Here at TradeshowGuy Exhibits, we’ve had the pleasure of working with Classic Exhibits, one of the top handful of exhibit manufacturers in the country, for over a decade. When the pandemic set it, it didn’t take long for them to do their best to adjust to the new reality. One of the things that Classic Exhibits implemented last year was a monthly conversation with distributors. On this week’s TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee, I sat down with two of the moderators of the Classic Conversations, Tom Beard and Harold Mintz, to learn more about how those came about:
Can’t go forward. Don’t want to go backwards (heaven forbid!). Stuck in the in-between state. The pandemic is doing so much to the tradeshow industry that most of us in the world feel stuck in the in-between state. The space where we’re just waiting.
The hardest thing I’ve found about being in the in-between state is the lack of control. You can’t control when shows will return (or when they will get cancelled, or postponed, or go virtual), can’t control what clients will do (never could, I guess), and a certain apathy comes to many people because of the lack of control, and the lack of forward progress.
What to do?
Embrace the space. Embrace the in-between space. The space where you might have more time available to do things that you never found time to do before.
A tradeshow colleague recently mentioned that while things are dark, there is light at the end of the tunnel. We don’t know how far away that light is, or how bright it will be once we arrive at the end of the tunnel, but things are slowly progressing. Covid-19 cased are slowly dropping, deaths from the virus are decreasing, vaccinations are increasing.
One day, perhaps not too far into the future, exhibitors will be ready to return to the show floor. Attendees will be booking flights and hotel rooms. Buyers will be awaiting the opening bell of the tradeshow floor.
In the meantime, take some time for yourself or your company. Do the things that you have been putting off. Solidify connections with more Zoom calls (not another!), phone calls, or emails that you just didn’t have time to do a year ago. Put together a new marketing campaign and run it by colleagues for feedback. Check-in on people, both in business and out.
Walk the dog. Ride your bike. Have a longer chat with your spouse or significant other. Head to the ski resort. Write a letter. Send a postcard to a cousin you haven’t spoken to in years.
Whatever. Doesn’t matter. If the pandemic and the lack of tradeshows has given you more time, or even furloughed you (hopefully not, but I know it has happened to a lot of people), use some of that time to do the things that you didn’t have time before when work and family were a 24/7 job just to keep up.
I realize not everybody has space or time that I do. But if you do have extra time on your hands, embrace the space.
You can still benefit from tradeshows without having to invest in a big booth and booth space. Let’s take a look at a handful of ways you might do this:
Advice. We all get it, and we all receive it. Sometimes it’s unsolicited, sometimes it’s valuable. It’s just a part of life. In this week’s TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee I share a little of the advice I’ve received over the years:
I’ve heard the term off and on for years, and it came up a lot in a sales class I spent a year in a few years back. The teacher, Brad Kleiner, often referred to the mental blocks we put in front of ourselves as “head trash.”
I think it’s a good term, as good as any to describe the ways we keep ourselves from doing what we know we should do.
If you’re a booth staffer that knows you should put yourself out on the edge of the booth with a foot in the aisle to greet passersby, but you’re too shy to do that, that’s head trash. If you’re creating a plan to double your lead generation but think that doubling leads from last year is just way too much to plan for and you scale back your expectations, that’s head trash.
In essence, head trash is the conglomeration of thought patterns and emotions rattling around in your head that keep you from doing your business (or personal life) in a professional way.
It happens to all of us. Lack of control. Insecurity. Shyness. Paranoia. It mostly comes down to avoidance of the thing that you know deep down you really should do.
In my early life, especially my teens and twenties, I found myself stressing about something coming up on the calendar, something I really didn’t want to face. One instance stands out. I was a DJ at a local station and was tasked with emceeing a Halloween costume party promotion at a local mall.
I freaked out. I liked being on the radio. Being behind the microphone was fun. It was home. It was a gas. But getting out in front of a large crowd and trying to emcee an event was about the worst thing I could possibly imagine. As the day drew closer and closer, I become more stressed out and no matter how much I tried to not think about it, it weighed heavily on my mind.
Somehow, I made it through. And forgot about it as quickly as I could. And moved on.
But over the years I had more opportunities to get in front of people. And was never comfortable. Finally, nearing 40, I joined a Toastmasters group and slowly over the next few years learned public speaking. I got over the head trash I had around getting up to speak in public.
I realize that public speaking is a hard thing for lots of people. But anyone can learn it. And while we may have head trash around a lot of smaller things, like hating to make cold calls, or thinking that some person has it in for you when in fact that’s not the case at all.
Head trash is a bevy of self-defeating emotions and stumbling blocks that keep you from moving forward. Self-awareness will help in identifying them and admitting that they’re holding you back is the first step.
It’s easy to make up negative stories about ourselves. The challenge is to work to change those negative stories and get more objectivity about who we really are. Sometimes it takes another person’s perspective.
As I was putting this article together, I check the email and found Andrew Bennett’s latest newsletter, which had a link to a video, which – surprise! – was about the very thing I was writing about.
Check out Stop Telling Yourself Negative Stories:
Andrew was a guest on TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee a couple of years ago. Worth a look!
A sit-down with Jamie Young of Uptown Screen Printing where we delve into ways to plan goal-setting for tradeshow marketing, and how to find a good promotional product that resonates. Hope you enjoy this week’s TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee:
It doesn’t take that much to exhibit at a tradeshow. Just rent a booth space, bring an exhibit, a handful of staffers and do your thing.
Uh, what’s your thing, though? That’s the big question. Are you there to increase brand awareness? Show that you have a bigger or cooler exhibit than your main competitor? Take a client out for dinner and drinks?
It’s better to have a plan. To know what you want. More leads? Sales? Giving away a specific number of samples? Getting more social media followers? Certainly, you want to pick goals that are important to growing your business. But one step beyond that is to not only pick good goals, but to make them concrete goals, such as:
We want 150 good leads, 50 of which are new.
We want 300 new Instagram followers.
We want to hand out 1000 product samples.
We want to do 100 in-person demos of our product or service.
We want to meet with CEO’s of three major prospects.
Once you delineate those goals, create a plan to get there. Create the roadmap. If you want to meet with specific people, set appointments. If you want to line up new social media followers, make it easy. If you want new leads, have a method for uncovering the right prospects.
Tradeshow marketing can be expensive, but since you are at a place where thousands of prospects are all gathered in the same place, it’s also the ideal setting to generate leads at the lowest cost-per-lead you’ll ever manage.
Over a decade ago, I ran across Orvel Ray Wilson’s book (co-authored by Conrad Jay Levinson and Mark S A Smith) “Guerrilla Trade Show Selling” made a big impact on my knowledge of the tradeshow world. Years later, it still stands up. On this week’s TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee, I sat down with Orvel and quizzed him about the tradeshow world, public speaking in a pandemic and more:
This week’s ONE GOOD THING is the new Foo Fighter’s album Medicine at Midnight, set for release later this week. Here’s their most recent single, “Waiting on a War.”
Everything you do, everything you say, how you say it, what you wear, what you drive…they all send signals to other people. A Rolex sends a different signal than a Swatch watch. A Tesla sends a different signal than a Ford 150 pickup. A pair of shorts sends a different signal than a tuxedo.
We all choose the signals we send out, whether consciously or unconsciously. What kind of car we buy, clothes we wear, people we hang out with, how we speak, what we read?
When someone visits your place of business, what signals do you send? How clean is the floor, what kind of bathrooms do you have (and how clean are they)?
Every interaction a prospect or client has with you or your company is an opportunity for them to form an impression.
It’s the same thing at tradeshows. Do you ever think about the signals you send with your tradeshow presence? No doubt a lot of thought goes into how you’ll present your image and brand down to the right colors, the type of packaging, the types of products you design, create and market.
Everything in your booth sends a signal
But I wonder if that consideration goes all the way to the people in your booth. Do you decide if Jesse is a better choice than Aaron to represent the company in the booth? Do you choose branded clothing, such as t-shirts, for all of your booth staffers to wear from day to day? Do you train them on how talk to visitors, how to ask questions, how to stand, how to understand and control their body language?
What about the state of your booth and exhibit? Is the carpet clean? Is the garbage can overflowing? Does your exhibit have cracks and signs of wear and tear or is it in tip-top shape with new graphics and clean countertops?
Everything you do, wear, and speak sends a signal.
