The Exhibitionist. Steve Reeder

(Lincoln West, 2016)

      What else do you have in your toolkit?

      We talked in Chapter 1 about using trade shows as a marketing tactic in an aligned, strategic plan and it’s important to think about this further when considering whether exhibiting is right for your business. There will be several different sales levers you are likely to manipulate in your quest for sales growth, including pricing, promotions, discount structures, product variations, volume bonuses, etc. Each of these need determining before you can effectively manage a wider portfolio of customers. For example, if you’re a manufacturer of tools you may offer a different discount level to an independent high-street DIY store than you would to a national wholesaler such as Screwfix – but you might meet both at the same trade show. Understanding how you will profitably manage different customer requirements and needs within your portfolio will not only help you to better filter visitors at the trade show itself but enable a quicker and more productive follow-up after the show.

      In clarifying your sales strategy, it is likely that some obvious marketing tactics fall out of this to reach your audience and add value to the conversation you have with them. Let’s go back to the tool example for a moment, potentially this could be a complicated purchase for your end user in selecting the most appropriate tool for his specific job. In that case, providing factsheets with details about what types of job each tool is most appropriate for will help them make an informed decision and ensure they are happy with their purchase. Although that is an example of a consumer marketing tactic, it’s important to your trade show plan in demonstrating to your customer how you will help them sell through the products that you’re selling directly to them. Developing a clearly aligned marketing plan across all channels will add value to the conversations you have at trade shows and build credibility and trust with your customer. Trade shows are rarely an effective tactic if used in isolation, or because you have always exhibited at them, or just because they sound like a good idea. The power of trade shows comes from alignment with a range of other trade and consumer marketing tactics that support each other as part of a proactive and strategic plan.

      Can you afford it?

       Corporate events and tradeshows usually fly under the radar when times are good and then are scrutinized when times are bad. But it’s clear that reducing exposure at events is risky to future sales, and that attendance has recovered solidly following the past two economic downturns.

      —Michael Hughes, MD, Research and Consulting, Access Intelligence

      Trade shows are notoriously expensive – there’s not really any other way of saying it. They’re not easy, and to do them well takes time, money and energy. If you’re not prepared or in a position to invest a lot of all three, then trade shows may not be the right tactic for your business. We will talk more about monetary budgets in Chapter 3, but if you’re going to invest in a trade show then invest well – in time and money. So often we hear from companies who have invested thousands of pounds in space on a trade show floor, then don’t want to spend any more money on a stand or marketing so turn up with a couple of pop-up banners and one person to man the stand. At the end of the show we hear such exhibitors complaining about the lack of traffic at their stand, the conversations they haven’t had and why they’re never attending the show again – before signing on the dotted line for next year for fear of missing out (FOMO).

      It is true to say that trade shows are difficult to evaluate and quite often businesses can be reluctant to spend big on them for fear of a lack of transparency on return. It may be difficult to demonstrate a return, certainly an immediate one, but it is not impossible. The setting of specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, timely (SMART) objectives and a clear follow-up strategy are crucial to the process of calculating return on investment (ROI) and we’ll help you understand how to do both throughout the book. But don’t be afraid to spend money on trade shows – just be sure you’re spending it well and squeezing every single opportunity out of the cash you’re putting in. If, however, you’ve only got the budget to book your space and nothing more, we’d advise you to think twice about whether trade shows are the right tactic for you. There are clever ways to spend a small budget, there are no clever ways to spend no budget.

      In terms of resource, exhibitors can often be quite surprised at how much time needs to go into delivering an effective exhibition. Planning for a trade show can never start too early and ideally would be at least 12 months out from the start of the show (don’t panic if you’ve a show coming up in a couple of weeks and you’ve done nothing yet, this book can still help). The time spent on executing a trade show well becomes more intensive as the show approaches and in the last few weeks can almost feel like a full-time job – but investing the time into getting the right people to your stand on the day gives you a much greater potential for demonstrating a return on your investment. If you’re a single business owner trying to wear the hat of production manager, marketing manager, HR, finance and logistics that could understandably sound daunting! The trick is to get organised, plan early and be prepared for the amount of time it’s going to take – or call in the experts to help ease the load!

      Are you excited?

       Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming after all is a form of planning.

      —Gloria Steinem, writer, lecturer, political activist and feminist organiser

      If you’re not excited yet (even if it’s nervously excited), then we’d suggest closing this book and handing it all over to someone else who does get excited by trade shows and who can manage your exhibition ambitions for you. Quite often there’s an assumption that everyone loves doing trade shows and everyone knows how to do them. That’s simply not the case and for some people just hearing that statement can come as a relief. Trade shows are hard work, physically, mentally and emotionally both in the run-up to and during the show itself, and they’re not for everyone. If you don’t enjoy the process, if you’re not buzzing on build day and enthusiastic about all the new contacts that you’re planning to meet, then visitors will see it in how you and your stand are presented. It will look forced and contrived and visitors won’t feel welcomed or comfortable engaging with you. If strategically trade shows are important to your business but you’re not the right person to project manage it, you have options, either within your own team or through outsourcing to partners who can organise absolutely everything for you. As Richard Branson has said many times, one of the qualities of a great leader is surrounding yourself with people who are better than you at the things you can’t do.

      If you’re nervously excited, that’s great and something you should definitely embrace. The excitement will give you the motivation and energy to get you through and the nervousness will help you consider all the elements to make well-balanced decisions. One thing that might help at this stage is understanding what specifically is making you nervous. Is it the fact you will need to justify spend to your manager and you’re not sure how? Have you got a very functional product or service and you’re worried about how to create impact and attract attention? Is this your first time and you’re worrying about everything? All of these are perfectly understandable concerns, but none are insurmountable with some planning, some time to think and a bit of friendly advice (all of which you can find between these pages).

      Summary

      So, while this book is all about how fantastic trade shows can be in boosting your sales pipeline, we’ve been around long enough to know that for many businesses it’s just not the right tactic or the right time to help them achieve their long-term goals. As enthusiastic as you may be about heading off to Las Vegas with your mega-stand in tow, if the team back at the ranch haven’t yet nailed how they’re going to actually make your product in any great quantity, you may just fall at the first hurdle. Here