Trade Shows

A Tale Of Two Trade Shows

I was at a tradeshow and saw one stand that was an exemplar of how NOT to do a tradeshow and worked on another that did things right.

Company 1: Don’t Do This

  • They did not know the expected footfall of the show (an important consideration for a product that was very niche)
  • The stand walls were bare and the stand unattractive. There was a single popup stand with the company name on it, a black box and a laptop on a table, and a person tapping away on her laptop behind it.
  • It was not clear what they were selling nor why anyone should care.
  • The salesperson wasn’t stopping people.
  • They were poorly prepared. They did not know who their ideal customer was.
  • They didn’t have a script and were not forthcoming with use cases for their product.
  • There wasn’t any literature to take away
  • I offered to help but they didn’t want it. Went back on day 2…. They had left early.

Company 2:  The Right Way

  • They knew the expected footfall, who their ideal client was, and that they would be there.
  • Not only is the stand attractive the messaging is all about the customer… How WE can help YOU
  • The sales team were friendly, knowledgeable and stopped people – they didn’t hide behind a desk
  • They focused on customer retention as well as new customers – when existing clients came up they chatted with them for 20 minutes or more, just being friendly
  • They had Red Hat Magic to help stop and validate even more customers, increasing ROI…. Here’s a few words from Simon the boss! https://youtu.be/M9ySzPqn_Tg. or read his LinkedIn article here: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7330472265509175296/