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5 Classic Tips x 5 Days = 25 Insights | Day #1

November 7th, 2016 Mel White COMMENTS

tips

I’m a giver. What can I say? It’s who I am.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I thought I’d share 25 “Classic Tips and Insights” over the next week. Five per day. Some you may know. Others probably not. I promise to keep them short, sweet, and easily digestible.

Tip #1 — Photo Galleries

Exhibit Design Search has three new photo galleries:  custom, rental, and retail. Why the addition? Distributors asked us to include more customized solutions in their branded EDS websites. For Classic, these display categories are growing fast, like grass in May. Bring um’ on baby! We love these types of projects.

Tip #2 — Graphic Resolution and Drayage Calculators

Have you ever wanted a quick tool to calculate graphic resolution sizes or material handling charges? We have both. When I showed the calculators to a Classic Distributor recently, he hugged me. Now I’m not a hugger. But, I’ll take an “atta boy!” if you like them.

Tip #3 — Projects, Designs, and Rentals Email Addresses

The projects, designs, and rental email addresses are like cilantro. Some folks like it. Others say it tastes like soap. We love them because it allows us to forward your request to right person PDQ. But, we’re not picky. Call us. Send an email to a PM or Designer. OR dance across the keyboard with projects@classicexhibits.com, designs@classicexhibits.com, or rentals@classicexhibits.com.

Tip #4 — ClassicMODUL

Whenever you need MODUL extrusion in full lengths, cut pieces, or basic designs, contact Tom Jones at tjones@classicmodul.com. Tom is the Home Depot of engineered aluminum in ClassicLand. Give him a call or visit the CM website:  www.classicmodul.com. At some point, we should buy him a bright orange smock.

Tip #5 — iPad, Surface, and Other Tablets

Single, double, and quad tablet stands. We have them. Counter mounts. Ones with literature holders. Most with graphic options. All built to withstand trade show, retail, and event abuse.

Available in silver, black, and white. iPad, Surface, Galaxy, and many others.

Now that wasn’t so bad. Same time tomorrow with #6 thru #10.

–Mel White
mel@classicexhibits.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/melmwhite
https://twitter.com/melmwhite

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Customer Service Just Got Easier at Your Next Trade Show

November 1st, 2016 Mel White 1 COMMENT

This photo was shot with a Canon EOS 5D Mark III and L-series lens.

What’s the Difference Between a Shopping Mall and a Trade Show?

Most retailers devote significant time and money to customer service training for their employees. The same can’t be said for exhibitors and their booth staff. They assume their team will be professional.

Recently, I was invited to conduct a Booth Etiquette and Sales Training seminar for a medical services company. It would have been easy to pull together a PowerPoint. Instead, I asked the attendees if they had ever worked in any job where they were expected to approach, assist, and advise someone on a purchase. Of the 52 attendees, all but four raised their hand. I then asked them to think about the “rules” they learned.

mall2

Here’s What They Told Me 

  1. Acknowledge every customer who enters your department, even if you are busy.
  2. Smile.
  3. Don’t bad-mouth your competition.
  4. If you have time to lean, you have time to clean.
  5. Arrive on time. Don’t leave early. Your customers expect the store to be open at the scheduled time and remain open until they have finished shopping.
  6. Listen. Follow the 80/20 rule of sales by listening at least 80 percent of the time.
  7. Ask open-ended questions.
  8. Say “Thank you,” “Please,” and “You’re Welcome.”
  9. Dress appropriately for the job, including basic hygiene. At a minimum, polish your shoes, use an iron, brush your teeth, and comb your hair.
  10. The “Hard Sell” rarely works. The “Consultative Approach” rarely fails.
  11. Don’t chew gum on the sales floor.
  12. Don’t eat on the sales floor.
  13. Don’t drink any beverages on the sales floor.
  14. Wear comfortable shoes.
  15. You can’t be an expert about everything. Ask a colleague to ask who may know more about a product or service.
  16. Don’t make assumptions based on a customer’s appearance.
  17. Start conversations . . .  not a sales pitch.
  18. The customer is always right (or mostly right).
  19. Things get messy, but they can’t stay that way.
  20. You’re not a carnival barker. You are a sales professional.
  21. If you make a commitment to find something, to add them to the mailing list, or to call them when an item goes on sale, honor that commitment.

These “Rules” Should Seem Very Familiar

After all, working on the show floor is very similar to working in a shoe store, electronics store, or a restaurant. You are there to assist customers. Sometimes your customers know exactly what they want. Other times, they expect you to guide them to most appropriate solution after determining their needs. Sometimes it’s slow. Other times it’s busy, but either way you are onstage and expected to perform flawlessly and to be a professional.

And yet, we often see behavior in a trade show booth that would be unacceptable in any retail situation:

  • Eating and drinking on the show floor
  • Drifting into the booth 45 minutes after the show starts after partying until 4 am and reeking of alcohol
  • Congregating in packs, ignoring customers, bad mouthing competitors, and acting like working the show floor is a punishment
  • Monopolizing conversations with customers, disregarding basic sales skills, and launching into a laundry list of features and benefits
  • Using literature and the lead retrieval machine as a substitute for asking open-ended questions
  • Failing to acknowledge customers with a smile or a “be there in a minute”
  • Pre-judging a customer based on appearance or after glancing at the color of their badge
  • Not following up on a lead or a promise to a potential customer

Nearly Everyone Knows How to be Successful on the Trade Show Floor

You learned the basics when you worked at Macy’s or LensCrafters or AutoZone or Olive Garden. At a minimum, you learned to be nice, to be polite, and to treat each customer with respect. At a maximum, you learned how to sell and the importance of customer service. The products and services you now represent may be more complicated and the selling price higher, but the skills are basically the same.

So next time you enter your booth, whether you have a table top at the local Chamber of Commerce show or a 30′ x 30′ custom exhibit at your industry’s premier event, remember what you learned working nights and weekends at the mall. And don’t forget to shine your shoes and iron your shirt or blouse. Appearance counts!

Please share your comments!

–Mel White
http://www.linkedin.com/in/melmwhite
mel@classicexhibits.com

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Short and Sweet EDS Video by Tim Patterson

October 28th, 2016 Mel White COMMENTS

Every week, I’m impressed by the creative marketing of Classic Distributors. Sometimes it’s an insightful blog post. Other times it’s a Linkedin update. Or it’s an email broadcast with a clever twist. From one marketer to another, the variety, creativity, and breathe of your marketing is astonishing and inspiring.

Last week, Tim Patterson, a.k.a. the TradeshowGuy, created a terrific three-minute video for his clients on recent Exhibit Design Search updates. It’s concise, informative, and interesting. The trifecta in video-world. As a fellow marketer, I think you’ll enjoy.

–Mel White
mel@classicexhibits.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/melmwhite
https://twitter.com/melmwhite

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Ignorance and Indifference on the Trade Show Floor

October 26th, 2016 Mel White COMMENTS

seinfeldJerry: “I don’t understand, I made a reservation, do you have my reservation?”

Agent: “Yes, we do, unfortunately we ran out of cars.”

Jerry: “But the reservation keeps the car here. That’s why you have the reservation.”

Agent: “I know why we have reservations.”

Jerry: “I don’t think you do. If you did, I’d have a car. See, you know how to take the reservation, you just don’t know how to “hold” the reservation and that’s really the most important part of the reservation, the holding. Anybody can just take them.”

We all recognize this scene from Seinfeld:  The rental car desk. The banter between Jerry and Elaine. And the snide, indifferent response from the rental car agent. We’ve all experienced this poor customer service from an overbooked flight, a missed service appointment, or a bait and switch on an advertised product.

Yet, not all bad customer service is this blatant. Sometimes it is poor planning, not recognizing industry trends, or pure laziness. As a trade show exhibitor or an attendee, you’ve experienced this walking the show floor.

Invitation

As a child, you looked forward to the annual county fair — the rides, the concerts, and the food vendors were the highlight of the summer. You planned your summer around it. Trade shows were like that once – many, many years ago. Not anymore.

Exhibitors must be proactive. To be successful, they must invite existing and potential customers to their booth and explain their value. Whether you are using email, social media, advertising, or good old fashion phone calls, as an exhibitor, you should plan for 50% of your show traffic to be generated pre-show. Simply showing up and showing off no longer works.

tradeshow

Indifference

Think about all the money you spend before the show even starts — the exhibit, freight, booth space, drayage, labor, and travel costs. It’s significant. The show opens, attendees swarm the show floor, and some of those enter your booth space. And you ignore them.

By Day 3 how many pass through your booth without a greeting, a handshake, or even a friendly head nod? Your team may acknowledge them but it’s half-hearted. They’re already checking on their flight or planning for dinner. The attendee senses it. They move on to a competitor excited to see them on Day 3 at 3 pm.

Ignorance

At its core, a trade show is a face-to-face Google search. Attendees are there to find and collect information. Yet, many exhibitors bring charming rather than competent staffers. Simple questions can’t be answered by the booth staff, or the one expert is always unavailable. Even the booth fails the information test. Lots of splash but no real substance on your products and services. The successful exhibitor strikes a balance between charm and competence, flash and substance.

pasted-image-at-2016_10_26-02_33-pm

Ignore

Perhaps I’m naïve, but I don’t buy the statistics about lead follow-up. It’s not ideal, not even close, but most companies follow up on show leads. Unfortunately, they do it half-hearted. They send an email or leave a phone message… then call it good. They treat a show lead as a cold lead, not a warm one.

The trade show attendee stopped in your booth for a reason. It’s your job to pinpoint what they need and when they need it. All too often, we abandon the sales process after the first attempt: “I left a message and they never got back to me.”

Insight   

What did you learn at your last show about your competitors, your vendors, your industry, and your customers? Nothing is more valuable. Yes, the trade show should lead to more sales. There should be a measurable ROI. However, it’s the unmeasurable ROI that’s often more valuable.

We call it “face-to-face marketing,” but it’s people connecting with people, sharing information, venting, gossiping, and looking for solutions. No website can do that as effectively as two people together. Ever.

There’s no magic or voodoo to outstanding customer service on the trade show floor. It’s all about smart planning, commonsense, and hard work.

–Mel White
mel@classicexhibits.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/melmwhite
https://twitter.com/melmwhite

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Does Your Trade Show Exhibit Have To Be Clever?

October 25th, 2016 Mel White COMMENTS

idea2

Once Upon a Time…

Trade shows have always been a marketplace where potential attendees wandered through the aisles. When something caught their eye, they would enter the booth to learn more about the product or service. As an exhibitor, a clever message, promotion, or display was crucial since enticing attendees into the booth was an important measure of the show’s overall success.

Clever mattered and the overall booth served the same purpose as a magazine or television ad: enticing people to try your product and service. As a result, marketers went to great lengths to create witty copy, smart graphics, and an interactive experience. In some cases, the copy, graphics, and experience had little to do with the actual product or service. It was more about generating traffic and leads, regardless of the quality.

park3Does Clever Still Matter?

Several years ago, we designed a 20 x 30 island design with a park theme. It included paths, artificial grass, a swing, benches, trees, and a gazebo. The concept was “A Walk in the Park,” which highlighted how easy it was to work with us – design, customer service, exhibit builds. It was a clever idea that attracted traffic to the booth. Even today, our customers still comment on the design, but when I ask them about the underlying marketing message, they draw a blank. Ouch!

Does that approach still work? Yes… and no. The ability to create a creative, integrated, and informative trade show experience for an attendee will always be the “holy grail.” However, being clever may not matter as much as it used to. That may seem counter-intuitive, but trade shows have changed.

Google/Amazon in a Really Big Building

The Internet has changed trade shows, but not in the way you think. For years, “experts” predicted that virtual trade shows would replace physical trade shows. That hasn’t happened, nor is it likely to happen anytime soon. According to CEIR, tradeshow attendance has grown for 21 straight quarters.

People want to be with people who share their professional and personal interests. Today’s trade show attendees are far less likely to wander the trade show floor. They pre-shop in the same way we all do research before buying a new television, car, or service. Attendees are less inclined to discover a vendor at the show. Instead, they identify who they want to visit and plan accordingly. Is there a chance they’ll stumble on a new vendor? Of course, but that’s the exception rather than the rule.

What Does That Mean to You?

preshowYour job is difficult and allocating scarce resources is one of your main challenges. Clever takes time. And, if the goal is less about enticing random attendees into the booth, then it becomes more about communicating a problem and your solution. That message is easier since it’s something you do every day. So, what do you do with all this extra time? You devote it to pre-show marketing and to building qualified traffic to the booth… before the show even starts. Successful trade show programs are as much about pre-show and post-show as “the show.”

That’s not to say your trade show exhibit shouldn’t be attractive. It should, but I would encourage you to focus on more practical matters the next time you design or rebrand your display. What do you need in the booth space to conduct business? Make it less about showmanship and more about conversations and information. Take the time you would have spent creating the perfect theme and use it to create targeted social media campaigns and invitations to your clients before the show. Give them a reason to put you on their calendar at the show.

It’s OK to be clever, but on a list of trade show marketing priorities, smart (and successful) beats clever every time.

–Mel White
mel@classicexhibits.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/melmwhite
https://twitter.com/melmwhite

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Based in Portland, Oregon, Classic Exhibits Inc. designs and manufacturers portable, modular, and custom-hybrid exhibit solutions. Classic Exhibits products are represented by an extensive distributor network in North America and in select International markets. For more information, contact us at 866-652-2100 or www.classicexhibits.com.

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