Years of attending and exhibiting at trade shows and vendor exhibits have revealed the four most common mistakes made by both attendees and vendors.
Trade shows are usually expensive to attend and can be a major distraction from your day to day activities if not managed properly.
Whether you’re an attendee hoping to learn something valuable or a vendor exhibiting at a trade show, every person should avoid these mistakes to ensure that your time and money are well spent.
You should have some idea of what you want to accomplish prior to registering. Almost every trade show I’ve attended has provided a complete schedule at least one month in advance of the event, often much sooner. This is your opportunity to pick a subject matter track or comb through the daily agenda and select the sessions you want to attend. I suggest attending a session in every available slot if it is a relatively short trade show (a few days or less).
Even if you struggle to find something relevant, sit through a session. You’re bound to learn something. If nothing strikes you during a session time slot, use that time to get caught up on emails, phone calls or assignments. Alternatively you should schedule a visit with a peer attendee or vendor. Don’t sit idle. Disengaging even a little bit can derail you from the rest of the event, so limit the amount of time you spend away and on your own.
Be present at the event.
It’s paramount that you plan at least two short breaks per day to follow up on missed phone calls and unanswered emails. You owe it to yourself, your customers and your organization.
Don’t simply rely on your out of office email auto-responder for the duration of the event and don’t use a trade show as an excuse not to respond to people, it’s unprofessional and a poor excuse. If anything, only use your out of office auto-responder to let people know that your response will be delayed, but give them some idea of how long it will take you to get back to them.
Your breaks shouldn’t be more than 20 minutes to at least get a pulse on what you’re missing back at the office.
If you generally maintain a hectic schedule, you might need an hour or more at the end of each day to cover the action items that you couldn’t accomplish from the exhibit hall floor or while in the sessions.
This is perhaps the most critical objective of any show or event – one on one time with specific suppliers, prospective customers or industry peers. Prior to the event you need to review the list of exhibitors or attendees planned for the event and identify the ones you must see.
Plan intentional visits, by time and location.
I’ve found that during show hours is a tough time to get commitments from people since there is so much happening. Meal times are a great opportunity to lock someone into a meeting. Get in touch with them in advance of the show. If you’re uncertain about how to do this, ask us. We’ll give you some pointers.
A great trade show pre-plan can be completely foiled by a big night out on the town. It inevitably happens. A customer or vendor keeps you out too late, buys too many drinks, you indulge too much, etc.
Commit yourself to a reasonably healthy schedule.
Take advantage of an evening meal or outing to build relationships, but don’t over do it. There’s too much at stake in terms of the cost of the show and missed opportunity to sit down with a lot of vendors or customers in a single location.
There are certainly other mistakes you can make at or in preparation for a trade show. Bring comfortable shoes, pack a light jacket as the rooms are often cool, pre-plan transportation between your hotel and the event and bring plenty of business cards.
Maybe you’re not one to necessarily socialize with strangers, but be intentional about taking advantage of the networking events. For some this is just good practice.
Don’t think of trade shows as a boondoggle or an opportunity to miss a few days of work. That’s a waste of your time. Make the most of the opportunities to cover a lot of ground with people that are relevant to your business and often, your success.
Have some specific objectives in terms of things you want to learn, people you want to speak with and information you want to collect.
Once back to the office put those collected business cards and data sheets in a safe place and drop a quick email to each person you met to ensure you have a way to keep track of them.
The things mentioned above have allowed me great success and relationship building at trade shows.
Please take a second and let me know below if you have a specific method for trade show success.
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Defining your “WHY” will transform the way you conduct your business and manage personal relationships.
How often do you ask yourself “WHY”? We highly recommend you take the time to watch Simon Sinek’s 18-minute TED talk: How Great Leaders Inspire Action. His presentation is based on his award winning book Start With Why – How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action.
At Castle Rock Microwave, this video transformed the way we think about our people and our business. In addition, we believe it has had a positive impact on our personal lives. After all, our role as leaders is limited by how well we lead ourselves.
As business leaders and entrepreneurs we generally lead with WHAT we do, and sometimes HOW we do it, instead of the WHY that truly drives us. For example, if you are in the business of selling microwave radios you probably start most customer visits by stating the capabilities of the product, sharing data sheets to highlight the features and express the company’s relevant expertise. These define the WHAT. From there, many go on to cite examples of impressive projects to prove the quality, workmanship and reliability (the HOW).
In his talk, Sinek posits that customers don’t buy WHAT you do or HOW you do it. In reality, they buy WHY you do what you do. Your WHY, when properly communicated, has the power to inspire people to take action. Think about that for a second.
I remember taking a job in a highly competitive market. This was for a company no one had ever heard of. They didn’t even have a single product yet. However, they set out with the audacious goal of not only challenging the status quo in its industry, but leading the industry through innovation, creativity, and experience. We were certain that we would take the market by storm, and we did! If the recruiter had simply sent me a few data sheets of prospective products and bios of the executive team members, I probably would have never accepted that interview. As it happened, I bought into their WHY and I was inspired!
The WHY has to resonate with your employees, partners, followers and potential customers. There’s a fine line between inspiring people, and manipulating them. Inspired people become loyal, and loyal people are willing to follow you at the cost of a higher price, inferior feature set and popularity. On the contrary, appealing to someone through a trade, discount, special offer, or expected kick-back in the future is a manipulation.
Manipulation in the business sense isn’t necessarily inappropriate. It’s imperative, however, to be able to recognize the difference between truly inspiring someone and getting someone to take action on the basis of getting something in return. The downside of the latter is that these people will continue to expect the same deal each time. Likewise, exchanges that occur as the result of a manipulation don’t foster loyalty and tend to be very transactional. People want to be inspired. The greatest bond will be with people that buy into your WHY.
We’re convinced that people buy the WHY, not the WHAT or HOW, and the WHY has the power to inspire people to take action. A clearly defined WHY creates a powerful filter we can use to make good decisions.
A clearly stated WHY solidifies our cause and our core conviction in business and personal relationships. In the face of difficult, important decisions the WHY can move the needle on determining the best course of action. It will also enable more reliable decision making when the pressure is on and stress is high. The WHY should create a sense of accountability and discipline to ensure that we stay committed to it.
If you’re a business owner or you lead an organization, think about what gets you out of bed each morning. The thing that gets you fired up about what you do. My guess is that it’s not just to make money. If you’re like me, it has to do with relationships and experiences. It’s also a desire to delight people and solve problems. Perhaps you enjoy empowering people to provide for their families or you sincerely want to enrich lives through technology.
Before you move on to the next thing you do, ponder your WHY and write a quick comment to share it with us. If you haven’t thought much about this in a while, the few minutes you spend to think about this might be one of the best investments of time you ever make. And sharing your perspective can inspire others too!
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By Brett Bonomo
Quitting doesn’t come easily for me. In the past year or so I quit my job, quit some bad habits, quit being so grumpy, quit saying “no” to fun invitations from dear friends and quit being away from my family.
Truthfully, the most significant seemed to be quitting my job, but the rest were welcome results.
I was deeply passionate about my job, the company I worked for and the people that I worked alongside. As a key contributor within the organization, I believe I gave my best and had a positive impact there. It was the eight most significant years of my career in terms of personal and professional growth.
But, it was time to move on and pursue a lifelong desire to create and grow my own company.
The decision to quit, for most people, is really difficult. These are the questions that haunted me:
• How will I know when it’s finally time?
• How do I quit with dignity and respect?
• How do I plan it?
• How exactly will that conversation go?
Note - If you’ve had five jobs or more in the past five years, chances are that you struggle to take jobs well or quit jobs well. This should not be a vicious cycle. The good news - there's always time to make improvements.
Quitting should never be an emotional reaction
I gained clarity in deciding to resign from my job when I realized I could no longer affect change and I started to realize that I was likely going to become a problem rather than a problem solver. My ability to be a constructive participant and thought leader had diminished. This was deeply personal for me and a tough realization. Often there are ways to rise above situations like this and overcome whatever circumstances exist to continue to be productive. I was simply wore out. Believe me, there were times that emotionally I wanted to check out, but I refused to leave on a bad note.
You should avoid quitting in the middle of a major project (if you’re a key contributor) or at the end of an important sales milestone (month, quarter or year). This was wise counsel I was given and I’m glad I took it. If you’re a valuable part of an organization, there’s never a good time to quit. Be thoughtful about the best time relative to your position.
I had a lot of great, personal friends, really almost family, at this company. My boss at the time had only been there a short time, but I owed it to him and myself to follow the chain of command rather than calling all of my buddies first or going directly to the CEO and COO, who I knew very well. At least one dear friend was really upset that I didn’t come to them sooner, but I slept well knowing that I did the right thing. It’s hard to anticipate and manage all of the collateral damage. All you can do is hope that people will understand and not take your departure personally.
The conversation with your boss should be an honest one. It shouldn’t be highly emotional or a time to reflect on all of the factors that contributed to your decision. It is not the time to point out all of your supervisor’s or company’s faults. Just to be clear, I was quite satisfied with who I was working for just before I quit, which made the decision that much more difficult. You should concisely state that you have decided to resign. Give your employer plenty of time to plan and implement a transition. I believe it is appropriate to say where you have accepted your next job, if you have signed an offer.
The ultimate outcome of how well you quit will absolutely reflect your integrity and credibility. You do not want to be perceived as a guy that was working two jobs at the same time. Whenever possible, try to build a break in between your end date and new start date. This is important for a couple of reasons. First, a break to clear your head is hugely beneficial. Second, it lessens the likelihood that you spent the majority of your time hunting for a new job instead of working. I had planned for a four month sabbatical, of sorts, between the end of my most recent job and the start of my new company.
Finally, you always have to anticipate a counter offer, if you’re a valued contributor. I don’t believe in counter offers. If you’ve gotten this far in the quitting process you should be 100% committed to your decision. People that accept counter offers are seldom all-in. There are probably only a couple of reasons when and why one would accept a counter offer. An employee worth having and an employer worth working for will be reasonable about any inequity in your current arrangement, financially or otherwise. Don’t threaten to quit in order to get something you want.
These steps helped me wind down a successful eight-year employment. I am still in touch with the top leaders of the company and will continue to do business with them. It’s a process that took at least three months from the point I decided that my resignation was imminent to the day I handed in my PC.
Have you gone through this recently? If you'd be so brave, what would you have done differently in hindsight? Please, drop me a quick note in the comments section.
Last year we were performing a major microwave backhaul upgrade for a customer. We were working to cut over the last of several hops of high capacity (~1Gbps) radio links. This hop was the most critical in that it was the main path to half of their network, with no backup. The site we were at was the least accessible, the weather was bad and we didn’t believe we’d get back to it until the next spring season after this visit. I had three guys freezing on the tower and everyone was anxious to make the cut, button things up and get off the mountain. We were doing the work on a Tuesday, one of the most sensitive days of each week for this customer’s business data. To make things even more complicated, cellular coverage on the mountain was really poor, so communicating with the folks at the other end of the link was frustrating at best.
An outage for our customer of any noticeable length was out of the question. The pressure was palpable and coming from many directions. The customer’s employee in charge (EIC) was at the opposite end of the link with one of our guys awaiting our call and next steps.
We were within minutes of being ready to cut traffic over to the new link and the EIC indicated that we would have to delay the cutover as he was being pulled another direction. Given the circumstances we had on the mountain top I pushed hard, beyond my customer’s comfort level, and pressed the matter. He reluctantly gave me the green light to proceed and we made the cut. The transition to the new radios was without incident. Data was moving well, so the EIC went about his other business and left us to start to wrap things up at the sites.
In the process of finishing up I thought I’d make one more configuration change in the radios that would prepare us for the next step of the system upgrade a few days later, to take this 1+0 system to 2+0 (utilizing XPIC). The configuration parameter I was about to change would simplify the turn-up of the second set of radios on the same dish, at a later date. I felt like I knew the radios well enough to predict that the configuration change I was about to make would not have an impact on existing traffic. I was dead wrong.
Fifteen minutes after I made the last configuration change I received a call from a hot EIC. Half of their system had been down that long. It was not a good day for me.
I learned what I call some “life lessons” on the mountain that day. This is what we do differently now:
It pains me to even think about what happened that day, but on the flip side it caused us to institute structure that will help prevent an issue like this again. In this case, the customer was gracious and after a long conversation the next day our partnership grew stronger.
If you have it in you, let me know below if you’ve ever been in this spot.
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