Five Common Mistakes Trade Show Exhibitors Make

I spend a lot of time at trade shows and I constantly see the same mistakes being made by exhibitors.  The five listed here are very common to smaller booths-the 10 x 10′s and 10 x 20′s.  Pause for an honest assessment…are you doing any of these things?

Hey you!  Get off my lawn!

Are you placing a table across the front of your booth to display products or brochures?  What you are actually doing is creating a barrier.  A barrier to conversation, curiosity and possibly sales.  This layout can also make you lazy and complacent as we can see from the picture.

If you need a table to display product you should place it along the side of the booth or in the back.  This creates an environment that encourages a passerby to stop and enter your area.  A table across the front says, “keep moving, nothing to see here.”

At your next show try moving your table to the back or the side and see if more people slow down and stop to talk.

Objective, what objective?

90 percent of the time, when we ask smaller exhibitors what their objectives are for the show, they answer “to make sales” or “get new customers.”  When we ask the follow-up question, “How many sales or customers?” they have no definite answer.  The problem here is, without measurable objectives, you have no way of knowing if you or the show was a success. All you can have is a vague feeling.  You have nothing solid to measure and compare to other sales and marketing efforts.

If I go to the show with the goal of getting 5 new customers, 30 qualified prospects and 50 people to add to my nurture basket, I can easily pinpoint where I was successful and where I was not.  Now I can compare my show numbers to other shows, my direct mail campaign, my cold calling, my social media efforts, direct sales, etc.  If shows give me a 50 percent better result than my direct mail campaign, perhaps I may want to invest some more money into my shows.  Or, if one show does significantly better than another, I will want to increase my presence at the better show and drop the other.

Hi, how are you?  And other bad opening lines.

When is the last time you said, “good morning, how are you today?” to a total stranger and they stopped and took the time to chat with you?  I was walking my dog the other day and we passed a couple on the trail.  I said, “it’s a beautiful day isn’t it” and they replied, “yes, it is” and on we went.  We never even slowed down.  So then why do 90 percent of exhibitors use this as their opening line when someone passes by their booth?

I will let you in on a secret.  Everyone at the show knows you are an exhibitor and you are there to try to sell your products or services.  You do not need to pretend you are just being friendly.  Go straight into your first qualifying question.  If you sell high-end knives for people who fancy themselves chefs when cooking for their family, you might open with “hello, do you love to cook?”  Or something that invites a bit more conversation might be, “hi, do you consider a preparing a home cooked meal a chore or a chance to embrace your inner Barefoot Contessa/Michael Symon?”

I suggest you prepare several of these openers so you don’t feel like a robot.  Also, you can test several out and see which brings the best response.

Ignoring the senses.

I often see exhibitors roll into their booth with their brochures, swag and graphics.  If they sell a product they may have a couple samples and perhaps pictures of people using them.  The exhibitor focuses on the visitors’ sense of hearing, telling them all about their products benefits and features.  If you are selling a food product let them taste and smell it.  Let your visitors hold and use your product.  Let them experience for themselves why it is so wonderful.

Sure it’s harder when selling a service…your visitor cannot taste it, or feel it, or smell it…or can they?  This is where story telling is so important.  Rattle off a bunch of features and benefits and your not making a connection with your visitor.  By telling a good story I can attach my own memories and senses to what you are saying.  If I’m selling in-home care-givers I may want to tell a story of a client who had someone to eat dinner with every night and how that helped keep the loneliness at bay.  Go so far as to describe some of her favorite meals and now your visitor can picture their own loved one clearly enjoying the company and the meal.  They can hear the conversation, taste the pie, smell the roast, feel the heat from the oven, see two people at the table talking and laughing.

Not seeing the forest for the trees.

This mistake a see too often and it frustrates me to no end.  Exhibitors who make this mistake are sabotaging their own success by focusing on the unimportant.  You get to the show and your are completely stoked.  You are going to make a lot of sales.  You are going to find at least 50 good qualified prospects.  The doors open and people enter the hall.  They are going straight to the bigger vendors with big interesting displays.  You’re over on the left side of the exhibit hall and there the people are just trickling by.  There’s actually not as much traffic at the show as you had thought there would be.  You begin to pout.  You begin to talk to your neighbor about your unlucky placement…how last year was much better…maybe next year you will not come.  People are still just barely trickling by.  After three hours you grab a chair and sit down, you start checking your e-mails and making phone calls.

What you have failed to realize is in those three hours about 40 people did in fact walk by your booth.  You might be 1/2 way to your goal if you bothered to stop pouting and treat them like a prospective customer.  You can only talk to one person at a time.  If 500 people were rushing past your booth how many would you be able to talk to?  Why are the 40 people who did walk past not good enough?  When is the last time you had an opportunity to engage 40 people in conversation about your product or service in one day?

Slow traffic makes exhibitors lazy and by being lazy you are only hurting yourself.  This always happens during the last hour of the show.  People ignore the few people left in the hall and begin chatting with their neighboring booths.  Maybe they even start packing some things up.  What I don’t understand is, even if there is one person left in the exhibit hall, why do you think they are not a potential customer.  Why are the visitors in the morning better than those in the afternoon?

Tagged as: exhibit tips, how to exhibit, trade show tips