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Time Tested Tips for Tradeshow Exhibiting

Pat Iyer and Gary Bronga


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Time-Tested Tips for Tradeshow Exhibiting (Slide 1 and 2) Pat: Welcome to Time Tested Tips for Tradeshow Exhibiting. This is Pat

Iyer and with me today is Gary Bronga who is the individual who developed Clipeze. Gary could you tell our listeners a little bit about Clipeze?

Gary: Yes, it was a produced and I invented about 15 years ago. It’s worn

like a lapel pin which your ID badge attaches to it. We make custom designs. We started with $500.00 and today we’re in over a thousand stores. We’ve sold about three million today.

Pat: How about that! Fabulous, it’s nice to see somebody with the

entrepreneurial spirit who succeeds. Gary: Well, you have to work hard and you’re also lucky, but it’s been quite

a ride. Pat: I asked Gary to join me tonight because he has had extensive

experience exhibiting. Gary and I have met at the National Nurses in Business Association and he has talked a little bit with me at a lunch just a few months ago, about his involvement in exhibiting. So when I decided to do this course, I thought he would be a perfect addition to sharing his perspective of exhibiting. Although he does not exhibit to attorneys, he has a lot of experience in using the principles of exhibiting.

(Slide 3)

One of the things that’s most important to do when you consider exhibiting is to think about your goals - what you would like to get out of that experience. Legal nurse consultants who are making up the audience for this program can reach seven times more prospects at a trade show than you can through any other type of marketing, except by making calls at law firms – and you’ll have to hit a lot of law firms


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in an extended period of time to equal the number of people that you can meet at one show.

The quality of the leads at a trade show is also far better than the

quality of leads that you can reach through other means. The leads that you’ll make at a trade show cost you less to close and are usually a much higher caliber of people.

Gary, can you comment on the types of leads that you have met at

tradeshows? Gary: Yes, many times the person standing in front of you is a CEO or a

president of a large corporation. Many times that person I found would be very difficult to reach on a cold call, they probably never take your call or return your message on a normal business day, yet there they are standing there, paying a lot of money to come and listen to hear exactly what you have to say. It’s a great opportunity to reach the decision makers.

Pat: What I’d like to do is to run our first poll and ask you if you could

comment on if you have experience in exhibiting. So I’d like to ask you to take a look at the question that’s on the screen and answer that question regarding the number of times – if at all – you have exhibited at trade shows. So please click on the answer and I’ll give you a few more seconds to respond to that and then we’ll show the results. That will also give Gary and I a sense of your experience so that we can tailor our information correctly.

What I’d like to do is to have you think, while you’re finishing the

voting process, about your purpose of exhibiting. Part of it might be to give some information about your audience and to do some research on the types of prospects that you might see there at that conference.

(Poll)

Let me close the poll and show the results. You can see how our audience has responded. The majority of people have exhibited at 1 to 3 shows with none of the people attending this program have not done any exhibiting. So it looks like the majority of the people are 1 to 3


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and no people have exhibited between 4 and 10. We have a few people who have exhibited more than 10 times.

I think Gary, it’s safe to say that the majority of the people who are in

this audience are individuals who are at their beginning stages with exhibiting or perhaps have not done it yet.

(Slide 4) As we think about the goals of exhibiting, I mentioned that one of

them is to look at market and to get some information about your target market. Another is to look at the competition to see what other exhibitors are doing, how they are managing their businesses, what kind of trade booth potential are they exhibiting.

In addition to gathering some market research, exhibiting is a

wonderful opportunity to network with other exhibitors. I have learned a great deal about exhibiting for attorneys by talking to other exhibitors, discussing what shows they have found to be useful, what state trial lawyers groups they have found to be useful, what types of shows they do not think are valuable, and it has saved me a lot of trouble in learning more about the field and the kinds of ways that you can reach attorneys specifically.

(Slide 5) Another goal of exhibiting is building your company image. This is an

opportunity for you to highlight your products, your testimonials that you have gotten from clients, letters of recommendations, publications, and offices that you’ve held. You can also feature a new product. I’ve heard attorneys come up to me and say, “So Pat, what’s new? What are you doing different?” and they always want an answer and if I have been caught off guard and say “Oh nothing” they look disappointed. They really want there to be something new. So I have learned not to answer “Oh nothing”. You can highlight a new product, a new service; you can look for what you want to share with your audience about what you’re doing differently.

Another big benefit of exhibiting is connecting with existing clients. As you have more and more experience exhibiting and get to know more and more people, it becomes easier at each one of these shows to connect with people that you have met or that you’re doing business


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with or you’ve talked to over the phone and now you’ve got a face that you put together with that person. You’ll run into some of your best clients at a trade show and it’s an opportunity to thank them for their business. One of the strategies that’s useful is to compile a list of your champion clients and send them out a mailer inviting them to come by your booth, and give them a small gift. Whether you decide to exhibit or not, one of the traps that you must never fall into is putting all of your eggs in one basket or relying on one of your clients for all or a significant percentage of your income. This is a lesson that we have learned in our business and have been very aware of as a trap that will affect any business that becomes too reliant on one customer. Things could shift and that customer could end up the type of law that he practices. There could be changes in the market place. The personal injury market, for example, particularly in our area, was affected by efforts to try to limit the number of lawsuits that could be filed for a low impact accident. Attorneys are trying to focus more on the people who are more seriously injured and that changed a lot of the personal injury attorneys’ practices, literally overnight, as they saw the market becoming tougher and tougher.

Gary, is there anything that you’d like to add on the marketing goals

to be achieved through exhibiting. Gary: Well, with what you were just saying, what I do is I run a report and

it’s a percentage of sales – it’s on almost all the software. I use Peachtree but I’m sure it’s on Quickbooks and all the other accounting software. I run a percentage of sales report and that’s one of the things I look at; I do that quarterly. When I see something reach in about 40% or so then in the back of my mind I plan what would happen if that client would disappear or that customer in our case would disappear.

Sometimes you modify how much inventory you have or stock you

have and make sure that when somebody approaches about 40% of your business you’re certainly aware of it.


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Pat: That’s a good point because it does make you vulnerable. (Slide 6) In considering the shows for exhibiting, think about your current

clients. Who are the people that you are serving? You need to set very specific goals about what you want to do in terms of exhibiting, who you want to reach. Look at your client base and if you are working with primarily a particular side of the bar, such as plaintiff attorneys, then your exhibiting may focus more on that group than on defense groups.

A lot of this depends upon the opportunities for exhibiting in your

specific geographic area as well as what is the focus of your business, what do you want to accomplish by exhibiting and who are you serving now. For example, if you are looking at exhibiting opportunities for attorneys, sometimes the bar association looks like a tempting opportunity because they offer a lot of attorneys attending a conference.

Now some of those attorneys are there to learn; some of them are there to play, but they represent the entire spectrum of the legal profession. There are wills attorneys, they are constitutional law attorney, they are corporate attorneys, they are real estate attorneys. They are not necessarily attorneys who hire legal nurse consultants. Some of them are sprinkled in, but you have to sift through a lot of people to find those individuals. So it’s important to think about who you want to reach.

(Slide 7) Another factor in exhibiting is that trade show leads are expensive,

and I’ll talk about some of the costs as we go along. In the bonus material that I provided for you on the members’ site, there is handout that I put together that lists some of the costs to consider and the schedule for preparing for an exhibit.

Every moment that you spend at a trade show is extremely valuable.

You spend a lot of money; you spend a lot of time; you spend a lot of effort getting ready for what is in essence a series of short, intense


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interviews. If you do it correctly, you can leave with a lot of leads that justify the expense.

Gary, are you aware of any formula that we could think about in terms

of the cost of an exhibit. Gary: What I use is a cost per thousand to reach people, that’s reaching

qualified attendees. That’s how a direct mail, that’s how email and most other web search names are done, by cost per thousand, how much does it cost you to reach a thousand qualified buyers. And then later you will calculate how many do you convert over of it into sales.

The thing you have to be careful about with tradeshows is not

everybody is qualified. What I mean is there are people that will come and they’ll get you in a conversation and they’ll say “Well, I don’t really make that decision, that’s my husband or wife” or “I’m the neighbor that came along with them.” So even a trade show will tell you that x amount of thousand people attend, it’s a little bit more difficult to determine exactly how many that in your target are out there.

Pat: That’s a very good point. I will talk a little bit more about qualifying

leads and who makes a good lead as we go along. (Slide 8) When you sign up for space at an exhibit, there is what we lovingly

call the up-sell, which is better known as “Would you like fries with that?” When you rent the space – shockingly small sometimes, in comparison to the cost – then a series of questions are posed to the exhibitors such as do you want to buy an advertisement, do you want to pay for having inserts being placed in the bag – if they are giving away materials in a bag. Increasingly shows are using the programs on CD as opposed to printing out the materials.

There may be a regular-priced space or there could be a premium-

priced space. The premium space is in a more desirable location and may cost a couple of hundred dollars more than regular space. All of this again is dependent on the show and the way it’s laid out. Some do not have premium spaces; others are set up with premium space. Some shows may let you select your own space; others will have it


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assigned to you. Yet others will ask you to request space months ahead of time.

You might sponsor a break in order to then be eligible for the

premium space. You might be given the option of getting padding under your carpeting, which is a really good idea if you’re going to be standing long hours. One option that I think is never something you should pass up is having electricity because lights really add a great deal to your display unit and I think you should always plan on having those lights.

Gary, is there anything you’d like to add about the arrangements for

the booth itself? Gary: What I could add is in my real world experience is read that manual

back and forth and if there are any questions, call them. Almost everyone, one time or another will buy carpeting only to find out that carpeting was provided but what you need is upgraded carpeting or that type of thing. So be real careful and if doesn’t say it or if it’s very vague, call them. I just call up the number in the manual and ask them and I’ll say “Each booth comes with…” and I’ll read them all just to make sure that I understand.

Pat: I can remember exhibiting down in Atlantic City one time and I know

that I did not select the option to have my booth vacuumed every night but when I got there, it was covered with this fine layer of sand. My colleague and I went out onto the boardwalk in Atlantic City and found a dollar store and bought a dust pan. The man who was the executive director of this association came by and said, “What are you guys doing? I said “I’m sweeping up the sand” and he said “Sweeping up the sand? How come they didn’t vacuum it for you?” and I said “I asked them and they told me that I didn’t pay for it.” He gave me a look of , “Just because you didn’t pay for your sand that doesn’t mean that they should leave sand there for you.” So he spoke to somebody and all about five minutes later somebody showed up with a vacuum cleaner and was getting rid of my sand for me.

Gary: Yeah, I’ve had similar experiences myself. Some of them are union-

controlled; they don’t want you to do anything. A lot of it depends on which city you’re in.


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(Slide 9) Pat: Yes. When you’re looking at appropriate shows – I’ve talked about

your target market – do some research. Also, talk to the attorneys that you do business with and ask them about shows or trade shows or exhibits that they go to and that will give you some ideas about appropriate places for exhibitors.

(Slide 10) For local shows, as far as I know every state has local version of the

American Association of Justice. They tend to be attorneys who have backgrounds in personal injury, medical malpractice, nursing home litigation, criminal cases. They are not people by and large who do real estate, who do only wills, some of them do matrimony or family law, but the majority of them are personal injury attorneys.

The defense bar may have opportunities for you to exhibit through

Defense Research Institute. I have found at least in my state that they are not welcoming of exhibitors. They don’t have the same philosophy that the plaintiff bar does, so it’s difficult, if not impossible, to be able to market to them through exhibiting, but that may be entirely different in your state.

I’ve mentioned about the challenges with the bar association. ICLE

stands for Institute for Continuing Legal Education. That is the bar association, but in addition to having an annual conference, they might have some targeted medical programs, which either can be opportunities for exhibitors or you may be able to offer to speak at such a program and that’s another great way to get some exposure.

(Slide 11) If you’re looking at local shows, some of them are closed. By that it

means that the state may require that a person pay a subscription in order to be an exhibitor – an annual fee that can be quite extraordinary. That’s clearly not going to be advantageous to a legal nurse consultant unless there are a lot shows that are in the appropriate subject matter for you for exhibiting.


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A factor in local shows is how far can you drive and also does your booth fit in your car if you’re going to be driving. We have had station wagons for probably the last 15 years. I started exhibiting in about 1992 or so and we had in the beginning, up until just recently, very large plastic boxes that had to be loaded into the back of the car.

So think in terms of your vehicle and will it accommodate the type of booth that you’ll need and that may be a factor in terms of what you select. It is now possible to get units that are much more portable and much less heavy. It can sit literally in the back seat of your car. Another factor on a local show is the cost, the number of hours that are available for your exhibit and how that ranks in terms of the cost of the space in which you want to rent and how many other exhibitors are going to be there – if you’re going to have only a few people there, you might get maximum exposure if you’re competing with hundreds of exhibitors. Certainly that’s also a factor that would influence your decision-making.

(Slide 12)

I’ve mentioned the length of the program. Most of the trial lawyers groups that I’m familiar with, tend to run full day programs. Some of them have run programs that are from 8.30 until 2, for example, under the premise that that permits the attorneys to go back to the office. From the standpoint of the exhibitor, that means essentially there is time at the beginning of the day when people are registering, a morning break, an afternoon break, and then some exhibitors stay until the attorneys leave the building for the final time. Others say the attorneys are concentrated on walking out; they’re not going to stop and talk to exhibitors. That is really more of a philosophical approach. One of the opportunities to think about when you are exhibiting at a show that involves meal times is to make sure that you have your meal while the attorneys are in their session so that when they are coming out for lunch you’re back and you’re back when they are returning from their lunch, because those are also good opportunities for interaction.


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You also want to know if you’re being asked to consider being an exhibitor or if you’re looking into exhibiting opportunities, how many people do you expect to be there? In my experience, some of the groups that are small and of course I’m talking from a Northeast perspective, this may be different in your area – but a group that might have only 50 people would really not be a good group for exhibiting for an all day program, but a group that’s got 250 or even a hundred would offer you more opportunities. So you need to really think in terms of those factors when you’re selecting a show.

(Slide 13)

The types of programs I’ve listed here – these are all ones that tend to draw the type of audience that we are serving.

(Slide 14)

If you’re exhibiting on a national level, this is again another level of sophistication, another level of cost. Of course the ideal would be if there was a national conference in your town and sometimes that happens, but you may have to wait a long time for that to happen. There are typically – at least for the American Association of Justice – there are people who are on the preferred list who have earned points for being loyal exhibitors and they are given first choice in terms of space. The Defense Research Institute, according to my understanding, allows exhibitors to attend their annual conferences, unlike some of the state groups. If you are considering a national show, think in terms of the details of shipping your materials, making sure it’s there in time, and then what happens if they don’t show up. This happened to me only one time when I was exhibiting in Boca Raton when UPS did not deliver our materials. We got a big poster board that said in big letters, “UPS lost our booth!” and we turned it into an opportunity for people to come up and commensurate: “Oh you poor dears”. It showed up 3 and a half days into a 4-day conference and we didn’t bother to set it up. But we did get some mileage out of that.


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Gary, I know that you have had some experience with national shows. Would you like to add anything to what I’ve said?

Gary: Yes, one of the ways to discover a show or at least get more

information about the show is trade publications. I would venture to guess that the majority of those subjects have publications that serve that industry. Most of the time those publications will be on hand and they will cover it. They’ll show you pictures of last year’s; they’ll give you some numbers. Also, in the manual you’ll get last year’s numbers of attendees. Study those real hard.

If all else fails and you can’t make up your mind whether you want to

spend the money to exhibit at a show, a lot of times attending a show is possible because you’re in the industry. Most shows will prohibit you from actually soliciting on the floor without a booth, however you have your business cards, you get into conversations with people and you certainly know if the next year you want to come back and exhibit. That’s one of the ways.

I had an experience just like you talked about, with my display not

making it to a show. I was at a huge show in Chicago and all I had was a briefcase that I flew with and a few samples and I stood behind that booth behind myself with nothing. Everybody came by. Of course I was able to tell how much stuff didn’t make it and I covered the cost of the show with the contacts I made. I followed up those contacts and actually made a couple of sales on the spot from some of the samples I just had in my briefcase.

So it is possible; it is possible. (Slide 15) Pat: One of the things that you may run into if you’re going to a show in a

different state is a regional mentality. I’m from New Jersey and this is a very famous cartoon that shows Steinberg’s view, a New Yorker’s view of the world and you see a little strip here called Jersey and then this is the rest of the country before you get to the Pacific Ocean.

I have literally had attorneys from New York say “Oh you’re all the

way in Jersey?” and then if I tell them that I live on the western edge


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of New Jersey, near Pennsylvania, it’s like I’m talking about Siberia or Hawaii.

You may run into this in other attorneys who will say “Oh, but I can’t

work with you because you’re not from my state or you’re not from my city.” Increasingly that’s beginning to disappear, but there still may be a strong regional preference. And of course if you’re the home boy and you’ve got the home boy court advantage, that’s something that you should be exploiting.

Gary: I have noticed that some of that is changing as we become more

global. Now people will actually do business in another country. Something in a product that might be different than marketing to attorneys that I found is “a genius lives a thousand miles away” syndrome. The person three doors down really can’t know what he’s talking about because he’s right here. But somebody smarter, if they live three states over…you need to be aware of all those principles and really work the person that you’re talking to by listening, what kind of mentality they have.

(Slide 16) Pat: That’s a great point. When you sign up for space, you’ll typically be

given a map like this for a larger show, which will give you an opportunity to sign up for a booth. The Xs mean that the space has been taken and the ones that are not marked off are the ones that are open for you to choose.

You may be given rules about when you can sign up. I know that our state will notify us two weeks in advance that 12 o’clock, in this case, on February 22nd there will be an email that will go out or a fax that will go out asking you what space you want. Some are not that precise, depending on the size of the show.

(Slide 17)

When you do have an option to specify your space, think about what are good spaces for you - high traffic spaces. Typically when people walk in a door they go to the right of any room, so think about how the traffic is going to flow around the room. As I mentioned, a


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premium spot may mean that you’re near food or that you may be near the entrance to the room or you might have a corner space where you’ve got a little bit more exposure. Look at the dead-end areas, the edges of the room, sometimes you don’t want to be near a competitor or right next to a competitor. Sometimes that may be an advantage if you’ve got a large competitor who’ll bring traffic down that aisle. Look if there are areas that are blocked by columns or walls or loading docks. Think about the climate. There’s a building that I exhibit in the winter time and I make sure that I’m not by the door that people are opening and closing when it’s 25 degrees out. So those are all factors. You’ll get a sense for that if you do more exhibiting and you get to know a little bit more of the dynamics about how traffic moves around.

(Slide 18) Getting a pre-conference mailing list is an option. It is, of course, another up sell that is available through the facility that is sponsoring this program. If you decide to use it, think about some type of an incentive that you might want to use to try to draw people to the booth. This could be tied to a theme for that particular show. For example, some people sent out a drink coaster with the promise of giving a coffee mug if an individual comes to the booth. Try to make it clever and different. The marketing rule of thumb is that if you put something lumpy in the mail, it’s more likely to be opened than the piece is flat. You can mail out pre-conference letters, you can fax, you can email, depending upon how that information is provided to you. You can send a check list or an article and encourage them to come by the booth.

Gary: One thing I’d like to say perhaps is one of the things that tied in with a subject we had earlier and that’s talking other exhibitors. They can tell you what premiums work real good them at which shows and they’re willing to discuss that with you. And also one of the best things, it might be a little sneaky but it saves you a lot of money sometimes, is that when you find some exhibitors that give fabulous gifts out and


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draw a bunch of crowd, it’s a lot cheaper just to get a booth next door to them.

[Laughter] Because you’ll know who those exhibitors are and how generous they

are and if you can position yourself in between a couple of them, then you’re going to have a lot of traffic and you have to give hardly anything away.

Pat: We’re going to talk a little bit more about premiums in a few minutes. (Slide 19)

When you think about the equipment, there are a lot of different options for display units of a variety of different costs.

One of the things that you want to keep in mind is how portable is

your unit. Is it going to be difficult to put up, is it going to be heavy? What kinds of signs do you need? Do you want to change those signs periodically or you’re going to work with fixed signs? What kinds of benefits are you selling, what are your graphics going to say, how are you going to get somebody’s attention, do you have adequate lighting for your exhibiting unit, are you going to follow a particular theme? For example, we at one point came up with the slogan of SALT, for Screening cases, Analyzing information, Locating experts, and Transcribing information. That’s my theme, you can’t use it.

We gave away salt and pepper shakers that I bought at the dollar store

and people thought these were wonderful giveaways and they were literally a dollar. I will show you some examples of some booths that we’ve had and give you some of the pros and cons of them.

(Slide 20) This was the first booth that I ever had that I exhibited on the Waldorf

Astoria. Notice the chandelier in the background. This was a very elaborate room, a very elegant building; the floors were marble; it was gilt and glitter galore. I borrowed this unit from somebody and I borrowed the teddy bear.

This sign says this victim and his attorney need a legal nurse

consultant. Teddy had a 500cc bag of D5W that went into a little arm


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board on his arm. He wore patient gown that was cut down with a diaper and a cervical collar. I exhibited with Teddy for many years until in New York State somebody came into the exhibit area, probably a kid – it was in a Catskills resort – and was playing with a roller clamp right here and the 500cc of D5W went into Teddy’s arm and that was pretty much the end of Teddy. He ended up with a very, very wet body.

This was an inexpensive booth to put together. The signs were

basically on hard blue stock, mounted on yellow card board. I taped onto this booth this particular sign. It was a binder and it said “Does this chart contain malpractice?” and there were signs on either side. But this booth led to me meeting an attorney who gave us so much work that he put my older son through Ivy League college. So even though the booth was not expensive to put together, it had a huge return on investment.

(Slide 21)

The next booth that I want to show you is one that involves panels. This one involves two pieces and it fits over end cap over either end. I bought it from a legal nurse consulting company that was going out of business. We had the scales of justice and the Caduceus logo for many years that we heard about last week when Victoria was talking about how this was overdone. This was our first logo that I came up with in 1989.

The advantage to this booth is that there are Velcro strips and flexible

plastic signs that enabled me to switch the signs based on the audience or put up behind my head various exhibits of demonstrative evidence or displays for cases that we have worked on.

(Slide 22)

Because it comes in two pieces, this is the top part of it that I used when I was exhibiting for another company that I have called Patient Safety Now.

I took these signs that I had made by makesigns.com – a very nice site – where you can go in, select the backgrounds- many of these are preset. The ones on either side have backgrounds that were developed


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by them and I just picked the fonts and put the words on. The photograph is a royalty free photograph that I purchased. I put up a display with my books that I had written, and a couple of plexiglass signs, a basket of candy to act as bait, and a bowl for people to drop their cards in for a drawing.

(Slide 23)

This is a unit that we no longer use because we have moved into another style, which I’ll show you in a minute. This has three panels with magnetic strips and the strips fit on to a frame. This is an easy pop-up frame. The only hard part about this is this header is extremely heavy and didn’t sit on the top of the booth well. One time in Chicago it came down on my head and I was contemplating whether I wanted to go to the Cook County ER or live with a headache and I decided to stay out of the ER. These signs are again flexible plastic. I put in some pictures to try to draw people into the booth and make it a little bit more warm and inviting, and our table cloth has the company name on it and the logo. We used this white table cloth for many years. I don’t recommend white because people would come along with coffee cups and then that would leave stains on the table cloth. So we abandoned that one and got a darker blue one which we’re using now.

(Slide 24)

Another type of booth: this is all one fabric panel that pops and has a flexible metal frame in the back.

(Slide 25) This is the style which is much more common now. These are single or double panels depending upon the style that you want, these are banner ads. It pulls up like a slide projector screen – if you are old enough to remember slide projectors, that dates you – and you remember screens, flexible screens. These basically pull up and then and then hook up at the top and they’re very lightweight and easy to transmit from one place to the next.


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(Slide 26) I took this picture of these guys when I was teaching in Chicago because I was looking at their booth thinking, “You know, all they have here is this piece of furniture and their sign for the name of their company, plain curtains”, and they really didn’t give me any idea at what kind of business they were in. It’s important to be able to have somebody walking by who will look at you and recognize your business. Now maybe in their industry the people who buy their furniture – and it turned out that they were making these dressers, but I thought it was just a display unit and didn’t realize that that was their product – maybe people would recognize that if they were in their industry, but it wasn’t obvious to me.

(Slide 27)

You get to see interesting things in exhibits. You get to see designer covers for Foley catheter bags, which is what the Fig Leaf Company does.

(Slide 28)

You also have the opportunity to see some kind of crazy behavior at exhibits such as the man who walks around with the quality improvement outfit on and grabs unsuspecting people for pictures.

(Slide 29)

Or if you’re in a really big show that hires people who do these kinds of things – there are some very interesting moments. But for the majority of you, you will not be seeing those kinds of things at attorney conferences. They’re just kind of fun to take pictures of and think about how that fits in with attracting people to the booth. Are those characters really going to be effective or are they just expensive additions?


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(Slide 30) When you’re designing around a theme, all of your information goes together. I wanted to emphasize that you want to use graphics to get people’s attention so that they’ll stop so that you can talk to them about your services. Remember that people are going to be looking at your information as they quickly go by so that you don’t want to have small fonts. You want to have things that are going to be attention-getting and also remember that you may be standing in front of the booth so you don’t want to have the signs or the graphics below the level of your shoulders. They should essentially be from shoulder height and above, not so high that somebody would get neck-strain by looking up, but visually they have to be in a range where people would be able to see them easily. Also think about your corporate colors; be consistent in the colors that you are selecting for your graphics and your materials.

(Slide 31) You may have materials that you’ve assembled in brochures. You don’t necessarily have to get ones that are pre-printed with your logo in the beginning. There are ways to put a business card on the outside. There are many different options for brochures. You can give your information away on CDs or DVDs. A common error that new exhibitors make is they say “Oh, there’s going to be a hundred people coming, I’ll bring stuff for a hundred people” not realizing that if you get 15% of the people to take your stuff that’s considered to be a good ratio. So don’t bring in tons of extra stuff that you’ll have to carry or you’ll have to get transported, when in reality the majority of the people are not going to come and pick that material up.

(Slide 32) I included these in slides just as a cautionary note. There was a point in our business when we had two nurses working in the business and I had these brochures made up with the pictures of the nurses who worked in the company.


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(Slide 33)

The individual in the middle ended up walking in and giving her resignation at the time when the truck was outside, literally bringing the boxes into the business with these beautiful, tri-fold brochures. We had a thousand made of three different kinds of brochures and they were obsolete before they could be given to the first person. So think in terms of material and whether or not that might become dated. Gary, did you want to add anything so far to what I’ve been saying?

Gary: I would like to add a little bit on display. I would say to somebody to not to get discouraged if they can’t afford a very large colorful display. Sometimes you can use your imagination to make up for it until your business is far enough along to buy.

Our first display was two cardboard cutouts. We had gotten the type

that are at Blockbuster Video where you rent them – of movie stars. They were $40 a piece but they were life-size of like John Wayne or…we used different ones for different shows and we made Clipeze out of their faces and made them an ID badge for the Clipeze on there.

People just loved to walk up there and take pictures holding on to

John Wayne or Pamela Anderson or on and on and on. And then later we did the same thing, we did same thing you did. We started out with a large piece, ended up with larger ones and then ended up with about three of those projector types that you were talking about and that’s what we use today.

But you can do this in steps, so don’t be intimidated that you can’t

afford this. Trade show displays are expensive. (Slide 34) Pat: Yes and part of the expense is what you give away. You can give

away chocolate dipped strawberries, cookies, candies, all kinds of food is being given away at shows. Think about the cost of what you’re going to be giving away and if you’re purchasing items as


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premiums or adcentives, the more you buy, the less individual units cost, but the greater your outlay.

Gary: Also the target audience, you need to get to know them, what they

consider valuable and what they don’t. I don’t market to attorneys, but I sure meet a lot of attorneys on the golf course. And it certainly turns a head when you’re given something away that has to do with golf. You give golf balls away or you have a little putting green or something and they’ll stop. Golf gets into your blood.

So knowing your audience and knowing their purpose at the shows is

very, very important. Pat: That’s a good point, as well as what is the weight of the material that

you’re giving away. These glass mugs were very popular but a case of glass mugs – 12 of them – was very heavy and we ended up ordering them one time and then when they were all gone, we didn’t refill that order because it was difficult to take more than probably three cases to a particular show.

(Slide 34) In terms of the incentives or the adcentives, some of the things that we

have found to be useful, as I mentioned with the salt and pepper shakers, toolkits, pens – as long as they are a good quality pen, coasters, large pads – particularly when the law firms or when the exhibiting agencies have cut back on the physical materials, the handouts, and hand an attorney a CD that has all the program materials on it but it gives them nothing to write with. So the pad and the pencils become more attractive from exhibitors. We’ve given away magnifying sheets, laminated cards, computer bags, markers. Keep in mind also pen drives are very attractive to attorneys as a giveaway but also very expensive.

Some of the duds that we have given away have been inexpensive

stick pens – which we did right in the beginning and never used them again. We threw them all out; they wouldn’t write reliably. We have given away letter openers to match expensive pens but the letter openers have been perceived as being little stiletto knives that have


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caused people to get a little upset by the sharpness of them, so that has disappeared.

We found CD cases not to be effective as giveaways - a little zippered

case that contains 12 CDs. We still have them in the basement – would love to give those away. I’ve heard from another exhibitor that travel mugs were not popular as a giveaway.

I would encourage you to avoid giving away anything that is

disposable, that’s going to disappear. We got M&Ms specially printed with the name of the company and found out that people thought that we were trying to give some pills and they wouldn’t take them. We had to explain that they were candy. Post-it notes are another very disposable thing that once it’s gone its life is over. So you really want something that’s going to hang around and potentially be on the attorney’s desk. And there are all kinds of catalogues and companies that do supply giveaways.

Gary, anything that you’d like to comment about doing drawings,

have you done those and how do you run them? Gary: Yes, we’ve done a few. What we usually do is give something away

like in the middle of the show and then towards the end of the show. We collect business cards and they’re a good way to get leads. But that’s all we’ve really done. We haven’t had too much success with anything else.

(Slide 36) Pat: I think I skipped one slide here. Keep your giveaways under the table.

Watch them carefully if you’re in a convention where there are little children. They tend to grab in fistfuls and if you see them coming, a lot of exhibitors put their stuff out of sight if they don’t want their things to be removed en masse.

There’s another philosophy that maybe the kid will give it to the dad

and the dad will think that you’re great because the kids thought your pen or pencil or marker was nice. You have to use your judgment on that, but remember there are people who literally will go into your stuff with both hands and it’s like they’ve never seen a magic marker


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before in their lives and there’s never going to be opportunity to find another marker and they’re going to take as many of your things as they can.

Don’t ditch them at the end of the show. I watched a sales person take

a two-dollar bamboo duck and stuff it in her box and leave a stack of expensive printed brochures on the table so she would have room to take home the duck. Now she was not a business owner, she was somebody who was employed by the company, but I think it’s something that a business owner wouldn’t necessarily do.

The giveaway that you should never run out of is your business card.

If you have nothing else, always make sure you’ve got stacks of those. (Slide 37) In terms of drawings, what we have done, Gary, is collected business

cards. When an attorney says “Oh, I don’t have any cards with me” we’ll hand them a blank card to fill in and get at least a name and an email address. Ideally the prize should be something associated with your business, something that makes sense associated with your service. That could be a discount on a case, that could be a book that you have written, it could – in our case – the books that I’ve written, teleseminars, discounts on meals; there are all kinds of things. Remember it’s one prize that you’re giving out so that you can afford to spend more money on that prize.

(Slide 38)

When it comes down to working the booth, the five Es of exhibiting are important to remember. The first is to engage your prospect in conversation and make eye contact. If the person stops to see the booth, is looking at your graphics, says “may I take your information”, that’s an opportunity to use your lead lines that you have developed.

Think about it ahead of time – how are you going to start that dialogue? For example, you might ask “What do you know about our company?”, “Have you worked with a legal nurse consultant before?”


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“What kind of needs do you have for medical legal support?” “What kind of challenges do you have?” Listen to the answers and don’t interrupt. It’ll give you insight into the thinking of that person.

(Slide 39) You will also at the same time be qualifying that person, trying to figure out if that is a hot prospect or not a hot prospect. I’ve given you some examples of hot prospects for the legal nurse consultant. Judges and law students are typically not hot prospects. Sometimes paralegals can be, if they are asked by their attorney; sometimes they’re asked by their employer, “Go out to the exhibit hall and bring me back stuff from people that you talk to,” They may indeed be appropriate prospects. They’re not necessarily decision makers, but they may be conveyers of information. Another not hot prospect is somebody who comes up and says, “You know my wife is a nurse, I think she would do good in this business, what can you tell me about how can she get started? What kind of programs should she go to?” Those are individuals who may be tying up your attention while somebody who is a hot prospect is walking by. The people who come up to you and say “You know I have a case, is this something that you guys do, let me tell you about this case…” those are the people who are really the gold. You are going to exhibit to meet those kinds of people. They’ve got a case; they’ve got the authority; they’re ready for an opportunity to talk to you about what you can do to help them.

(Slide 40) At that point, your opportunity is to excite them about your services, about what you can do to help them, explain how your offerings are going to benefit them, how they’re going to solve their difficult problems. You’re essentially educating them as that next step – what you do, how you will give them the benefits of your services. You’ve got to deliver all this information in a very short period of time.


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Slide 41 What you want to do as the next E is encourage them to fill out a lead card, take your survey, watch a demonstration, take your literature. You can encourage them also to think about other services that you provide that might be of benefit to them. The final E is exit. It’s not productive to have long conversations because those individuals who are walking by who don’t want to interrupt, might not come back. Your goal is to get the person’s card, find out a time to have a further discussion on that particular case if there is such a discussion, what’s the next step, when would be a good opportunity for you to follow up with them. Remember the longer you spend with one person, the more people are walking by and you’re not going to get a chance to be able to speak to those individuals again, most of the time.

(Slide 42) So your goal, if you think about this decision tree, is to figure out first “Well, is that a qualified buyer?” at which point you want to educate them and then close or is this a time waster? “Thank you for stopping by the booth, I enjoyed talking to you” and that individual will then get the hint and move on. Gary, is there anything that you wanted to add to that process itself?

Gary: The process is excellent. It’s like anything else in life, the more you do it, the better you’ll be at it. You develop the questions and develop the way to listen to determine – we rank them, I rank them – hot prospects and mild and cold. You’re still very nice because you never know who you’re talking to and you may want to take the person’s card or give your card to the person that came up and said that their wife is a nurse and what should she take, but just not at that time. Your booth time is extremely valuable.

Pat: And there are also occasionally, depending on the venue there are

people who walk in from the street and go on to the exhibit area and eat the food and visit the exhibitors and take the stuff. It’s amazing to watch.


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Gary: Yes it is. A lot of people bring family with them and friends.

Sometimes they use other people’s badges; they are not even who it says they are and usually you can recognize they are carrying some heavy bags full of all kinds of stuff, stuff falling out of it, and instead of asking what you do or how does your company work, when you have the first question it is “Is this free?” and then you know basically right there. I’ve had them lean forward and point to their badge and say “This is really not me”. So you have to learn from your experiences.

(Slide 43) Pat: I wanted to have a comment about attire. This is a little bit of an

exaggeration, this photograph, but I saw something very similar to it in two shows that I exhibited when I was close to a couple who were in a booth who were dressed with as much cleavage and as much knee showing although their midriffs were covered. The attorney who owned the company used them as bait. They were both blond; they were both attractive; but they were both barely covered.

In this one show they were next to me and it was the only time I ever

saw the chef from the kitchen come out to replace the bottles of water in the ice. I watched the entire kitchen crew come out; they had to do this immediately in front of the booth so that all of these men could take a look at these two ladies. I also watched two attorneys, one coming from the left, one coming from the right. Both of their eyes were trained on the bathing beauties and they hit themselves in the forehead, head-on, as they were moving and not paying attention to where they were walking.

I don’t think this attorney did much in the way of business. I think he

got a lot of traffic and he didn’t return to exhibit in the future, but it was a lesson to me watching people’s reactions. Some people were mesmerized; some people were horrified by the way that the women were dressed and I would never advocate doing that as legal nurse consultant, knowing that the message that you send in that outfit may not be the message that you would want to send.

Professional attire will never be wrong in that circumstance.


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(Slide 44)

When you consider staffing the booth, remember that your second person in your booth – and I do recommend you have another person with you whenever possible – that person could be your spouse, it could be an employee, you could hire a subcontractor or you could hire a temp person to help you in the booth.

Having a second person helps with traffic and being able to provide that attention that the individuals who are coming to the show need. With some adequate training and preparation your assistant can use the lines and can use the qualifying techniques and can provide the information and can, if necessary, answer questions within that individual’s knowledge or say to you “Here’s an attorney who’s got a question about this…” and then refer that individual to you.

People buy from individuals that they know, like and trust and

because marketing to attorneys is a relationship business, having that rapport in the booth and the follow up becomes very important.

(Slide 45)

This was a photograph that I just took a few months ago of two people in the booth who were playing cards while this individual, who was a prospect, was standing there talking to the people next to him.

Gary, can you give us some insight in some of the things that you

should and should not do in a booth? Gary: Yes, I’ve seen just incredible things doing all these shows. I’ve seen

people in booths with their back turned to the front of the booth with a laptop and playing games on the laptop or checking their email and the person spent thousands for that booth.

You need to be professional; you need to stand. If there’s no one on

the floor and they’re in a session, you certainly sit down and rest, but you need to be on your feet when they’re approaching you, you need to be approachable. You need to look people right in the eye; you need a firm handshake. All those things matter.


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Also, you have to be convinced of your business. You can’t fake that.

If you’re not passionate, if you don’t believe in yourself and your company, then no one else will. That comes across and it comes across very quickly.

Pat: Thank you for those points. Remember not to eat or drink the booth.

People don’t want to approach you if you’ve got food in your mouth. Don’t use your cell phone while you’re in the booth. Don’t leave it unattended.

Take inventory and make sure you’ve got the appropriate amount of information. Don’t monopolize the attention of the exhibitor next to you, particularly when there is an attorney waiting to speak to that exhibitor. And look approachable at all times so that people are going to be willing to speak to you.

(Slide 46)

I have a couple of pearls of wisdom and will wrap up and address any questions that you might have. When it comes to selling, remember making eye contact and being proactive helps to break the ice. It is a numbers game. If you reach 3% of the people at that show and they’ve got a need for your services and you’re talking to them, that may be all you need in terms of breaking even and making money as a result of it. I have met in my exhibiting, in addition to the attorney that I mentioned before who came to my very first booth that I had at the Waldorf Astoria, I met a couple of attorneys at national shows who gave me business – one of them for 15 years and then he changed his law practice. The other still gives me business. And the contact has paid for the exhibiting many, many times over. Display enthusiasm, smile often. I was talking to Gary before we started about how I’m not particularly an outgoing individual and I find exhibiting to be a real challenge because it is constantly smiling and being present and that is the part of the game that has to be


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played, but you’ve got to look enthusiastic and approachable and warm. I’m just a little shy and that becomes an issue. Know your product. Obviously the legal nurse consultants listening understand their product, but anyone assisting them in the booth should be equally fluent or be able to defer questions to you.

(Slide 47)

If you’ve got a script and you use lead lines, that will help in terms of developing that conversation with the client. Stress the benefits of working with a legal nurse consultant. They may have objections like “Oh, you’re all the way in Jersey” “Oh, I’ve got a paralegal, why do I need a nurse” and you should know how to answer those questions. Then you need your closing statements in order to be able to get them to exit so that you can give attention to the next person coming by.

(Slide 48)

A word about security. Even though there are typically, in one and a half or two or four day shows, there are security guards and doors locked, you should always be aware of the fact that there is a possibility of something expensive disappearing. So don’t leave valuable materials sitting out. At the end of each day, if it’s a two-day show, take those business cards that you have so carefully collected, out of your glass bowl and put them in you briefcase or purse and remove them so that there’s no possibility of them disappearing. Just be aware of that – purses, laptops, briefcases and other types of things have disappeared from booths.

(Slide 49) A word about follow up; this is probably the most crucial step to follow up on the leads. Send out the literature, make those phone calls to keep that benefit flowing from all of the effort and time and money


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that you have spent. That’s probably the most essential step of everything is to do that follow up. Remember that if you are entitled to get a mailing list of those people who were present and if your contract says you may only use it one time, they’re not kidding. Typically the trial lawyers would put names of people on the list and they will track those individuals and make sure that that person is only being mailed to one time. So you can end up being barred from exhibiting if you abuse the rules when it comes to how many times you can use that list of people who are at that show. Typically it is only one time; be very aware of that. Finally at the end of the show, take a look at what went well, what do you want to change, what were the benefits? You might not get immediate feedback, you might not get immediate gratification, but look at what went well and what didn’t go well and figure out what you need to change for the next show. Then pack up your material so that your stuff is all ready to go. And Gary, with that I’ll turn it over to you see if there’s anything you’d like to add and I’ll check to see if anyone has added any questions.

Gary: Okay. I think some real world examples are in order. You don’t always have the best display and you don’t always have the best location, but a lot of those subjects you have to test. You really can’t tell from a chart what the location’s going to be.

I’ve been in what looked to be a horrible location because it was the

end of a hall, but as it turned out there were no exhibitors on the other side of me, so everybody that came through there always looked in my direction. It turned out to be a great location. So a lot of it is test, test, test. You just never know the next time you go to the hall, if you go to the show again, you know a lot more and use your experience.

Pat: That’s a great example. Gary: A lot of other things, it’s kind of hard to cover everything about trade

shows. We could talk probably every night for a week, a lot of that we kind of skipped over in the very beginning.


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Getting there – especially if it’s a national show or if it’s a long drive, you need to go early, you need an early flight if you’re taking a flight. That way if your flight gets cancelled at least you have a chance of catching a later flight. You need to use the carrier that’s in the manual most all the time. You can find something cheaper. My carrier is cheaper too in Chicago, and I stood there without a booth for several days. A lot of those are controlled by unions and so they have a preferred carrier. But you can set up an account with them and they are generally aligned price-wise. So I would certainly recommend that. Also, set up your booth immediately when you get there. You can always take a break later. A lot is common sense but things like travelling – I did several shows in Las Vegas, sometimes the cab line for the airport is very lengthy. If you stayed at the hotel or called the hotel before, you can find out sometimes they have a courtesy car. In the manual they’ll have transportation tips but a lot of times I call the hotel. Sometimes you can recognize the people from the show before and actually get into a limo and get there and share the cost and reach cheaper than the taxi. So I mean there’s a lot to learn just in travel before you even get to the trade show hall.

(Slide 50)

Pat: We have a couple of questions here. “Is there more exhibit etiquette?” A couple of points that we haven’t talked about – we talked about

don’t sit down, always be up and ready… Gary: One of the things is you certainly don’t want to engage other

exhibitors when they have people in front of their booth. Typically most of these are conferences and during these conferences they go in classes and that’s a good time to talk to other exhibitors.


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Pat: Another etiquette point is don’t knock the competition or speak negatively. Don’t complain about the traffic, the booth, the location, the weather, or the promoter of the event.

Gary: Yeah' I agree, that’s a very good point. Pat: Come prepared, wear your name badge on your right shoulder

because you’ll be shaking people’s right hands. I think those are the key points.

Gary: Also, we touched on it but all the questions are going to be the same

and all the problems that they’re going to bring up are generally the same as well. So have a good answer for them. Don’t hesitate. Go right into it when they say “Well how come…you know I don’t want that…” and in my instance, “Clipeze - that was going to put a hole into your garment.” Well, I knew that question was coming and it’s going to be asked a thousand times. So I worked a thing that just effortlessly was able to answer. Everybody needs to do that.

The elevator speech - you need to get it right up. You need to not

worry about being rejected. When somebody walks by the booth say, “Good morning, good afternoon, are you familiar with our services?” and just draw them right in. You’re going to get some who are going to look at you like you have the plague and keep walking, but you just have to turn around and say,. “Oh well, that’s the way it goes.” But you have to jump in there and approach every single person.

Pat: Another question: “What do you specifically do for follow up?” It ranges, depending upon whether it’s an individual who has a

specific need, in our case a specific case, that the attorney is looking for help with. Or if we have a mailing list of everybody who attended, we will include them in our next mailing of our newsletter and only use their name once; those are the rules.

Gary: If you have goals set up like we had talked about, the first thing you

need to do is anything that you said you’re going to do. That’s why I always keep a yellow pad and a pen and jot down the name and a lot of times I staple a special card right to that note.


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If you tell somebody that you’re going to call them next week or you tell somebody you’re going to send them something next week, then next week do it. That’s the number one thing as far as follow up goes. But it’s certainly appropriate to send a nice handwritten, “It was great for you to stop by my booth” and that type of thing. The list you can only use one time, but the people who gave you their card, you own that contact.

We actually went so far, depending on how large the show is and how

small and how targeted, that we’ve actually set up a campaign. The first letter was “Thanks for coming by our booth blah, blah, blah”. The second letter was “You came by our booth and we hadn’t heard from you” and all that, and by the time the fifth or sixth letter, every time it got a little bit stronger until finally, the last letter is “We don’t understand it…you were supposed to do business…” and it dropped off.

You can actually set that campaign up before the show. You can type

out those letters and then you can have them scheduled and then you’d be able to just get address labels or however you want to enter those into an Excel spreadsheet maybe and run them off.

You can do letter number one on a calendar or if you have the

software, you can automatically print number one, two on each letter on down the line. That’s the maximum, that’s the best way to convert. You don’t always have the time and resources to do that.

Pat: Another question: “Do you wear scrubs which make you look more

healthcare focused vs. legal nurse and business focused?” I always wear a business suite, usually a pant suit or a suit with a skirt.

I have never exhibited in scrubs. I think it would probably, at least in my mind, wouldn’t look appropriate.

Gary: What we did was, it mattered where we were at. If you’re in New

York or Chicago, you need to wear a business suit. If you’re in Hawaii or in Miami, the attorneys are going to come in with flowered shirts and stuff on, it’s a little bit different; you probably can get away with scrubs.


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If you do have scrubs, you certainly need to have the monogrammed with the logo of your company. We actually had Docker pants with a long-sleeved dress shirt monogrammed with our company logo over the pocket. So when you go for lunch and you’re on your way to and from the hotel, people see the company and “Oh, I saw you, did you drop by my booth…” You won’t believe how much business I’ve done on shuttle cars back and forth. So a lot of it depends on the location and how formal they are.

Pat: That’s a good point. Thank you for that. I appreciate everybody’s attention. I am reminding you that the

evaluation is immediately as soon as we terminate the program or you can take the evaluation form that was at the end of the slides.

The transcripts for the first two sessions - those two transcripts are

loaded - the replays are loaded in the members’ area. Next week Caryn Kopp is joining us. She has her MBA and her focus has been on helping people get their foot in the door with their prospects by making cold calls, warm calls or referral calls. She is a very astute business woman who has made her clients extremely financially successful and I’m delighted that she’s going to be sharing her expertise with us.

I mentioned last week that Ellen Richter has decided to give us the

benefit of her experience using Twitter to market. This is a seventh optional session of the marketing course. We will be marketing that as a program by itself and there will be an additional cost for that. However we are offering that program to everyone else for $47, which is our usual webinar cost, but we’ll offer it to people of this group for half of that rate or $23.50 and that information is going to be posted shortly.

Gary, I appreciate your time. I’ve given Gary’s phone number and

email address on this slide in case you have any questions that he can answer or anything that was not covered that you’re curious about tonight or comes up in the future. Please feel free to email me and we appreciate everybody’s attention tonight.

Gary: I enjoyed being here, thank you.


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Pat: Alright, thank you.

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