Trade Show Follies
This week I attended a trade show for the first time in a while. It was a exhibition held along with a technical conference, and I was just there checking out the exhibits to learn more about the industry and see if there were any potential clients.
One interesting aspect of the show: I hadn't seen so much horrible booth behavior in a long, long time.
When I was a corporate marketing guy, it would make me nuts that we spent all this money to have space at a show, designed an exhibit, shipped it there, and sent a bunch of people to work in it, and then they'd do things that drive potential customers away.
By the end of this show, I thought I should have printed up a brochure on training people to work shows, taken some snapshots of booths, and then sent them to the people back home who had decided to spend the money on the show.
There was the booth with one guy in it, busy chatting on his cell phone. (Sorry, I wanted to find out about your $100,000 software package, but I didn't want to interrupt your phone conversation.) Eating in the booth. (Because everyone wants to chat with somebody with garlic breath.) All the people in the booth sitting in their matching company logo shirts talking, creating a wall of intimidation to drive the customers away.
I actually missed the very best one, though; a colleague told me about it. He walked into a booth which appeared to be empty (big no-no!). As he was reading the signs hanging in the booth, suddenly a head popped up from behind a podium and a woman said, "Hi, may I help you?"
Turns out the lone booth staffer was sitting on the floor out of sight with her laptop, hiding from customers. Now that's how to sell!
The big lesson to corporate marketing types: go to your shows and see what the staff is doing. Or send spies. You may have some problems you don't know about it if you're back at the office.
One interesting aspect of the show: I hadn't seen so much horrible booth behavior in a long, long time.
When I was a corporate marketing guy, it would make me nuts that we spent all this money to have space at a show, designed an exhibit, shipped it there, and sent a bunch of people to work in it, and then they'd do things that drive potential customers away.
By the end of this show, I thought I should have printed up a brochure on training people to work shows, taken some snapshots of booths, and then sent them to the people back home who had decided to spend the money on the show.
There was the booth with one guy in it, busy chatting on his cell phone. (Sorry, I wanted to find out about your $100,000 software package, but I didn't want to interrupt your phone conversation.) Eating in the booth. (Because everyone wants to chat with somebody with garlic breath.) All the people in the booth sitting in their matching company logo shirts talking, creating a wall of intimidation to drive the customers away.
I actually missed the very best one, though; a colleague told me about it. He walked into a booth which appeared to be empty (big no-no!). As he was reading the signs hanging in the booth, suddenly a head popped up from behind a podium and a woman said, "Hi, may I help you?"
Turns out the lone booth staffer was sitting on the floor out of sight with her laptop, hiding from customers. Now that's how to sell!
The big lesson to corporate marketing types: go to your shows and see what the staff is doing. Or send spies. You may have some problems you don't know about it if you're back at the office.
posted by John Whiteside at 10/14/2005 08:50:00 AM
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