Keep Your Friends Close and Your Competition Closer

The tradeshow floor is filled with hundreds of prospects waiting to meet you.  Unfortunately, the floor is also filled with booths after booths of your competition, scoping out your potential clients and trying to woo them over to their side.  A good agent always keeps track of his contacts – friend or foe – so how do you make the most of sharing the room with your competition?

Investigation: Send out spies to see what other companies are doing to draw a crowd.  Maybe you’ll find an idea that inspires you to try something new at the next show!

Make Friends:  You’re still going to be competing with these people no matter what, so why not make friends with the employees?  You never know who could be working for your competition.  Maybe there’s the ideal employee for you sitting unhappily at the table down the aisle, working for the wrong company!

Find References: Maybe you can’t help a potential client with a particular order.  Try to snoop around and find out which companies are at the show, so you will be able to refer your prospect to someone who can.  Even though you can’t help them this time, your prospect will remember how helpful you were and might think of you in the future for other orders.

Even though you may be competing for clients, you can still have a good working relationship with the other vendors at a show.  You never know when having an extra contact in the business might come in handy!

Booth Setup Day

It’s the day before the show.  You’ve bought your booth space and spent weeks and months working to ensure your space at the trade show will draw the most prospects possible. You wake up on Booth Setup Day fully ready to hit this one right out of the park, confident that your efforts will pay off.  You walk into the convention center…and right into what could easily pass as a set for a post-apocalyptic movie.  Making your way through throngs of people, you push, shove, sprint, and crawl to your booth space.  You make it there alive, but what do you do now?

Expect Complete Chaos:  The room will be dirty.  There will be people running around everywhere trying to get their booth in order.  There will be no food and, if your show takes place in the summer, potentially no air conditioning.  Plan for all of these!  Don’t try to wear a suit to this.  It may look classy at first, but after hours in these conditions, you’ll be hot, sweaty, and potentially spending a lot of money on a dry-cleaning bill to fix rips and tears from the toils of booth setup.

Lots of Exercise:  You may have to park multiple blocks away from the show site.  Purchasing and using the proper cases for all of your booth accessories will help the transportation process immensely.  Are you the only person from your company going to the show?  Make sure you plan transportation ahead of time.  You don’t want to accidentally get locked out of the convention center with half of your materials inside the building and half still in your hands, searching for another entrance!  While intricate booths may look amazing to potential clients, they potentially could be hard work to put together. Plan ahead and bring tools you may need for setup so you aren’t searching for anything when the time comes.  Undercover Printer also offers easy-setup displays and backwalls that give you a professional look without the stress.

Prepare for What-If’s:  What if there’s a shipping issue and your display is stuck in the Midwest in a flood?  Make sure your staff can think on their feet if a potential client is around, booth or no booth.  Coming from out of town and need a booth in a hurry?  Undercover Printer offers 24 hr turn on booth displays.  What if someone trips and falls, taking part of your booth down with them?  Do you have the spare parts to save the day if disaster strikes?

Intimidated yet?  Despite the potential for disaster present at each setup day, a little bit of planning can help keep you in control of the situation.  And even if everything spirals out of your control, just remember it will all be worth it on show day, when you just might meet your dream client!

-by Jenna Marie, Chief Code Breaker