Exhibit Staff
While your exhibit and product/service presentation are important, your exhibit staff may be the most critical factor in overall effectiveness. Regardless of the size or allure of your exhibit, your staff’s behaviors, availability and communication skills can make or break your program.
Attendees make quick judgments about your company and your products/services based on their observation of and interaction with your staff. Attendees want visible, available booth staffers who acknowledge them quickly. They expect professional, friendly, knowledgeable service and staff who demonstrate interest in their needs and respect their time. They appreciate staffers who take a moment to learn who they are, what they do and what attracted them to the exhibit. They are attracted to staff that address their specialized needs efficiently and provide customized, relevant information and appropriate responses to their questions.
To address the information in your report see the suggestions below.
a. Are there an appropriate number of booth staffers? The rule of thumb is one staffer per 50 open square feet of space. Understaffing or overstaffing a booth is counter-productive and generally an ineffective practice. Consider the size of your exhibit and exhibit hall traffic flow and patterns. Make sure you have sufficient staff on hand to engage visitors. But beware of overstaffing too! Too many people can block booth graphics and messaging. They can also look like sentries guarding your exhibit. This is critical in the smaller booths where more than two at a time looks crowded and discourages attendees from entering. A rule of thumb is to stand a step inside the booth’s edge so your messaging is visible. This gives attendees in aisle a moment to ponder the copy and decide if they want to enter. It also provides your staff with an opening to approach and start a conversation. If you wonder if you have too many staff, take a photo with your staff standing in the booth without attendees before the show begins. If it already looks crowded without attendees, it is so have a couple of staffers stand outside the booth looking in so they are prepared to follow attendees in as they approach the booth.
b. Does their dress quickly/visibly identify them as booth staffers? This is more of a problem in larger exhibits because in many cases the exhibit staffers wear the same attire as attendees. You simply cannot tell them apart. While suits and ties or skirts and scarves look professional and often appropriate they also conceal the identity of staff members. It presents a challenge to attendees to find the appropriate person to approach.
To address this, consider some form of uniform or color-coded dress or accessory strategy such as a large customized badge or button to make it easier for attendees to find the reps. Or consider matching ties and jackets with scarves for the female staff, or boutonnieres. You can also use corporate branded shirts with embroidered logos worn with matching slacks or skirts. Not only will this make it easier for attendees to find a staffer in the booth but you will look professional and display an integrated team appearance as well.
c. Do they keep body language open to visitors/attendees in aisles? Over half of an attendee’s decision to approach some exhibits over others is based on what they staff does or not. Their behaviors play a big part in this decision. Staffers should be standing – not sitting - a couple feet off the carpet line – not behind tables or displays or out in the aisles (unless your booth is very small) or in the back of the booth. They should maintain an open body posture with their eyes directed toward attendees in the aisles and directed at visitors as they approach the exhibit. This means no hands on hips, fig leafs (clasping hands in front of the body, considered very passive) in pockets jiggling change, leaning on counters, shifting from side to side and congregating with other staff members to the exclusion of the target audience. This is another instance where taking pictures makes sense. See how you look to others and make a decision if you were an attendee, would you go in?
d. Are they quickly responsive to booth visitors? Attendee’s time on the exhibit floor is limited and they will not wait much more than a minute or two to be engaged by a staffer. You should have sufficient staff available at high traffic hours to effectively address expected traffic flow. To engage attendees who are passing or considering entering your booth requires a little proactive behavior on your staff’s part. You may want to assign specific meet and greet staffers and position them near entrances to your exhibit. This can be an effective support mechanism to help product demonstration and sales staffers who may be engaged with visitors.
e. Any inappropriate booth behaviors? Behaviors like sitting down, leaning, looking or acting disinterested, eating, drinking, clustering in groups, talking to other staffers, working on computers, using cell phones and/or texting in the booth, checking email on your mobile present an unwelcoming image of your company in the mind of attendees. Staff texting in the booth and checking email on mobiles was near epidemic proportion at many conferences. These behaviors decrease booth traffic by discouraging potential visitors from stopping. And watch when it gets slow. This is when the worst behaviors emerge. If you have to make a call, take a call, email or text, take it outside the booth. And put your computer away. We see this so often. The booth is not a place to get your office work done!
We hope you found your evaluation and the information in each section helpful. The goal of this resource report is to give you additional information in conjunction with your individual report to guide you in making any necessary corrections in your exhibit program to improve your overall effectiveness. We realize you may have additional questions and sincerely welcome your questions. Please feel free to submit any and all questions to jefferson@tradeshowturnaround.com. If you have suggestions let us know and feel free to share your ideas on how to improve the reports.
Be sure to reserve your space for next year’s expo and contact us with questions: jefferson@tradeshowturnaround.com or call Jefferson Davis at 704-814-7355.
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