The highly anticipated exhibition is fast approaching, and everything seems to be in order… except for the staff members who will represent the exhibition stand. While a well-designed and visually stunning exhibition stand can attract attention and entice visitors to learn more, it’s your staff members who will “sell” your brand, and if they appear unengaged and disinterested, your stand is deemed to fail.
Providing a positive and lasting impression on visitors is crucial for ensuring that they remember your brand and its values. This is why it’s essential to have the right people representing your exhibition stand. Given the extensive investment and planning required for such events, it’s important to ensure that your staff don’t leave a negative impression on potential leads.
Let’s not forget why businesses exhibit at shows…
- To educate visitors on services/products
- Build brand awareness
- Capture leads for post-show acknowledgement
An exhibition, be it a day or two is a tiring process as staff members are expected to be on their feet all day whilst interacting with visitors to ensure they have provided useful and relevant information to generate leads. Staff member’s attitude, appearance and body language can speak louder than words. If team members are unresponsive, this can lead to visitors walking past the stand, therefore missing opportunities.
Here Are 8 Tips To Consider When Choosing Staff Members To Represent Your Brand
1) Who Should Represent Your Stand?
Consider staff members who understand your brand and show a passion for the products or services you offer. It’s always nice to hear staff members go above and beyond to “sell” services/ products with such passion and enthusiasm.
Another option is to invite your sales team to represent your exhibition stand, although this option could be great, it could also be costly as you will be taking them out of their day-to-day role, so finding the right staff members is key.
2) Creating A Rota (Pre-Show)
Create a rota (preshow) so staff members know when they can have a break on event days. There’s nothing worse than seeing staff members eating their lunch or using their mobile phones whilst at the exhibition stand. It not only looks extremely unprofessional but deters visitors away from the stand.
3) Start The Day On A Positive Note
Create hype around your stand before the event starts! Huddle up with your team and do a pre-team overview presenting the aims and objectives of the day. This will create a sense of ease and excitement once the doors open.
4) Team Spirit And Motivation
One of the main objectives why businesses exhibit at exhibitions is to capture data. A great way to incentivise staff members is to create a competition, the staff member who captures the most leads wins a prize. This is sure to drive motivation.
5) Only Use Devices When Needed
Store your mobile phones away… Sometimes it’s easier said than done right? The use of a mobile phone or device on an exhibition stand is a great and easy way to capture data via a simple QR code and app.
Unfortunately, when staff members have a mobile in their hand, it can lead to them leaning on tables and focusing on the latest news articles or scrolling through their social media feeds totally oblivious to what’s happening around them. If your staff members aren’t focused, they will miss the opportunity to invite visitors to the stand and interact. Alternative solutions such as tablets or media centres can be used to capture data via a simple app download.
6) Plan Ahead To Avoid Confusion
Create a pre-show plan and share it with staff members a week or two before the event begins. This should include a full list of requirements and procedures alongside information regarding the show.
The pre-show document can also aid a pre-show meeting allowing your staff to raise any concerns or questions they may have. Are your staff members prepared for questions delegates may ask? Are they aware of the core business objectives and do they fully understand the business? It’s worth having a session to evaluate this.
7) Look Keen And Enthusiastic
Body language is a key driver in either inviting or deterring a visitor to an exhibition stand. Smiling, talking and inviting delegates to a stand is a good way to start a meaningful conversation.
Bad practices include team members talking to colleagues, looking at their phones or even sitting down. It takes around 7 seconds to make a first impression, staff members who don’t want to be there, will deter delegates from approaching the stand. Other negative body language don’ts are staff members standing with their hands in their pockets, eating whilst at the stand and team members looking at their phones ignoring delegates walking past.
8) End the day on a positive note
Once the exhibition has finished, end the day on a positive note with a team huddle, review stats of data collection (if available) and let your team know how they’ve performed, but most importantly thank your team for all the hard work and effort they have put in.
Don’t fall at the last hurdle, whether you’re looking to generate more leads or create more brand awareness, ensure you have the correct resources and don’t forget to prepare as much as you can. The more time you have to train your staff the better.
Power Up Your Exhibiting Performance
If you’re looking to improve your exhibiting performance, you may want to consider a stand-staff training course that can be tailor-made to your specific objectives. For more information on staff training, contact us today, we’d love to hear from you.
Nimlok, the leading global exhibition stand design and build supplier has over 53 years’ experience to help clients deliver exceptional exhibition stands. Nimlok’s expertise includes bespoke sustainable stand design solutions, on-stand engagement, analytics on stand and stand staff training, all with the objective to help clients increase their return on investment on event.
Beyond the exhibition industry, Nimlok also leverages it’s expertise to create tailor-made interior spaces for meeting rooms, showrooms, and reception areas.