Trade Show - What Companies Get Wrong

You've decided who is going to be manning your stand but what will they need to do to maximise the benefit from your investment

The best way is to start with a list of what not to do. Such a list follows - and the horrifying thing is that everything on this list is done - and often - by staff at exhibitions, thus not only damaging their company's chances of gaining new sales leads but damaging their public image.

Exhibitions are full of potential customers all of whom you should be eager to impress - it is a great opportunity to reach many potential customers but beware! If your staff do not perform well it can damage your reputation for months or years to come.

DO NOT

1. Do not drink on the stand. For a visitor to be subjected to the alchohol infused breath of a salesman - worse - to be greeted by an obviously half-drunk salesman, will probably mean that he will never deal with your company.

And, by the way, include eating smelly food the night before in this prohibition.

2. Do not block entrances to the stand, or look like guards on sentry duty.

3. Do not eat your lunch on the stand.

4. Do not stand in groups chatting, Sit down and read the paper, or even just sit down. Staff should be on their feet all of the time. Any sitting-down should be done during break-times which, unless you are fortunate enough to have incorporated a staff area on your stand, should be taken away from the stand.

5. Do not pounce on every approaching visitor like a hungry cat, hover uncertainly near the prospect 
or chase the prospect. Always approach head-on.

6. Do not be long-winded in your sales talk, use high-pressure or "hard sell" sales techniques.

7. Do not ignore or neglect visitors. Make certain that your staff have frequent breaks. Manning a stand can be tedious and exhausting and you need to retain their freshness and enthusiasm. And in your sales pitch remember that there is no product which does not have limitations. Be honest - it pays in the long run.

Finally in this negative section, a few statistics. Some research has been done on the way in which prospects are approached at exhibitions and it makes interesting, if depressing, reading.

The research was done at a wide variety of technical exhibitions and the researcher only recorded what happened on those stands where (a) he actually crossed the stand threshold, and (b) there was a representative free to speak to him.

1. Prospect not noticed or ignored by stand staff 50%.

2. Prospect approached with a "Can I help you?" by stand staff 40%

3. Poor opening remarks (e.g. "Are you just looking?" "Please take a leaflet" etc.) 8%

4. Good opening remarks 2%. This would indicate two things: at the trade shows that were attended by researchers it was found that 48% of those manning the stand were not doing their job well and that 50% wern't doing it at all!

The remedy for the 50% is easy - you tell them to do their job or get out! For the 48%, however, something can be done and I'll be looking at this in the next article.


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Matt has been involved in the design and production of exhibition stands for 2 decades and has run his large-format digital printing business in Maidenhead for the last 8 years. http://www.exdisplay.co.uk