Show notes
To maximize trade show revenue, switch the mindset from, "I'm here to meet people and give away stuff" to "I'm here to collect leads." This changes the entire dynamic. When she did that, she came back from the trade show, we were having a conversation and she said, "I've never had a show like that. I got so many leads. I have all these people I'm going to be following up with. You know, we had great conversations."
And all it is, is a shift in the dynamic, a shift in the strategy and the overall approach. Going from "I'm here to be here and to see people and schmooze" to "I am here to collect leads, follow up on those leads and make sales." If you do nothing other than that, you're going to maximize your revenue from trade shows.
David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing how to maximize trade show revenue. Welcome, Jay.
Jay: Hey, thank you for having me on, David. I hope everybody had a wonderful holiday and have big plans for the great new year, and I'm sure trade shows, for a lot of people that's part of their plan, so they should go in with some goals and some ways to make sure that they can maximize those benefits.
David: Absolutely. In last week's podcast, we were talking about hitting the ground running in the new year. And today we will continue that trend with the idea of trade shows. In the promotional products industry, this is definitely trade show season, which is why I thought it would be a good idea to address this topic.
This week, in fact, the PPAI Expo in Las Vegas is going on. From the standpoint of promotional product suppliers, this is a really big show because that's when they get to meet all the distributors.
From a distributor's standpoint, they get to see all the new products that are coming out. They get to visit with the suppliers who decorate the products, and it's a really big show. I sound like Ed Sullivan, "it's a really big show!" Takes place in Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, and that's going on this week.
And what we're talking about today, because most of the people who take advantage of our materials are promotional product distributors. They're walking the show this week. So what I'm talking about in terms of this topic though, is maximizing trade show revenue as an exhibitor.
Because a lot of our clients who are walking the show this week as attendees, also will very often exhibit at other shows and try to sell their wares there. And so I wanted to touch on that topic a little bit this week.
Jay: Yeah. And I'm really glad you are because I've been in both situations. I've walked a show trying to meet people, handing out cards. "Hey, this is what we do." And I've also been an exhibitor.
There's nothing worse than being an exhibitor and watching people walk by your booth all day long. You know, you almost need to have the old carnival barker out front, trying to bring people in. And that can be frustrating, because you paid money and you're hoping to generate revenue.
David: Absolutely, and I've done the same thing, but on both sides of the equation. Walk shows, and also been an exhibitor at shows. And one of the first shows that we ever exhibited at, we had never done it before. So when you're new at exhibiting at a trade show, you have no idea what you're getting into.
You're going to have a booth. You're going to have some sort of backdrop, or you're just going to have nothing and a couple of people standing there. But I don't really want to get into all of that too deeply. I mean, whatever you decide in terms of the environment that you want to create there, obviously you want to create an environment that looks inviting, looks welcoming.
You probably don't just want to have two metal chairs and stand there looking at people as they go by. They're probably not going to want to approach. But, when you are not really familiar with what to do, you tend to just sort of go for cosmetics in some cases. Like maybe you'll put up a nice booth and then you'll stand there and wait for people to come by, that type of thing.
But what I've noticed is that many people, if not most people who exhibit at trade shows, take a very reactive approach. They show up. They set up their booth. And then they try to make eye contact with people as they're going by.
And a lot of people, when they go to trade shows, they tend to do "the bounce." They don't want to stop at every single booth. So if they hit the booth next to yours, they'll probably try to get by you to get to the next thing that they actually want to see. So there are a lot of things like that.
But, If we recognize that the goal is not just to inhabit space and try to encounter the people that we can encounter, then we can be a lot more proactive. Do some things in advance that are actually designed to get your ideal prospects and clients to the booth in advance of the show so that you're not just waiting to see what happens.
Jay: Oh, I love this. I love this proactive approach. Cause I've done the thing where, you know, I'm walking along and I don't want to make eye contact with the exhibitor. Because then I feel like somehow I'm going to get sucked in.
But if you're proactive, and perhaps they're expecting you to be there and even looking for you, boy, that could really change the experience.
David: Yes, it absolutely does. And I think one of the very first trade shows that I ever exhibited at, it was a local trade show, and it was for our promotional product business. And I had never done it before, but I had a general manager who was pretty adept at the idea of being able to get attention and that sort of thing.
And so he would come up with themes for the different events. And so, one of the themes he did sort of a mafia kind of thing, where everybody was wearing sort of pinstriped suits and he, I think he had like a violin case or something like that, we carried into the hotel.
He had an old Model T Ford as well, and he actually parked that out in front of the venue with a sign that said, come see us at whatever the booth number was. And so just something like that, it makes it a little bit different. And it gets attention.
So having a theme can be helpful. But, without the vehicle out front, they wouldn't have known it until they would've gotten to the booth. But it's something that makes it a little different, a little more unusual, you know, how are you going to tie all that sort of thing in? So that's helpful.
But then, as I did more and more shows, I realized that if you can actually give people a reason to come to your booth first, they will actually do it.
And later on, when we started exhibiting at industry trade shows, one of the things that we would do is send out an email in advance and say, "stop by our booth," or "be among the first a hundred people to stop by our booth and you'll receive a free, whatever it was, audio CD, or you'll get a free book. We would hand out physical books.
And we would send that out in advance, and what we found is that the show would open at 10 o'clock and at 10:03, we would have a line of people outside of our booth and everybody else in all the other booths were looking around and they're going, "what's up with this? Why are these people here?"
I'm like, well, they just like us, right, , because you're not necessarily going to tell them everything you're doing. That's why we have a brand called Top Secrets. But there are specific things that you can do that are designed to get a result, but most people just don't do them.
Jay: Why this is an incredible idea because you're exactly right. I'm walking around the trade show, and if I see a booth with nobody in front of it, well that tells me subconsciously nobody's interested in that product.
But if a bunch of people are gathered around, I'm looking, you know, I'm like trying to peer through the people. I'm like, what is going on here?
And they don't have any idea that it's because you've sent out this notice in advance.
Right.
Just little, little tweaks like that I think can be so powerful.
David: They can, and it really also ties into the whole idea of promotional products. Like people who own promotional product businesses should definitely engage in that.
What they can do is if they can get a list of the people who are attending a particular trade show, they could send something out in advance saying the first X number of people who stop by the booth will receive a, you know, custom imprinted, whatever the item is. Some sort of item that has a perceived value, something that people will want.
And then you can engage in conversation with people First of all, to qualify them to see if they have an interest in what you sell. And if they do, then you can further utilize products to engage them, get them completely qualified in, and then follow up with them after the show.
But each of those things is a separate step. So for example, one of the things that we recommend to our clients who are in the promotional products industry is you can use sort of a lower end promotional item to hand out to people who just happen to be walking by.
And if you exchange a low end promotional item for a business card and you talk to them and you find out that they actually buy the products that you're selling, you could then have a higher end, little more expensive item under the table that you would then give to the person who's better qualified. And then let them know that you're going to follow up with them after the show.
So that sort of strengthens the relationship and sort of creates an ascension ladder, where you're going from sort of the low end thing for the people who are less qualified to a higher end thing for the people who are more qualified.