Make a Trade Show Exhibit worth the Time and Money

We attend a bunch of trade shows each year, not only for promotional products, but for embroidery and for clothing apparel of all descriptions. We also attend and exhibit at the International Council of Air Shows in Las Vegas each December. I have been a performing member since 1978, and recently we have begun devoting our time to promotional gifts and giveaways.

In the 400-odd pieces of email we receive each workday, I came upon a valuable, informative piece from Skyline Exhibits. May I urge you to take few minutes and read it:

"10 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started Exhibiting At Trade Shows"

September 20, 2009 | by Mike Thimmesch, Skyline Exhibits' Director of Lead Generation and Industry Relations: Skyline Trade Show Tips

1. You won’t succeed at trade shows if you just show up. A trade show first-timer may think that because they’ve paid a couple of grand to rent a 10 x 10 space for a few days, they automatically will reap the whirlwind of leads and sales from the show’s attendees. If only. Surprise: you’ve actually only paid for access to this great audience of buyers. Now you have to do your part, such as train your staffers, create a promotion that attracts qualified prospects, and design your trade show display to entice the right visitors to your booth.

2. Trade shows are not as glamorous as they looked from the outside. To the uninitiated, this is what trade show marketing looks like from the ouside: Flying around the country to sunny or metropolitan locations, staying in top-tier hotels and meals on the company dime, and access to top-level company execs. But seen from the inside, trade shows are not so glamorous. Trade shows themselves are very hard work with a lot of stressful moments before, during, and after exhibit hours. There are so many details to master, and so many vendors you are depending on. You can sweat more during exhibit set-up than a month of work outs. And while travel can be exciting, it gets old fast when you are repeatedly away from home and your family.

3. Inertia determined much of your company’s show schedule. In the many years before you were handed the reins to your company’s trade show marketing, your company cobbled together quite a list of shows. But are they all still worth it? Were some trade shows chosen because your target market was there, or because your competitors were? Has your client base evolved away from the demographics of some of the shows you exhibit at? Have some shows eroded their attendee base by not reinvesting in strong marketing and educational content? Are there new vertical markets that you have yet to find good shows to market to? It’s up to you to break the inertia — and create some new momentum

4. Trade show labor is way more expensive than you think, and sometimes it’s even worth it. It’s a eye-opener to find out how much you will pay someone else to set up your booth, hook up your lights, or rig that hanging sign, especially if it’s on a weekend, or God forbid, on a Sunday. The union rules in most venues require that you pay labor a wage that adds up in a hurry, even if they don’t. You can minimize labor costs by getting easier to set up trade show displays, trying to schedule your set up for straight-time labor, and by lining up dependable contractors. I’ve found some Exhibitor Appointed Contractors are worth it, as they work hard to earn you business, show after show.

5. You will blow your trade show budget if you don’t plan well. You can never plan too far ahead, especially for overseas shows. Your budget was likely set with the best-case scenario for your trade show expenses, without room to pay for late fees and rush charges. That’s powerful incentive to quickly master the show book. Fortunately, after several shows you learn what you really need to order (electrical, leads machine, carpet) and what form pages you will likely skip (plumbing, signage, security). A pad of Post-It Notes or a good electronic scheduling software helps you flag your most pressing deadlines.

6. Everybody wants to help you pick the trade show exhibit color. No one wants to help you track the leads. When it comes to exhibit design, everyone has an opinion. And in the time leading up to the show, they will all clamor to offer their ideas, making it harder to get the booth built on time without rush charges. Yet after the show, you will have a harder time getting similar participation in tracking the leads from the show – ostensibly the reason you designed your exhibit in the first place. Remind your colleagues that if you can’t prove the results from this year’s show, you won’t be exhibiting at the show next year.

7. The 10 minutes after the show closes is when most damage happens to your trade show exhibit. The show ends with a voice booming over the loudspeakers saying, “The show is closed, see you next year.” But to impatient booth staffers, it’s as if they had actually shouted, “Drivers, start your engines!” Booth staffers hurry to win the race to the taxi stand, hotel, bar, restaurant, or parking lot. And if you have a portable trade show display that your booth staffers pack up, this is when they break it, by shoving it in its case as fast as they can. Close that expensive window of time by getting a more durable display, getting better packaging, or just by having a frank conversation with your staffers before the closing bell. Or, if you’re the one who wants to win the race, take a deep breath and slow down before you make a costly mistake.

8. Drayage is the most expensive way to move your exhibit the shortest distance. As a trade show newbie, one of the biggest surprises is that you have to pay to have your exhibit moved from the shipping dock to your booth space. Even more shocking is just how much you’ll have to pay — about the same to move something across a convention center as it does to ship it across country. Drayage rates have risen by double-digit percentages in some of the last few years, probably because more exhibitors switched to lighter weight trade show booths like Skyline’s. To offset the lower weight of exhibit properties, drayage charges per pound have increased. If your exhibit is still made the old-fashioned way, it’s a double-whammy.

9. It’s hard for booth staffers to take their very first lead at a trade show. In our lives we go though various, potentially scary rites of passage: learning to ride a bike, going to your first day of school, asking for a date to the prom. While all of these have been immortalized in film, no movie has yet to bring to the silver screen the epic tale of a first-time booth staffer engaging and writing up their first trade show lead. What would yours have been, a horror film? A comedy? A tragedy? Whatever kind of movie it would be, it would also be a drama, because it’s you’re likely filled with nervous energy as you go out and ask a perfect stranger face to face if they’d like to do business with your company. Just remember that your booth visitors actually paid to visit the show, and many are shopping for solutions to their problems that your products can solve. Practice the process of engage, qualify, present, and close, and you’ll be more comfortable taking your first lead.

10. Trade shows can be addictive. With the hard work, long hours, and time away from home, some people can’t wait to return from their trade show. But for others, trade shows are a calling. They get jazzed by the performance aspect, the blitz of direct client contact, and the relationships built before and during the show. They like the ability to create a successful marketing program in a medium built upon the value of face-to-face interactions. And that’s when trade shows really become addictive: when you master the medium and drive serious revenue to your company’s bottom line.


Before you begin your planning as an exhibitor, determine your purpose for exhibiting. Is it to give flyers away? Or to collect email addresses?

Immediately after the show, follow up by email, that night if possible, just to say, "Hi, thanks for stopping by." It is surprising how few business do this after putting all the effort and money into their exhibit!

We put our names in for 30 to 40 prize drawings when we go to tradeshows and hear back from four or five, and perhaps one within 48 hours of the show. The iron gets cold very quickly.

By the way, at a terrific trade show two years ago, we won an Apple iPod, a $300 AmEx gift card and a high-end Garmin GPS. Entering those booth contests can be very worthwhile.

Identity Theft: "Surprise! I'm You!"

It doesn't take much smarts for someone to become you, to swipe your identity either with a credit card or a check or both. That ought to scare you. It certainly scares me.

You know all those credit card bills you pay off, then tear the bill up and throw away? Or the credit card offers you get in the mail which you toss without opening? Or ANY old checks which you don't need any more which go into the trash can next to your desk? Any one of those thing can lead to some unscrupulous person cleaning your financial clock.

I am leading up to a link to my friend Kim Komando's website. Kim, known worldwide in print and in broadcasting as "The Digital Goddess", sends out three newsletters each day, plus an extra on the weekend. In one newsletter from Labor Day, she has a link to a service which she hosts called "Protect My ID."

We got involved with identity theft through contact with Frank Abignale, who most people know as "The Great Imposter." Two things which he suggests anyone do to help prevent identity theft are (1) buy and use a shredder for ANYTHING with your name and/or any information on it, and (2) only write checks with a gel pen rather than with a typical ballpoint; the gel ink imbeds itself into the paper on a check so what you write cannot be removed.

We actually became involved with the art of "check washing", and we were amazed at how easy it is to do. Using a simple household chemical, all ballpoint information on a check can be lifted, removed and dissolved in a matter of minutes. The check can then be dried and it ready for reuse. The person(s) who steal the check and wash it may not be the ones who reuse it, either. "Clean" checks are sold for a lot of money to others who can write themselves enormous amounts, even above what's available in the account.

For that reason never leave outgoing checks in your mailbox. Post them in a big blue iron box which notes that it is property of the USPS. And write all those checks with a gel pen; if someone DOES get ahold of a check, unless his name is City of Scottsdale - Water and Sewer it will do him no good.

Yes, SHOWLINE does handle gel pens as well as some of the newer pens with non-erasable ink. But that is for another time.

Those Special Deals Just Keep On Comin'

There are times when I wish I were traveling more. Since cutting back on announcing airshows [see an earlier blog entry] to Spring and Autumn, I am seeing MANY special travel deals I just can't use. JET BLUE has a special flash-sale Fall fare of $29 and up (each way) via Travelzoo. I read about Jet Blue and Airtrans specials, but from Phoenix, most are red-eyes and are not real appealing to me.

In Las Vegas the 4-Diamond hotel, Monte Carlo Resort and Casino is currently running a special at $40 - $49 per night. Not bad.

Another special from Travelzoo is $137 for a Paris 4-Star hotel with breakfast and Seine Boat Tour. The Hotel Concorde La Fayette. Yes, the "Paris" in France, not Las Vegas.

I just this moment received an outstanding offer from the Harrah's Hotels. This has to be one of the best offers I have found if you want to get away from everything this summer and return in the cooler weather for more riotous fun. Book a quickie vacation NOW and get a free night or two from November through January. The hotels include Bally's and Rio from $49 a night, Harrah's from $39 a night, the Flamingo from $45 a night, Caesar's from $110 a night, Imperial Palace from $25 a night, and Paris [Las Vegas] from $69 a night. The deal is book two nights summer, get one free winter; book three nights summer, get two free winter. If you deserve a few days off, you can't beat this deal with a large stick!

Flash Sales on Cotton

It's the time of the season when cotton growers and cotton clothing manufacturers want to move a bunch of product out, quickly.

In the past two weeks, we have received short notice of three day sales from seven different T-shirt and fleece manufacturers. WHITE T-shirt blanks (unimprinted) are selling for as little as $2.25 for the 5.3 ounce promotional weight and two dollars more for the 6.1 ounce heavyweight, in white. Gildan, Hanes, and Fruit of the Loom. It's hard to think about fleece in mid-July but special offers are coming through for shorts, pants, long and short sleeve jackets, pullovers, hoods, caps and BLANKETS. Most of these are available in a variety of colors; last year in the colder climes, high schools and colleges were buying these things for football games and other outdoor activities.

We got this one special offer for large quantity Ts, 5.4 ounce (promotional weight), sizes Large and Extra-Large, WITH 4-color imprints. $2.78 each, a one-time setup of $185, and a minimum of 2,000 pieces. And this is FULL COLOR! This is ideal for a mob! One of our suppliers is offering free freight on orders over $200; that's like seven dozen T-shirts.

If your group, school, college, fraternity, sorority, civic organization or club is planning anything in the cooler weather, now would be a good time to consider fleece. As for T-shirts, they can be stored until next spring, if you don't have an immediate need for them. But like airfares, these flash sales happen with little notice and are gone in the blink of an eye.

School Starts WHEN!?

When did school begin fall classes in August? EARLY August? It used to start the day after Labor Day and run until about 5th of June. Beginning about Memorial Day weekend, kids would start to pound the pavement to look for summer jobs. Growing up in Philadelphia, most kids would head "down the shore" anywhere from Cape May to Long Beach Island, NJ. New York area kids would hit everything from Tom's River and Seaside Heights, northward. You just knew if you landed a job (and most did) that you would have a good ten weeks of paychecks to get you into the following school year.

I was big for my age, so I could pass for older. I had a job working the kitchen and pulling the dumbwaiters in a summer residential hotel, I cooked and beat fudge (starting at 4:30 AM each day), I crewed as a first or second mate on a charter fishing boat, and my last three summers before Penn State, I worked as a line boy at the Ocean City, New Jersey, municipal airport. In each case, I knew I could work from mid-June until Labor Day. In some cases I was asked back for several weekends, as my family commuted between Ocean City and Philadelphia on the weekends, not wanting to give up the great south Jersey weather.

Point is, now kids barely have 5 weeks off, if that. Who is going to hire summer help for five weeks? They are barely trained in a job, and they have to leave to go back to school. It's like military pilots who do their contract time, then leave the service to look for airline work. [Not so much TODAY, but the airline jobs will come back. Really they will.]

I bring this all up because we (Showline Promotional Products) are being swamped with back-to-school promotional specials. Every time one arrives, I shake my head. For a kid, summer vacation was part of growing up. Now there is very little summer vacation. In my opinion kids are being robbed, at least short-changed, of part of their youth. At Penn State, I elected to go through summer terms to get my BA in June of 1965. I had spent ten months on the road performing with a hot band, and I wanted to get my degree on time. In college, you grow up pretty quickly. But come on, NOT in school.

What was it I said yesterday?

You KNOW merchants are in trouble when they are running WINTER sales in the midst of summer.

Toys 'R Us is running a "Christmas in July" Sale beginning this weekend (July 19) and running for a week. This is not unlike hotels offering deep discounts (with a deposit) now for bookings in winter. The hotels are REALLY different in that many of them are offering SUMMER prices for Fall and WINTER stays when their prices are higher.

Last evening (July 15), well after my last post, Southwest Airlines announced a flash sale. Purchase travel by July 30th for travel August 16th through November 18th, '09. Travel on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. Southwest has to put bodies in the seats, and according to good ol' Yield Marketing (which is something you learn about when you study for an MBA), if you have a product and it doesn't sell at the MSRP, let us say n dollars, then see how it sells if the price is adjusted to n dollars minus r dollars. If demand increases, the price may be increased to just below the point of diminishing returns, let's say r dollars plus ten.

Basically if you have a plane with 136 seats and 50 of them are empty, it costs almost as much to fly with the empty seats as with them full. So FILL THEM UP. And if you are looking for deals, watch very carefully for other airlines to follow suit on the same dates with the same restrictions.

Good hunting.

Where there ARE airline travel deals

You just have to BE there when they happen!

With my reduced summertime travel schedule I have been simply watching the travel industry from the sidelines. The "flashdeals" come and go everywhere, especially in Las Vegas. Some hotels in Reno, NV, namely the Grand Sierra (which used to be the Reno Hilton) have some outstanding deals... really hard to believe. I am most familiar with the Grand Sierra Resort and Casino; that's where many of us stay during the Reno Championship Air Races in September.

It's the "Getting There" part which is usually what hurts. Most of the major airlines have had "flashdeals" of their own, beginning with one airline and spreading to most major lines within less that a day. There was a spectacular deal the week of July 6th which lasted just THREE DAYS for travel through most of the autumn months. Fares most people could afford out of pocket... that cheap.

The airlines have their own bills to pay. LARGE bills for fuel, maintenance, all those people, loans for the airplanes, rent for airport facilities, taxes, etc. Revenue, money coming in, is really really important.

The WALL STREET JOURNAL always has an interesting spin on travel. Earlier this week, there was a piece about the U.S. airlines flying into a credit squeeze. They all need cash. (duh.) the WSJ simplifies it this way:

• The country is in a terrible economic slowdown.
• Businesses are cutting back trips and the number of people taking trips.
• Airlines count on business travelers for the big bucks, like, buy a ticket this morning to travel this afternoon.
• Business travelers just aren't there.
• When this happens, the airlines try to attract vacation travelers.
• If people are not making money, they certainly don't have a load of jack to spend on airline tickets to fly the family to Six Flags.
• Therefore, marketing departments will try lowering fares on select routes. If other airlines follow and lower fares on other routes, pretty soon you have a "flashsale", and you HAVE to be right there when one starts.

If you were going to have to go to a meeting in Las Vegas in December, and you have known about it since last January, doubtless you kept an eye on airfares and hotel rates and jumped on the best you could find, probably last March. But now, you just want to get out of town. ell, your good pals, the airlines, want to help. Be watching the websites of your favorite two or three carriers, and when it seems that something up, and suddenly there are some great fares, do NOT sit around thinking about it.

Think "Money I don't have to spend." That will get you motivated.