Heather Ranck: U.S. Commercial Service is the federal
government partner who helps US companies to export to any country in the world. We have offices
in the embassies and consulates all over the world and we help companies find distribution
partners, market information, background checks and all kinds of information on foreign markets
and companies. Trade shows are one of the best opportunities to meet lots of people
in one place at one time. It's just efficient to be able to go and spend a few days and
meet that many people which you wouldn't be able to do if you're going around to visit
people one by one. The key is to go prepared, and some companies do a lot better job than
others at going prepared to trade shows. Aaron McWilliams: When you're displaying for a trade show some things that we found that work really well is to be able have a video display that plays in the background, something that attracts people to come into your booth.
Remember that
when you're at a trade show you're there to help people. You're not there just to sell
a product. You have something that other people need, and you want to help them grow their
business by using your product. You want to offer a product or service that somebody else
can benefit from and somebody else can make money with. And if you can help somebody else
make money, you'll always be in business.
Follow up and follow through. When you're at a trade show people come up to you from all directions, from all over the country and
sometimes all over the world and it's real easy to promise the moon and the stars, but
it's not so easy to follow through, and to follow up on that. But when you can take notes
and you can follow up on that suddenly you're starting to build that connection with somebody.
Ranck: We in the US Commercial Service have a lot
of tools to help companies prepare for trade shows and maximize their time. We can provide
market research or assistance like that, contacts. You want to exhibit at the show but not spend
a lot of money, we have mini booth options at some shows. Or we can support companies
with a big presence. There's another program that we offer now where one of our staff from
the US Commercial Service will walk the trade show on your behalf and promote your company,
gather leads, and see what kind of competition is there and then produce a report. Don Aberle: As far as being in the right place the right
time, I mean, you never know what that right time is, you just got to do the daily things
to get business, and that means attending trade shows, following up and going to seminars.
Make sure you have a plan in place that you follow up with people.
You got to understand
that you're not the first one that's going to that country, you're not the first one
doing that trade show, you know, being from a foreign country. Numerous people have tried,
and what do they all do at trade shows? You go down there, you introduce yourself, and
no body ever follows up. You know, don't be that company. Greg Moll: I think the greatest thing about trade shows
is it gets you out there and in front of the potential of customers and potential distributors,
buyers, decision makers. Make it interactive and by that I mean get the customers involved
who are coming by, something to make them stop and say wow, or turn their head, or get
them involved by actually using the product or trying the product.
Like, we have a scooter
there and we'll let them ride the scooter right up the ramp. It's effective to keep
people involved in the show. You know you're doing it right when you have people in the
booth that you're giving a demonstration, and you have two or three different layers
that are watching the demonstration from outside the booth. When you got ten guys and the booth
next door has one guy, then you're doing something right. Chris Harris: With our Haybuster product, almost every
time we can demonstrate our product, actually get people to come through and, you know, touch,
feel, see, discuss our product that's always going to be better bang. Understand that people
are coming to the show are busy, they've also got an agenda and got to try and get into
their minds and their lives. Other than that I think though the most important thing I
try and prep people for that are going to attend the show is to work it.
This is not
a vacation you got to go there and be on point, be, you know, dressed properly, speak properly,
know your product well. Jake Kamrud: A trade show may cost you ten thousand,
but you may get fifty leads, or sixty leads, and sort through leads, figure out how profitable,
what's the probability of them ordering from you is, and then you can put a value to it.
So last fall, we were doing a trade show in Switzerland, and we had one extra day at the
end of the trade show where it was a free day.
Well, I hopped on LinkedIn and checked
out the area for people that I had been connected with, people in the same industry, and I found,
just about four hours down the road, was a company that I hadn't met with in the past,
and they had some potential business for us. So I drove down there, had a great meeting
with them, and now we started the sales process on what could turn into a multi million dollar
sale for us. So that's an example where, just being in the right place right time and knowing
enough people in your region where, if you can set up one meeting it just makes the whole
trip worthwhile. Tom Shorma: We were able to partner with the US
CommercialService in their pavilion and arrange to have a presence and a location at the show that
far exceeded what we could have possibly afforded individually by going in there alone. So by
partnering with the Commercial Service and in sharing in their facilities and their meeting
space it provided an effective tool for us to be able to arrange meetings with prospective
customers as well as existing customers at
