How To Choose The Right Team To Manage Your Trade Show Booth
While your customized trade show display plays a pivotal role in attracting visitors to your booth, many people don’t realize it’s the booth staffers or employees manning the exhibit that will attract attendees into your booth. Without an engaging, polished, and professional team representing your business in your trade show display, attendees will quickly flee to a more welcoming and knowledgeable booth team.
How to Choose Motivated Employees
Not sure how to select the most motivated employees to work your trade show display? It’s a common dilemma in virtually every industry. Keep a few of these considerations in mind throughout the selection process:
Experience matters: Consider the experience level of your employee options. For many businesses, a trade show or event marks the only opportunity to make a great first impression; don’t squander it by putting people in your booth who won’t be able to answer questions and provide relevant corporate information. Make sure they also know what a trade show is about and that they understand the objectives your company wants to accomplish.
Keep in mind that adequate training or mentoring can also help a less experienced staffer succeed. It’s important to expose team members to the trade show world and a trade show is a great learning opportunity. If a potential booth staffer possesses all the qualities you’d like to see in a staffer, don’t disregard them just because they haven’t staffed before. Give them the opportunity to learn and grow and spend time on training.
Attitude is everything: When selecting the right people to staff your booth and represent your company, it’s imperative to choose staff members that actually want to be there. Attendees will be able to tell in a nanosecond if someone from your team doesn’t want to be there, making the entire exchange forced and awkward. Picking your more enthusiastic and driven employees will set the tone and attitude of the exhibit.
Include various departments: Many executives assume that salespeople are the only key staff members that must be present in their trade show display. Not true. While you should have your sellers on hand to answer product questions, other team members can prove as valuable as well. Consider some of your manufacturing staff, marketing specialists, engineers who worked on a product, and even employees from your quality control team to give your visitors a comprehensive glimpse into what your organization is all about.
Practice makes perfect: Of course, experience and attitude aren’t the only critical qualities to look for when staffing your exhibit. It’s also vital to have them train as much as possible before any function. Having an outside resource that specializes in live event training can help your team understand the nuance between hard and soft pitches, as well as feel confident that they’ll be able to effectively navigate through whatever the live crowd may have in store for them.
Convey expectations: Finally, the best way to help your chosen team be successful is to convey what is expected from them. Outline the specific goals and objectives you hope to achieve before every function. Additionally, put a plan in place for lead follow up, as well as how to quantify the results of each function.
Your trade show will be successful if you have the supporting team you need backing up your efforts.
By: Scott Price –
