AV Industry: Tradeshow Tips From the Pros
Attending trade shows is a huge part of the job for a lot of AV Industry professionals. It’s our chance to network and meet with our peers, clients, and potential clients. It’s a great opportunity for showcasing your latest product lines or discovering new industry technology. In short, it’s the best time to get together with like-minded professionals and really geek out over the products and technology that we all love so much. But we all know the time commitment that is involved. There’s the planning, the packing, the travel, the show itself, the dinners, the after parties, the follow-up, and then rinse and repeat. If you don’t properly prepare yourself, it can quickly become very daunting.
That’s why we wanted to help take a little bit of weight out of the process. Our team has been traveling for trade shows for more years than we like to admit. It’s safe to say, this is not our first rodeo. And after all of the flight miles accrued and business cards trading hands, we feel that it’s our duty to share with you our top insider tips for a successful show as well as a checklist of essential trade show items.
See you at the show!
Prepare
Make sure you are prepared and have a clear idea of the message you want to communicate with current or potential customers and partners. Shows are extremely busy for most people and if they have given you their time, don’t waste it with providing information that is not on point or not relevant to them.
Create an agenda
Every meeting should have an agenda. Many people are booked solid with meetings throughout the show. They may have upwards of 20 meetings in one day. Create an agenda for each and every meeting to ensure you are staying concise and on point.
Take notes
Take notes and FOLLOW UP. Too many people meet with customers but don’t care enough to take notes and follow up. People get lazy and tend to just go through the motions at “yet another trade show.” A small thank you email with a few bullets of what was discussed conveys that “your time was important to me and I care enough to follow up”.
For note taking, carry either a small notebook, or use the notepad, One Note, or Evernote in your phone to take notes. Phones are great now since you can open the app or keep it running in the background, and it’s one less thing to carry all the time.
Check out our “Trade Show Essentials Checklist” for specific phone apps that we like.
Eat & drink
Plenty of water and some granola bars. This just might be your main diet for the duration of the show. And with all of the networking, presenting, and demoing you’ll likely encounter, keep your water bottle close or know where to escape for 30 seconds to get some. Dry throat = poor performance.
Stay fresh
Breath mints! Combating the petri dish in your mouth that is a combination of coffee, dry mouth, stale alcohol, and leftovers from whatever you had for breakfast is a monumental task to overcome. Breath mints provide temporary relieve but overall, we just have to gut this out and accept it’s almost impossible to avoid.
Avoid the plague
Hand Sanitizer! With thousands of people from around the world packed closely together into one building, trade shows easily become a cesspool of germs. There will be a lot of close contact and shaking of hands, so we do our best not to come home with a bug. We also recommend a flu shot – it’s really bad this year.
Don't drink (too much)
Avoid the late-night drinking. Trade shows really suck when you have even a mild hangover and you can’t convey the energy and focus you need to really be effective….Many of us know this from experience.
Get plenty of sleep
Sleep. Goes with #7 ☝
Use the "One Spray" rule
Tone down the cologne. Overpowering cologne can be pretty obnoxious after a while.
Collect business cards
From everyone you come into contact with! Also make a point to send even a very short email thanking them for stopping by. You never know what might come of even a short encounter.
We like the phone app Evernote for storing and syncing business cards. Check out our “Trade Show Essentials Checklist” for more specifics.
Use Reminders
Setup outlook appointments, with meeting reminder notifications to your phone. When you hear or feel the 15-minute reminder chime in your pocket, start wrapping up that meeting. This way you don’t have to look at your watch in front of customers.
If you have any trade show tips you’d like to see added to this list, let us know in the comments below or share them with us on our social media channels.
