You’ve heard it said on many occasions that the best time to enhance your marketing activity is during a downturn. I agree. Be out there – and be seen. Others will take the short term view to hide away. And when you’ve come to terms with a strategy to be proactive in this way make sure your entire staff, workforce, suppliers and stakeholders know what you’re doing and why.
Assuming you have refined your objectives – and given them all quantifiable targets – go for it. Remember – an exhibition is like a piece of theatre – showbiz – and everyone has a role to play.
Backroom staff, as well as sales and marketing personnel can all be brought into the script writing, rehearsing, set design and construction, stage management and front of house activities. These activities draw on different talents, different skills, different motivations.
Exhibitions are excellent team building opportunities. Staff spend intensive time together, often in a city away from the office. You might consider creating an exhibition team, trained with the right skills to run your exhibition stand.
Accountants and office staff are often very useful on an exhibition stand – remember you need someone who is accurate and tenacious enough to ensure leads are collated and typed up on the spot. A receptionist will be perfect to welcome visitors onto a stand, while these staff might love the change of scenery and become part of your exhibition team.
So there it is – that concept of team motivation.
Team Building
I see far too many stands where clearly the on-stand people have not been involved in the planning process, have been instructed to be there without having been familiarised with the aims of the exercise, and most damning of all, have no agreed common consistent message to deliver.
Eighty percent of your success at a show is down to having the right people doing and saying the right things up front. But taking this on board if you want to refocus your staff on driving your organisation forward there is no better activity than an Exhibition.
Why? Because before you exhibit you have to revisit and verify the real elements of why your business exists. What you put on the stage at a Tradeshow has to be an embodiment of the best about you. Your business fundamentals. You need to show your best product or service, your most compelling client endorsements, your outstanding reason for a prospect to talk to you after the show, and the most positive view of your industry.
Here are three topics to consider:
One. What is the primary vision of your company? Why are you doing what you are doing? Why do you get up in the morning to work there? And can you remember what the passion was that initiated the organisation in the first place? While you don’t necessarily have to state it on your actual graphics this belief should always emanate from every pore of the flesh of every person on the stand. After all, if you don’t exude belief in what you’re doing – how can you expect a new prospect to believe in you? The aspiration has to be understood by you all – in these terms: “We want to be regarded as the first resource for …” or “We want to be perceived as the best providers of …” or “We aim to be regarded as the brand leaders in …”
Everyone on your stand has to be on the stand and on message.
Two: What do you sell? How do you say in eight words or less what business you’re in – without the word ‘solutions’ No adjectives – simply express, consistently what business you’re in so that any prospect has an instant grasp of what you do. And this is often the hardest thing to agree: For example, “We provide catering equipment for small restaurants”; “We offer staff recruitment services”; “We’re in the business of infection control.” Whatever you do – agree how you’re going to express it.
Three: Probably, most important of all, confirm why anyone should buy from your organisation. Everyone involved in your business needs to review, agree and confirm why you are the best at what you do. Come up with your differentiator and broadcast the benefits. Loud and clear. “Only we deliver …”; “Only we guarantee to…”; “No one else provides this range of products/services …”
Everyone has to understand and project this unassailable proposition.
It’s a long term investment. Teaching staff to be more receptive and focussed on an exhibition stand makes them more valuable in the long-term as part of a team. There are skills needed on an exhibition stand which will then help any sales staff in their wider role. Listening as opposed to speaking. Learning more about what the customer does and what is going on in the broader marketplace. Another is proactively going to speak to people they have never spoken to before and also learning to sell the next meeting, rather than the entire product or service.
Training
Exhibitions give a real opportunity for some training, for these skills to be trained, learnt and applied.
Alternatively, if your own team just don’t have the skill base or they are tied up with their
day jobs, then bring in professionals. Very often trained professional can, by example, train your own people. Usually they are performers so they are adding something to the team – we use people who are motivators.
Our people get your people motivated at the beginning of the day – reaffirming the objectives. Their presence adds a whole new dimension to the activity on stand.
So there you have it. Revisit your fundamentals with all your staff. Find an appropriate show to showcase your company and re-motivate your people at the same time.
Remember these three elements: What is the belief? What is the business? What are the benefits you bring? It’s the right time to do it now. Don’t be frustrated – get motivated.
John Blaskey and The Exhibiting Agency consult for many major brands on messaging and motivating teams to deliver measurable and identifiable results at Exhibitions, Tradeshows, Conferences and Events – give us a call.