As the marketing specialist at Sonoco Alloyd, a thermoform blister packaging company, I'm always on the lookout for new opportunities. So after spending months researching and confirming that the hunting, ammunition, and firearm industry was the surefire market to increase our sales, I pulled the trigger and secured a spot at the industry's Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Week Supplier Showcase in Las Vegas, a show that connects material suppliers (like my company) with manufacturers. Little did I know that my best-laid plan was about to blow up in my face.

The Supplier Showcase attracts legions of ammunition distributors that would be the target of my efforts, i.e., convincing the industry that a shift from traditional packaging to our thermoformed blister packaging was the right move. Being that I was the new kid (and woman) on a block chock-full of good-ol' boys who'd been doing business together a long time, it was imperative that I hit the bull's-eye by presenting myself as someone who belonged in the club.

In preparation for the battle ahead, I meticulously developed my exhibiting strategy, which would include every weapon at my disposal to conduct a successful assault: new fabric graphics with a floor-standing pop-up, professionally printed brochures highlighting the benefits of our product, boxes of branded bottle-opener giveaways, and bags of candy to sweeten discussions. And, of course, I included a battalion's worth of our patented packaging samples complete with dummy rounds of ammo – all factory sealed and looking shelf-ready. Last, I printed prepaid UPS labels to ensure I could quickly forward the entire booth to our next expo the following week. Napoleon himself could not have been better prepared.

I methodically packed everything in a crate by Wednesday and sent it off via UPS Express Shipping. The shipment was scheduled to arrive at my hotel in Las Vegas on Friday, two days prior to my Sunday arrival and three days before the show opened. The next morning, I tracked the shipment and noticed it hadn't moved to the subsequent distribution center, so I called UPS. The shipping manager I spoke to assured me he would personally find the package and report back ASAP. But all day Friday, we continued an uncomfortable game of phone tag as he tried to locate my shipment. By Saturday morning, I was sliding into full-on panic mode when my booth hadn't been located and the manager had stopped returning my calls. After more than 15 subsequent calls to various UPS hubs, my hotel, and even the convention center turned up nothing, I lost hope that the shipment would be found. I felt surrounded and under siege, and I needed to formulate a new plan of attack – fast.

Since I was in my third trimester of pregnancy, I convinced my husband to accompany me to our offices on Saturday to be my mule and haul out the heavy items that would replace my perfectly thought-out booth that had gone MIA. Scouring through multiple storage rooms, I scrounged up most of what I needed. Unfortunately, many of the substitutions were less than ideal. Instead of my new pop-up graphics, I had to settle for a gently used tabletop display; my giveaways would need to be boring, branded pens; and in-house pamphlets took the place of my beautiful brochures. Worst of all, I had to replace all of the factory-sealed dummy ammunition packages, meaning I'd have no choice but to self-package loose dummy ammo using a hot-glue gun when I arrived in Las Vegas.

I had to have my materials on site for our 9 a.m. Monday show start, so I weighed the costs of shipping Early Next Day with UPS against extra checked baggage fees. As it turned out, the baggage fees would save us more than $100 compared to UPS. And considering how unhappy I was with UPS at the time, those savings were priceless. So I loaded everything into two extra suitcases and headed to O'Hare airport early Sunday morning.

There I met the next line of resistance. At check-in, I had to explain to first one, then two, then five security officials that dummy ammunition does not, in fact, contain gunpowder and that, yes, it is allowed in an airplane's cargo bay. They relented, and I made it to Las Vegas, suitcases in tow. Sadly, bad news continued to roll down like an avalanche. Just as I touched down, I got a message that my top sales engineer was delayed by weather, meaning that only myself and one other colleague would have to hold down the fort for the entire show. Whaddya gonna do? I dug deep and mentally cried, "Bring it on!"

I caught an Uber to the convention center with all my extra baggage and started setting up my booth. Once everything was adequately arranged, it was off to the hotel where I spent the evening hot-gluing makeshift ammunition packages.

Arriving at the show early Monday morning, I put the finishing touches on the booth and gave it a once-over. It was not what I envisioned, but it would have to do. When my colleague arrived, I delayed a full hour before telling him what had occurred to see if he noticed anything amiss. To my amazement, he exclaimed that the booth looked fantastic. Both he and our booth neighbors, who were seasoned veterans of the show, were shocked when I revealed my ordeal and awed at what I had managed to assemble using spare parts. Their reactions were some small consolation for the past several days of chaos.

From then on, it was all about digging in and securing sales, and the first day went very well. Then on the second – and final – day of the show, my hotel's shipping manager informed me my original booth had arrived, despite the fact I had asked UPS to reroute it to the next show in California in the event it turned up. But at least my booth was found, something I confirmed with my own eyes when I returned to the hotel. There it was, my tattered shipping container with more stickers plastered onto it than my 4-year-old niece's toothbrush chart. I may or may not have actually given that container a hug. (Security footage of the alleged hug is classified.)

All things told, the show proved to be quite successful, yielding a legion of leads and netting several projects in negotiations that will likely amount to more than $200,000 in new business. Better than that, I proved to myself that I am capable of handling just about anything this industry can lob my way – and while eight and a half months pregnant at that. Eat your heart out, Napoleon!