Today's blog is actually a podcast — a 16-minute extract from a presentation I recently made on getting the most out of your sales and sales organization. In this section, I share my 10 rules for working tradeshows, and why each rule has an impact on your success.

The Rules

Here's the short list of rules. Listen to the podcast to hear the reasons for them and what you gain by following them:

1. Always prepare for a tradeshow by researching your top prospects in the event you see them.

2. Never sit in the booth.

3. You're not selling shoes.

4. Take scheduled breaks from the booth.

5. Hire a booth buddy.

6. Never eat in the booth.

7. Capture every possible lead - that's what the tradeshow is for.

8. Keep alcohol and late nights to a bare minimum.

9. Make each subsequent day better than the day before.

10. Never ever close up shop early.

Transcript Below

Check Out Another Episode Here

Transcript

[00:00:01.020]
I recently spoke at a conference for senior sales executives and sales managers, and I was talking in general about trade shows and some of you guys have already watched my presentation or read my blog on how to get your ROIC from trade shows. But this next section, which I pulled from the speech recording, is about my rules for working trade shows, and I haven't really shared that on my blog before. The sound quality is a little bit tinny because it was a large room without professional recording equipment.

[00:00:34.200]
But I think you'll get the gist and I hope it's useful for you as so many of you prepare to go work some really big trade shows in the next few weeks. I often talk with my clients about preparing for trade shows and. Being very productive and getting their return on investment from trade shows, it's sort of a joke now that people will say, well, OK, it sounds like you have some rules for trade shows and what are they? So I thought I'd just take a moment to share Australia's rules for working a trade show and explain the thinking behind them.

[00:01:10.040]
For 20 years, I did run businesses that were present at multiple trade shows every year, and I thought it was very important that I be on the floor selling and experiencing the trade show and the customer interactions because I don't think you can run a business without really knowing what the customers want, what they talk about it, that whole experience of selling to them directly. So here are my rules of trade shows. The first rule is be prepared with your prospecting list before you ever go to the show.

[00:01:38.580]
If you show up at a trade show and you don't know which customers you're specifically looking for or hoping we'll stop by if you haven't done some research on those customers so that you can talk with them intelligently about their business, if and when they do show up, then you're not prepared to be at the trade show. Now, of course, if you can get meetings with people, that's easier to prepare for because you know who is going to be coming in at what time.

[00:02:05.070]
And you do your research and you're all prepared. But trade shows are easy and you often can't get meetings. And that means you're going to be doing a certain amount of customer research on spec, on the hope or the prayer that they will actually come by your booth. But if you have high value targets and you are prepared with information about them when they show up to your booth unexpectedly, how impressive is that? So the first rule of trade shows is before you ever go to the trade show, have a full dossier on the customers that you hope to sell to and be prepared to have an intelligent conversation with them if they arrive at your booth.

[00:02:45.180]
The second rule of trade shows is nobody sits at a trade show. In fact, at most of the companies I've run, we didn't even allow for any chairs to be in the booth except for chairs that were available for customers. And there are two reasons for this. The first is if you're sitting down and then you suddenly jump up when a customer walks by in order to catch their attention. That is very intimidating. The customer suddenly feels as if you want something from them.

[00:03:12.600]
And even though they're at a trade show to buy, there's this human tendency that kicks in. It says, you don't sell to me, don't sell to me. So if you're sitting down and then stand up at the approach of a customer, that's usually bad energy, it'll send the customer running. On the other hand, if you're sitting down and you say sitting down with a customer walks by, that's dismissive. It's like I'm comfortable and I'm just sitting here and I'm doing my own thing and so I'm not here for you.

[00:03:42.000]
So sitting down in the customer approaches doesn't work and jumping up with a customer doesn't work. So what works when the customer walks up that you're standing all ready and you're prepared to make eye contact with them and smile at them and invite them to engage with you? The second reason there's no sitting down at trade shows is because trade shows are exhausting, and when you're standing all day, it's exhausting. But something really bad happens in terms of energy. When you sit down at a trade show, all of the energy that you have left, which may not be very much, drains out through your rear end and into the chair.

[00:04:18.510]
And the next thing you know, it's very hard to stand back up. If you want to keep your energy up at a trade show, the best thing you can do is stay on your feet and keep moving and keep engaging and save the butt draining energy moment for the end of the day when there are no more customers to engage with. This brings us to my third rule about trade shows, which is you're not selling shoes, so don't wear shoes for the attention.

[00:04:46.150]
They get you lots and lots.

[00:04:48.820]
This is particularly a women thing because men are pretty good about buying shoes that feel good and they're expected to wear shoes that feel good. The shoes that feel good actually look good for men. For women, it's a little more challenging. But I can't tell you how many women I know find that their ability to think and communicate and negotiate and keep high energy at a trade show is severely damaged by the fact that they're wearing shoes that will not support being on your feet all day long.

[00:05:17.740]
And there's a certain amount of pressure to wear beautiful shoes with your beautiful clothing look beautiful. But again, you're not there to sell shoes and you're not there to look beautiful. You're there to be intelligent and engaging and to sell. So wear shoes that are designed to be stood up all day long. The good news is for women, there are a lot more shoes that do a good job of that today while still being quite attractive. They're not going to be as beautiful as the shoes that you spend a fortune on at Neiman Marcus, but they are great shoes that will allow you to be an effective human being while being on your feet for 10 hours a day for three, four, five and six days in a row.

[00:06:00.400]
That's my third rule of trade shows. By fourth rule of trade shows is take breaks from the booth, but I say that with a caveat because I know a lot of particularly young entrepreneurs, young designers, they tend to go work trade shows by themselves. And this is very difficult to do. And I'll talk about that in my fifth role. But in my fourth role, it's get breaks from the booth and try to do it just the way we would encourage hourly employees to work.

[00:06:30.740]
15 minutes in the morning, half hour for lunch, 15 minutes in the afternoon. In fact, if you walk away from the booth and you sit down and you know you've got 15 minutes to do it. It doesn't have the same bizarre energy effect that it does if you sit down in a chair that's already at your booth and you don't want to stand back up again. You've walked away from the booth psychologically. You know, you have to go back to the booth.

[00:06:54.760]
And for some reason, sitting down is not as hard on energy. Maintenance is also good to clear your head. You walk away, you get some water, you eat some lunch. That relates to rule six, which is no eating in the booth. So all for is get away from the booth three times a day, half hour for lunch, 15 minutes of the morning, 15 minutes of the afternoon. So what's rule five that facilitates this?

[00:07:22.180]
Get a booth, buddy. A booth buddy is a really important that you may not know if you have staff or if you've got a bunch of coworkers, then you're going to be booth buddies to each other and you're going to make sure that each of you get your breaks in your lunches. You're going to be thoughtful about it, because that's the only way to keep the energy high for the customers all day long. But if you're by yourself and what you want to do is work with other exhibitors at that show who are also by themselves.

[00:07:47.730]
And together, you hire a booth buddy and that booth buddy is somebody that moves around and covers the different booths. You do a little math, you figure out how many booth to Booth Buddy can cover and still get their own 15 minute break, morning and afternoon and a half hour lunch. But a booth buddy helps you maintain your energy and your effectiveness by giving you the breaks. And you can afford the booth, buddy, by sharing them with other solo exhibitors of a six.

[00:08:19.350]
No eating in the booth. First of all, it's bad for your digestion, your scarfing food down to your customers. Second of all, it's bad for your presentation. I don't know anyone who has a brand that says we chew in other people's faces. It's just not part of anybody's brand statements. You've got to eat away from the booth, which reinforces that you need a booth, buddy, and you need to take those breaks. But nobody eats the booth other than a breath mint.

[00:08:43.710]
I don't even like dove in a booth because you just keep chewing it. And Victor, terrible presentation. My seventh rule of trade shows is that you're there to get leads. Yes, of course. You should be setting appointments before you go and meeting with customers as much as you can and be prepared for sales pitches. But a very, very, very important part about trade shows is connecting with people that you didn't even know existed and becoming a presence to people that you knew existed but they didn't know you existed.

[00:09:14.550]
And so the seventh rule is about collecting every customer's information that comes by your books. If there is a scanner opportunity at the trade show to scan badges as they come by, it's worth investing in. If there's not a scanner opportunity, make sure you're doing something to collect everybody's business card. Even if they tell you that they're almost out of business cards, they only have one left. Take a picture of it, take a picture of their patch. If the show will allow you to do so, do something in the booth that allows you to entice people to leave a business card like a give away.

[00:09:50.610]
But your job at the trade show is to collect every possible you can collect, because following up on those leads is what's going to help you get your ROIC from the trade show after the show is over. So that's the seventh rule of trade shows. Collect, collect, collect the leads.

[00:10:08.670]
The eighth rule of trade shows is always an a popular one with my employees when we were exhibiting, which is you're not on vacation, you're there to sell and that early nights, very low alcohol intake, get to bed, get rested. You're spending a fortune to be at that trade show. You're spending a fortune in cash. You're spending a fortune on energy. You're spending time that you could be spending doing something else that is a huge investment. You could probably get away with going out night one with all your friends that you haven't seen since the last version of that trade show.

[00:10:42.240]
And you stay out late. You drink too much to get up in the morning and you're fine. But day two, you're not going to be as productive as day one. Guess what? You're not as productive day to is your day one anyway because you're tired from day one when you add to a trade show and it's inherent, exhausting nature, late nights and alcohol and every subsequent day you are less of a professional. You are less successful than before the day before.

[00:11:07.920]
So the eighth rule of trade shows is absolutely do not drink too much, do not stay out till late, do get to bed and be fresh for the next day.

[00:11:21.870]
The ninth rule of trade is to make sure you're doing some things better each day than you did the day before, and this means that you have to end each day with a reflection on what worked, what did, what you could do better, and you start the subsequent day with improvements that you have planned. So that's good night. Rule of trade shows get better every day. And now for my last 10 through live trade shows, never, never, never pack up, close your booth before the day has closed or before the show has closed.

[00:11:59.020]
Nothing drives me crazy here than to see a group of people pack up and leave their booth at the end of the day, 20 minutes before the show's closed, because they're in a hurry to get ahead of all the other people that are heading to the vault or to the restaurants or wherever they think they're heading off to. And it's absolutely crushing to me to see somebody pack up a booth and say the shows closes on the last day at three o'clock and they start packing up their booth to the customer that you've been waiting for.

[00:12:28.480]
The customer that can pay for the whole event could be the one that shows up at six o'clock when you packed up and left at five forty or who shows up in the last 10 minutes of the show on the very last day. You're there to sell. You're there to make money. And to be unavailable for that to happen is just leaving money on the table. In addition, it makes a terrible brand statement. What it says to people walking by is we're lazy, we take shortcuts, we're in a hurry.

[00:13:02.200]
Some things more important to us than being here for you. And you never want your friend to say that I don't care what your brand is, it doesn't include telling people you're lazy and that you take shortcuts. So those are my 10 rules of trade shows. And they might be a little stiff for most people, but I have found that they help make trade show value increase in every place that I've ever. Rule number one. Be prepared before you go to the show with all your customer information, particularly for the top prospect you'd like to sell to number two sitting in the booth.

[00:13:39.040]
Number three, it's not about the shoes, it's about the sales. Number four, make sure you take breaks from the booth to maintain your energy. Number five, get a buddy. Even if that means sharing the expense of your booth. Buddy with other people, work the show. No. Six, no eating in the booth for seven. It's all about the prospect. Make sure that you're capturing every lead you can capture. Number eight, you're not on vacation.

[00:14:08.480]
You spend money to be there and you expect to make money by being there. So get your rest. Don't drink too much and make sure that you have energy for the following day. Number nine, make sure you do some things better each day than you did the day before by reviewing each day and making plans for the new day and continuously improving your trade, your presence. And for Ted. Never close up early. That at the end of the day, not at the end of the show.

[00:14:39.380]
Work up to the very last moment of the show time so that you're always conveying to customers that you are professionals, that you are there for them, that there's nothing more important to you than your obligations at that show. And also because you don't want to miss that opportunity for the perfect customer to walk in your booth with you shut down or left early. I hope that by applying these rules, you can have a better trade show experience and make more money from your trade shows because for Pete's sake, trade shows are difficult.

[00:15:12.600]
Why would you go to the effort of a trade show if it was to produce as much financial return as possible for all that work? I wish I could have captured the Q&A from that event, because people have their own rules for working trade shows, and I'm curious if you have your own rules for working trade shows as well. Anyway, this has been a podcast from the works blog by me, Andrea Hill. And thanks for hanging with me for a few minutes.

[00:15:41.670]
Have a great day.