Traditionally, multi-city tradeshow and exhibition tours have been an important part of introducing new products to the media. Through these tours, the features and benefits of the products are introduced and explained. Despite our age of electronic separation via email, instant messaging and online publications, the idea of delivering new products to editors has lasted. Even though the price of these trips has increased in complexity and financial difficulty, press tours continue.

A traveling press tour typically includes meetings scheduled with an editor. The supplier’s key product’s development and marketing experts will execute a formal product pitch, explaining the items in thorough detail and answering any questions the editor will have. The formal presentation should highlight the unique features of products, the exclusive benefits and a competitive analysis explaining why this product far exceeds others. Pricing and the outstanding customer value of the item will be covered as well. The goal of these press tours will be to obtain a stellar, positive editorial coverage of the product in the publication. These editorial comments will provide superior advertising and promotional opportunities for the product.

With the editor’s favorable support and coverage of the product (you hope!) you will be able to see published accounts of your product in a selected magazine. There will hopefully be a favorable mention of the item and your product launch and branded will begin.
Product marketing and public relations teams can work to get a sense of the editor’s opinion and disposition about the product. Also, these unbiased opinions will help the sales and product marketing team answer new questions and cultivate smart responses about their new item. These teams can prepare their own feature story or publication story with minimum editing for further publication. The ideas and concepts for future magazine stories can be discussed and analyzed.

Domestic press tours can take up a great deal of time and wear on the travelers. Worse, if you have just one editor that cancels a meeting, it can really throw off the traveling schedule. If the product is large and difficult to manage, transportation and set-up can be complex. However, these occurrences are bound to happen so a flexible and relaxed environment should be encouraged at all times.
Planning and executing an international press tour requires even more effort. You will want the press tour to coincide perfectly with a worldwide product introduction. The schedule will be more demanding and you will have to maintain time zones, customs regulations, transportation and other coordination issues. And on top of all this, you will have to present a superior sales presentation that will ‘wow’ the editors and other audience members.

Gaining favorable press coverage for your new product is crucial to its launch. These new publications and stories will bring the product to the right industry and target market.

Trade show press suites can be a wonderful way to gain clients and publicity with new products. Many editors attend the trade shows, which means that you can gain their undivided attention for your product. After all, these editors have traveled to the trade show specifically to learn about new products, so this is the ideal opportunity for you to pitch editors for high publicity. In addition to learning more about your product, the editor can meet the key developers in the product, as well as its upper management that has experience and can answer their specific questions.

Organize a press suite during the most important trade show of the year for great success. Here are some quick tips:
Organize the editors that will be there by emailing or calling the publications to see which magazines will be there. If they plan to attend, you can create specific presentations and plan ahead for their possible questions.
Get a hotel reservation as close to the convention center as possible and set up your press room. Send a personal invitation to every editor you want to attend.
Decorate your press room to give a great first impression of your corporation and product. Keep it attractive and professional for maximum results.
Set up personal times with each editor and send it to each person so that they know their own appointment times. Offer transportation to and from the convention center for efficiency and comfort.
Assign a secretary or single individual wholly committed to checking meeting schedules, answering calls and general coordination to handle logistics.
Rent a mini van with magnetic signs on the side to demonstrate your corporate logo. Give the driver a phone or walkie-talkie to quickly communicate and ensure good transportation communication.
Have a representation from your company to meet and greet editors as soon as they enter the lobby.
Create press kits for the new products to distribute at the site.
Prep your product presenter with a number of questions, comments and potential concerns with the product to help them handle the question-and-answering setting.
Show a full demonstration of the product to show off all the features and how it cane help the industry.
Introduce key management to the editor to show off the product and business in a favorable light.
Send a friendly reminder to all editors about their meeting time a week before the convention.
Always offer non-alcoholic drinks and snack foods to the editors.
Establish convenient drop off and pick up locations for your editors to coordinate with the transportation team.
Conduct your meeting in a fast and timely manner to respect the other meetings the editors might have.
Make sure that the individuals giving the product presentation are experienced and well-versed. Concentrate on answering simple questions.
Make sure that you ask questions at the end of each session to see if there are additional topics that might need to be developed.
Give each editor a personal thank-you note for attending.
Place your Public Relations Manager in charge of all contact and communication during the trade show press tour.
The Public Relations Manager should also foster relationships with each editor to build a long-term relationship.

Sales people and marketing teams have very different personalities and approaches within the corporate culture. Each side of the house has very important functions and they can be used to work in harmony with one another – or be put at opposing sides for a very challenging environment. These differences are highlight and exacerbated during trade show exhibit planning and execution.
Many times, the trade show is considered part of a marketing function and will be lead by the marketing team. Since the trade show’s financial support will come from the marketing team’s budget, they will be in control of the communications and advertising aspects of the show. However, the execution of the trade show will incorporate marketing, advertising, public relations and sales. With all these different groups merging together, there is great potential for friction and disagreements. Different philosophies and performance goals will clash unless headed by a superior management team.

There are four different types of organizational personalities, according to The Gamesman by H. Maccoby. Through his extensive interviews and research, he determined the four personalities are the craftsperson; the organizational person; the jungle fighter and the gamesman. No one is solely one type of personality, but will be a mixture of these personalities depending on the corporate challenges and environment they are placed within.

Marketing and sales people will have revised personalities when compared to their performance in the daily business situation versus the trade show floor. These dynamics in personality will also display themselves during trade show planning and execution on the show room floor.

Each person has daily tasks and responsibilities that will focus on the overall company success, but with their specific department’s needs first. The individual’s personality should blend with the management’s insistence on team cooperation for maximum success. Sales people will do what they are instructed to do and the marketing team will execute what they are directed to do to encourage the maximum efficiency at the trade show.

Marketing individuals are more focused on strategic planning and thinking. They will look for market research, product introduction and program development, as well as design of communication and advertising campaigns. Competitive analysis will be crucial and they will want to merge their direct mail, print and online advertising, web development and overall marketing communications together for a full marketing package. While all of the long-term solutions are put in the hands of the marketing team, the short-term success of the company is given to the sales group.

The initial development of corporate marketing and its current functions was developed in 1879 with the introduction of Ivory soap to the consumer masses by Procter and Gamble. This strong marketing and brand strategy developed the brand management system that was created in the late 1920’s. Officially created in 1931 and based on the idea that competitors would be vying to be the top choice for consumers. Specialized marketing strategies for each item can be executed for long-term success. The product management system was born and is currently copied by successful corporations today.

A superior trade show manager will understand and learn how to merge the different personalities of the marketing and sales team. By appreciating their individual motivations and operational styles, you can create a superior environment to foster agreements between sales and marketing teams.

Marketing people will be more conservative, more strategic and long-term thinkers. Sales people, on the other hand, are more tactical, action-oriented and impatient with any concepts that don’t deliver immediate results in sales. Salespeople’s personalities are different from marketing and strategic planners. They prefer their freedom and the unique challenges of their job. Sales people often excel when matched up with a good competitor.

Sales people are often judged and work as though there is a constant score board above their head, like at a sporting event. Their sales can be evaluated and viewed at any time, so they are only as good as their last sale. No matter how well they’ve done in the past, they will be only as successful as their last sale. Sales people will thrive at this challenge, but they will also react to concepts and strategies that help to achieve their individual goals of sales versus the long-term strategic marketing concepts.

Marketing teams are formed by strategic people who love planning, researching, developing and executing programs. These programs are well thought-out and will reveal themselves over time. Sales teams on the other hand work on quantitative results and analysis that look at immediate occurrences in the industry. By merging these two strategies together, a good management team can solve short-term solutions and long-term strategies of the business simultaneously.

Both sides of the house can be challenging and rewarding. Sales people love the professional approach and execution of their craft, meeting or exceeding their sales goals. However, the marketing team and its corporate approach will require the individual to be more sophisticated and less frantic as a means for making money. Marketing teams see the business in quarterly time ranges, while sales people focus on days, weeks or possibly months at a time.

Sales people want to succeed their personal goals and see how much business they can close in a given amount of time. Their performance is based on a daily analysis. Marketing has more time, looking at marketing trends, purchasing cycles and product issues that provide the support to make the sales people’s job easier by better predicting what items are desired – and when. However, these separate strategies must be pointed out and organized by a superior management team to ensure that the inevitable friction that occurs will not influence the trade show booth environment in a negative manner.

The trade show will offer a superior face-to-face opportunity for sales people to see their prospects and sell them. For the marketing team, they will be able to get a tactical and hands-on approach to seeing and understanding their prospective leads and overall industry atmosphere. The challenge is to foster and maintain a cooperative environment that will encourage sales and team dynamics during the trade show experience.

There is always a person in charge of the trade show. The bigger the corporation, the more necessary and integral these individuals are to the overall success of the booth. The Corporate Trade Show and Exhibits Manager is often appreciated as a “jack of all trades” who can handle a number of different jobs and titles within the corporation. These multi-tasking, versatile individuals are a valuable gem in the company structure. Despite the challenges and pressures of the job, the trade show will be a more successful and solid environment in the hands of an experienced and knowledgeable Corporate Trade Show and Exhibits manager.

The savvy managers who manage these trade show exhibits will know how much skill and talent it requires to run a successful booth campaign. There is a lot of unnamed knowledge and expertise that goes into an intense booth. The potential for failure or success is ripe with opportunity at every trade show environment. Also, if desired, the Coporate Trade Show and Exhibits manager has a high-profile position that is ideally situated to climb the corporate ladder for personal success as well.

Careful consideration and a full analysis of the trade show environment will yield a productive situation. There are a number of quality opportunities available at a trade show that the astute and motivated manager will seize upon. Today’s trade show managers will determine ways to reach the financial goals of a business that reflects a positive situation for the trade show investment.

Here are some of the top benefits to working a trade show as the manager and leader:
The chance to work side-by-side with the sales team and see what they do on a daily basis to encourage success
Help prospects and meet them face-to-face to establish relationships
Meet and help with current customers and their specific needs
Work with upper management to improve the product and sales
Meet important press contacts
Get a realistic view of the products
Witness and discuss the different techniques by the best sales people in your company
Work with the technical members to learn more about the technical specifications
Get a close look at the competition for future analysis
Be in charge of the entire exhibit operation
Full responsibility of the logistics and fine details before, during and after the show
Show your skills and talents in a high-paced, challenging environment
Manage resources and continually solve problems for team members
Be respected for your skills and accomplishments in the booth
Manage the pre-show and post-trade show meetings for maximum effectiveness
Represent all vendors and suppliers
Get to know upper management much better
Create and manage booth duty schedules
Build a strong relationship with show management
Keep the exhibit organized and fully operational throughout the trade show
Be known as the expert at your trade show

Unlike any other role at the trade show, the manager will be given the opportunity to show a leadership role, while simultaneously executing management potential. You will be scheduling and controlling a number of individuals with different personality in a highly charged environment. Your decisions will produce positive results and you will be able to impress even your toughest critic. In this way, your accomplishments will garner a better salary and more responsibilities in your career future.
Motivate your team members and the management to speak out in the company. Everyone will be respected if you can motivate and encourage more sales from your team. Upper level management will recognize and respect your proactive nature and notice the countless hours you have spent promoting and pushing the business members. You will make the challenges of a trade show look easy and your versatility will become invaluable. There are a number of tasks and environments within your corporation that can benefit from your management potential and leadership skill.

The trade show is a continuously moving, alive and dynamic situation. You will want to immediately adjust to the changing tides. Unlike print advertising or another static form of getting the business name out there, the trade show is a living thing. The environment is incredibly dynamic and some people will thrive in it, while others will struggle here. Some will love the idea of connecting with other humans in person while learning and refining their sales technique. The results will be clear and definable. It will not be an obscure guessing game of what happened. Instead, you will have tangible sales numbers and prospective leads that your sales team can follow up on.

The trade show manager can have a lot of power and fun during the convention. With the exception of the higher salary, many people thrive and enjoy the position of the trade show manager more than the role of a president or CEO of the business. Your authority will be respected for three days and throughout this experience, you will be able to gain perfect control of how the business will be seen. You will be respected in a consistently chaotic environment that includes the entire industry and its key contacts. Once the event is over, your success can be accurately and completely reviewed. You will be able to directly tie your actions to the financial success of the company, unlike a marketing team member whose contribution is appreciated, but whose actions cannot be directly tied to a financial increase. Your actions will help the show to achieve its goals and objectives. You will help to increase sales and leads that will ensure your business goes to the next level of success. In addition, you will be able to gather the data to ensure that your next trade show appearance is even better than the current one. You will be able to make changes that make the trade show more successful and demonstrate your skills even mor effectively.

Who will you have working at your next trade show booth? The question seems simple enough, but the wrong person can have disastrous results on your convention success. This question can create interesting problems and challenges, including a number of hotly debated discussions about who is best suited for this intense and sometimes chaotic sales environment. The success or failure of a trade show can often rest on the shoulders of the people who worked the exhibit. Therefore, the individuals that make your booth team should be a crack team of quality sales and marketing gurus with top expertise.

How do you start selecting the right people and what will determine the “right” person? Which types of personalities work best in the trade show booth and who from your company is best suited for this position? Who from your corporation will be responsible for selecting the members and training them? There are a number of different personality types and options to choose from. Keep in mind that these individuals will also have to work well with each other for maximum success.

Here is a casual look at some of the different personality types that can be observed at a trade show:
The Know-It-All – This person has worked at least one trade show in the past and now believes that he or she is fully immersed in all of its complexities. From exhibit design to sales strategies and the type of attendees, this person spends most of their time lecturing others. Giving these individuals direction is virtually impossible and often a waste of your breath.

The Tech Guru – This person has superior technical knowledge and you should be honored to be in their presence. Your technical experience is nothing compared to what he or she knows and they will tell you at every opportunity how advanced their skills might be. Standard practice for communication involves arguments over very technical ideas and anyone who disagrees with this tech genius will feel the wrath. Talking down to the clientele is the name of the game for this individual and anyone trying to calm him or her down will just be dismissed.

Introverted – Why was this person brought to the trade show? Oftentimes, these individuals hang in the back of the booth, too nervous or intimidated to talk with customers face-to-face. Although they might be friendly and hold invaluable knowledge about the product, their initial shyness limits them.

Game Talkers – These individuals love to tell you what to do, even if they don’t follow their own advice. Words are this person’s favorite tool and they can use them well; however, these game talkers often leave the booth and are unreliable at best when it comes time to working their shifts. They like to set their own rules and can make up excuses for anything.

Smiley – Overflowing with happiness and charm, these individuals simply do not stop smiling. They are willing to deal with anyone who has wandered near their booth and will usually talk a lot more than listen. However, their over exuberance will often drive the prospect to the competition out of sheer frustration and annoyance.

The Inventor – This person is the one who often developed the product and was dragged to the trade show for this fact. In reality, they just want to be left alone and put back in their happy place of being at home, in the lab or in their own office environment.
The Boss – Hey, this guy or gal is the boss and everybody will know it right away! You can usually spot this individual spouting off and being the uber-executive who is too important to do the menial tasks of booth duty like talking to the customers for a long period of time, setting up the exhibit and especially taking the booth down.

The Jokester – These individuals will be chatting it up, telling loud jokes and stories, while making side comments about any unusual person that might walk by. Where they here to work? No way. They’re “building relationships” with other competitors and potential customers, but actually never step in the booth to work very long.

Hangover Central – These individuals let loose a little too much the night before and now their time in the booth has come a little too quickly. Reeling from a hangover and some “crazy time” the night before, these individuals are a burden at the booth and a huge disappointment.

Party Time – The Hangover Central individual the night before, these participants love to have a few drinks and a huge meal while staying up all night in the convention town. They party hard, but when it comes time to really sell the next day, they fall short. These individuals will do little to support a growing list of goals and objectives, especially in a highly observed environment like the trade show.

Don Juan – The wedding ring has been conveniently misplace and the cologne has been drenched on. This individual is ready to pretend they don’t have a spouse and family back home and their unacceptable behavior is a poor representation of the company to the rest of the industry.

Keeping these personalities in mind, the top 5 characteristics of booth participants are:
A willingness and excitement to be there to meet new people and build the business
An appreciation for the importance of the trade show for the future of the business
Great listening and questioning skills to get to the heart of the specific issue for the prospect
The ability to listen more than talk to really hear what the customer has to say (tough for seasoned sales people)
A quickness and versatility during presentation to help cater to the visitor’s requests

By avoiding some of the offending personalities and concentrating on the top characteristics needed to run a successful booth, you can ensure that your exhibit presentation meets its goals and rewards itself by reaching its objectives.

You’ve made it. It’s the most important trade show of the year and your exhibit is set up, touched up and wiped down. You’re display banners are printed and being pulled out of your retractable display banner stands. The large wall pop up displays is impressive. The new brochures are displayed in the beautiful perspex brochure display stand. The hanging banners are arranged and the portable promotional counter has its new display posters attached. You’re ready to go. Your products are working and all of your support is in place to get you on the road to success. Your select sales performers are ready and you have support from your marketing and technical team. Management is ready to help out whenever necessary. The trade show itself will be a challenge but you and your team should be ready. Are you ready for the challenges ahead?

The night before, you need to hold a pre-show briefing. Typically, these meetings are held at a hotel room close to the convention center. These meetings should be highly targeted and specific. You should have objectives for this meeting just as you have with the trade show or exhibition itself. You will need to draw a lot of focus on the uniqueness of the trade show and the unique environment that is about to present itself. Review all of the key issues about the product and motivate those selected for the booth duty to maximize sales by establishing relationships and listening to the prospects that come to the booth. Customer relations opportunities will present themselves and the pre-show meeting can go over different tactics and ways to satisfy the customers’ specific questions.

There will be two teams in the booth. Each team should be presided over by a captain who is in charge of the logistics, including scheduling, booth assignment and the number of people on the trade show floor. You should establish two teams so ensure that everyone gets a chance to relax and refresh themselves. Overworking your team will only inhibit presentations as the day continues. By having two teams, your booth will be filled with energized and enthusiastic people. However, in order for this system to work well, you need an Exhibit Manager to run the entire effort behind the scenes.

Create a comprehensive duty roster and product guide that will review key points, like the products currently available and on display, their features, benefits, pricing and overall competitive analysis. There should be a list of meeting schedules, the key phone numbers and other relevant show information that the booth groups will need.

The suite where the pre-show meeting is held should be the same place where the booth will hold its master command center. This is the company headquarters and where the team should be each day to relax and review the business ahead. They should all discuss sales leads and approaches that have been working for them while operating the booth. There should be a variety of sales and marketing activities. The pre-show meeting should be a place to hold all information and organization that is necessary and important throughout the trade show. There is a lot that can be learned from other experienced team members who have done this before. The pre-show meeting should be a template that will be repeated after each day in the booth and on the floor to keep a good record of everything that is happening in your booth throughout the trade show.

You should organize all sales and marketing activities to maximize their potential. Also, you will want to manage any meetings with editors, key prospects and other important customers. You will be able to have your sales team meet with the top experts in the company to review new products, refresh the goals and objectives of the time spent and express any new opportunities at the trade show.

A complete trade show exhibit should be presented to the team that goes over all the competitors and services that are available. You should get the sales team on the same page at this specific trade show to go over any unique features of the convention and make sure that all sales leads are properly managed. There is a big difference between selling in the field and selling at a trade show. In some ways, selling at the trade show is a very intense and concentrated way to sell and the difference can be a big change for inexperienced booth participants. There are a number of non-verbal graphics and other elements of the booth design that should pre-qualify prospects and help to establish the foundation of the sales approach before the “human element” of the sales process begins.
This were your display banner graphics will come in to play. High quality portable roll up or pull up display banners , brochure display stands, expand up modular wall display systems and hanging display banners are essential.

Each product manager should present the product on display in the booth to cover all of the benefits and features that should be covered in the booth presentation. The competition might be in the next booth, so any competitive analysis will need to have certain and hard facts on their service, pricing and product delivery. Savvy prospects will be able to compare claims in just minutes from booth to booth so the sales team must be on top of their game for competitors.

At the end of the pre-show meeting, the president or highest member of the upper management will need to close the session. He or she should encourage all members to do their best and make the most of the opportunity to sell products and promote the business. Note what is acceptable behavior and what will be frowned on throughout the convention to make sure attitudes and actions are clearly defined. A highly motivational speech will go a long way to fire up the sales team and increase their enthusiasm. The more effective the team is, the more likely the sales leads will increase and push the business to the next level of success.

The entire group will feel excited to start selling when they make their way to the convention center. They can familiarize themselves with the presentations while keeping an eye on each other for support. Literature should be distributed continuously and this process should be reviewed as well. Create a solid plan for breaks, meals and analysis of the competition for each team member so that the booth is always fully manned and ready.

Just like in the military, one of the first things that a business needs to do at the trade show is establish a trade show headquarters. Employees will face unusual circumstances in the field and there should be an effective and fully functional command post where complete communication and all answers can be received to the variety of resources.

You have just one shot at your industry’s major trade show. It can be very challenging to be in a new city where money and time will consume every participant and attendee of the trade show. One successful way to manage the logistical details at a trade show is to establish a command center throughout the convention. Make the command post at a hotel suite nearby where management and employees alike can funnel questions and direct the action to about their trade show questions and challenges.

Hospitality suites are a great place to entertain prospective customers and current clients alike. These pricy choices are great, but sometimes they can be hard to manage. One big problem will be who can go into the room and who cannot enter, especially when a free hospitality and its inevitable treat offerings will be the new hot spot on the trade show floor, even if they aren’t really interested in your product or service.

Be careful if you are offering alcohol in your hospitality suite. The irresponsible behavior of alcohol can also cause big problems, especially if the suite has crashers that were not invited. These actions can direct oppose the goals and objectives of the business sponsoring the event and will have the prospective customers walk away with a negative and unprofessional opinion of the company. For this reason, hospitality suites have all but disappeared from convention exhibits.

Your Command Post

All of the negative aspects of a hospitality suite can be revised dramatically if you design and mange your command post to function strictly as a private command center, the headquarters of your trade show. Maximize your resources and time from this command post. Expand your communications and increase the overall value of the exhibit when you organize your team at a command post. Management can use the suite space and the hotel services in a way that can accomplish logistical goals for the business. Some of these services and uses can include the following:

1. Pre-Trade-Show Meeting and Briefing

The night before the trade show, the command post will be the location of motivational sales and briefing. The entire team should review the activities and where different assignments for each team member should be. Goals and objectives will be covered, as well as marketing and product presentation ideas. Key points about the presentation will be covered by the sales team.

Managers at the trade show should use this time to go over logistical details, strategies for working and selling from the booth and other general booth discussions and actions throughout the entire trade show time. Motivational speakers should give sales people nuggets and stories they can use to sell the product or service more effectively. Managers should use this time to pull everyone’s attention away from their normal routines and direct their attention to the goal of the trade show and its incredible opportunities.

1. Public Relations Center

The headquarters suite can handle pre-schedule press or one-on-one scheduled meetings with selected editors or important industry contacts in the area. There should also be an area where public materials and information are disseminated at the trade show booth.

Schedule appointments with product experts during the trade show at the company suite headquarters to gain positive mentions in post-show articles. Also, talk with these editors about coverage in upcoming articles in future publications. These opportunities can build strong relationships that will benefit the company in the future. Also, these meetings can help to communicate industry trends for magazine features and articles.

Coordinate and schedule communications with company experts and editors or industry contacts. The public relations manager should be in control of all these functions, including arranging the necessary transportation for the event. They should be able to provide transportation to and from the convention center. For this reason, the hospitality suite will need to be located close to the convention.

Always provide liquid refreshments and snacks during the press meetings to keep people comfortable. It is recommended that only non-alcoholic drinks are offered while meeting key people to the industry.

1. Rest and Regroup

A trade show can be a very complex and intense experience. At the end of the day, the booth team can schedule a relaxing and regrouping time where they review what has transpired. What common challenges have they faced? How can they improve for the next day? What are the competitors doing that they can use? Individual strategies can be reviewed by managers while competitive analysis can be an effective way to stay focused, but analyze the situation for greater success the next day. A regrouping session can maximum results for the next day.

Reviewing key sales prospects and activities can help ensure the entire team is on board and has the same mentality for the next day’s events. Any issues that have arisen during the day that need additional attention can be discussed as well. The booth team should each have a manager to speak with to meet for dinner and prepare for the following day.

1. Backup and Replenishing

Sales and marketing individuals should always have the opportunity to invite VIP prospects and current customers to meet at the command center to discuss details of more business transactions in the future. Meeting with top management in the command center will help to support active selling and push the company to the next level of success while at the trade show. Since the booth can be too busy and chaotic, these area can be a comfortable and quiet place to discuss future business partnerships. You can also use the hospitality suite as a closing room to seal the deal with prospective clients, making customers feel more relaxed and secure with their decision.

Who will you have working at your next trade show booth? The question seems simple enough, but the wrong person can have disastrous results on your convention success. This question can create interesting problems and challenges, including a number of hotly debated discussions about who is best suited for this intense and sometimes chaotic sales environment. The success or failure of a trade show can often rest on the shoulders of the people who worked the exhibit. Therefore, the individuals that make your booth team should be a crack team of quality sales and marketing gurus with top expertise.

How do you start selecting the right people and what will determine the “right” person? Which types of personalities work best in the trade show booth and who from your company is best suited for this position? Who from your corporation will be responsible for selecting the members and training them? There are a number of different personality types and options to choose from. Keep in mind that these individuals will also have to work well with each other for maximum success.

Here is a casual look at some of the different personality types that can be observed at a trade show:

The Know-It-All – This person has worked at least one trade show in the past and now believes that he or she is fully immersed in all of its complexities. From exhibit design to sales strategies and the type of attendees, this person spends most of their time lecturing others. Giving these individuals direction is virtually impossible and often a waste of your breath.

The Tech Guru – This person has superior technical knowledge and you should be honored to be in their presence. Your technical experience is nothing compared to what he or she knows and they will tell you at every opportunity how advanced their skills might be. Standard practice for communication involves arguments over very technical ideas and anyone who disagrees with this tech genius will feel the wrath. Talking down to the clientele is the name of the game for this individual and anyone trying to calm him or her down will just be dismissed.

Introverted – Why was this person brought to the trade show? Oftentimes, these individuals hang in the back of the booth, too nervous or intimidated to talk with customers face-to-face. Although they might be friendly and hold invaluable knowledge about the product, their initial shyness limits them.

Game Talkers – These individuals love to tell you what to do, even if they don’t follow their own advice. Words are this person’s favorite tool and they can use them well; however, these game talkers often leave the booth and are unreliable at best when it comes time to working their shifts. They like to set their own rules and can make up excuses for anything.

Smiley – Overflowing with happiness and charm, these individuals simply do not stop smiling. They are willing to deal with anyone who has wandered near their booth and will usually talk a lot more than listen. However, their over exuberance will often drive the prospect to the competition out of sheer frustration and annoyance.

The Inventor – This person is the one who often developed the product and was dragged to the trade show for this fact. In reality, they just want to be left alone and put back in their happy place of being at home, in the lab or in their own office environment.

The Boss – Hey, this guy or gal is the boss and everybody will know it right away! You can usually spot this individual spouting off and being the uber-executive who is too important to do the menial tasks of booth duty like talking to the customers for a long period of time, setting up the exhibit and especially taking the booth down.

The Jokester – These individuals will be chatting it up, telling loud jokes and stories, while making side comments about any unusual person that might walk by. Where they here to work? No way. They’re “building relationships” with other competitors and potential customers, but actually never step in the booth to work very long.

Hangover Central – These individuals let loose a little too much the night before and now their time in the booth has come a little too quickly. Reeling from a hangover and some “crazy time” the night before, these individuals are a burden at the booth and a huge disappointment.

Party Time – The Hangover Central individual the night before, these participants love to have a few drinks and a huge meal while staying up all night in the convention town. They party hard, but when it comes time to really sell the next day, they fall short. These individuals will do little to support a growing list of goals and objectives, especially in a highly observed environment like the trade show.

Don Juan – The wedding ring has been conveniently misplace and the cologne has been drenched on. This individual is ready to pretend they don’t have a spouse and family back home and their unacceptable behavior is a poor representation of the company to the rest of the industry.

Keeping these personalities in mind, the top 5 characteristics of booth participants are:

• A willingness and excitement to be there to meet new people and build the business
• An appreciation for the importance of the trade show for the future of the business
• Great listening and questioning skills to get to the heart of the specific issue for the prospect
• The ability to listen more than talk to really hear what the customer has to say (tough for seasoned sales people)
• A quickness and versatility during presentation to help cater to the visitor’s requests

By avoiding some of the offending personalities and concentrating on the top characteristics needed to run a successful booth, you can ensure that your exhibit presentation meets its goals and rewards itself by reaching its objectives.

In the past, trade shows have always provided a forum to display the new products and advancements of a particular industry. New trends and innovations are usually the center of the event, and with a competitor only a few booths away, the hard sell has always been inevitable – until now.

Current trends are creating a different climate at trade shows these days. With competition for the customer’s attention stronger than ever, exhibitors are no longer fixated on separating themselves from their competitors by focusing on a particular product and simply talking about solutions and benefits. Which leads us to the first, and probably most profound, trend in trade show exhibiting.

Experiential Exhibits:
Product pitches and demos are “out” – at least they are no longer the centerpiece of a trade show exhibit. Instead of the literal, one-on-one, “we’re better because . . .” spiel, the challenge has become creating an experience for the potential customer that leaves them in awe, or at least makes a strong enough impression that they forget about the competition. While the trade show booth is a temporary fixture, the idea is to create a space that has a feeling of permanence and keeps the customer engaged. So engaged, in fact, that the customer has a memorable experience, and associates that experience with your product – eliminating the need for the hard sell, and creating a smooth landing for the soft sell.

So if you want to attract—and keep—their attention on the cluttered trade show floor, you have to truly stand out from the crowd with attention-getting technology and design—while simultaneously creating trade show booths that will be easy to use, lower costs and save your organization’s marketing dollars. 
Not sure where to start? If you’re in the market for new trade show exhibits, look for trends that incorporate these key features:

• Portable – Is the trade show exhibit you’re considering going to be easy to transport and set up? A portable trade show exhibit helps reduce operating costs in a number of ways: lower transportation costs and drayage fees, shorter installation and dismantling time, and more flexibility in where and when you can use it.
• Scalable – Can you reconfigure the trade show exhibit’s size as needed? For example, if you’re interested in a 20×20 exhibit, look for one that can scale down to 10×20 or 10×10. Think of it like stacking Legos—you can use your trade show exhibits in more ways and at a broader range of events because you can add or subtract elements where and when you need them.
• Tech-Savvy – Today’s trade show exhibits are all about multimedia, so make sure you invest in a display that will work with elements like workstations, plasma screens and audio-visual presentations.
• Attention-Getting – Does the trade show display you’re considering allow for large-scale, billboard-style graphics? Can you utilize innovative lighting? Do the colors, material and overall appearance draw the eye? A great trade show exhibit will invite attention and introduce your brand to the public.