What do you do when you pack up and quit a trade show venue but you’ve had a dismal time?
Cast black looks at the managers of the event?
Blame the economy for being so bad?
Criticize the marketing collateral you had to work with?
What about blaming yourself?
If you have a bad trade show there is no one else to blame but yourself. Take that first step in self awareness and you are on the path to correcting what went wrong. Ignoring this obvious truth is simply setting you up for future failure and trade shows are about success, so is business!
Positively and constructively examine what you did in the planning phases of the event and go through to the event itself and with your follow up on any leads and business that was generated.
It is in moments of failure that the best lessons are exposed for you to learn, so embrace these moments and wring the very best out of a bad situation.
Did you choose the right event to attend?
Did you get the demographics, exhibitor and attendee lists from trade show management?
Did you do pre event marketing of your own amongst your client base and the trade show lists?
How did you and your team perform on the day? Were you up and circulating or sitting around waiting for a fish to come swimming through your booth?
How were the logistics? Did you get the equipment to the venue on time and was it set up and running easily?
Did you have the promotional gifts and enticements that attracted attendees?
How well did you follow up on trade show leads? Did you call them up within 3 days of the event?
We’re not looking for you to beat yourself up over a bad event – we all have them – but when you do have the opportunity to learn something, seize the opportunity because this is the road to success.
Increasing your effectiveness is crucial to gaining the most from trade shows, and pretty much anything else in life. Trade shows are not about turning up on the day and playing the event by ear – they require careful planning, practice in execution and superb and disciplined follow through.
I’ve shared my time chatting with fellow exhibitors on numerous occasions over the last year and heard all the reasons under the sun for not achieving the results they hoped for. The reason I’ve listened is because I wanted to know why they struggled and the bottom line is this – they failed to achieve their potential because of something they did or were not doing, and most of the time it had nothing to do with the economy!
The biggest enemy is failing to plan and the biggest sin is failing to follow through after a show.
Failing to plan means you end up at the wrong event for your business; you don’t have the right people to man the booth; you don’t have the right marketing and promotional collateral or you simply didn’t get enough sleep the night before!
Failing to follow through comes from not being disciplined and motivated enough to get on the phone and talk to the people you spent so much time and effort making a connection with in the first instance.
In every case, the ultimate responsibility is yours so learn from the bad days and you’ll experience far fewer of them.
Author Resource:
Mat Kelly is the president o ExhibitDEAL, a leading provider of trade show displays and accessories such as banner stands and literature racks. ExhibitDEAL can be found online at: http://www.exhibitdeal.com .
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