The year is 1985:  I’m presenting at one of my first trade shows: Comdex.  Strolling around the Sands Convention Center, I see more women falling out of their clothes than I’d seen at Caesar’s Palace the night before. I turn a corner and actually see one booth offering lap dances with women cooing high-tech features of products to highly “attentive” attendees.

But, of course, that was then and this is NOW, right?  We’ve progressed WAY beyond that kind of thing. (Insert ironic smirk, here.)

Several months ago, I attended a very large and respected annual event in Las Vegas. There were “stewardesses” in micro-miniskirts and skin-tight Spandex everywhere I looked. Attendees were getting whiplash walking from one booth to the next — and senior executives of some of the same companies exhibiting the questionable practices, were taking offense. (Senior executives of both sexes, mind you.) It became such a cause for concern that I understand Show Management will now be enforcing a booth staff dress code for future events.

This conduct is precisely why it can be so difficult to articulate the value of a legitimate, professional crowd gatherer to an exhibitor; they’re lumped in with all the rest of this “eye candy.”

As I have written about before, qualified, savvy crowd gatherers can be a huge help on the trade show floor. But these women and men are doing much more than selling sex and taking photos with attendees; they’re delivering a pitch, stratifying prospects and bringing target attendees to the booth staff capable of following up. It’s important, meaningful work.

All this sex appeal raises a very important question: What do these companies think they’re getting for their money? Sure, attendees are stopping by the booth for a “closer look,” but who are these people and what are they looking at? Sex sells … but what does it sell? What’s the takeaway? When calls are later made to follow up on these leads, the people picking up the phone aren’t real prospects. They just wanted a photo between two bikini-clad models. A guy in a suit might be less attractive, but he’s attracting serious prospects. And by that, I mean “serious” in demeanor and interest in your product.

Companies need to keep in mind that when they run their trade show presence like the Vegas strip, they don’t get the benefit of “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” These attendees have smartphones with 5 megapixel cameras and 1080p video. Now it’s more like  “What happens in your booth is on YouTube in 30 seconds.” And if what’s happening there is not consistent with your company image, or potentially offensive, THAT can be some risky business.

Have an industry-related question? Send “Newman” an e-mail and get your inquiry answered on the blog.

Simple is tasty. Simple is beautiful. And simple is memorable.

Simple is tasty. Simple is beautiful. And simple is memorable.

One afternoon, my travel companion and I took a hike in the Chianti region on a return leg from Volpaia to Radda. As I reflected on the incredible Tuscan meal we had just shared, I found myself thinking about trade shows. (OK, it only lasted for about five seconds, but still …) What I walked away with was a renewed desire to bring a “menu” of simple, succinct messaging back home with me.

Ninety-five percent of the time, trade show messages are too complicated. Yes, the technology may be intricate or advanced, but the telling of story doesn’t have to be. It fact, it needs to be simple. It needs to have two or three high-quality ingredients just like the meals in Tuscany (perhaps the technology, a feature and a benefit). Whatever those ingredients are, they need to be mixed in as simple a way as possible … and that’s it. Delicious, digestible, memorable.

Every time I ate a meal in Tuscany, I thought to myself, “This is so simple. I can cook this!” But I’d need that sage. I’d need olive oil that good. I’d need red wine that fine. I’d need noodles and tomatoes that fresh.

Hiking in the Chianti region, reflecting on great meals and great messaging.

So, Part I is keeping it simple, and Part II is having the right components. What it looks like when you don’t have the right components is those people at trade shows trying to sell “vaporware” — essentially mixing a whole bunch of stuff up in a convoluted mirage of messaging. In reality, there’s nothing there. It’s “The Emperor’s New Trade Show Product” hidden in a complicated presentation.

If you have the right components — if you have compelling technology — then have faith in that. Have faith that what you’re there to talk about is worthwhile and just find the simplest possible presentation of that information.

Be a Top Tuscan Chef. And whip up something delicious at your next trade show.

This is a message for trade show vendors: At your next show, sneak up on your own booth. That’s right, pop out from around a corner about 10 yards back and take a good, honest look at your investment.

Do your booth staffers look like sad little wallflowers?

Do they look like kids at a high school social afraid to ask someone to dance?

Is there a guy sitting expressionless in front of a glass bowl of Hershey’s Kisses, wondering why no one is coming up to talk to him?

This “condition” is more common then you might think, especially with the smaller booths. At one recent show, I walked around and paid particular attention to the 5 x10 and 10 x10 booths. Often they’re manned by just two or three people who are so uncomfortable they’re burying their heads in books or dabbling with smartphones — just sitting there waiting for it all to be over.

I looked at these people and found myself thinking about Neil Strauss, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone best known for penning a book called, The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists. This was the inside story of guys who despite NOT being the most attractive males out there, pick up women with absolute ease. Strauss not only researched this “secret society,” he became arguably one of the top pickup artists in the world and actually started conducting workshops for the undesirable and uninitiated.

At the heart of this book is a philosophy about “how to engage people.” He argues that if you’re going to try to pick up a woman in a bar, you don’t say, “Can I buy you a drink?” You don’t ask anything that could elicit a “no” response. Instead, you “engage” her. You contrive a story seemingly playing out before her eyes and ask, “What do you think?” Yes, it’s an opening line. But it’s an opening line that’s not clichéd or overwrought; it’s a question that pulls this woman into a story with you through her advice or involvement.

Strauss’ philosophy is hardly limited to the world of pickup artists. “Engagement” is something that most certainly can be applied to trade show marketing. I was observing the booth staff at this recent trade show, and they weren’t engaging anyone. First of all, they’re sitting. Rule No. 1: No sitting! Secondly, even when standing, they look positively miserable. If you’re spending that kind of money at a trade show and you’re planning to go there with the attitude that you’d rather be anywhere else, then don’t go! And before you say a couple of staffers don’t represent the “enthusiasm of the company,” remember that these faces are your company for the purposes of these crucial three trade show days. They are the representative image of you and the images that attendees will remember.

Honestly, if I had some sort of magisterial banishment power, King Newman would have sent home half the people working this particular trade show. If you’re going to look bored — if you’re going to feel miserable — find another way to market your services.

Here’s the ironic thing: A lot of these same people will spend a fortune on search engine optimization, which is designed to drive traffic to their site. But they don’t spend any energy driving traffic into their booth. And that doesn’t necessarily mean hiring a trade show presenter like me but perhaps a crowd gatherer — at least someone with people skills! If the person in your booth is not the type who can go up to a perfect stranger and strike up a conversation, then they’re the wrong person to be at the show.

You need to find someone who is not just a technical expert; you also need your company’s best pickup artist.

Have an industry-related question? Send “Newman” an e-mail and get your inquiry answered on the blog.

Karen, you’re right. A lot of companies are in a serious mood right now and are concerned whether laughter in presentations is appropriate. Generally speaking, companies have the tendency to hide behind, “We have a serious message.” The fact is, every organization has a serious message. Business is serious stuff. But there are a million ways to communicate that message.

Haven’t we all gone to the movies where we’ve seen a “serious” film, and found ourselves laughing?  You might be laughing through your tears.  Or crying through the laughter.  But the power of the film, its message still comes through.

If you’re going to impart information — especially if it’s difficult-to-grasp, complicated information — people are more likely to remember it if they’re laughing about it.

I had a Chemistry teacher in high school who made the dullest material come to life through story-telling, crazy props and even costumes.  His classes were like 45 minutes of stand-up punctuated by the occasional explosion.  I’m sure you have your own version of that science teacher, and I’m sure you remember a lot of what they taught you.

To appreciate the lasting power of humor, all you have to do is walk up to someone on the street (preferably 30 and up) and say, “Remember ‘The Puffy Shirt’ episode of Seinfeld?” Instantly, that person’s face will brighten and they’ll start quoting lines from it … despite how many years it has been since that person saw it on TV. For my generation, you can do the same experiment reminiscing about the campfire scene in “Blazing Saddles,” or your favorite Monty Python sketch.

There’s plenty of evidence to support laughter as a highly effective memory device. When you have a booth of people laughing about something, you can ask them two hours later “what was so funny?” and they’ll be able to tell you not only what was funny, but the substance behind the joke. They remember. And in the same way, they will remember your company and your featured product or service.

I have watched scores of trade show presentations over the past few months, and the vast majority of them are horrible. About as riveting as watching paint dry.*  No laughter. No smiles.  Just a lot of vacant stares.  The presentations are little more than a staged reading of a product white paper, followed by, “Thank you very much” and “Here’s your free shirt.”

Ask someone what they remember two hours after a presentation like THAT, and they’ll say,  “Um … well I did get the free shirt.”

(By the way, I actually did find a video of paint drying on YouTube. Watch it and judge for yourself.)

Have an industry-related question? Send “Newman” an e-mail and get your inquiry answered on the blog.

Jeffrey, I want you to imagine this:  It’s Monday night, and you’ve just blocked out two hours for the season finale of  “24.” During the next 120 minutes, as Jack Bauer saves everyone from everything, how often do you think you’ll see him with armfuls of papers, rustling through them for reference while he’s disarming a bomb or finding the bad guys? Never. Why? Because it’s on his phone. It’s on his thumb drive. It’s on his laptop or if and when there’s “24: The Movie,” on his iPad. It’s all about quick, simple, efficient, on-demand information access — especially when TV lives are on the line.

At the core, the trade show world isn’t very different. The smart companies are getting away from traditional media entirely. The trend started with moving from glossy paper handouts to CDs … then to 1 gig thumb drives. The next logical step is to point all those iPhone and iPad-toting attendees to a dedicated website landing page. Why burn through paper and budget when you can just direct people to YourNameHere.com/Interop?  Virtually every trade show attendee has a handheld digital device, or two. Now it’s up to all of us to utilize them. In the meantime, exhibitors featuring innovative ways to share information will continue to best the booths with stacks and stacks of paper. At a recent show, one company was handing out 2-gig storage drives that were the no larger than a credit card. All that literature that would get trashed, was now treasured right there next to your Amex card. Brilliant.

Oh yeah, and those high capacity storage devices also lend themselves beautifully to video testimonials, product demos and other things that paper just can’t deliver.

I believe that attendees need to take some responsibility for this problem as well.  Just last month I watched someone at McCarran Airport in Las Vegas, going through their trade show bag and dumping just about EVERYTHING into the trash.  Well, they DID rescue the t-shirts and flying monkeys …

Attendees should ask themselves — while still at the show — if they really need all those papers. They should also be asking the exhibitors if they have a green, travel-friendly alternative. If exhibitors find themselves going home with almost all of the literature they showed up with,  how fast do you think they’ll adjust? Immediately!

Jeffrey, it’s not just about being green; it’s about being smart … and taking advantage of all the opportunities available in the digital trade show world.

Have an industry-related question? Send “Newman” an e-mail and get your inquiry answered on the blog.

“Just hold it over your head, press the green button and in 30 seconds you have captured every lead on the trade show floor.  It even works through bathroom doors!

The SCAN-EM-ALL 450. If it has a pulse. We’ll scan it!”

Is this where the industry is heading? By some companies’ current metrics, the Scan-Em-All 450 would guarantee you the most successful trade show ever: 45,000 attendees and 45,000 leads. Pretty great, huh? But what would you do with them all?

This hypothetical may be hyperbolical, but the issue is very real. Many exhibitors right now have two or three crowd gatherers tasked with scanning as many people as they possibly can. It’s an easy way to rack up “leads,” but what will happen when contact is made after the show? Many of these people will say “Sorry, I just stopped by to get the flying monkeys you were giving away.”  What good is analyzing your cost per lead if what you’re calling a lead is just someone filling their backpack with free stuff?

What really does define a lead? Is it just anything with a pulse, or must it be something more?

Which is more successful: a trade show with 300 leads categorized as “HOT,” or 3,000 leads in a metaphorical trade show piñata, where you’ll just whack at it after the show and see what shakes out? Some will say there’s likely more buried value in those 3,000, while others would rather focus on 300 sizzling leads and avoid sifting through random thousands.

So, I’m asking you, the community: What should be the metric for a successful trade show? What technologies do you use to categorize your leads as “hot,” “warm” and “cold”? Should crowd gatherers themselves have a tiered system and be directing traffic based on perceived quality of the lead?

Unless we come together on a clear definition of a successful show, before too long, we’ll ALL be waving SCAN-EM-ALL 450s.

Have an industry-related question? Send “Newman” an e-mail and get your inquiry answered on the blog.

2) Make sure your booth staff is ready to talk to attendees
That means don’t sit down. Avoid standing in groups of two or more fellow staffers. Stand near the aisles.  Look out at the crowd and make eye contact. Smile. Don’t say, “Can I help you?”  They’ll say, “NO.”  Instead, look at their name tags.  Use their name. Ask them what their company does. Invite them into the booth. Now you’re getting somewhere.

3) Quickly follow up on leads
Three-quarters of the leads generated at trade shows are never followed up on … and when they are followed up, it tends to be way too late. Those 2,000 leads you got don’t mean anything if you don’t do something with them. You need a way to categorize your leads as “HOT,” “warm” and “cold” — and with hot leads, there’s no such thing as getting in touch too soon. First contact should come within days of the trade show’s end. When weeks or months go by, you just end up lumped together with all the other SPAM.

4) Use giveaways to build booth traffic
BUT, don’t just give stuff away. USE that giveaway item to quiz the audience on what they’ve just heard. Use it to get them to ask questions. You can also use higher-priced giveaways (from thumb drives to HD TVs to wads of cash) as an incentive to get people to the demo stations and get them into the booth. And consider “green” giveaways. Cheaply made swag just ends up in the trash and then in landfills. You want your giveaways to last … so that attendees hold onto your branded item as long as possible.

5) Keep product demos short
Seven minutes is ideal. Ten minutes is the limit. Fifteen minutes … Get the hook! Trade show attendees have a lot of real estate to cover. Don’t feel you have to tell them your entire story. Pique their interest. Get them to want to know more. Get them into the booth.

6) Limit your seating
A seating area with 50 chairs is intimidating. Few people want to be the first to sit down. Also, if you have an audience of 25 people, it still looks half empty. But with a dozen or so seats, you’re looking at a standing-room-only crowd. People walking by will be more interested in what’s going on if all the seats are full. It’s only natural to wonder what could be going on over there.

7) Have at least one crowd gatherer
We are not talking about scantily clad eye candy for your booth. We’re talking about warm, engaging, gregarious greeters. We’re talking about men and women who know how to chat up people in the aisles, ask them questions, invite them into your booth, introduce them to your knowledgeable (and well-trained) staff. These crowd gatherers will continue to invite people to stop and listen even after the presentation has begun. If you skip the crowd gatherers because of the stereotypes, you’re doing yourself a disservice.

8 ) Insist on an “open” booth design
Think about the lines. Think about the traffic flow. And think about how much you enjoyed the last time you couldn’t find your car in a parking garage. Try to design your booth in a way where there are virtually no impediments in any direction for someone coming in or someone going out. Make the booth’s architecture as open as possible to create maximum flow. You want people to just stroll through and almost accidentally find themselves in the booth. Booth layout and thoughtfulness has much more to do with success than booth size and “impressiveness.”

9) Do your pre-show work!
Promote in advance using social media. Send e-blasts to prospective attendees. Offer up a promotional tease to get people into the booth before the show even starts. Tweet from the trade show floor with your latest news and special offers. Utilize video. Do a “Live from the Trade Show Floor” spot and a daily wrap-up. Announce news and promotions with all the fanfare a live recording can offer. Make it short, interesting and something to get people excited in anticipation of your event.

10) Utilize a professional presenter
Bippy the Mime making a workstation out of balloons may be impressive, but it’s not likely to ensure you qualified leads. Have someone represent your company who is engaging, knowledgeable and will interact with the audience. Most trade show demos seem to be staged readings of marketing white papers. Whether you hire a professional presenter or not, don’t do this … under any circumstances.  Everyone talks about “24/7, valued-added solutions.” Your audience will tune out. Say it in layman’s terms, and say it with passion. Find a reason to truly care about your subject matter.

This article originally appeared as a guest contribution on the ChoiceVendor.com blog. We’ll return next week to the usual Q&A format. If you have an industry-related question, send “Newman” an e-mail and get your inquiry answered on the blog.

As part of our ongoing dialogue with the green marketing experts at The Good Mix, we’d like to turn our attention this week to the incredible toxicity of trade show carpeting. You can smell it when you walk onto the trade show floor. Some people have allergic reactions. It emanates from the backing materials and carpets themselves. Breathing in the fumes for three days is bad enough for trade show attendees — and for those of us who make a living on trade show floors it’s an even bigger issue. Inhaling VOC (volatile organic compounds) can absolutely give you a headache. But far more seriously, those VOC’s have been linked to asthma and cancer. And when that carpeting ends up in landfills, it becomes an environmental problem that affects us all. Trade shows should be about the fun of dynamic presentations and the excitement of new products; it should be about the “atmosphere” of the event … not the actual atmosphere.

The good news is the trade show floor is an environment that’s controllable. It’s temporal (built and shut down) as opposed to the L.A. freeway. We can change the materials at these events. We can even change the trade show culture, and with it the “default” materials and products used.

There are companies that create carpet squares made from 100% recycled materials, lowering the amount of carpet that ends up in landfills releasing toxins into the air. There are low- and no-VOC paints for booths. There are plenty of alternatives to using vinyl, which is one of the greatest toxic offenders in the industry (and most industries).

Management companies pride themselves on giving out presentation awards such as “Top New Product.” What if they created incentives for their exhibitors buying booth space along with a “Top Green Exhibitor” award? What if the following year that exhibitor got a discount on booth space or better yet, preferred exhibit space in a prime location for having the greenest booth, most sustainable giveaways and smallest carbon footprint?

There are ways to have a friendlier trade show environment and incentivize the process to keep all parties happy. It will just take a few good ideas and a lot of commitment.

And if you’re looking for some information on how to “green” your trade show presence, please contact Janet at The Good Mix. She’s a great resource.

Do you have an industry-related question you’d like answered on “Hey Newman”? Send him an e-mail and get your inquiry answered on the blog.

No problem, Walter.  As long as you can talk three times faster than normal and bring it in at SEVEN.

Seriously, here’s a question for you:  If you only had that seven minutes to tell your product or brand story, what would you say?

Imagine you’re the point person at a big trade show presentation. You’ve set up a small theater in your booth. You don’t have a professional presenter, so it falls on you to entertain, stimulate and inspire this throng of attendees that’s formed around you. The microphone has just been placed in your hand and you have to go … now! You have only seven minutes and then the mic goes dead. That’s it. You take a deep breath and step in front of the crowd. With such limited time and so much on the line, what do you say?

This is the essence of a compelling trade show presentation. It’s not how much you can say; it’s how little. What actually is your message when you’re “forced” to distill it down? The reality is those people in your audience are visiting 25-30 booths a day. They will only walk away remembering two or three key points, along with the “feeling” they got from the message and from your energy and enthusiasm. So, what are those two or three points they cannot leave without?

If you’re finding it difficult to answer that question, there’s an approach that can help: If you had to offer up all your messaging on just one piece of paper, what would you say? Many of my clients have 200 products and a worldwide audience. They deserve at least 10 pages, right? It doesn’t matter. No one is going to listen to that. It has to be ONE page — and not 2pt type!

Try to challenge yourself on that single page. Make a list of all the corporate jargon you’ve ever heard, read it over carefully, and then toss it. There are immense benefits in brevity, and even greater benefits in originality.

Now it gets even harder. Cut that in half, and give it to your booth staff as a guide for talking with attendees. Condense it even further and give it to the crowd gatherers as an elevator speech. For them, it’s perhaps one great phrase that encapsulates what you do and what your presentation will be about.

Many years ago when I began producing trade show presentations, I would have my client tell me their story. Their WHOLE story. That typically ran 45 minutes or so. Armed with that and a FedEx package filled with white papers and product brochures, I would craft what I believed was a tight, entertaining seven-minute draft. I’d present it over the phone and await my client’s response.  Often they would rave about the comic framework, tell me that it really “moved well,” but then mention that unfortunately, I had extracted the “wrong” seven minutes. My heart would sink and they would say, “What we really want to talk about is ‘this.’” It was one of the things they’d mentioned, but there was no way for me to know that this was where the emphasis was supposed to be. The client didn’t know at the time, either. It proved to be a clarifying exercise, but not a particularly efficient one.

Now, I work with every client to first find out what they care about.   And then I keep at them until we can fit that on a single page. We talk about the big deliverables. We talk about the key messages. We talk about how this product/service/brand will make people’s lives better. With this, I can begin structuring the routine and build the “right” seven minutes.  I add in the entertaining elements, and this time, when I do the read-through, it’s 95 percent of the way there.

This may be more work up front, but it pays off in fewer iterations and a much better (and tighter) script.

Oh, and on the off chance you think it’s impossible to get your message across in only seven minutes, take a look at what professional trade show presenter, William Hall is able to do in just a One Minute Presentation.

Do you have an industry-related question you’d like answered on “Hey Newman”? Send him an e-mail and get your inquiry answered on the blog.

1. Treat your trade show like any other business. To succeed, a trade show needs to be well managed and cost effective. When a trade show goes under, the first assumption seems to be “there goes the industry.”  That’s simply not the case.  Shows die because they’re poorly organized, poorly promoted and poorly attended. Well-run shows are doing just fine.

In fact, some trade shows are exceptionally well organized. The timing is right. They host a two-hour cocktail reception on the first day so attendees can get a feel for everything without having to rush around. Visitors know they still have three more days to explore, so they can enjoy cocktails and hors d’oeuvres and socialize with friends and business associates. The trade show days have reasonable hours and there’s an absolute minimum of conflicting events.

It’s all the little things being done well that make for a successful show. The devil’s in the details, and that’s how many trade shows miss the mark. It’s about the quality of the experience for both the attendee and exhibitor.

2. Keep your exhibitors happy! Don’t schedule a rock-star CEO’s  keynote during Prime Exhibit Hours. Exhibitors don’t appreciate sitting around in a ghost town — especially when with a little thought (and better timing) that keynote could infuse the trade show hall with more life and energy.  In fact, here’s a radical idea: Why not schedule hours when the exhibit hall is open and NOTHING ELSE is going on: No general sessions. No eating sessions. No keynotes. No salsa lessons. Nada!

Thoughtfully limit the number of announcements that come over the exhibit hall’s PA system. Every announcement interrupts presentations and follow-up conversations, and an interruption by its very definition stops progress. Think about that.

While I’m on the subject, don’t schedule a wonderfully catered luxury luncheon somewhere else! Schedule a wonderfully catered luncheon at the venue and keep the leads inside the trade show hall. Exhibitors are paying a substantial sum for their trade show booths. Their investment needs to be worthwhile.

3. Publicize. A trade show is not a single event; it’s a process. You have to advertise and promote the same way you would launch a new product or garner buzz for a new downtown restaurant. Ask yourself, “What more can I do?” Opening night needs to come together and impress, as if there was a critic scribbling on a notepad somewhere in the room who was going to make or break your whole future with that one review. Make sure there’s ample staffing and ample direction. If you have one bad day, that’s a third of the trade show! Three bad days and it’s lights out.

4. Create the proper infrastructure. The hall needs to be set up in a way that’s easy for people to register, get in and get around. Think about the lines. Think about the traffic flow. And think about how much you enjoyed the last time you couldn’t find your car in a parking garage. A LOT of trade show attendees have this experience trying to find booths at some of the bigger shows.  At one of the more popular Las Vegas events last year, I saw countless attendees wandering around clutching maps and looking like kids lost at Disneyland.

5. Make sure there is adequate signage. At a recent trade show in San Francisco, many exhibitors complained that traffic seemed to be a lot lighter even though attendance was actually up. Why? Turns out that a good number of attendees had no idea there were exhibits on the other side of the Hall! This could’ve easily been avoided by using little colored footprint decals on the floor leading the attendees to and from both sides of the event. When in doubt, add more signage, more guides and more information kiosks.

When attendees and exhibitors alike have an easy and enjoyable experience, they’ll come back. Overlook the little things, and you might be the next news headline.

Next week, we’ll return to the usual Q&A format, so click the big “?” in the blog banner and submit your itching trade show question or concern. This blog is for you, and your topic might just be the subject of the next post.