Tradeshow Coaching

Do You Know What Attendees Expect?

“I refuse,” the young woman was saying to someone on her cell phone as she walked through the airport, “to do business with anyone when I know more about their company than they do! Haven’t these people ever heard of Google?”

That’s a fantastic question, and one that we, as exhibitors, need to know the answer to. Attendees are getting younger -- and as the new generation of buyers enters the marketplace, they come equipped with a whole new set of expectations.

Attendees expect to be able to visit your company on the web before they attend the show.  Increasingly savvy researchers know how to gather a great deal of information in a minimal amount of time.  They expect your booth staffers to know what they know -- and more!

Don’t disappoint them.  Before you hit the show floor, schedule some time and run an internet search on your company.  Ask yourself the following:

• What information might I, as a customer, want to know that’s not included on our website?

• What are our customers and competitors saying about us online? What questions might that lead attendees to ask? What will our response be?

• What has the media coverage of our company been?

• How has our company been covered on the industry and financial web sites? Does this provide us with selling points to capitalize on?

Use the answers to these and other questions to help prepare a list of talking points for your staffers.  This will help them be prepared for any question and ensure a consistent delivery of your marketing message.

You never want to appear to know less about your company than your customer does.  Preparation is a crucial key to your success!

Do You Feel Lucky?

If you turned on the local news in the New York region this week, there’s a better than even chance that you’d see a story covering the huge jackpot in this week’s state lottery.  At last check, there’s over 340 million dollars on the table, the largest jackpot in history.  This has got people lining up at convenience stores across the state, hoping against hope to cash in and win big.

This got me thinking about the two types of people: gamblers and planners.  Both would like to have the big bag of cash, but they take different routes to achieve it.  A gambler might plunk down a dollar -- or two, or twenty, or two hundred -- in hopes of winning big in a lottery, while the planner follows a less exciting route of saving and investing.  At the end of the day, who’s more likely to have the big bucks? Chances are it’s likely to be the planner.

Tradeshow exhibiting works the same way.  You can gamble on having a good show, approaching it in a frenzy because ‘everybody’s doing it’ and you’ve heard there’s big money to be had, or you can approach it methodically, making a plan, doing your research, and making those actions that are prudent and will improve your bottom line.

Some gamblers win.  That’s what keeps lotteries going, after all.  Some exhibitors show up with only half an idea of what they’re doing, a horrible exhibit and only fledgling show skills, and yet still have a triumphant show.  But the odds are against most gamblers.  For every winner, there are thousands of losers.  For every successful ‘We just wing it’ exhibitor, there are hundreds who look at the time and effort expended and realize they could have done much, much better -- if only they’d taken the time to learn what they should be doing.

The choice is yours: do you want to gamble on your tradeshow success? Do you feel lucky?

Are You Celling Yourself Short?

Cell phones have changed our world. With few exceptions, we can now talk to anyone we like whenever we’d like. The staccato symphony of ring tones accompanies us through our days: from the morning commute to the crowded restaurant at lunchtime, during meetings and even during the quick stop at the grocery store when the day is done. We’re always connected, always reachable. It’s a marvel.

It’s a marvel that can destroy your tradeshow performance. Read more here.

Exhibiting in the Future

The sages tell us that nothing is constant in this world, except death and taxes. However, there’s one thing that’s inevitable that we all must face: change.  Change comes whether we’re ready for it or not, in every arena of our lives.

This is true for exhibiting as well.  The way we’re exhibiting today -- gathering in central locations, where exhibitors and attendees alike, travel hundreds of miles to engage in face-to-face marketing -- may not necessarily be the way we’ll be exhibiting in the future.

Rising costs and increasing security risks are two among a multitude of factors that make finding alternative exhibiting methodologies attractive to vendors and buyers alike.  At the same time, staggering technological advances and an increasingly computer savvy public, makes the virtual sphere ever more appealing. The industry’s taken a few tentative steps down this road before, but the time wasn’t right yet.  However, interesting developments from some corners of the web indicate that this may well be changing.

It’s important to view these changes with a critical eye.  It’s easy to get caught up in all the hype and the hoopla, especially when the bright spotlights of media attention focus on one spot. However, not everything new is good.  At the same time, not everything new is bad.  The exhibitors who will not only succeed but thrive in the changing exhibiting environment will be those who keep an eye on changing trends, assess them carefully, and adapt quickly to new circumstances.

Yet the more things change, the more they remain the same.  No matter how quickly you can adopt a new exhibiting model, you’ll want to hold onto some core essentials.  Remember, at the end of the day, the focus is still on connecting with your customer.

The crucial elements of exhibiting: engaging with visitors, asking questions and listening to the answers, working to help the prospects find the best possible solution to their problems -- all of these will remain critical to your business success.

Are Your Guilty of These 7 Deadly Exhibiting Sins?

I'm assuming that you're reading this because you are interested in tradeshows, as a show organizer, a  current or prospective exhibitor, or perhaps even the press.  Let me welcome you to my new blog - Tradeshow Coaching and introduce myself.  I'm Susan Friedmann, better known as The Tradeshow Coach.  For the last 20+ years, I've been helping exhibitors make the most of their tradeshow participation. 

The purpose of this blog is to share information that can help add to improving your tradeshow participation.

To start things off, let's look at the  Seven Deadly Sins of Tradeshows