3 Ways Trade Show Managers Say No To A Great Exhibit

Exhibiting at a trade show is a chance to create new opportunities, strengthen existing relationships, and fast-forward your company to success.

As a company that specializes in making the most out of an exhibition, we (unfortunately) hear all sorts of ways that trade show managers wind up talking themselves out of a successful show.

Here are the top three that we hear.


“This isn’t what we normally do.”

Translation: We’re fine with our current workload.

Two things.

First: If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.

You normally reserve the booth, print some fliers, send a couple of your best sales people, and then wait for people to stop by the booth.

Being a successful company is not the result of passive strategies. It will consistently lose out to more proactive approaches to brand awareness.

Second: If a company is fine with being “fine” then why are they at the trade show? Don’t they want to be as successful as they could be?

If a company is there to get business, why would it be fine only getting 1/3 or 1/4 as many new connections as are possible?

The fact that the company is exhibiting at the trade show proves this statement isn’t true.

“We’re a respectable company.”

Translation: We believe all marketing is snake oil and lies.

Nobody wins when a company refuses to tell the world what they do.

The world’s most successful & respectable companies make experiential marketing an integral part of their messaging.

Companies that clearly and consistently communicate the value they provide to the market are the ones that succeed. The companies that do that in a way that’s fun and memorable win.

Also, a brand representative can engage an audience, wow them, and deliver a message with integrity.

“Our product / service / business model is too complicated for this.”

Translation: We’re too close to the problem.

This is exactly why you need someone from the outside or a company that specialises in synthesizing massive amounts of information and distilling it into a simple 3 point marketing message.

(Hint: our specialty)

Sidenote: We see this one most often with tech entrepreneurs. They can rattle off 50 features of their software, but have trouble explaining how any one of them makes our lives better!

We work tightly with your team to develop a sales message that is clear, simple, and easy to understand!


Takeaway

These are just a couple of the many ways we’ve heard people say no to approaches that are highly effective at:

  • building brand awareness,
  • generating leads, and
  • building high quality relationships in a short amount of time.

We’re convinced there’s a better way.

Here’s how we see it:

Old school: Different is scary. Different is bad.
New school: Different isn’t always good, but good is always different.


If you’re interested in understand more about cutting edge lead strategies for maximizing your exhibition ROI, then you might enjoy reading another article we wrote that compares a “respectable company” with the United States Post Office.