Are You Ready For WEFTEC?

By Bill King

Less than one week to go until WEFTEC 2018 kicks off in New Orleans. Are you ready?

What does being ready for a tradeshow mean to you? For many of us, we don’t know because we’ve never quite reached such a level of serene euphoria. We’re always scrambling to fill up schedules, connect with contacts, grab the dry-cleaning, get the PowerPoint deck under control and jump in the Uber to the airport.

For others it means a final check off a list that includes caterers, Freeman labor, bar staff, event crews, rep networks, customers and fellow managers.

Some of you may already be in New Orleans and into the implementation phase of the tradeshow by now.

For me the critical question has always been: Do I know who is coming to my booth? Or presentation? Or event? And do I have enough of those people scheduled? If yes, then I’m ready.

The truth is being ready for a tradeshow starts months before you step into the Exhibit Hall. By then, you want to have amassed a clear list of customers and prospects with scheduled appointments and specific outcomes you want to achieve when you meet with them face-to-face.

The days when a good show constituted a handful of solid badge scans are over. All that can be accomplished months in advance through modern digital communication without the expense of a tradeshow. There’s no need to sit a sales manager in your booth for three days with a bowl full of candy to entice the sporadic walk-up. A lead nurturing campaign of relevant content directed at your desired target accounts generates far more response for far less cost.

Ideally, the last two months has had you combing through your CRM database and scheduling meetings with all the individuals that have been engaging with your content and reps to connect in person. If so, you’ll have allocated the right amount of staff to meet with these individuals and with the right context.

The measure of your preparedness should not be base on what’s in your booth when the doors open but based on what’s in your calendar.

Image credit: "World Geothermal Congress 2010 Bali," ThinkGeoEnergy © 2010, used under an Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/