Preparation
Why Exhibit?
"No theoretical musings" we promised in the Introduction, and yet the first chapter asks not how? but why?
Why?
Because unless you have carefully worked out why you are exhibiting you'll not get the how right. And if the how is wrong, your participation is doomed to failure from the start.
So - why are you exhibiting?
Obviously, to sell: that goes without saying. After all, an exhibition gives an unparalleled opportunity to talk to more potential customers in a short space of time than any salesman on the road could possibly manage. It gives the exhibitors/salesmen a completely different opportunity to sell as they meet potential and existing customers on neutral territory, away from day to day distractions, in a conducive atmosphere, voluntarily, on your temporary premises.
You can ensure that your sales literature is in the hands of those who really want it, and that it is not consigned straight to the waste-basket. Better still, you can show goods or even processes which norÂmally can only be demonstrated on your premises or in pictures.
But these are basics, and are common to all types of exhibitor in every possible exhibition. What you need to do, to get your how right, is to decide why you are exhibiting: what it is about your company which you need to bring to the notice of visitors to the exhibition.
Is your product or service unique? Does no one else in the town, or region, or country (or even the world!) produce or provide it? If so, all you need to do is show it, and that's that: its very uniqueness will attract.
But the overwhelming majority of companies do not have unique products or unique services. In fact, they have competitors whose products are very similar. These competitors may even be in the exhibition. So if you sell, say, materials handling equipment, and some of your competitors are in the same exhibition, a display of your products may show what a range of materials handling equipment there is, but it isn't necessarily going to sell your equipment as against that of your competitors.
In fact, all your exhibition participation may do is to give materials handling equipment buyers a chance to see what equipment is available so they can go back to their usual suppliers and order what they have seen on your stand, at your expense!
It's ridiculous, but it happens all the time!
Your exhibition stand should be selling you, your company, so that's where the concentration should be, not on something that any of your competitors can supply. You should be selling your company's professionalism, its technical expertise, its after-sales service, its reliability.
And that's the last theorising you'll find in this article!