Don't Let Your Business Show Appearance End in Tears and Droopy Sandwiches

The first business exhibition I ever arranged was a disaster. It was a big challenge for me and I was really looking forward to it but sadly it all went a bit wrong once the event started. Some of the mistakes look obvious in hindsight but it is worth going over them to see whether you can avoid them.

Get There on Time

I know it sounds silly but we didn’t know how to get to the exhibition centre. I mean, we had a rough idea but at a couple of roundabouts we got lost and had to end up retracing our steps.
There were 6 of us heading over to the event and as the person organising our stand I felt really bad about not even being able to get us there on time. When we get there all the other exhibition stands were open and the people were doing business.   

Know the Market

It is also a good idea to check out the local market and work out what kind of people are likely to attend the exhibition and what they are likely to expect. I had expected a lot of customers to approach us and ask for details but the event was more suitable for businesses who we weren’t really all that interested in reaching out to. If I had put a bit more effort into my research I would have known this and would have designed our approach with a lot more focus on the type of visitor which we were going to meet.

Make an Impact  

A lot of different companies go to these shows and most of them put a big effort into their exhibition stands and their overall presentation.  I hadn’t counted on needing to make such a big effort and our stand ended up looking a bit amateur and like something which had been thrown together at the last minute. You need to look upon these events as being a chance to impress your potential customers, and that means giving them something which grabs their attention and gets them interested. As all of the other exhibition stands were more exciting than ours very few people came to talk to us and give us a chance to establish a relationship with them. In the end, the 6 of us huddled together in our stand eating the limp sandwiches we had brought with us and vowing never to make the same mistakes again.

When you plan your firm’s appearance at an event don’t forget the basics, like utilising attention grabbing exhibition stands.