You can easily determine if your personnel require exhibitor training by standing aside and watching them during a tradeshow. Do they attract customers with eye contact and a friendly but not obsequious attitude? Do they avoid conversations with their co-workers and concentrate on meeting new customers?

Do they avoid long conversations with customers, even when those customers are old pals? If the answers to any of these questions is yes, or you are facing your first tradeshow experience and think the answers might be yes, your exhibit staff need training.

One essential in the training of exhibit personnel is to focus on the mission: to obtain qualified sales leads. When examined from the "cost-per-lead" formula, it will quickly become obvious that the faster a booth visitor can be qualified and registered, the more profitable the tradeshow experience will be. On the other hand, a visitor must never feel that he is being "hustled" through the process. How does one maintain the delicate balance between efficiency and courtesy?

Consider the "10 - 20 - 30" rule. This rule determines that 10 seconds be allocated to "recognize" a visitor, 20 seconds to "qualifying" a visitor and 30 seconds to "registering" the visitor.

"Recognition" can mean greeting an old acquaintance or catching the eye of a curious onlooker, but it must never become time consuming. A chat that takes the booth attendant out of contact with the flow of visitors is costing you a lot of money.

"Qualifying" is a quick process of determining if the visitor is a genuine, potential customer or a "tire kicker."

"Registering" occurs if the visitor is qualified. Registering may be executed by a obtaining business card with some quickly jotted notes on the back (do not do this with Asian visitors - see Language Translation) or a recording of the visitor's identification and requirements by electronic means. If the qualification step results in the visitor not being qualified, he must be courteously but efficiently passed out of the zone of the booth's influence, because he is taking up vital time and assets.

Exhibitor Training usually takes place at the client's facility, where a professional trainer lectures to all the booth personnel over the period of one day. Training is usually composed of lecture elements, demonstrations and rehearsal workshops. Click here to contact Avekta and inquire about exhibitor training.

The Agenda will also determine what will happen in the booth as visitors pass around and through the booth. A simple booth may only have a video or a single, live, presenter calling attention to the booth's contents. If so, a schedule and script for this presentation must be determined. A complex booth may include several shows composed of actors, interactive computer programs, special events and museum-styled exhibits. These events must be carefully coordinated to maximize audience attraction into the booth and efficient flow through the booth.

Having reviewed the necessity of tradeshow exhibitor training, you may wish to proceed with Tradeshow Production, return to Tradeshow Pre-Production, read trade magazine articles placed by Avekta, or read about E-Promotions or Trade Show Give Aways.