How Not To Make An Exhibition of Yourself.

I have just returned back to my office from the Business Northwest Exhibition in Manchester. I was staggered by the number of businesses that booked exhibition stands and appeared not to give a moments thought to what the purpose of the exhibition was.

Do not get my wrong, some shining examples of great stands. However on more then one occasion I was asked ’ can i help you?’ by someone stood on a stand with little explaination of what they do. Booking a stand is not enough. You must invest time and energy to ensure that the people on the stand are the companies’ best presenters and are confident.

• Get something intersting on the stand to get people to walk onto the stand. eg A proper competition or contest [ not just a waste paper basket openly collecting business cards of random people]
• Talk to them. Open questions to find out what they do ……then tell them what you do
• Make you stand so different that people have to look. Have someone in a costume [silly but effective] what about a magician or card tricks or even someone cleaning shoes [ that means you've got them for at least 2 minutes] imagination will attract far more people then free pens, boxes of mints or funny rubber shaped things.
• Oh and most importantly…get their name and details, make notes if you have to…..because you ARE going to call them back