No guest this week, just me looking at things like calendars, time and space, goal-setting and year-end planning. Jump on board!
This week’s ONE GOOD THING: taking Saturday off to work around the house.
There are a lot of people in the tradeshow industry who are well-travelled and highly experienced, and I love chatting with them about tradeshow marketing. In this episode I sat with Michael Thimmesch, long time Skyline marketer, now a consultant with his own company. We covered a lot of bases of tradeshow marketing, including his approach of the FIVE LEVELS of tradeshow marketing. Where are you? Take a look:
Find Mike’s LinkedIn profile here.
And this week’s ONE GOOD THING: The 50th anniversary release of “The Beatles” (White Album).
In this week’s vlog/podcast, I got a chance to learn quite a bit about something with which I’m not very familiar with: international tradeshow exhibiting. I’m guessing that a lot of us don’t get a chance for much exhibiting in Dubai, France, Spain, England, China or Japan or any of a number of countries. That’s why this week’s interview with exhibit designer and international tradeshow exhibiting expert Larry Kulchawik is such a treat. Loads of great information – and you should pick up his book if you do any international exhibiting. Check it out:
Find Larry Kulchawik here on LinkedIn. Here’s a link to his book on Amazon.
This week’s ONE GOOD THING: Bohemian Rhapsody, the Queen biopic. And if you want to see the entire Queen set at Live Aid 1985, which was the centerpiece of the movie, take a look.
Earlier this week we got a chance to hear directly from magician and professional tradeshow presenter Robert Strong. One of the items that caught my attention and led to the podcast/vlog interview with Robert was his report from the tradeshow floor asking people what their opening lines were:
As you’ll see, there are a lot of ways people try to break the ice with tradeshow visitors. Not all of them work. Not all of them are effective.
Take a look and listen to the interview I did with Robert and you’ll find a way to approach this issue of how to come up with an engaging, pleasant and effective opening line.
Magician and professional tradeshow presenter Robert Strong discusses how to draw a crowd, how he works with clients, and what makes a good opening line – and a lot more – in this enlightening interview.
Find Robert Strong here.
Robert was kind enough to share some great material including the following posts:
Want Over 1000 Quality Scans a Day at Your Tradeshow Booth?
If You Don’t Clearly Define Your Goals at Your Next Tradeshow, You Will Lose to Your Competition
Robert as Guest on the Savvy Event Planner Podcast
Robert also shared a list of Best Booth Behaviors:
1. Remove bad behaviors: No eating, drinking, cell phones, sitting, booth huddles, etc.
2. Add good behaviors: Stand, face the aisles, smile, make eye contact, initiate conversation, etc.
3. If you are not getting rejected a hundred times an hour, you are not initiating enough conversations.
4. Have a strong opener: What do you do at your company? What is the most interesting thing you have seen at this show? What is your (companies) biggest pain point?
5. Make the current attendee you are talking with the most popular person at the show.
6. Be able to do the overview (elevator pitch) in 10 seconds, 30 seconds, and 90 seconds.
7. Understand and communicate concisely the giveaways and raffles.
8. Be able to scan badges and do it quickly.
9. Qualify leads quickly, make introductions, and end conversations quickly.
10.Have three case studies (success stories) rehearsed and ready to go.
11.When doing a demo, scale. When you see someone else starting a demo, help them scale.
12.You are on stage. High five each other, fist bump each other, enthusiastically cheer for your fellow booth staff, and let the attendees see that you really like each other and are having fun.
13.Treat the attendees exactly how you would want to be treated if you were in someone else’s booth.
14.Make a follow-up plan and take notes.
And finally, this week’s ONE GOOD THING: the Bag Man Podcast about Vice President Spiro Agnew.
I got a chance to play a little with the new Classic Exhibits Gravitee “No Tools” Tradeshow Exhibit. Having a hands-on experience is better than reading about it. And if you can’t get a hands-on experience, you can at least see mine:
What about the type of graphics you might consider putting on Gravitee? Gravitee accepts both SEG Fabric and Direct Print Graphics, so take your pick.
Check out Gravitee at TradeshowGuy Exhibits’ Exhibit Design Search.
What types of sales prospecting work in what industries? What are some good ideas to generate more sales for your funnel? Author and sales trainer Jeff Bajorek and I tackled these questions and more in this week’s TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee:
Find Jeff Bajorek here.
This week’s ONE GOOD THING: Man in the High Castle. Season Three has just been released.
Publicity Expert Joan Stewart – known as the Publicity Hound – joins TradeshowGuy Tim Patterson to talk about how to get publicity at a tradeshow: before, during and after. Keep a notepad handy – there are a lot of great ideas that you can put to use!
Joan Stewart – The Publicity Hound
This week’s ONE GOOD THING: The NBA is back, and I’m a big Portland Trailblazers fan.
Chris Reimer is an author and entrepreneur which means we had a lot to chat about on this week’s edition of the TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee. Our main two points of conversation include his book Happywork and the new device charger he’s just released with the name of Boosa.
Check out the Chris Reimer book Happywork here. And take a look at Boosa Tech here.
This week’s ONE GOOD THING is the Philip Roth novel, The Plot Against America.
TradeshowGuy Tim Patterson and Jim Shelman, General Manager of Classic Rental Solutions, tackle the topic of #tradeshow #exhibit rentals: how they’ve changed, how to customize and much more on this week’s edition of the TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee.
This week’s ONE GOOD THING: Showtime’s documentary series The Trade.
