YOUR BOOTH STAFFERS ARE YOUR BRAND AMBASSADORS --Their attire, behavior and how they make your audience feel defines the brand of your company. In our vastly digitally enabled market place, brands that incorporate emotional hooks stand a far greater chance of getting during engagement than those rely on brand legacy.
"Experience is the common denominator and the more seeds planted in the trust zones of connected (attendees) ensure that brand essence scales through word of mouth."
FOR STARTERS, Know why are you participating at trade showS
Staffing for Trade Shows and Events has changed. More of the same will not do anymore.
Before “Big Data” and the proliferation of electronic marketing it was sales people who reigned supreme at the show. Their personality and ability to connect with people were key tools for getting more people into the booth. Crowd gatherers were big too as it was all about getting people who you did not know to come into the booth and learn all about your company. While salespeople can still be great staffers and people skills are always great, the landscape of trade shows has changed and with that the type of skills needed to staff the booth.
What Does Your Booth Staffer Need to Know?
Why are you exhibiting at a particular show?
1. Are you looking to gain new clients or nurture existing ones?
2. Are you planning to educate people on an existing product or launch a new one?
3. Is it simply to say that you are a player amidst the other players? If so, what is your competitive differentiator? If you do not know that yet, then your booth design should stand out to make a statement without any brand imperatives.
"Experience is the common denominator and the more seeds planted in the trust zones of connected (attendees) ensure that brand essence scales through word of mouth."
FOR STARTERS, Know why are you participating at trade showS
Staffing for Trade Shows and Events has changed. More of the same will not do anymore.
Before “Big Data” and the proliferation of electronic marketing it was sales people who reigned supreme at the show. Their personality and ability to connect with people were key tools for getting more people into the booth. Crowd gatherers were big too as it was all about getting people who you did not know to come into the booth and learn all about your company. While salespeople can still be great staffers and people skills are always great, the landscape of trade shows has changed and with that the type of skills needed to staff the booth.
What Does Your Booth Staffer Need to Know?
Why are you exhibiting at a particular show?
1. Are you looking to gain new clients or nurture existing ones?
2. Are you planning to educate people on an existing product or launch a new one?
3. Is it simply to say that you are a player amidst the other players? If so, what is your competitive differentiator? If you do not know that yet, then your booth design should stand out to make a statement without any brand imperatives.
(ABOVE) A very generic statement that states the business that you are in. But, notice how the inline booth is designed to make the prospect feel comfortable and at-ease, in order to have a conversation to know and understand the buyer in an effort to personalize interaction for future interactions.
4. What are your goals for the show and how do they fit into your overall marketing and company goal? It is helpful to give staffers specific goals they have control over. An example may be to ensure they find out from the client if they are aware of the new product, if they think it will meet the need, and what steps the company should take to get that client’s business.
What is the Code of Conduct?
If maximizing on the lead is your goal, let the staffers know approximately how many leads they are expected to take throughout the show and each day of the show. However, make it clear, that it is not just about leads, it’s about relationships. There are other ways your company can get someone’s name or email address.
Live events is where you start a real relationship with a qualified prospect by listening and making them feel welcome.
If the client is there and wants you to talk or listen, don’t force a video or demo on them. This includes pitching your products. Find out about their needs, their interests, and their experience with your company or their current vendor. The basic structure of the conversation is — More about them, less about you.
Above all the staffers have to master the art of engagement. In order to qualify leads, your staffers have to establish the needs of your visitors.
What is the Dress Code?
Ensure they are easily identifiable.
You don’t want attendees wondering who is staffing the booth and who is a client, as time is precious
Ensure that they are comfortable yet professional unless it fits well with your theme and branding.
Comfortable shoes are a must. Their feet will hurt regardless, but they will hurt more if they are wearing the wrong shoes, which is likely to make them tired and irritated. The emotional intelligence to interact goes in the negative range when someone interacts with pain.
Besides, dress codes are much more relaxed in most industries nowadays and good quality shoes can look stylish.
Brand and theme appropriate.
Gone are the days that the uniform at trade shows was branded cheap looking polo shirts. You can be brand-appropriate without necessarily wearing a uniform. This is more the case if you have a larger exhibit but try to think of alternate ways you can make your staffers easy to identify without making them look like they are ready for their hourly shift at a local burger joint.
4. What are your goals for the show and how do they fit into your overall marketing and company goal? It is helpful to give staffers specific goals they have control over. An example may be to ensure they find out from the client if they are aware of the new product, if they think it will meet the need, and what steps the company should take to get that client’s business.
What is the Code of Conduct?
If maximizing on the lead is your goal, let the staffers know approximately how many leads they are expected to take throughout the show and each day of the show. However, make it clear, that it is not just about leads, it’s about relationships. There are other ways your company can get someone’s name or email address.
Live events is where you start a real relationship with a qualified prospect by listening and making them feel welcome.
If the client is there and wants you to talk or listen, don’t force a video or demo on them. This includes pitching your products. Find out about their needs, their interests, and their experience with your company or their current vendor. The basic structure of the conversation is — More about them, less about you.
Above all the staffers have to master the art of engagement. In order to qualify leads, your staffers have to establish the needs of your visitors.
What is the Dress Code?
Ensure they are easily identifiable.
You don’t want attendees wondering who is staffing the booth and who is a client, as time is precious
Ensure that they are comfortable yet professional unless it fits well with your theme and branding.
Comfortable shoes are a must. Their feet will hurt regardless, but they will hurt more if they are wearing the wrong shoes, which is likely to make them tired and irritated. The emotional intelligence to interact goes in the negative range when someone interacts with pain.
Besides, dress codes are much more relaxed in most industries nowadays and good quality shoes can look stylish.
Brand and theme appropriate.
Gone are the days that the uniform at trade shows was branded cheap looking polo shirts. You can be brand-appropriate without necessarily wearing a uniform. This is more the case if you have a larger exhibit but try to think of alternate ways you can make your staffers easy to identify without making them look like they are ready for their hourly shift at a local burger joint.
(ABOVE) You can have branded name tags, accessories, all wear the same color shirts (not necessarily the same style). You want your staffers to feel comfortable, yet conveying a sense of approachability and humility
What are the Responsibilities of a Booth Staffer?
Fully control the customer experience. From keeping the booth clean and organized, to the time you take to ask your attendees how their day is going – The trade show is a unique opportunity to truly control their whole environment. Take advantage of it.
The staffers need to create an experience that goes beyond the booth. That could include and often does:
1. Recruit potential employees 2. Gather competitive intelligence
3. Gather market research 4. Give interviews to industry press
5. Meet with potential suppliers 6. Help forge new business alliances
7. Network with industry peers 8. Attend keynote & seminar sessions
9. Dine with clients, prospects, and business partners at breakfast, lunch, and dinner
10. Attend hospitality events
11. Host hospitality events
12. Other Multi-tasking Skills
Content Capture. Capturing information from clients via quotes, photos or videos is part of the value of the show. This information can later be re-purposed as marketing content that will extend the value of the event not only from a marketing standpoint but also potentially to benefit your product/service improvement and customer service initiatives.
The benefits of content capture include:
The ability to deliver content to a larger audience through streaming a live event in real time. This is a great opportunity for sponsorship dynamic advertisements in the venue as well.
The ability to deliver content after the event on demand as a refresher for those who attended the session.
The opportunity for those who attended the event but could not make it to the specific session to access the content.
The opportunity for those unable to attend the meeting to receive the content.
The opportunity to slice and dice the content with other relevant presentations.
What are the Different Aspects of Staff Training?
Knowledge about products or services that you are featuring at the show
If they need training they should get it well before the show. As products become more complex, hands-on time is even more valuable. Staff will be expected to know more than just the basics.
Skilled at presentation
Staffers should be comfortable doing a live demo of your products or service (as relevant) or, at the very least, access a video of one. If they can’t do this well the effectiveness of your live event will suffer and you will miss opportunities to build credibility with new and existing clients.
Technologically Coherent — Need to be More than Swipers and Clickers
No, they don’t need to know how to code, but… between lead gathering apps, monitors and possibly digital signage, there are plenty of opportunities for both leveraging technologies for the benefit of attendees and for tech glitches.
They need someone who will not be afraid to troubleshoot as needed, will be comfortable learning and using apps as needed and can easily use technology to ensure the exhibit is functioning and exhibitors get an optimum experience. Something as simple as googling an answer or pulling up a key video on YouTube should be a natural thing for your staffers. However the added benefit is when they use the data that they pull and put it in context of the needed requirements.
Remember, the attendee's time and your time with them are precious.
Skilled Content Curators
The act of finding, grouping, organizing, or sharing the best and most relevant content on a specific topic is what is called content curation.
There are a number of curation tools to help with this information overload to provide more value to meeting attendees and a large audience as well:
Eventifier.com collates all the event-related contents from various social media streams like Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, Slideshare and many more. The event contents are archived and showcased in a dedicated, easy-to-use event page.
Conferize.com is a free social platform for discovering, following and attending conferences. It lets users follow conferences in real time to find conversations, videos, presentations, photos and more. Users can be part of any conference community simply by chiming in or commenting specifically on content.
Storify.com allows users to “tell a story” by combining original content with pinned outside media from across the web. User can share, blog, add real time updates and breaking news.
Curata.com provides tools to discover, refine and optimize content; to organize, recommend and index it; and to annotate, publish and analyze it as well.
Pinterest.com can be used effectively for simple event content curation as well. Separate boards can be used pinning speakers, sponsors, videos, infographics, SlideShare presentations, event photos and more in a free, easy-to-use and visually interesting spot.
These are just a few of the curation tools available. Consider using them for marketing and extending the life and footprint of your next event.
Skilled Emotional Navigators
Emotional intelligence is the art and the science to manage one's emotions and the emotions of others. It is generally said to include skills of: emotional awareness; the ability to harness emotions and apply them to tasks like thinking and problem solving; and the ability to manage emotions, which includes regulating one's own emotions and the emotions of others like cheering up or calming down other people.
High EI people, for example, can accurately perceive emotions in faces. They know, for example, that sadness promotes analytical thought and will act accordingly when they encounter such an emotion, either withing themselves or outside of themselves.
Your booth staffers need to read to be able to read the faces and the recognize the body language of your visitors. If they are not the type of person who will go the extra mile to help a client/prospect they are not the right person to staff the booth – emotional intelligence is key.
You get seconds or minutes to make a good impression in person with a current or potential client. Many other companies are there competing for that time. Your staffers need to be eager to make the most of every client experience. One way to bring this home, is to talk about the potential lifetime value of each prospective client that walks into your booth.
The basics of EI that your staffers need to be trained on:
1. The differences between selling on the show floor (where staffers must compete with other exhibitors for the attention of prospects and clients) and selling in the field (where staffers generally have the undivided attention of clients and prospects).
2. The successful nonverbal and verbal communication techniques when it comes to interacting with attendees in the exhibit, including engaging, qualifying, presenting, gaining commitment for follow-up, recording info, and disengaging at the end of a conversation.
3. The essentails of role-playing to help your staffers become comfortable with the interaction that takes place with prospects and clients on the trade show floor. Learn the techniques that will help your staffers focus on the conversation, yet be aware of the surrounding scene
4. The difference between positive and negative body language.
For example, booth staffers that have their arms crossed and their backs turned toward the aisle is an absolute NO NO. So instruct staffers to smile, make eye contact, and look like they want to hear what attendees have to say. Don't create closed circles, talking with other staffers or stand in a rigid "police" or "military" posture. Make sure they are turned toward the aisle so they can keep an eye on the passing foot traffic and engage at a moment's notice.
5. The knowledge of three to four qualifying questions as well as a three-to four-sentence elevator speech. That way, any attendee can approach any staffer in your exhibit and receive a consistent, on-point message about who you are and what you do.
6. Reinforce booth-behavior don'ts, e.g., no eating, drinking, chewing gum, talking on cellphones, checking email, reading, etc. Not only are these behaviors off-putting to attendees, but they're also just plain tacky.
Vast majority of in-booth interactions involve merely listening to attendees' needs and then relaying product information accordingly. However, be prepared for the tricky questions that will throw staffers out of their normal listen/respond rhythm. Depending on what's happening in your industry and your company, 'they could get queries about everything from how your product stacks up to the competition's new shiny bauble to why your brand just gobbled up one of the beloved industry little guys.' Here is how your staffers need to handle some of the difficult questions
How Many Booth Staffers Do You Need?
Method #1
Take the total square feet of the booth:
A 10’x10’ booth = 100 sq., A 10’x20’ = 200 sq., etc., then subtract the square footage occupied by your exhibit, pedestal tables and demonstrations. The remainder should be divided by 50 to determine how many staffers.
EXAMPLE:
(10’x10’ = 100 sq.ft) – (8’x2’ for booth display backwall & 3’x2’x2’ for two pedestal tables or 16 sq.ft. + 12 sq. = 28 sq.ft.)
(100 sq. – 28 sq.ft.) = 72 sq. / 50 = 1.2 staffers or 1 or 2 booth staffers; two would be preferable.
Method #2
Another way to look at staffing is to establish an objective for contacts or leads to be generated.
If the objective is 100 qualified leads, then work backwards. An aggressive staffer can contact 10-15 attendees an hour. If the show is open 6 hours per day – then 60 contacts per day are possible.
If the show is a three-day show then one staffer can contact (3 x 60) = 180 attendees. If you have 30% qualification rate, then one staffer can qualify 54 attendees during the course of the show.
With a goal of 100 qualified leads, then you need two staffers.
Expertly trained staff plays a vital role in upholding the mission and the vision of your brand. "The people working your exhibit during a show are the face – and voice – of your company, and the way they interact with attendees can make or break your program. So teach them the booth-staffing basics before setting them loose on the show floor." You may have eye-catching booth, quality products & services, preppy presentations and promotions, BUT, if you have the “wrong” booth staffers, your trade show marketing will fail to work.
What are the Responsibilities of a Booth Staffer?
Fully control the customer experience. From keeping the booth clean and organized, to the time you take to ask your attendees how their day is going – The trade show is a unique opportunity to truly control their whole environment. Take advantage of it.
The staffers need to create an experience that goes beyond the booth. That could include and often does:
1. Recruit potential employees 2. Gather competitive intelligence
3. Gather market research 4. Give interviews to industry press
5. Meet with potential suppliers 6. Help forge new business alliances
7. Network with industry peers 8. Attend keynote & seminar sessions
9. Dine with clients, prospects, and business partners at breakfast, lunch, and dinner
10. Attend hospitality events
11. Host hospitality events
12. Other Multi-tasking Skills
Content Capture. Capturing information from clients via quotes, photos or videos is part of the value of the show. This information can later be re-purposed as marketing content that will extend the value of the event not only from a marketing standpoint but also potentially to benefit your product/service improvement and customer service initiatives.
The benefits of content capture include:
The ability to deliver content to a larger audience through streaming a live event in real time. This is a great opportunity for sponsorship dynamic advertisements in the venue as well.
The ability to deliver content after the event on demand as a refresher for those who attended the session.
The opportunity for those who attended the event but could not make it to the specific session to access the content.
The opportunity for those unable to attend the meeting to receive the content.
The opportunity to slice and dice the content with other relevant presentations.
What are the Different Aspects of Staff Training?
Knowledge about products or services that you are featuring at the show
If they need training they should get it well before the show. As products become more complex, hands-on time is even more valuable. Staff will be expected to know more than just the basics.
Skilled at presentation
Staffers should be comfortable doing a live demo of your products or service (as relevant) or, at the very least, access a video of one. If they can’t do this well the effectiveness of your live event will suffer and you will miss opportunities to build credibility with new and existing clients.
Technologically Coherent — Need to be More than Swipers and Clickers
No, they don’t need to know how to code, but… between lead gathering apps, monitors and possibly digital signage, there are plenty of opportunities for both leveraging technologies for the benefit of attendees and for tech glitches.
They need someone who will not be afraid to troubleshoot as needed, will be comfortable learning and using apps as needed and can easily use technology to ensure the exhibit is functioning and exhibitors get an optimum experience. Something as simple as googling an answer or pulling up a key video on YouTube should be a natural thing for your staffers. However the added benefit is when they use the data that they pull and put it in context of the needed requirements.
Remember, the attendee's time and your time with them are precious.
Skilled Content Curators
The act of finding, grouping, organizing, or sharing the best and most relevant content on a specific topic is what is called content curation.
There are a number of curation tools to help with this information overload to provide more value to meeting attendees and a large audience as well:
Eventifier.com collates all the event-related contents from various social media streams like Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, Slideshare and many more. The event contents are archived and showcased in a dedicated, easy-to-use event page.
Conferize.com is a free social platform for discovering, following and attending conferences. It lets users follow conferences in real time to find conversations, videos, presentations, photos and more. Users can be part of any conference community simply by chiming in or commenting specifically on content.
Storify.com allows users to “tell a story” by combining original content with pinned outside media from across the web. User can share, blog, add real time updates and breaking news.
Curata.com provides tools to discover, refine and optimize content; to organize, recommend and index it; and to annotate, publish and analyze it as well.
Pinterest.com can be used effectively for simple event content curation as well. Separate boards can be used pinning speakers, sponsors, videos, infographics, SlideShare presentations, event photos and more in a free, easy-to-use and visually interesting spot.
These are just a few of the curation tools available. Consider using them for marketing and extending the life and footprint of your next event.
Skilled Emotional Navigators
Emotional intelligence is the art and the science to manage one's emotions and the emotions of others. It is generally said to include skills of: emotional awareness; the ability to harness emotions and apply them to tasks like thinking and problem solving; and the ability to manage emotions, which includes regulating one's own emotions and the emotions of others like cheering up or calming down other people.
High EI people, for example, can accurately perceive emotions in faces. They know, for example, that sadness promotes analytical thought and will act accordingly when they encounter such an emotion, either withing themselves or outside of themselves.
Your booth staffers need to read to be able to read the faces and the recognize the body language of your visitors. If they are not the type of person who will go the extra mile to help a client/prospect they are not the right person to staff the booth – emotional intelligence is key.
You get seconds or minutes to make a good impression in person with a current or potential client. Many other companies are there competing for that time. Your staffers need to be eager to make the most of every client experience. One way to bring this home, is to talk about the potential lifetime value of each prospective client that walks into your booth.
The basics of EI that your staffers need to be trained on:
1. The differences between selling on the show floor (where staffers must compete with other exhibitors for the attention of prospects and clients) and selling in the field (where staffers generally have the undivided attention of clients and prospects).
2. The successful nonverbal and verbal communication techniques when it comes to interacting with attendees in the exhibit, including engaging, qualifying, presenting, gaining commitment for follow-up, recording info, and disengaging at the end of a conversation.
3. The essentails of role-playing to help your staffers become comfortable with the interaction that takes place with prospects and clients on the trade show floor. Learn the techniques that will help your staffers focus on the conversation, yet be aware of the surrounding scene
4. The difference between positive and negative body language.
For example, booth staffers that have their arms crossed and their backs turned toward the aisle is an absolute NO NO. So instruct staffers to smile, make eye contact, and look like they want to hear what attendees have to say. Don't create closed circles, talking with other staffers or stand in a rigid "police" or "military" posture. Make sure they are turned toward the aisle so they can keep an eye on the passing foot traffic and engage at a moment's notice.
5. The knowledge of three to four qualifying questions as well as a three-to four-sentence elevator speech. That way, any attendee can approach any staffer in your exhibit and receive a consistent, on-point message about who you are and what you do.
6. Reinforce booth-behavior don'ts, e.g., no eating, drinking, chewing gum, talking on cellphones, checking email, reading, etc. Not only are these behaviors off-putting to attendees, but they're also just plain tacky.
Vast majority of in-booth interactions involve merely listening to attendees' needs and then relaying product information accordingly. However, be prepared for the tricky questions that will throw staffers out of their normal listen/respond rhythm. Depending on what's happening in your industry and your company, 'they could get queries about everything from how your product stacks up to the competition's new shiny bauble to why your brand just gobbled up one of the beloved industry little guys.' Here is how your staffers need to handle some of the difficult questions
How Many Booth Staffers Do You Need?
Method #1
Take the total square feet of the booth:
A 10’x10’ booth = 100 sq., A 10’x20’ = 200 sq., etc., then subtract the square footage occupied by your exhibit, pedestal tables and demonstrations. The remainder should be divided by 50 to determine how many staffers.
EXAMPLE:
(10’x10’ = 100 sq.ft) – (8’x2’ for booth display backwall & 3’x2’x2’ for two pedestal tables or 16 sq.ft. + 12 sq. = 28 sq.ft.)
(100 sq. – 28 sq.ft.) = 72 sq. / 50 = 1.2 staffers or 1 or 2 booth staffers; two would be preferable.
Method #2
Another way to look at staffing is to establish an objective for contacts or leads to be generated.
If the objective is 100 qualified leads, then work backwards. An aggressive staffer can contact 10-15 attendees an hour. If the show is open 6 hours per day – then 60 contacts per day are possible.
If the show is a three-day show then one staffer can contact (3 x 60) = 180 attendees. If you have 30% qualification rate, then one staffer can qualify 54 attendees during the course of the show.
With a goal of 100 qualified leads, then you need two staffers.
Expertly trained staff plays a vital role in upholding the mission and the vision of your brand. "The people working your exhibit during a show are the face – and voice – of your company, and the way they interact with attendees can make or break your program. So teach them the booth-staffing basics before setting them loose on the show floor." You may have eye-catching booth, quality products & services, preppy presentations and promotions, BUT, if you have the “wrong” booth staffers, your trade show marketing will fail to work.