“Something just wasn’t right,” Fred*, a veteran booth staffer said. She’s describing an incident from her company’s most recent show, a large regional event with hundreds of exhibitors and thousands of attendees. “I knew that Mary* knows her stuff, but she just couldn’t answer all of this guy’s questions. When she asked me for our head engineer’s e-mail address, all the red flags went up and alarm bells were ringing furiously.”
The attendee had been peppering Mary, a relatively new employee and novice exhibitor, with increasingly technical questions about their new prototype. “Supposedly his company was expanding,” Fred said, “But when I started asking him questions -- where was the plant, what type of capacity where they looking for, and why he needed that level of detailed information from us, he suddenly lost interest in the conversation.” The inquisitive visitor turned and walked away, melting into the crowd.
“I couldn’t figure it out,” Fred said, “Until later, when I was walking the show floor. I walked by our largest competitor, and guess who was working the booth? You’ll never believe it -- our nosy attendee!”
Fred and Mary’s experience was by no means unique. The tradeshow floor offers the most overt industrial espionage environment going -- and increasing numbers of companies are taking advantage of that fact to learn everything they can about their competition.
This places exhibitors in a delicate position. Obviously, you want to present your new products and services in a way that engages your target audience’s interest and drives sales. However, it’s critical that you also protect your company’s intellectual property. There’s no sense sinking years of time and countless dollars into research and development if an over-eager exhibitor is going to spill the beans to the competition the first time they’re asked.
Preparation is essential. Work with your team to recognize the red flags -- sure signs that a simple attendee is anything but. They need to learn how to handle overly inquisitive visitors and fend off camera-happy types that want to examine the prototype up close and personal.
Half the battle is making your team aware of the problem. The other half is providing them with the right preparation to handle situations as -- or, ideally, before! -- they arise.
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