get me.
Was born and it was under , the businesses is platform. My platform, my clients, all our clients, they need, they have similar interests on the services we provided. Mm-hmm . We have the amazing solutions that can provide trade show displays, next day delivery, and that feel the needs for the businesses that, needed these kind of marketing materials.
Mm. At, at a certain point, like. So for us to help them out, but it was when we combined forces with Tony that we create a company called official and then solutions from there, the journey for the megamix expo study, we were doing great, COVID hit us, we had a great expo in 2020 but unfortunately a week after everything was closed.
So we lost a lot of money. We don’t have a lot of opportunity right before COVID we created some amazing platform for experts and then COVID comes and it put us in a two years like transition time. But we didn’t close our business doors there. We create opportunities where we have, and we survived the COVID transition.
And it was through COVID that we, what we decide, Tony, you have been blessed with so many connections. So many talents you have. It’s an opportunity right now. God has given us an opportunity right now to combine forces and create something for the business community. Let’s think about all the businesses that are suffering.
Let’s help them get what they need. Let’s connect with the people. Congress, with the Senate, with the Assembly, with the local organizations, so we can gather all the information and distribute it to them. So we did that. Who was born the same year we create the Megamix Expo official community foundation was born as well.
Official community foundation is we call it the business arm to empower our business community with the resources that they need in order to try. Then we get. Access to opportunities for grants, opportunities for business loans, certifications, and we start offer them through the official solutions platform, but we also offer that help to everybody who joins the megamix expo or the business out of official solutions.
We pass on that knowledge knowledge, like, for example, how to apply for. Or the bits that the doing business with the LA County they offer, they offer close to 10. 3 billion in bits and every year’s only 900 million gets given because they, the business don’t know that programs like that exist. So we provide this information.
Business giving them the opportunity to get them be certified to get them the opportunity to apply to them, give them an opportunity to grow their business utilizing the Megamix Solutions, the Oficio Community Foundation platform, and all the businesses that follow us, the movement of the businesses that makes the Megamix Expo is a stronger community because The main direction is help one another. We need to have one another. That’s our model. amazing story and I want to go a step further into the model. You’ve already talked about quite a few Things that I believe differentiate the expo and, also the like what you and Tony are and the entire team.
Cause I know you have a big team working on this. Like what everyone’s trying to accomplish. I’m curious what you see, maybe the future of business expos and events. Like you’re in the middle of all these trends, you have a big background in this stuff through many years. Like what kind of trends are you seeing?
Or what do you see this, like the future of business expos and events looking like? Like, talk to me about that. Thank you for the questions, Adam. That precisely I am the CEO of operations for Megamix Expo, basically the backend into, and one of the areas that we are innovating in the Megamix Expo is the creation of two interesting platforms.
And that’s part of the innovation. One of them is the Mega very Program and the Mega Mix Expo Hub Loyalty Program. And these two programs, I see it like a community building and long term engagement, along with creating hybrid events, like going online and registered online, and you can navigate a hybrid, an online Mega Mix Expo event.
I know that the pandemic accelerate the adoption of hybrid events, it models even more. Now it’s time for us to start implementing also a Megamix Expo online event, like our event on March 12th and 13th. We want people everywhere in the world. To experience and connect with the vendors that we have here in our communities.
We want to open them the opportunity to connect via online to one digital platform. so their experience can be richer, can be more memorable, can be more effective. We want to allow for virtual pro demonstrations, Victor products tool. We want to enhance networking to bid for meet meeting spaces.
We want to immerse in that technology, but that technology is not a dream anymore. We are incorporating that technology at the megamix expo. The future events we’re going to have, we can have people from All over the world, going to our megamix export event and connect with the community business that wants to expand this business, importing or exporting products.
We want them to give them the tools so they can do and we work, you know, so. In platforms to create a power much making, and this is regarding the experience for the attendees. We want the attendees experience what AI platforms can do for events like ours, like business expo’s, we want to engage in optimizing the event for content.
Provide data analytics to exhibitors so they can maximize the exposure of their business, connecting them and expanding their database. to, and this is something we’re working with Luis, Luis is the chief HR officer, and we’re working in a customizable agenda, so we want to allow attendees to curate.
Their own event journey. we’re, we’re trying to make it more accessible to them. So in other words, something that we’re looking into is that once you register to megamix, we can actually connect you with a vendor or with a business that is looking for your services, that kind of level.
This is the kind of like technology is being shown over events nationwide and worldwide. We want to bring that technology to this community event because our community means business. And the businesses that we create in our community support the families that lives in our community, support my family.
I want to be able to support the kids of the owner of the restaurants that live right across my street and the only way to providing the means to do that, providing the platform for them to connect effectively. This is great. Alexis, man, hearing you talk about it, the passion for the expo, the passion for helping the community come together, the passion for.
Really getting business done and, and as you as the CEO and one of the individuals, one of the founders , that are planning the future of this is just, I think just year over year, I seen the footprint this year. I did have the opportunity to go and visit the space. I saw the footprint from last year.
thing just keeps getting bigger and bigger every year. I’m excited already. This would be my first year attending as many of the people that I was listening to this are aware and I’m looking forward to it, man. That being said, if somebody is listening to this or watching this, and if they want to follow up, if they want to attend mega mix expo, if they’re, I don’t know if there’s still opportunities to become, to get a booth or to be a vendor there, but how do people get information?
How do they get involved? We make it very easy, megamixexpo. com. Yes, contact us, go to the website, log in. We have an amazing team of people on the phone answering questions. Or contact me directly to alexis at megamixexpo. com. There’s still opportunities for sponsorships, for exhibitors. And sign up as an attendee.
I know there’s a attendees, like the CEO launch and the CEO, we’re going to have a CEO raffle VIP CEO raffle and a SEO, I see on our CEO raffle as well that are accessible to the attendees and exhibitors as well. But yes, come to make me sex where I come follow us or join our networking mixes.
We do a networking mixer every Wednesday in different locations and these events. So there’s a couple that are one that it has a cost, but most of them, they’re free. We’re creating free networking event. So the community can come enjoy connect and Be part of the Mega Mrs. Poe family. Fantastic.
And for everybody listening to this, just so you know, we’ll definitely put the links in the show notes so that you can just click on the link and head right on over and definitely , grab your tickets , or inquire about becoming a vendor. Again, the dates are, it’ll be March 12th and 13th. over at the Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California.
It’s a beautiful venue. It’s a horse track, horse racing track, and it overlooks the mountains. And I mean, it’s just a really, really beautiful space. It’s big, it’s spacious. Lots of room for networking, lots of room for the vendors and the booths can be a lot of fun. I’ll be there. As I mentioned, I’m doing some live podcast interviews and making my rounds and visiting all the booths as well.
So definitely check it out. Megamixexpo. com and Alexis, man, appreciate you coming out and making some time for us and thank you for all you do. Thank you, Adam. This is a great opportunity. Thank you for giving your heart to our community as well.