The team of staff you take to the trade show can ensure the business investment in the trade show marketing is a success, so spending some time in properly training your staff to engage customers at the trade show is well worth the effort. Your staff members need to be energetic, engaging, and upbeat with the customers and people who walk past your exhibition stand.
Trade show marketing can be an exhausting few days for your staff, so plan to train enough people to allow individuals to take sufficient breaks throughout the day. Rotating staff around and sufficient breaks means that individual staff members can maintain their energy. Tired or fatigued individuals find it extremely difficult to effectively engage with the potential customers at the trade show, which means your staff members could lose customers.
Plan a roster that allows a staff member a break every two hours, even if it is just a ten minute break. Once you have selected the staff for your exhibition stand, you need to train the staff. Ensuring your staff members know exactly what is required and expected of them during the trade show and at the exhibition stand will help your staff to effectively market your business.
Product Knowledge
Ensure your staff members know all about the products you want to display on the exhibition stand. Walk through each product and product brochure, so that individual staff members know where to find the information when a customer asks. The more your staff members know without needing to refer to the product brochures, the more professional your business appears. Test your staff members on product knowledge before you send them to the exhibition stand.
Demonstration Techniques
Train your staff in the precise methods of demonstrating your products to show the products to potential customers in the best light. Give each individual the opportunity to practice the product demonstrations rather than simply watch an expert demonstrate the product, as this will give you a chance to ensure each staff member can demonstrate the products correctly at the exhibition stand.
Customer Enquiries
Dealing with customer enquiries is not always easy, especially when your staff at the trade show may not necessarily be from the customer service department. Training is essential for your exhibition staff on which enquiries to answer on the spot at the trade show and which to refer to a salesperson who can call the prospective customer the next business day. The customer does not necessarily expect complex enquiries to be answered within the trade show atmosphere, and your staff members are better employed in gathering as many prospective customer’s details as possible during the trade show, than spending one hour with one customer.
Company Representatives
Finally, in the training session for your exhibition staff, remind the staff members that they will be the company representatives at the trade show. Presenting a smiling, upbeat, and most of all professional appearance is an essential part of the image you want your staff to portray at the trade show. Tell the staff what standards of behaviour you expect both at the actual exhibition stand and elsewhere at the trade show, even on the staff member’s breaks. If your staff member is wearing a brightly coloured t-shirt with your company logo on it, to attract people to the exhibition stand, he or she will be identified with the company even when not at the actual exhibition stand.
Training your staff for the exhibition is essential, because it is unlikely that representing the company at trade shows is an every day occurrence. The better equipped your staff are to present a professional image and to answer the appropriate customer enquiries, the more successful your exhibition stand will be.
Tags: exhibition staff, training
