The Importance of Selecting the Right Booth Staff for Your Next Exhibition

If it’s cold outside and you have the choice of two jackets, a lightweight jacket or a warm parka coat, which one would you choose??

Both have the function to be an external layer to fight the cold but there clearly is one winner.?

It’s a case of determining which is most suited for the job.??

When applying this methodology to your business, would you send employees who are ill equipped to engage attendees at exhibitions? Or choose professional booth staff who know how to approach attendees and strike up conversations like the back of their hand??

This article will highlight the common pitfalls businesses take when exhibiting and how we can help you take your exhibitions to the next level.??

Don’t blame your staff if things go wrong

The build up to an event is like no other. You’re filled with excitement and cannot wait for all your hard work to pay off.? You have set up a beautiful booth that stands out and you have some fantastic freebies to giveaway but what happens if you fail to gain any warm leads and the ROI you gain falls short of what you sought out after???

At this point it is incredibly easy to start pointing fingers and blaming your employees who manned the booth.?

You’ll be thinking: “Well, they were running the event, so they are responsible for the outcomes!”.?

But good results are all in the preparation. And the blame game isn’t good for anyone; all you’ll be left with are irate employees that feel like they are stuck between a rock and a hard place.? If you send an employee who is out of their depth to an exhibition, then ultimately that’s on you.?

If this sounds familiar, you really should be revisiting your exhibition strategy.??

Level up your booth staff?

As a business leader or exhibit manager, it’s important to gain an understanding of which of your employees are willing to attend your exhibition. Engaging attendees is a fine art, and it is not the same as working 9 to 5 at an office desk or in field sales. The staff will need very high energy levels and they will need to be able to cope with rejection. ?

Employees who have a desire to learn should be pushed into new areas but, if they aren’t qualified with the right engagement skills, it could be wise to partner them up with trained professional booth staff.?

This situation is a win-win as you not only get an upskilled employee, but you also get a trained staff who has an abundance of experience to take control and show your employees the ‘exhibition ropes’.??

Choosing the right staff ?

Before selecting your exhibition staff, it’s important to understand your target audience.??

Create a team based upon the traits that your audience require and increase the chances of generating warm, genuine leads that elevate your chances of delivering a memorable exhibition for both your company and your prospects.?For example if your audience, is highly technical or analytical, then choose booth staff who have excellent in depth technical knowledge of your products.

Understanding the Brief?

Rule 101 of exhibiting – make sure your professional booth staff know who you are as a company and what you can do for your target audience.??

You want the professional booth staff you hire to be the essence of what your company stands for. By having well informed and fully briefed staff with set objectives, you give yourself the best possible chance to make your exhibition a success.?

The Path to Exhibition Success?

We feel that finding the right staff for your exhibition is potentially the most important thing you can do.?

In a post pandemic world where attendee numbers are reduced, brands will be competing for people’s attention even harder, live events still offer a golden opportunity for your business to make real human connection with your target audience.?

A great example of how to use professional booth staff is our client Prosymmetry. They regularly attend Gartner Project Management conferences around the globe and hire Expo Stars booth professionals to help them approach, engage, and qualify attendees. Since they started hiring professional booth staff, their leads captured have doubled.

VP of Global Sales comments "Having skilled professionals at our trade shows has been a game-changer: their ability to drive leads and engage with prospects to such a high level has dramatically increased the number of leads we can capture."

At Expo Stars, we are instrumental in delivering professional booth staff that can improve your ROI at your next exhibition.?

Let us be the one to drive real change at your next exhibition by upskilling your own staff or by tapping into our 2,500 strong global team who are all preselected for their face-to-face engagement experience and excellent communication skills.

For more information, on how you can upskill your team or find professionals for your next exhibit please feel free to connect or direct message me.