Trade Show Tips & Tricks

Trade Show Materials

If you plan on attending trade shows, consider investing in:

a. Display board – As shown here, $140 from Displays2go.com
b. Personalized Table Cover – As shown here, $170 from Displays2go.com
c. Standing Banner(s) – As shown here, $360 each, created locally
d. Professionally printed posters to put on display board – Cost has many variables

Handout Materials:
a. Business cards
b. Brochures and/or information sheets
c. Samples

Impactful Decorations:
a. Picture/Newsletter book
b. Laptop running a picture loop
c. Treated and Untreated Plants
d. Product for Display
e. Poster showing awards and recognitions

Useful Information:
a. Booth spaces are usually 8” x 8” to 8” x 10”.
b. Registration usually includes a table and 2 folding chairs.
c. Electricity can usually be rented for an additional fee.
d. Indoor probably will NOT allow you to hang anything on the walls.

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17 Skills For Highly Effective Tradeshow Events

Ken Krogue, Contributor - 6/10/2013

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenkrogue/2013/06/10/17-skills-for-highly-effective-tradeshow-events/

Earlier the other morning I finished a webinar with my friends Peri McDonald and
Becky de Loryn’ from salesforce.com, the cloud computing juggernaut.

They asked me to do the webinar with them after they had read another Forbes piece I
wrote called “The 12 Commandments of Incredibly Successful Tradeshows,” with the 14
“Tradeshow Sins” in the comments.

Our company got attention from setting appointments with 1057 people at the
Salesforce.com Dreamforce tradeshow in San Francisco before the tradeshow even
began. Salesforce loves to help their partners any way they can and thought these skills
would be very valuable. (In this economy we need all the help we can get!)

They acted as if nobody has ever done that before.

In fact though, most companies don’t even think about setting appointments before an
event. We don’t go to an event if we can’t set enough appointments to pay for it in
advance.

They asked me if I would be willing to put together a summary of the specific skills that
we have found to be highly effective and efficient in pulling off events that actually bring
results.

At tradeshows we used every one of these skills or strategies:

Know exactly what you want: Before you begin any campaign ask yourself or your
team, “What are we trying to accomplish?” If you are planning a tradeshow; do you want
leads, awareness, customer relationships, or market leadership?

Stand up and be ready: Many exhibitor staff we watch at a tradeshow sits down
behind a table. Don’t do that. Get out front with the people. Push the table back against
the booth wall if you have a table and stand up, be ready. Don’t be caught sitting. Your
company is paying thousands or tens of thousands for you to be there for very short
periods of time. You can rest later.

Always use the most assertive media: Nothing is better than face-to-face. A
tradeshow is the ultimate opportunity (besides executive seminars) to get lots of
prospects and customers in the same room for face-to-face discussions. Right after face-
to-face are phone discussions, then high impact mailers, then LinkedIn inMail
connections, then LinkedIn messages, then direct social media messages (like Twitter),
and finally email.

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The strategy is to bridge people from passive to assertive media. Tradeshows are ideal if
you get as much mileage out of your face-to-face meetings as possible.

We have even been able to take people from initial awareness to a closed sale right at
our tradeshow events.

Stand out: At tradeshows we try to grab a good location. We use unique color schemes.
Our data-driven targeting and social media strategy helps us stand out.

The biggest key is to give really great presentations!

For years we brought all you can eat chocolate, the real good stuff, to get people to
hangout in our suite or meeting room.

Give something away that is really cool, but only if people are qualified to buy what you
have, and let you spend a few minutes to educate them. Zig when others zag.

At last year’s Dreamforce, we gave away nice sweatshirts. Domo (Josh James) gave away
Skull candy headphones… to qualified prospects only of course.

Target people specifically: Define who you want to meet by title and function at the
tradeshow. For us it is sales directors over inside sales who’s teams uses salesforce.com.
Then specifically search for them in your database of past tradeshows, LinkedIn,
Twitter, etc. We use predictive analytics to know who to call and when to call in our
targeting.

Treat appointments like appointments (because they are): Get on the phone 3-
6 weeks before the event and invite these people to meet you at the show. Set specific
appointments during every spare minute during the exhibit.

We like appointments at weird times…. like 10:35 a.m. I learned that at FranklinCovey,
the largest time management company in the world. People don’t forget appointments
at unique or weird times.

Set appointments at meeting rooms and other locations when people can’t get into the
exhibit area.

Keep an appointment database (we recommend the Salesforce CRM) when everyone is
coming to meet you. Follow up immediately at the show if they miss the appointment.

Know your key questions: Track all of the questions that you get asked at your booth
and summarize the answers to them for everyone who works at the booth or meeting
rooms.
Learn the business card pocket trick: I keep my own business cards in my right
pocket. I hand them to people and ask for their business card. I write notes on their card
that qualify them. Then I put them in my left pocket. A little human ingenuity goes a
long way.

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Point out your coolest feature: The old adage is “features tell… benefits sell!” But
that is from old school sales trainers, who are right, but it doesn’t work at tradeshows

Cool features grab people’s attention.

Think of it this way. When you walk through a sales tradeshow with 100 different
booths, every one of them promises to help you sell more and save money, don’t they?
But what do you go home that night and tell your spouse about? It’s the booth with the
coolest features.

Cool features grab attention, that’s what you are doing at a tradeshow.

I wonder if the Fonz, from Happy Days, has any idea what a powerful word he coined
when he said, “Cool!”

Remember that clarity trumps persuasion: Besides the cool feature, you need to
be to be clear when you tell people exactly what you do. Be simple. Be specific. Only
after you are specific should you use metaphors in your language.

Use judo, not boxing: This skill is very interesting. Judo uses the momentum and
weight of an opponent against them by going their same direction, then shifting them in
the direction they want to go. Observe and listen, then take the conversation the way
they were taking it. Don’t just jump in and start spewing your canned speech. It’s like
going to Nordstrom’s, they don’t run up to you and say, “May I help you?” They watch
where you go, and start the conversation based on the context of where you go in the
store.

Be assertive, not aggressive: Assertive is somebody who is willing to introduce

themselves to anybody who walks by, aggressive is somebody who won’t let them leave
and won’t let them get a word in edgewise.

Be assertive, not aggressive.

Introverts struggle with this; extroverts do it naturally. Just remember, it’s your job, and
everybody else who is doing it right is being assertive.

Be dramatically specific: When you give statistics or case studies, don’t use round
numbers. They seem made up. When you tell people about your technology, tell them
58.7% improvement in contact rates by calling with local call ID, NOT you will improve
by half. When you set an appointment, say 10:45 on Friday morning at the bottom of the
entry stairs… not I’ll meet you in the morning in the entry way.

Divert a river, don’t dig a well: Have one of your staff stand out in the traffic flow
and move them to the booth (divert traffic). Don’t sit behind the desk and yell out to
them (create traffic.)

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Tell an emotional story that people can relate to: This is so powerful. I just sold
my home to a family who told me a true story about how they would use my home to
raise their three little boys. It tugged at my heartstrings. I had 7 different offers in two
days (the market is really good; theirs wasn’t even the very best. But my wife and I
wanted this family.)

Follow up immediately with your

trade show leads. This graph from
our research with Dr. James
Oldroyd, shows the effect of
following up immediately to web
leads, they are similar.

Follow up immediately: InsideSales.com learned the power of doing this after our
landmark research with Dr. James Oldroyd andKristina McElheran of Harvard Business
Review. Together we found that you need to respond to leads very quickly. Real time is
optimum, 5 minutes is best practice, and 1 hour starts getting too late, a day later is way
too late.

Do we always pull this off? No. But almost.

This same skill of immediate response is profitably applied to immediate follow up. Our
reps start keying in business cards right at the show, and finish up that night in the hotel
rooms. Ideal is to move people to a meeting room and follow up in real time, next best is
to set appointments right at the show for the days following the show, and minimum is
to get the business cards into the system and following up that night with an email,
LinkedIn connection, and a phone call the next day.

We at InsideSales.com invented a technology we call ResponseAudit, where we go to a

company website, put in a fake lead with a real phone number and email address, and
track how fast and how persistent their salespeople are in responding to those leads.

We have now done this over 16,000 times.

The average company takes 39 hours and 22 minutes to make their first attempt at
calling back a lead.

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ResponseAudits show the

average response to a lead
takes 39 hours and 22 minutes.
Companies leave a huge value
on the table by being slow.

Be pleasantly persistent: The other landmark research that Dr. Oldroyd did with
Dave Elkington, our CEO, was to determine that sales people aren’t nearly persistent
enough.

The average sales person only makes 1.5 phone calls attempts to follow up on a lead that
comes from the website. Our research shows the average sales rep should make 6 to 9
attempts. We make 12 to 15. We only leave 3 voicemails and send 3 emails though, or
you become a pest. (Full disclosure: we use our own patented technology to accomplish
our immediate and persistent follow up.)

Here’s the scariest stat of all:

Only 27% of leads ever get contacted!

Persistency in sales and trade

show follow up goes a long way.
Sales reps should make 6 to 9
call attempts before giving up.

Brief and debrief: I learned a process from the United States military and my
background in the Boy Scouts of America. I tell the story in one of my articles called
“Great Presentations: Tips from Great Presenters for Scouters” of the book “Flawless
Execution” by James D. Murphy, or “Murph.” He teaches that if fighter pilots always
brief each other prior to a mission, they then engage in the mission, then they
immediately get together afterwards and debrief so they can learn and improve. Their
name and rank are on patches on their flight suits have Velcro. When they walk in the

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debriefing room, they symbolically tear off their names and ranks and leave them on the
table at the doorway. Then they can be blunt and honest and forthright, not worrying
about repercussions.

Take really good notes.

In the same article, skip down to #46, and read more about how fighter pilots and Boy
Scouts improve after every event, read the oatmeal story.

This is one of the most powerful skills you can learn to put on world-class tradeshow
events.

Plan WAY ahead: FranklinCovey at one time was the largest training company in the
world. While there we learned that with 8 weeks of lead time, you can pull off almost
any event. Now don’t get me wrong, in a huge venue like the Moscone Center in San
Francisco, that salesforce.com uses every year, you need to play a year or more in
advance.

Rinse and repeat: As you are getting ready to plan a new event, pull out the notes
from your debriefs, and make sure you review them in time to plan for the next event.

Good luck!

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The 12 Commandments of Incredibly Successful Tradeshows

Ken Krogue, Contributor - 4/05/2013

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenkrogue/2013/04/05/the-12-commandments-of-incredibly-successful-
tradeshows/

1. Never go to an event that you can’t generate more leads than you will need
to pay for it… before you get there. We keep every contact and lead from years past
and we reach out 6 weeks ahead of a trade show or an event and make appointments
before the event even begins. Last year at Dreamforce 2012, we set 1057 appointments
before the show even started. We walked home with 1900 qualified leads and 20,000
partially qualified leads. Use social media like crazy. LinkedIn and Twitter are awesome.
Chatter is incredible if you are going to a salesforce.com event. But don’t spam. Just get
to know people and meet them at your booth.

2. Look sharp… be sharp… And be kind… Be assertive and talk to everyone, and have
your entire staff do the same. Don’t sit down. Don’t leave drinks and food around the
booth. Be kind. Never be a jerk like many of the old timer sales types I see who still
believe that outdated model of disqualifying is as good as qualifying. They almost push
you out of the way if they don’t think you are important. In todays age of social media
one person’s disgruntled voice can carry far and wide. Go watch “United Breaks Guitars”
and learn what happened to the perceived value of United Airlines when one employee
treated one person, a musician, poorly. The first YouTube video Dave Carroll made
about his experience has 12,966,705 views and counting.

3. Trade leads with every other vendor at the trade show. Why? If you get 1800
business cards, and they do also, now you have 3600. 10% or 20% may overlap. That’s
ok. Way more than you got on your own. And many of those vendors can become
prospects or great partners. Competition is awesome!

4. Never go to a show that you can’t speak at. Enough said. And sitting on a panel
with 4 other people isn’t the same as speaking, but it’s better than nothing. If you can’t
speak, make your own event that you can speak at and invite everyone in your database
to come hear you speak at the show. Oh, and speak well…

5. When you speak, don’t pitch your stuff. Grow your industry. If your content
and research is really good, people will flock to you. If you sell your stuff on stage, they
flock away from you. If you help them provide answers to difficult questions, they turn
to you to help them in their business. But people hate sitting through a sales pitch
masquerading as a seminar… don’t do it. It hurts you. Have faith in your content and
value. I get asked all the time in my seminars, “Ken, what is it you guys do? Research?
Consult?” Then I tell them, but I take it offline after the seminar is over.

6. Always have your own event(s) going on at the same time. We do what we call a
ResponseAudit on every known attendee at the show. About a month ahead of time we
do a “secret shopper” on their website by putting in a fictitious lead and tracking how
fast they respond (immediacy) and how many attempts they make (persistency.) Then
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we do a press release with the top 50 responders, give awards and benchmarks, and
make people aware of their lead response practices. It’s a great ice breaker. We also do
dinners and press conferences in the evenings of big events. We have done these
ResponseAudits 16,000 times. We have a research team of 6 constantly doing this to
help companies be aware of how well they manage their leads.

7. Set appointments for people to come meet your executives. They will be there
anyway, put ‘em to work meeting the people and adding value to the discussions. This
one of our favorite things. We keep Dave Elkington, our CEO, and myself, Michael
Critchfield, our VP Sales, Dave Orrico, our VP over Enterprise, busy… very busy.

8. Give cool SWAG away that matters and pulls well. Make people sit through a 20
minute presentation to get a $55 sweatshirt. Why? You must educate Interest into Need,
and only people with Need buy from you. Interest is the counterfeit of Need. Interest
without Need wastes more time of your salespeople than anything else. Interesting and
compelling bait on the hook catches a lot more customers.

9. Be audacious and memorable… but smart… and relevant. Don’t pay for
mermaids to swim in glass tanks in your booth that have nothing to do with your
business. But it’s ok if you are having a Hawaiian vacation for partners who send lots of
leads to have Samoan fire dancers and Hawaiian hula dancers at your booth.

10. Have your best lead generators at the event… And make it a game! Invite your
reps to shows and watch for the ones who really earn their pay. The others can stay
home next time. Have contests, set goals. Gamify your tradeshow.

11. Promote the event like it’s your own… because it is. Every year we drive
hundreds of attendees to all the different trade shows we attend. We even will pay for
passes for great customers, prospects or media to join us there. A rising tide floats all
boats and you should give back to your trade show partner.

12. Respond as fast as you can to all requests, and set appointments right at the
show. Every rep should be typing or scanning in business cards at the show or at the
latest in their hotel room that night. Get back with people quickly. Even better, set
appointments during the show so you are on your prospects calendar. A business card
scanner is great.

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14 Tradeshow Sins
Ken Krogue, Listed in comment section of “12 Commandments of Incredibly Successful Tradeshows”

1. Don’t just “show up” at an event hoping leads will come.

2. Don’t be sloppy

3. Don’t be a jerk

4. Don’t let booth staff sit around

5. Don’t be understaffed at the booth

6. Don’t leave the booth unattended

7. Don’t just have a booth full of “attractive” people without substance. We really aren’t
that shallow any more, are we?

8. Don’t give away stupid or useless SWAG. Always get peoples time and attention and
contact info or don’t waste the money. (Good chocolate and water is great.)

9. Don’t let people get away without their contact information and an appointment if
they are qualified.

10. Don’t stand behind a table or in a booth, be out in the aisle and meet the people.

11. Don’t let leads or business cards sit without a response.

12. Don’t assume somebody else is going to be as proactive as you will be.

13. Don’t eat alone. Have all staff network and get business cards when they are eating
meals.

14. Don’t assume the only leads are the attendees. We get as many leads from the
sponsors, exhibitors, speakers, and show vendors as anyone else.

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