Get Thee to a Trade Show

Forbes has a useful article on trade shows:

This week I had the pleasure of attending the New York International Gift Fair at the Javits Center in Manhattan. The show is one of the largest in the world, boasting 2,800 exhibitors and 35,000 attendees. 

I cut my teeth on gift shows, so this was fun to read.

Here are a few of the entrepreneurs I met, and some of the lessons they offered to companies considering exhibiting next year.

I'll make my comments after her.

Richard learned that his wholesale pricing had to be 50% of retail, which meant he had to double what he was originally selling the product  for on Etsy to make it work for retail chains. He also figured out that his minimum wholesale quantity had to be 20 instead of 10, because after a year of selling he found that people who ordered 10 came back a week later and ordered 10 more. That said, he was willing to work with smaller retailers at the show that approached him about testing the product at their shops.

Willing to work with small business?  They are 80% of your business!  If you read the article you can see that selling online did not cut it.... another important lesson.

Success: Richard told me that he made enough in sales to pay for his booth ($5,000+) on the first day of the show. He added that even if this had not been the case, he would still have considered the show a success because he landed accounts he would never have found anywhere else.

Yes, but....  do not go to a show without customers to meet...  take a show you think you can do, and then sell to that show.  Find likely customers before the show (I teach this in my classes...) and then share you expect to exhibit at that show.  Then the other orders you get are gravy.  There is so much work that can be done before a show to make a show a high-producing event, orders in hand.

Advice for others: “A friend of mine gave me great advice before the show. He said ‘Don’t waste your time with rude people, because in the end that means they will be a pain in the ass to deal with. They are the customers you do NOT want.”

Yes, there are plenty of people you do not want to trade with.  By executing a professional sales tactic you get rid of these people from your booth within about 10 seconds, and save yourself time and energy.  Sales is for professionals, but starting out you can learn enough to be effective, and even more important, to be a good consumer of sales talent.  The only correction I would make to the above statement is to say "they were never customers to begin with."

The article goes on to another exhibitor, who notes to get in front of a wide group of buyers gives you incalculable feedback:

Until now, his market has mostly been “white hipster kids” – so being at the gift show gave Chad a wider sense of his potential market.

Lessons learned by this exhibitor:

In addition, next year he will bring a screen that will show some of the great press they have received all over the country and the Web. He said a few buyers seem skeptical about the reception the product will get — so he wants to reassure them more persuasively that his is a proven product rather than an unknown risk.

A screen?  Unh...  avoid moving parts, things that need power.  Yes, just as a website should be feedback/testimonial rich, so should your booth.  Print off screenshots and laminate them so buyers can spend the 1/10th of one second noticing it instead of standing in front of a monitor waiting for the slideshow to happen.  And have articles already written in an envelope with ...  well, read how Patagonia got massive cover stories for a mere $500 a pop.  But yes, fill your booth with testimonials...

A most excellent version of this credibility effort I saw back in March at the ExpoWest show.  This was brilliant.

She goes on to a second exhibitor...

“Etsy is direct, but we want to be in retail. We want to grow the business to where it is not just made in our living room. That is different than Etsy.” The gift show seemed like a great place to get feedback from buyers as well as see how the products were received.

See a pattern? Online is not the place to run a business.  There may be some feedback to be gained, but what else are you hearing?  All of these people get their real and valuable start-up feedback at a trade show.

The feedback they got was that people really like the products but that they need to add more products to complete the line.

Always "what is next."  The first question out of every specialty store buyers mouth is "what is new?" Part of the sales process is "sell the company" that is to demonstrate you are the best source of the item. part of that selling is to make clear you are in for the long haul, and one concrete example of this is what you are working on next.

They also found that some of the props they brought — including seed bomb favors in burlap sachets and some of the reclaimed pallet wood shelves — were just as popular as the coffee bag beds. Based on this feedback, they are planning to add these to their product line in the future.

Once at a trade show we had some props made which were plywood blow-ups of images on ceramic serve-ware.  Everyone wanted a price on the props!  So we got into that business too.

For this third exhibitor, here are the money quotes:

“We got advice from a lot of people who have been through this process. They told us that a lot of the great orders will come in afterwards. It is all about the follow up.” In other words, don’t lose heart if your first gift show is not an instant success.

This is true, but you can do plenty of work to make sure the first one is more revenue than it cost you to exhibit.  Yes, make the show pay, and then also get that "unexpected order" pay-off.  It is all trade show booth management work.  To pre-seel is to create a better exhibit.

Their parting words of advice, “Put 110% into your product and your display. It makes a big difference. People can tell. People know quality and will respond to your best effort.”

Yes! People royally screw up booths.  Unless you can afford the $50,000 for a properly designed booth, less is more.  And make it about your customers, not about you.

Kimberly added, “Talk to everyone – even the exhibitors – anyone who walks through or near your booth. You have no idea who they are — buyers, distributors, magazine feature writers!... If you are not afraid, you can’t fail.”

Above I talked about how to be prepared for the press.  Also, how a professional sales approach is critical to sorting out buyers (ready, willing and able) from non-buyers.  Learn that sales process!  Approach (the booth has accomplished that step) Qualification Agreement on need Sell the company Fill the need Closing. Memorize it.  (I have a graph of this, email me if you'd like a copy.)

And fear is a constant so I am not sure you can be without that, I'd recast that "you fail only if you quit."  Now, key to that is to never waste time or money, so you get to where you are thriving faster, and have less pressure to quit.

As I have said elsewhere, people are learning anew what was passed on from generation to generation. As many have noted, we've lost two generations of entrepreneurs. The skillset for a properly executed trade show booth, preparation, execution and follow-up, for this there is a crying need.  $5000 is typical for a booth alone, then there are all the other costs.  There is nothing that so concentrates the mind in business as an upcoming trade show.  For these reasons I am now testing out the idea of "trade shows" as seminars."  The first one will be in November of this year, in Hong Kong. The 'all-in cost' of airfare, hotel, food, transfers, and booth cost ( booth on a shared basis) will be about $4100, with all of the pre and post assistance included.  $4100 all in in Hong Kong with worldwide exposure, vs $5000 for booth alone.  Start out with others! email me for full particulars, and here is a link to more info.

http://www.johnspiers.com/Export_Agriculture/Advanced.html

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

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