Staffing a booth is hard. There are long hours and hard concrete to stand on but there are ways to help your staff make the best of the show and ensure you reach your goals. You need to ensure your booth staffers know these 5 things.
What are the goals of the show? What should staff be focusing on?
When your staff knows the reasons they are there and the show goals, they can really help to push the show in the right direction. This is especially true if your company has many product/ service lines and the show is only focusing on one of them. The staffers know to focus on that item while also having the other lines in their head if show attendees ask for them.
Your staffers should also have realistic goals. You want quality leads and sales, not pushy people who are scanning anyone who walks by to hit a quota.
Where and when is the show?
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- You should also include
- Where is parking
- Is there a fee to park?
- Where is the booth
- What times they need to be at the booth.
- I often will overlap the shifts by 15 minutes because people rarely factor in time for parking (and the lines to park) plus walking to the booth.
- You should also include
What is the booth layout?
You want your staff to know where they can find items and what they can bring into the booth. I normally ban backpacks and refuse to hold the large “trick or treat” bags that people gain as they walk around the show. My booths and designed in a specific way and it does not include storage. If you do have storage in your booth you need to make sure who has the keys and let people know what they can bring in.
What should they wear?
If you have branded gear, I am a fan of wearing that. If not, set a dress code that your company is comfortable with. You can also have some fun with it. I have seen everything from prom dresses to hula skirts to lime green suit jackets. Whatever your choose, make sure you are not asking people to buy clothes outside of the normal office wear.
They will hear “No” a lot
This is the hardest one for those on the sales team. They can normally call maybe 100 people in a day or see maybe 20 if they are really hustling. At trade shows, you will hear no 200 – 500 times a day. You want to ensure that the booth draws people in and then the booth staff can qualify if people need what you are selling so that they can move to the next person if not.
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