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/