A good friend of mine, who is in the same business, recently said to me, “It’s like tax season right now for our kind of work.”  Yes, trade show season is upon us again and almost every client, friend, or colleague I know is either preparing or in the middle of some kind of trade show event at this moment. 
 
This is also the time when the ‘tchotchke personalities’ re-emerge.  What are ‘tchotchke personalities’, you ask?  I’ve been to enough trade shows and conferences that I can tell you there about eight different personalities that are pretty commonly found on the floor. 

1. The Tchotchke Taker – These folks are exactly as described!  They will swoop into your booth when you’re not looking because you’re busy talking to a customer, and will take all the tchotchkes off the reception desk or station.   Don’t you dare leave out mid-level giveaways like 32GB flash drives around these folks!  In their mind, if it’s there on the table, it’s free for the taking.
   
   
2. The Collector – The Collector most resembles someone on a scavenger hunt. These folks also love to collect give-aways that are the same but come in a variety of different types of artwork, color, or style.  Many years ago, I had a client who gave away different colored blinky necklaces.  They didn’t think anything of it until they were mobbed by a bunch of eager attendees who needed to have ALL the colors for their collection.  It was mind blowing to my client. Keep in mind thought that The Collectors are great targets for a passport program!  Hey, if they are willing to do the work, they deserve a chance to win a prize.
   
   
3. The Hunter – The Hunter looks for a specific tchotchke with purpose.  To them, it’s that one tchotchke they must have, the one they are willing to get their badge happily scanned for and will walk through multiple halls just to find.  I have to admit, I have taken on this personality once but for good reason - it was a lightsaber!
   
   
4. The Gifter – The Gifter is interesting because they are looking to take tchotchkes home for someone else…like their kids.  Gifters are the most considerate because they truly admire the tchotchke and then are polite enough to ask if they can take two – one for each of their children.
   
   
5. The Newbies – Newbies are like Babes in Toyland.  They are new to the trade show scene and it’s obvious.  If you look into their eyes, it’s almost dilated because it’s a lot for them to take in. Every tchotchke out there is so awesome to them.  I took my cousin to a trade show once and this is exactly how she acted.  She wanted to get every single thing that was available.  It was pretty funny but madness.
   
   
6. The Closet Tchotchke Lover – These folks pretend they have no interest in any sort of tchotchke but in reality, they really do love tchotchkes.   They are pretty slick.  They’ll take a casual glance at the goods but continue to carry on the conversation with you.  You offer them a tchotchke to take and they’ll hesitantly take it but when they open up their bag, it’s filled with other booth goodies.
   
   
7. The Researcher – A lot of my clients and friends who run trade show events are Researchers.  They take tchotchkes because they want to do something similar for the next show.  Their mindset is, “What’s hot? What’s different? What’s new?”  Pretty much in that order.  Often times, I’ll get a real-time text or an email from a client who will ask, “Can you get me this for my next event?”
   
   
8. The No Thank-Yous – The mentality from these folks are:  Been there, done that.  The No Thank-Yous have no interest in any sort of tchotchkes WHAT-SO-EVER.  It doesn’t matter what the give-away is, it’s not tempting enough to take.  Many No Thank-Yous have collected so many tchotchkes in their life that they don’t want to collect any more.

 
So as you prepare to attend your next show, which personality will you take on?  Happy Trade Show season!
 
 

(Originally published on 7/15/14 as a Guest Blogger on TrewMarketing's website)

So you have a trade show to plan.  It’s still three months away – no problem, plenty of time, right?  But tick, tock …before you know it, the event date is right upon you. If you have ever planned an event, you know exactly what I’m talking about.  I bet you can even pinpoint the moment when anxiety takes over.  Before you break out in hives, let’s take a moment to pause and plan.

(insert zen-like moment here)

Moments of stress or dread don’t have to come when planning an event or trade show.  Ever heard the saying, ‘luck favors the prepared’?  This is especially true when it comes to event or trade show planning.  I’ve planned countless trade shows and corporate events, and I’ve figured out that the key is to give myself enough runway – typically seven weeks -- to make the event successful.

Here is a breakdown of my seven-week approach to trade show planning:.

• Seven Weeks Out
  • Identify your resources – who do you need to be involved in this project?  Don’t be afraid to enlist the help of others.
  • Assemble a pre-con meeting – get everyone involved on the same page. This provides clarity on who is going to be doing what.  It also is a good precursor to manage expectations.
  • Marketing asset preparation – check your inventories.  Need a new banner?  Better get that ordered right away!  This gives you time to produce assets and some cushion for shipping them to your event.
• Six Weeks Out
  • Advanced shipping of event materials – Do you have things that can be shipped early?  If so, ship GROUND.  Shipping early is always a good option as it gives you time to react if a shipment is damaged or lost or even stuck in another location because of weather.  Once I had a client accidentally give me the wrong shipping address.  Boxes were supposed to go to a show in San Diego but instead she gave me an address in Boston.  Luckily, we shipped early enough that we were able to reroute and the situation was averted. 
    
  • Partner programs – Does your event include the participation of partners?  If so, six weeks out is good time to hit them up with your intended program.  Have these discussions early as everyone will become increasingly busy as the event or show draws near.
• Five Weeks Out
  • Email Drip Campaign – If you’re thinking about notifying your customer base about your upcoming event or show, five weeks is a good time to start.  Five weeks just right – early enough to give customers an opportunity to plan for it and stick in in their calendars but not so early that other events or shows get in the way.
• Four Weeks Out
  • Partner program set –  At this point, you’ve harangued your partners enough for the last two weeks that they’ve succumbed to participating in your partner program. 
• Three Weeks Out
  • Master schedule distribution – It’s amazing to me how this often this gets missed and is sent out at the last minute, as this step is critical to planning a trade show.  Distribute early so that if there are any changes, you can make them.  Don’t assume your first schedule is set.  More likely than not, someone will be pulled into a meeting or needs to fly home early so they can’t do booth duty, or tear down, or whatever the case may be.  Be flexible and keep everyone on the same page utilizing this schedule all the way through.
• Two Weeks Out
  • Event checklist – With so many moving parts, it’s always recommended that you have a checklist.  Create this checklist in the beginning of planning but make sure you come back to it.  I like to come back to it at two weeks out because at this point, most of the components are in place and I’m just making sure I didn’t miss anything. 
• One Week Out
  •  All systems go and final check – You’re almost there so don’t let off the gas pedal now.  Check all items and make sure your deliveries made it to their destination. 

Throughout this whole process, keep communication open with all team members.  Have a lot of meetings.  They don’t have to be long meetings just a quick “let’s touch base” meeting.  It makes a big difference.

Seven weeks is the optimal time to plan, but even with a shorter amount of time, you can still find ways to make all of the above happen and still have a successful trade show.  Keep everyone informed, stay organized, and circle back.  Having a jar of rash cream helps too, in case of a hive breakout.

Good luck and happy planning!

Attended SPE’s (Society of Petroleum Engineers)  ATCE (Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition) last week in Houston, which had roughly 10,000 attendees and about 500 exhibitors.  ATCE targets a more technical crowd consisting mainly of scientists, engineers, and students in related fields.  It’s a sharp contrast to other shows I’ve attended – less flashy, no double-decker booths, booth babes, magicians, or wheel of fortunes.  It’s just not that kind of show.  It’s a show that gives exhibitors a platform to showcase their latest wares to an audience that is interested in reservoir description and dynamics, drilling and completions, and production & operations.

The show had a diverse amount of exhibitors from gas guns, to structures, to computer software and modeling.  I would take small sound bites of what was being said in booths around me and all seemed to give honest talks about their products and solutions – pointed questions were answered with straight-forward facts. “Tech Talks” were the premier choice for driving steady traffic into booths.  Most booths conducting these talks seemed to have the seats filled.  It was hard to determine if attendees were there for the actual talk rather than the schwag they were going to receive at the end of the talk.  I’d like to say it’s probably the former.  There were quite a bit of students who attended this show, especially on the first day.  100% of these students were on the hunt to land a job.  According to a resource of mine, because of the recent state in the industry, many of the graduates who actually had job offers just before graduation, had their offers rescinded.  So as you can imagine, many of these students were at a lost and scrambling to figure out what to do next. 

Overall my observation of show attendance seemed to be low but I got confirmation that it was indeed the case from quite a few of exhibitors.  Since most of the attendees actually work in Houston, most came in to attend one day of the show or just an afternoon rather than all three days.  Coupled with the state of the industry, numbers were down.  An appealing extra that I enjoyed from ATCE were the ENGenious presentations.  ATCE had a small pavilion-style setting with seating and everyone at the show was welcome to listen in on ten minute presentations that were being given related to new technology.  Some of the presentations were quite interesting.

Besides working with my client, I spent my time observing booths and talking to various exhibitors.   Again, since this show was more technical, the booths were modest in display and size.  I don’t think I saw one booth that was 50’ x 50’ – most were either 10’ x 20’ or 10’ x 10’.   The most extravagant I saw was from Baker Hughes – they had a barista/coffee bar area, lounge area with swanky furniture, and a few state-of-the-art show floor-sized monitors.  The booth was tastefully done.

Main motivators for exhibiting at the show were related to branding and networking.  All exhibitors I spoke with said they have never had any direct business from the show but they attend yearly because they can expect to see the same people from the same companies attend and soon enough, there is recognition.   At some point that recognition transforms into a sale.