Trade Show Staffing Strategies

Without dynamic, well-trained trade show staffing, your pre-event marketing activities, eye-catching exhibit, and high-appeal giveaways can be wasted. Your booth team is the lifeblood of your exhibit strategy.

During your events, booth representatives carry the responsibility for pre-qualifying your exhibit visitors, establishing relationships that convert prospects into leads and then into buyers, and personify your product’s quality and image.

In other words, the effectiveness of your exhibit team can make or break your success at any given show. Therefore, you should staff your booth with the best and the brightest representatives from your organization. These are individuals who deeply believe in your product, have superior communication and customer service skills, and fully understand your objectives.

If you are short on staff and need to contract with an exhibit staffing company or use volunteers in your booth, be sure to provide each individual with thorough training on all aspects of your organization.

This includes detailed background about your company mission, goals, target audience, products and sales message. These temporary individuals will be the "face of your company" at the event and need to effectively project your image and expertise.

Here are some guidelines for effective trade show booth staffing.

Your booth personnel must be friendly, lively, and fully engaged in achieving your company’s goals.
Training should include a well-practiced script where booth visitors are greeted quickly. Staffers introduce themselves with a one-minute overview of your company and its benefits. Then they ask specific questions to find out if the visitors are strong prospects. If so, conversation follows with a 30-second overview of products and services. The script also includes getting visitor contact information for effective follow-up after the event.

Let trade show personnel know what will be expected of them. This includes how to dress, when to arrive, how long they will need to staff a booth, proper trade show etiquette (i.e. no eating, drinking, or sitting down), and, above all, remaining polite and professional.
As part of your training initiatives, carve out time to provide extra support and guidance to first-time exhibitition stand staffers.
Appropriately staff your booth to handle visitor crowds. Staffing your exhibit area with too little or too many people may turn away potential visitors and impact outcomes. Using a trade show staffing formula can help you determine the number of representatives you need for effective booth scheduling.

When you return from the show, have your booth representatives contact each lead and follow-up immediately with phone calls, packets, personal letters, and invitations for meetings to discuss next steps.

Personal relationship building, need-based sales consulting, and attentive service are essential to fully leverage trade show efforts.