The haiku, a short form poem of Japanese origin, was in the news recently when Sun Microsystems’ CEO Jonathan Schwartz quit (via Twitter) by posting this haiku:

Financial crisis

Stalled too many customers

CEO no more

That news reminded me of some near-haiku I had read recently in an unexpected place.  While reviewing responses to a survey question about booth staffing, I was struck by several exhibitors’ concise, almost poetic language, to the point that they reminded me of haiku poetry.

(In case you don’t remember from school, Haiku are very short, three line poems of only 17 syllables.  The first line has 5 syllables, the second 7, and the final line has 5 more. )

Inspired by former Sun CEO Schwartz, I went looking for more within the survey answers.  While a few could almost stand verbatim, I still made some nips and tucks to ”find” 17 haiku about booth staffing, one for each of the haiku’s 17 syllables.

Because so much of trade show success hinges on the quality of your booth staffers, many of these haiku extoll the virtue and nuances of choosing the right staff:

1.
being excited

to be at the trade show makes

a huge difference

2.

once used tech people

we cut that back and now send

sales & marketing

3.

one man one woman

in the booth at every show

when it’s possible

4.

staff who can perform

are able to work the crowd

not the booth work them

5.

staff with the people

that know specific products

for specific shows

6.

to pick our staffers

how they engage customers

handle travel well

7.

technical product

must answer detailed questions

staff with salespeople

Other haiku promote the value of pre-show meetings, and what should be covered at them:

8.

hold pre-show meeting

every morning of the show

outline objectives

9.

offer much info

to each booth staffer pre-show

even for veterans

10.

pre-show meeting share

last show ROI results

salespeople respond

11.

have a trade show guide

that outlines expectations

and where to find things

12.

those working the show

must have a clear idea

what is expected

Two haiku go to the heart of what a good booth staffer needs to do to succeed:

13.

remain attentive

listen to the customer

no email or phones

14. 

keep the contact brief

this is not the place to sell

generate interest

Often one finds wisdom shrouded in classic haiku.  These haiku proclaim the wisdom of training for your booth staffers:

15.

with booth staff training

get better quality leads

plus we get more leads

16.

more and more training

product, industry knowledge

assess client need

17.

hired an outside firm

train and monitor booth staff

improvement result

Thank you to those who shared their wisdom that inspired these haiku.  Feel free to share your own trade show haiku in the comments box below.  And I would love to hear if you offer these haiku as part of your exhibit marketing preparation and training! 

To get more, albeit less concise and poetic trade show booth staffing tips, click here to get your free copy of the 48-page Booth Staffing Guidebook.  “many articles / many worksheets and checklists / help you prepare staff”

If you forget everything else, remember this one thing: The number-one key to success is persistence, “stick-to-it-iveness.”  Live the “last man standing” rule: Quitters never win, winners never quit.

1 who are the decision makers?
2 what is the budget?
3 what are the timelines?
4 what is the scope of work?
5 who are you competing with?
Confirm an initial meeting (even phone meeting) with a courtesy “letter of engagement” which re-states the 5 critieria above (If there are any objections they come out right now).

1 close personal relationships
2 a career they love
3 financial independence
4 good health
Set goals in all four categories.  Review your goals regularly and adjust if needed.

Looking for more strategies learned from experience?  Click here to get your free copy of the Successful Exhibiting Strategies in Uncertain Times white paper report.

In a fun way to demonstrate how durable our Mirage pop-up trade show display is, we ran a truck over it, and then set it up without a hitch.  That’s because Mirage’s composite frame withstands abuse no other display can take.  We also ran over a competitive aluminum trade show display frame, which crumpled by comparison.

Watch the movie and see for yourself:

Marc Goldberg, author of Successful Exhibiting Strategies in Uncertain Times

Marc’s reply?  That trade shows are definitely worth doing.  And that there are many proven methods to boost your trade show results, even in a recession.  Marc shared his justification for trade shows and his top exhibiting ideas in the White Paper we published, Successful Exhibiting Strategies in Uncertain Times.

Now, two years later, taking in account the toll the harsh economy has taken, and the opportunity for turnaround, Marc has updated the report.  You can click here to request a new copy.  Here’s the short form on what’s in it:

17 Strategies For Getting The Most Out Of Trade Shows

The business world has been radically changed and improved by the advent of electronic communication—e-mail, web sites, blogs, PDAs, and even “old” tech like cell phones allow us to very efficiently service many more customers than ever before.  This trend allows fewer client support people to serve more clients—faster, too.

That’s the good news. The challenge is that the central premise of all sales is that people buy from people they “like” and people they “trust”—always.  Like and Trust can be maintained electronically, but it has been proven time and again that customers need some Face-to-Face contact to really get to Like and Trust.  This is one of the reasons that Face-to-Face Marketing has become the number one business-to-business marketing medium.

The other reason Face-to-Face Marketing has become number one is the opportunity to see firsthand the offerings of various suppliers.  For example, if you are looking for services or products related to CRM there is a show called the CRM Summit which is chock-full of every possible provider in that space.  In just a few hours a buyer can get an up-to-the-minute overview and detailed information for the entire industry. From a seller’s perspective, if they are at the right event, they have the opportunity to efficiently expose their offering to a very high percentage of the prospects in that segment.

So what does it take to make Face-to-Face Marketing work?

1. The Plan—have a well-defined plan of what you want to do, what you want prospects to get from their experience, and how you will deliver.  A good plan underpins everything.

2. Pick the right opportunities—the right show or event will make all the difference.  Start by asking your current customers what shows or events they go to and why.

3. Have a great presence—the right trade show booth or graphics help prospects understand who you are, what you do and why they should care.  A great presence also includes having the right people work the event.

4. Follow up and evaluate—manage and measure your results.  A good CRM system is essential.  A plan for fast follow-up on leads and inquiries is vital.

5. Have a good partner—a good plan poorly executed is no plan at all. Find a good partner that can help with all the thousand little details that Face-to-Face Marketing presents.

In the current business climate it is more important than ever to build and maintain Like and Trust with our clients.  Face-to-Face Marketing is one of the best ways to do that.

Get more out of your Face-to-Face Marketing with the free White Paper, Successful Exhibiting Strategies for Uncertain Times. Click here now to get your copy.

But for others, the love of trade shows runs so deep that the only thing that will get it out of their blood is embalming fluid.  Could that be you?  Here are 19 signs that you’re addicted to trade shows:

1. You go to Vegas for a bachelor party at Mandalay Bay, but rather than hit the casino, you want to go check out the show floor.
2. You don’t feel right washing your hair with shampoo that doesn’t come out of a one-ounce bottle.
3. You wear a show lanyard around your neck…at home.
4. When you meet someone new at your office, instead of asking for their business card, you ask them if you can scan their badge.
5. When you hear someone say, “He’s a B.S. artist,” you think it’s a compliment about booth staffing skills.
6. You expect everyone to know what drayage means.
7. You think all client meetings should be only 10 minutes long and held standing up.
8. Your living room has a strip of red carpet 10 feet wide going through it.
9. You think Morgan Freeman lives in Dallas.
10. You named your cat “Orlando” and your dog “McCormick.”
11. You don’t have a problem with trade shows that start on the weekend.
12. You’ve tried to talk your spouse into relocating to Las Vegas.
13. You don’t feel too guilty about missing your kid’s birthday party for your industry’s main trade show.
14. You think nothing about paying $11.50 for a hot dog and soda.
15. You pride yourself that you can set up your trade show display in 5 minutes.
16. You can remember your exhibit house’s phone number easier than the date of your anniversary.
17. If you are actually in your hometown when the local Auto or Home show takes place, you never miss them.
18. You get mad and launch into a fact-filled tirade when someone casually questions the value of trade shows.
19. When you finally redeem some of your vast stockpile of frequent flyer miles, you take a vacation in Las Vegas, Orlando, or Chicago.

I started writing this post in my head before remembering two similar (and better) blog posts that certainly inspired me: the talented Christina Stallings’ “13 Telltale Signs You’re an Event or Trade Show Professional” and the energetic Emilie Barta’s post, “You Know You Are An Event Professional When …”

Did you recognize yourself in any of these signs?  Got more of your own?  Share your own signs you’re addicted to trade shows in the comment box below.  Go ahead, it’s alright.  You’ll feel better.

If you’re addicted to shows, the best therapy is the free 32-page white paper report, What’s Working In Exhibiting.  Click here to get your copy.

Trade shows are about meeting people, those unpredictable, emotional beings.  To be engaging, you need to be having some fun, because if you are bored or too serious, that puts up an invisible barrier.  After a few days per show, and many shows per year, how can you keep yourself entertained (without going overboard at the clubs and the casinos)?  Here are a few suggestions:

1. Look up on the show city’s Visitors and Convention Bureau website all the fun activities you can do outside of show hours (try indoor skydiving in Las Vegas, it’s a blast).
2. Go to dinner with the funniest sales person who is staffing the booth.  Repeat nightly.
3. Count how many trade show booths you can walk by before a booth staffer tries to engage you.
4. Visit your competitors at the show and ask them what they don’t do well.  Watch ’em squirm.
5. When you meet attendees in your booth, stop treating them like numbers on the sales chart, and treat them instead as if they are going to be your new best friend.
6. Drinking game: Walk down the trade show aisle carrying a bottle of water (unless you are at a European show).  Whenever a booth staffer says, “Hi! How are you?” you reply, “Fine,” take a swig, and keep walking.
7. Pick up giveaways from your fellow exhibitors, and then give them back … to different exhibitors.
8. Go to lunch with the second-funniest sales person who is staffing the booth.  Repeat daily.
9. Look up old friends you haven’t seen in ages that live in the show city, via Facebook, LinkedIn or other social media, and relive the glory days.
10. Create a fun activity in your booth that helps get your message across to visitors.
11. Walk into an island trade show exhibit and play with their products. Count how many seconds (minutes?) it takes for a booth staffer to engage you.
12. Smile at your booth visitors, even if they aren’t.  Pretty soon you’ll both be smiling.
13. Have a contest with fellow staffers to see who can work specific obscure words into conversation when talking with booth visitors, such as “corollary,” “obtuse,” and “Sandra Day O’Connor.”
14. Walk the show with a colleague.  Have a bet on who can count the most: booth staffers sitting down or booth staffers on the phone.  A third friend can count booth staffers eating or drinking. (This is like counting states on license plates when on a long drive.)  Loser buys lunch.
15. Have another bet: Before you hit the show floor, bet which trendy new color will be on the trade show displays.  Then count the exhibits with that color.  Loser buys drinks … that are the color they picked.
16. Thank everyone who has helped you with the show – your booth staffers, your exhibit house, your manager, the show owner, the show labor, and especially your booth visitors.  You’d be surprised how much fun that can be.

What do you do to keep yourself entertained when you are at a trade show? Share your ideas in the comment box below.

Another way to have fun is to do really well at the game of exhibiting.  Improve your ability to win by getting a free copy of What’s Working In Exhibiting, a 32-page white paper report that shows how your peers are improving results and stretching their budgets.  Click here to get your free copy.

We often go from show to show to show.  I talked with an exhibit manager who told me she had 130 trade shows this year.  That’s 2.5 shows per week to plan and see that it is executed effectively.  She can’t be at every show so she has to delegate the work.  How can she do anything but go from show to show?  Where’s the thinking time?  We are all falling into the “ready, fire, aim” syndrome.   We get caught up in the “I don’t have time to plan, only to do.”  When this happens we forsake accuracy for momentum.

Exhibit professionals are hit from every side – sales, marketing, technology and management.  They read about a new show and want to be there without considering these very important questions.  Accuracy before Momentum:

1. Why are we going to this show?  What do we want to achieve by exhibiting?
2. Who is our target audience at this show and will they be there?
3. What messages do we want this audience to receive and how are we going to deliver them?
4. What do we want as our measure of success when the show is over?

If we can answer these questions, then we are beginning the exhibit planning process with accuracy.  If we don’t take the time to look at these issues up front, we are only going for momentum.

The next step in creating an accurate environment is to conduct an exhibit market-planning workshop that is attended by a cross-section of the organization’s functions.  That way sales, marketing (advertising and pr), technology and management are buying-in from the outset rather than second-guessing the momentum when it is too late to change.  The best outcome of an exhibit marketing planning workshop is to assure that there are objectives for the event that are linked directly to the organization’s marketing mission.

These objectives then can be the foundation for your measures of success.  If you are exhibiting to generate leads for sales, then you will want to calculate your cost per lead.  If you are going to increase awareness of your brand, then you will want to measure the cost per visitor reached.  For each objective, your planning will allow you to generate a measure whether it is return on investment (sales) or return on objectives.

The advantage of accuracy before momentum is that you have a guide against which you can execute the exhibit plan.  One of the factors of 21^st century life is that your environment will change.  It is not if, but when will it change and what will be the impact.  If you have planned for accuracy then you can regularly check your progress against your plan and if there is an environment or organizational change you can assess its impact and make the appropriate plan changes as you change courses.

Choosing Exhibit Staffers

Too often we have a staff that is at the show as a result of their being available or in the right location to be drafted for services.  But when accuracy precedes momentum, then staff is chosen for their skills in the unique exhibition environment, rather than their location or availability.

Planning Demos

We also find ourselves too often gaining incredible momentum before accuracy when we have demonstrations to reinforce the application and benefits of our products.  When we assume that the personnel can demo because they are technically competent, then we are in the “ready, fire, aim” mentality.  Demonstrations are successful when the demonstrator considers the audience, knowing to whom they are speaking and what needs they want to be addressed.  The demonstrator understands how their product can be presented to address the visitor’s needs and what the BIG IDEA is they want the visitor to remember when they leave the trade show exhibit.  This does not occur if we select demonstrators and only tell them what their timeslot is to work the exhibit.  Accuracy means planning, preparing and practicing the demo before the first visitor sets foot in the exhibit.

Picking Giveaways

The last area that is impacted by gaining too much momentum before achieving accuracy is the use of promotional products.  When we don’t consider the uses of this tool, we find ourselves just perusing catalogs and finding nice and nifty giveaways.  You want to identify why you are going before choosing a promotional product.  Is it to communicate or reinforce a message or reward a visitor for participating in a demo or recognize them for coming to visit you?  If you don’t need a tool to do any of these functions, then save your money.  If you have come to this conclusion, then you have practiced accuracy before gaining momentum.  If you have a nice and nifty item, we hope it gets home because the majority of those that are not useful and functional, taken and not given and are not judged as having a high perceived value are thrown away or left in hotel rooms for the housekeeper.

Accuracy before momentum is not just a slick phrase. It means that if your are going to rise above the competition, you need to think through and plan your event, not just show up and hope for the best.

Get more winning insights in the Successful Exhibiting Strategies for Uncertain Times White Paper.  This 16-page report outlines 16 proven strategies for going beyond just surviving to thriving at trade shows. Click here to get your free copy.

Every year you have a show in the same distant city, and every year your boss says, “Use old such-and-such from the local office as a booth staffer.  That way we don’t have to pay for airfare and hotel to send someone from here.” 

At first you thought it was a good idea, too — a way to save about a thousand dollars.  But after a couple of years, you’ve realized that old such-and-such is actually a horrible booth staffer.   How horrible?

• He hides inside the booth and doesn’t try to engage attendees
• He’s got a negative attitude, is unapproachable and unwelcoming
• He’s got poor product knowledge
• He spends all his time talking (and complaining) to your other booth staffers, tying them up, too
• He gets a fraction of the leads of other booth staffers
• He doesn’t write notes on the lead cards from the few conversations he gets

Unfortunately, your boss hasn’t figured out the problem yet, and won’t unless you tell her.  To get the best staff that you need, you’ll have to point out to your boss the true cost of this “free” staffer, and make the case for spending the extra money to get a worthwhile staffer instead.

The hidden cost of a poor performing trade show booth staffer

While you saved on airfare and hotel, you have other, bigger costs you’ve now incurred:

• You miss out on potentially dozens of leads, and the sales from those leads, that a better booth staffer would get. 
• Attendees who do talk to the poor booth staffer will form a poorer opinion of your company
• Other booth staffers will be dragged down by the bad booth staffer’s attitude, and they will in turn get fewer leads

The average cost of a trade show lead is $212, according to ceir.org.  If that poor performing booth staffer only took about 5 leads at that show each of the past two year, but your average staffers are getting about 25 (my guesstimates based on experience, yours may vary), you can make the case to your boss that a better staffer would add $4,240 in value to your marketing.  Here’s how:  25-5=20 leads, times $212 cost per lead, equals $4,240 in extra value.   That’s over 4 times more value, by spending the $1,000 to “ship” a proven booth staffer there.  

If there is no one else on your staff available to replace him, consider hiring a local trade show host or hostess.  Not the stereotypical booth babe, but a professionally dressed, self-motivated oasis of sunshine.  If you’re concerned they don’t know enough about your products, you can train them enough to engage visitors, and then they’ll feed the rest of your booth staff with more leads.  They may even live in the show city and not require travel expenses, and end up costing you less than paying for your own staffer’s travel expenses. 

So be willing to say no to a “free” booth staffer if he can’t get the job done.  Only bring booth staffers who are up to the task, even if that means paying more to get them there.  You’ll get more leads, your ROI will improve, your other booth staffers will do better, and you’ll present a better image for your company. 

Want to get more great tips on increasing your booth staff’s performance, and thus your trade show results?  Get your free copy of our 48-page Booth Staffing Guidebook filled with insightful articles, worksheets, and checklists by clicking here.

Trade show exhibitors look ahead at their 2010 buying plans

A few weeks ago Skyline gladly hosted the Upper Midwest Exhibit Designers and Producers Association chapter meeting, here at our main facility in Minnesota.

About 60 industry professionals were treated dinner and not just one, but two excellent presentations about the state of the exhibition industry.  The newly-elected EDPA President John Rose presented highlights from the 2009 EDPA Economic Survey, which showed how exhibit builders fared in 2008.  (Most made money.  2009 will be a more interesting survey.)

The second presenter, Mark Kuehl of EXHIBITOR Media Group, shared the as-yet-unpublished EXHIBITOR Magazine’s 2010 Economic Outlook Survey. The goal of EXHIBITOR’s survey was to “quantify trends in corporate spending on trade shows for the coming year.”  Which for our audience meant, do exhibitors feel safe enough to resume spending on trade shows, or not?

The survey will be published in EXHIBITOR’s March 2010 issue, but we got enough of a sneak peek to share a key insight with you. 

EXHIBITOR used a common format for many questions, asking survey takers if they planned to spend more, the same, or less on an item in 2010.  Most people answered “the same” to these questions – it was the gap in percent between those who answered “increase” versus “decrease” that gives a clue to what the year will bring.

Do exhibitors want lighter weight exhibits?

The biggest “Aha!” for me (I might have even dropped my dessert spoon) was that exhibitors are ready to spend more on trade show exhibits than before, and that they will buy lighter weight exhibits.  Here’s how I came to that conclusion:

When asked what their expected spending would be for exhibit shipping, only 5.5% said they would increase, while 33% said they would decrease spending.  With 5.5% minus 33%, that’s a negative 27.5% gap indicating less planned spending on shipping.

But when asked what their expected spending would be for exhibits/displays, 17% said they would increase, while 22.1% said they would decrease spending.  With 17% minus 22.1%, that’s about a negative 5% gap indicating slightly less planned spending on exhibits/displays.  (Their actual behavior during 2009 was much more towards “decrease” – so this feels like an improvement!)

How do exhibitors plan to nearly maintain spending on exhibits and displays, but spend that much less on shipping?  I think it’s because they intend to buy lighter weight exhibits and displays that will lower their shipping costs.

Do you agree?  And what do you plan to do?  Let me know in the comments box below. 

Learn more about the shift towards lighter exhibits in the 20-page White Paper, The Trend to Custom Modular Exhibits.  By Tradeshow Week Magazine, including a survey of 170 exhibitors on their preferences, plans, and challenges.   Click here now to get your copy.