At times a business owner can be tempted into being the front man for their business at every turn. Of course when a potential client or customer wants to speak with the person in charge it is always in your best interest to properly represent your company. However a wise person will recognize which employees are going to best represent the company in any given situation.

Michael was a man that owned a small business and was looking to grow his business through an appearance at a trade show. Without much initial planning he signed his business up to display a booth at the event in his local area. He felt it was not worth spending the money to pay his employees for another day of work, so he decided to represent the company himself.  This ended up not being the best of decisions. He would go on to make several more mistakes. As a result he probably did more harm to his business than good.

A Lack of Proper Planning Can Lead to Disaster

In the initial stages, Michael lacked the appropriate planning. By deciding to run the show himself he was limiting the number of people that could visit his booth at any one time. Combined with the fact that he was not a very social person he put himself in a position that made him uncomfortable, and his visitors knew that. In the end he did not promote a healthy image of his business, especially during interactions with prospect visitors.  

Lack of Good Marketing Materials

Michael’s lack of planning left him with no booth presentation and poor marketing materials as well. He was at the trade show with only a simple table and chairs, some product information sheets and some business cards to hand out. There was nothing that helped visitors see value in his offerings.

Once at a trade show it helps if you make use of a number of different types of marketing displays in order to properly represent your business and inform potential clients about your offerings. Things like a video demonstration, product demonstrations, information sheets, business cards and other promotional items should be utilized in order to give the best possible impression of your business.

Michael’s plan lacked these necessary materials to help his business stand out from the crowd. He gave no compelling reasons as why a person should visit his booth. Those who passed by had no indication of what services they were offering. The end result was his booth saw very little attention throughout the show and in the end he went home only having wasted his time and money; sadly an overall failure in every regard.

Lessons Learned The Hard Way

It is important that the people you have manning your booth at a trade show be very social and outgoing people. This was not true in Michael’s case, he was not a very outgoing person and he became uncomfortable when approached by large groups of people. This was very off putting to those that may have otherwise been interested in the services that he had to offer. Sadly, it was more likely than not that he drove some possible customers away from his business.

Learn form Michael’s mistakes and avoid the costly mistakes of being unprepared.  It is important that you properly prepare to represent your business especially at a tradeshow where you’re front and center with your competitors. When you do not put in enough effort into the planning stages those that attend the show will see that lack and you may end up leaving a bad impression. Avoid this disaster by proper planning and allocation of resources to insure a successful event for your business.