Fly + Sand: Who, What, Why?
We recently wrapped up our second Lägler Fly and Sand trip of 2016. It was a new step for us and Lägler GmbH, in nearly 10 years of offering this lottery,
to put together two trips in the same year. We rounded up American contractors for the trip in July, followed by a Canadian group in September.
For those who have been part of a Fly and Sand – touring German countryside, taking in a collection of villages and cities, restaurants and vineyards –
this experience is once in a lifetime. It combines seeing some old-world Europe with the passion everyone involved shares for their wood flooring craft.
We see friendships and business contacts being built on these trips. It’s awesome to us to be part of connecting these industry dots across North America.
We get to know more guys like us, too, and learn from everyone else. Two-way deal.
Connecting the Wood Flooring Industry
The guys who participate on these trips – it’s been almost all guys who have entered to win one of these lottery slots, though women are encouraged to
enter, too – leave Germany and scatter across the country again, often with plans to reconnect at industry meetups like the NWFA Wood Flooring Expo.
They connect on social media and end up tapping each other’s brains as resources to help solve issues they run into on the job site. Give and take.
In short, Fly and Sand is an irreplaceable five days that offers lasting benefits beyond Lägler sanding machines and certification training.
Of course, those machines, that history, the way they are built, and the way they get used is at the heart of the time spent at the factory and in the
training facility during Fly and Sand. But it’s only part of why Lägler offers Fly and Sand.
Why Does Lägler Offer Fly + Sand?
If you try to ballpark the numbers on what a trip like this costs for 10 people per Fly and Sand you can figure out it’s not cheap. So why does Lägler
do it?
Why does Lägler pay for the group to fly to and from North America, set up everyone in individual guest house rooms, buy the meals, pay for entrance into
super-cool places like the Mercedes-Benz Museum, make sure transportation is Johnny-on-the-spot for every stop – e.g. Heidelberg Castle, dinner each
evening?
Why does Lägler give a tour of its factory, where every one of its iconic machines, including the HUMMEL®, TRIO and FLIP®,
are hand-built? And why does the company provide its Premium Sanding Technology (PST®) certification at no charge?
It’s simple. Belief in Lägler quality, and belief in the contractors who know their craft, and are able to sort out the what’s-what about the machines
they use day in and out on the job.
Lägler handles its part – engineering, manufacturing, training – and leaves it to those who participate in Fly and Sand to see it all first-hand at the
source in Germany, and make up their own minds. (The same goes for participation in PST, available year-round with us in Denver, and in the U.K.) We know that
if you believe in Lägler like we do, you’ll tell others. And your word carries weight throughout the industry like no manufacturer’s can.
If you’re part of Fly and Sand, you get to learn more about where the machines come from. You get to see the care that is put into them by long-standing
experts in their production roles, and you can know by first name.
For example, Sergei likely put together your HUMMEL, if it was made in this century, and Andreas likely is who tested it. Thorsten probably powder coated
your HUMMEL hammer tone olive green, if bought in the past more than a decade. Several others had roles from parts fabrication to assembly to packing
and shipping.
Lägler machines are produced start to finish in one location, with few parts fabrication exceptions that are made by partners located nearby.
Of course, Karl Lägler, the son of the company’s founder, who also was the man behind the HUMMEL, knows the machines and their uses in every detail. And
he is very involved in each Fly and Sand group’s experience. From picking you up at the airport in Frankfurt to the handing out of PST certificates
and the last auf wiedersehen before the group returns to North America.
No Catch + No Sales Pitch
With each Fly and Sand, the process includes making phone calls to the lottery winners to let them know their names came up on top. Sometimes those phone
calls are met with skepticism. “For real? What’s the catch?”
We’ve heard from guys on the trip how they kept waiting for a sales pitch, as if they were on a “free” trip to Disney World and expected to get stuck in
a time-share sales-pitch hell as payment for the vacation. Not gonna happen.
There is no catch. There is no sales pitch.
So, why does Lägler offer Fly and Sand? Because we trust in the quality, engineering and endless research and refinements that go into the machines
and the PST training. (We welcome your suggestions for improvements, too.)
And we trust those of you who make your living using the machines to know the differences between a champion and a pretender.
By the way, we’re swinging big again next year. Two Fly and Sand lotteries. You’ll be hearing about it by early in 2017 on our Instagram,
Facebook and Twitter pages, and via our monthly
email newsletter.
See more photos from this year’s trips in our Facebook photos. You probably will recognize
some of the people included.
Related Blog Posts
Inside Look: @clevelandwoodbee on Fly + Sand
