Booth Staffing

When you are 'high' on technology, (which, most of us are), you forget to talk to  real people, with their unpredictable quirky ways.

STIMULATING Conversation IS THE COMPLETE CONTRAST OF SILENT STIMULATION THAT ONE DERIVES FROM TECHNOLOGY.

Instigating Conversation:

FEELS like 'hard work,' — with many invitations, impregnated with treacherous, imperfect NUANCES — OFTEN, THE CREEPING ANXIETY OF loss of control, SPATTERED with UTTER boredom.

Yet, trade shows and events are about making talk happen — 

That is the reason why you are spending bunch lead of money and that is exactly the reason why your attendees are coming to visit you.

ESTABLISH MORE ROI BY 'LIVING MOMENTS OF MORE'.

You see, in person, we have access to the messages carried in the face, the voice, and the body.  You listen intently to another person and expect that he or she is listening to you; where a discussion can go off on a tangent and circle back; where something unexpected can be discovered about a person or an idea.  Online, we settle for simpler fare: We feel our power, because,  we get our efficiency and our chance to edit, and we get the luxury to ponder on the questions that a return email can answer.

ACCORDING TO SKYLINE POLL, LEAD GENERATION IS THE #1 goal for 85-90% of trade show exhibitors.

But if your booth staff is doing no more than scanning badges or gathering business cards, they’re mostly just gathering cold prospects that later has to go through the warming process. Your job as a trade show marketer is to ensure you’re providing valuable, actionable leads to the sales team. In order to do that, here is what you need to do.

When it comes to vendor events, your company only has a small window of time to bring in potential customers and wow them. The staffers at your booth are your first line at these events, therefore success is dependent on their behavior during the event. Even the most carefully chosen booth staffers can end up hurting your event, and then, it’s time to say goodbye.

Lateness Or Failing To Show Up

The reasoning is simple: if your booth staffers don’t show up, you have a few products on a table and nothing else. The key to success in a vendor event is the interaction and lead generation from the visitors to your booth, and without a staffer, that can’t happen. Beyond the initial worry that you’ll miss valuable interaction with potential customers if no one is staffing your booth, lateness or a failure to show up may indicate a fundamental problem with your booth staffer. Chronic lateness could be a sign of underlying social anxiety or lack of confidence. Individuals staffing your booth should be confident and outgoing, as well as punctual.

You may have eye-catching booth, quality products & services, preppy presentations and promotions, BUT, if you have the “wrong” booth staffers, your brand marketing will end up in a massive wreck and there is no poetry in that.

RECLAIM YOUR MIND AND START ACTIVATING YOUR INTELLIGENCE — THE NEXT BIG THING IS HERE AND EVERYWHERE OR SO IT SEEMS

Artificial intelligence, long a staple of science fiction, is fast moving into the mainstream of every day life with the potential to revolutionize and disrupt numerous industries and companies. However, one thing is for certain, given the performance of Apples's Siri and Amazon's Alexa, artificial intelligence is far from being intelligent.

Because,

“It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Having thus said, today we are on a mission to make your booth intelligent. Needless to say, your first order of the day is to invest on developing the "emotional intelligence" of your people who will be staffing your booth. Give them lessons on intelligence —  train them on the concept to "hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function."

A word of caution: Anything that can be replicated will be replicated and will have a price that will tend towards zero.

Train your people to stretch their minds, such that it never shrinks back to its former dimensions.

"Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines.”

A consistent concern for marketers is how to increase the amount of qualified leads at events and trade shows. If you are a B2B marketer, you simply do not want a pile of dead-end leads — you want qualified information that your sales force can make something out of it.

THAT'S RIGHT. PUT A HALT TO FREEBIES. MAKE EVERYONE EARN SOMETHING. THAT WAY THEY WILL REMEMBER THE PAIN AND THE THRILL OF THE EXERCISE.

Time after time, we’ve witnessed potential leads scurry from booth to booth in a quest to collect every possible freebie at the trade show or event, all without stopping to experience the company’s message.

So what can you do to stop them in their tracks, create a constant flow of leads, and deliver your company’s message?

RELAX, YOU WILL LOVE THIS.  WE HAVE DONE THE MATH FOR YOU

If the booth size is a given, which it normally is, then you will need one staffer for each 50 square feet of unoccupied space. Occupied by what, you are asking? By your display, product demonstrations and equipment.

If I were to describe to you the thrill of driving a race car on a track at speeds incomprehensible to the common driver, you would hear “words.”

You might get a partial glint in your eye as you try to imagine the physiological strain, mental challenge or fear. This is where experiential marketing comes into play.