I think that for an exhibitor to have a successful show is, like you said, they're very expensive. Right? They need to understand how much a trade show costs to do. You have your raw space that you have to buy, which that's not negotiable. That's what it costs.
Then, you have the show manual, which a lot of people don't really pay much attention to. If you want to see a lot of angry people, you stand by where they're called general service contracts. Some of the big ones are Freeman, GES, Shepard. They run all the labor, all the freight, all the things in and out of it, all of the show services that you need and they put on a manual and the manual dictates that cost of the show, the procedures, rules and regulations and people don't read this stuff.
It's technical. It sucks to read it. I mean, I read to many manuals. But you know, even though you have a show, you some shows that travel to different cities, the rules can be different in each of the cities, even though the show's the same. In Florida, in Orlando, you can do whatever you want to do there labor wise. You want to run power under the floor, you can do any of that stuff, but you go to New York City, you can't even look at a light bulb without hiring somebody. The dynamic is different even for the same show.
Understanding the rules and regulations, what you're allowed to do, the cost. There's deadlines that they offer. There are discounts but it's based off of something that's already really expensive. Right? Just think of it this way. It's more expensive if you don't do the discounts. Follow the show by the deadlines and stuff.
People get angry at the show because they don't know, understand what they're doing and then, they get pissed off about how much they get charged for stuff. You have to understand your budget, you have to understand the cost of actually doing the show and then, knowing what you want to accomplish in the show and then now, you have to create a budget for filling your raw space. You need carpeting, you need padding, you need a booth structure. That is, in itself, so some people either own a booth or if you're going to rent a booth. You have to work that angle out.
If you want to rent something, then you need to know how much money you want to spend because otherwise, it's just too hard to work with people. I have people all the time, like, "Well, I have a 10 by 20 booth. How much is it going to be?" I'm like, "Well, what do you want to do?" Well, I have to go through a step by step process with them to try and hash out what they need and channel their ideas into something tangible where I could say, "Okay, well you're looking at this much money."
For example, I had a girl call me yesterday, the day before, she had a 10 by 10 booth for a show and she saw some online and she wanted to know how much they were. I kind of gathered that she wasn't going to have the budget to do this, so I just threw out a number. I go, "It's going to cost anywhere from 7 to $12,000 for one of these types of booths." I was like, "Is that within your price range." She's like, "No, no, not really." I kind of figured.
I offered her solutions that where you could buy something like this that has the elements that you need of the booth and it's going to be a professional look and you're going to spend thousands of dollars less. Just things like that and just knowing what to do, not putting too much into a space like we talked about. It's a lot to know.
I'll ask him things like, "Do you plan to do a presentation? Are you going to have a product demo there?" Things like that, just trying to find out what do they want to do with the show, why are you going. They have a presentation that they want to do that's a long one, right? I'll be like, "Well, one of the good ways you can do that is to actually schedule a presentation." Say, every hour we're going to do this and you can even do a giveaway and you're almost like bribing people to do this. Say you have an iPad and somebody will win an iPad if you sit through this presentation.
I actually went to a show and I won an iPad, the very first iPad. I won it because I sat through a presentation. I was like, "Brilliant." I ended up hiring the service too because of it. Not because of that but because of what they did.Ross Weitzberg:I try and find out what their goals are like we talked about.
Sure.
What do they want to accomplish and then, that helps me to recommend what they should to or what kind of boot structure they should have and how they should fill their space, basically. It's a discussion I talk them through that and actually, what's great about it is it helps them becoming more comfortable to work with me because I'm not just trying to sell them something that's so expensive or whatever. I try and fit it to exactly what works best for their goals and their budget actually.
I think getting the attendee list-
Sure.
... and letting people know that you're going to be there. Let them know the space that you're in. I actually tell my clients to take the renderings that I give them of the booth and you can make an email marketing campaign out of that, so that people actually have the identity of your booth to look for.
Pre-show marketing, setting appointments, as many appointments as you can before you actually get to the show and then, so you have your appointments and then you also have you walkthroughs. Having a plan of action, if you have a number of staff there, if it's more than just a few people, rotate them through in shifts, so that they have proper brakes and they have time to eat and they have time to go check their emails because one of the most stressful things about a trade show for employees is that they have to do the show and they have to still do their normal job on top of that. They just can't be off the grid because we're at a trade show.
Right.
They need to do their work too, so it gives them time to answer their emails, do some stuff, follow up stuff afterwards. Make sure you keep your contacts organized, and then you have a process for what you're going to with them afterwards. If you use the scanners, they provide you with an Excel sheet when they can email that to you. But then again, obviously, you don't know if that information is 100%, but if you have a business card, somebody's going to take that book and put that information into something digital that they can use afterwards.
I always recommend having a pre-show meeting. Maybe even have a meeting during one of the dinners that you have during the show and maybe after the first day or two days depending on how long it is and get people's feedback. What's working, maybe they need to make those adjustments and not be afraid to change something or add something. Maximize that time that you're there and then have a post show meeting also and see what worked, what didn't work, what could we do better next year, did we stay within our budget. If we didn't, what went wrong? Why didn't we stay within our budget? Did we just allocate a budget that's not realistic and we should've added this on and it just helps that process better.
It probably depends too if you do multiple shows a year. A lot of companies just do 1 show a year but then, there's ones that do 3, 4, 5, 10 shows a year.
Sure. Or more.
That in itself is a whole different planning process.
