Are you fully prepared to attend a tradeshow? I mean, really prepared?
HOW you prepare depends on WHY you’re going to the show. Some good reasons for going: scouting out new products; networking with colleagues, clients and prospects; looking for a job; spying on the competition.
If you’re going as strictly an attendee, make sure you scheduled all of the sessions and presentations you’d like to. Take a list of contacts you’d like to meet up with. A laptop or Blackberry is an easy place to keep those, you can keep in contact with many of them as well as your home office.
Book as many meetings with targeted contacts that you can before the show. A tradeshow is no place to be a wilting flower – get out and meet folks, don’t be afraid to meet people you haven’t met before.
You plan to come back from the show with a lot more than you went: names, numbers, information, new impressions of dozens of people and companies.
