Here’s an easy example: Try a magic trick at a trade show for a small group of adults. If it’s the right trick with some sort of natural segue to your product or technology, it may very well be a helpful mechanism to drive further discussion. But try that same magic trick for the kids, and woah! Now we’re on to something! Before you know it the kids are out of their minds with excitement. Next thing you know, you’re performing for a captive audience of 40—kids and adults—who have gathered around. It’s a simple mantra: Once you have the kids, you have the parents. And once you have the parents, you have everyone.

It’s the fundamental difference between trying to get the rapt attention of a businessperson fast-walking down the aisle staring at their Blackberry and getting the attention of a wide-eyed youngster in a stroller who can’t believe you just pulled ten thumb drives out of your left ear.

There’s a Child in Us All

Unless you’re in a specialized niche, the vast majority of your trade shows will likely NOT be kid-friendly. In those instances, they key is to find that inner child in the adults surrounding you. Your booth presence needs to feel kinetic— movement, sound, bright, visually appealing colors and a centerpiece that deserves and demands attention.  And yes, that could even be a professional trade show presenter.

It’s going to take a lot to stop that Blackberry power-walker in their tracks. But we can all be distracted. Think of all those YouTube videos with a gazillion views. You think all those views happened after work hours and on weekends? No, my friend. Someone who was working productively got an email and got distracted. And then that person stayed because the content was compelling. A trade show booth has strong similarities. When looking for the inner child in adult trade show attendees, think Walt Disney. Think about not just creating a booth, but creating an attraction! What is the thing that will make the little kid in you put your hand on the stroller and say, “Daddy! Stop here!” When you’ve found that, you’ve found the heart of your trade show presence.

P.S.: When my son was in a stroller, he never ONCE asked me to take him to “PowerPoint World.”

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.

6. Build trust: The relationship between a potential customer and a booth staffer revolves around trust. If you do nothing else during your five-minute conversation, just simply create a rapport with the attendee. No one is going to actually make the decision to “buy” while in the booth; it’s going to be a multi-step process. All you’re really doing is initiating that process and building trust. So, what two traits earn trust? Warmth and strength.

7a. Exude warmth: It’s essential that booth staffers understand that on the trade show floor, warmth always comes first. You must give the attendee ample reason to think that this conversation (and potentially working with this company) “is going to be a good experience.” That’s accomplished through humor and empathy and showing genuine interest. Help that person to feel relaxed and open up. Once you’ve established that you’ll have a fun experience together, you can move to the next natural question: Are you the right company for the job?

7b. Show strength: Once you’ve established rapport, the attendee is going to need to figure out if you know your stuff and if you can handle his or her needs. At this early stage in the process, it’s more about building confidence and having the command of language necessary to articulate all the amazing, life-altering ways this product or technology can improve that person’s life. Deliver answers to the customer’s questions with confidence. Stand confidently. Dress confidently. Again, it’s about the benefits for the customer; not the technology itself. When a staffer leads with warmth and follows with strength, it primes the customer to move to the next logical step in the acquisition process.

8. During training, ask for a volunteer: When it’s time to role-play, Rather than waiting for a reluctant volunteer to raise their hand, ask for the senior-most employee in your pre-show staff training to come up to the front and participate. Everyone else will want to see how the person in charge does it, and you’ll instantly have a rapt audience. And the person can’t say “no” and expect everyone else to participate. If you happen to get an upper-level executive on stage, you’ll have a riveting few minutes of training that staffers will remember and discuss long afterward. There’s very little you can do as a presenter or trainer that’s as interesting to staffers as watching one of their own in action.

9. Practice an exit strategy: When following the previous eight steps across these two blog posts, oftentimes the results of interactions with attendees will be dramatically different. In fact, it’s not uncommon to engage someone in your booth and then not be able to get rid of that person! Sometimes they get so comfortable and feel so cared for that they don’t want to stop talking and don’t want to leave. That’s nice and all, but as a booth staffer the time will come when you need to move on.

The key is for the staffer to engage in a directed discussion with a purpose, a goal and a rough time limit. It’s about efficiency of conversation without being curt. You simply can’t allow one conversation to go on for 20 minutes. So what do you do when that customer wants to tell you all about his last fishing trip? Ask wrap-up questions that would naturally flow into the end of a conversation: I’ve told you a lot, where are you with all of this? … Do you have any concerns at this point that I can alleviate? … Listen, I’d love to talk to you more in another forum when not on the floor. Do you have an hour next week to chat with me? Thanks so much for your time. Without an exit strategy, success can be a dangerous trade-show curse.

10. Pull new people into the conversation: When a 1-to-1 interaction is going well, oftentimes two or three others will begin to hover and listen in. Those hovering people attract more people who notice the crowd forming, and so on. The key is to pull those on the “outside” into the conversation where they feel a part of the interaction. That one moment of “I see you and I’ll be right with you” could literally be the difference between a million-dollar sale and someone walking away. People want to feel noticed and feel in control of the situation. When they’re ignored, they don’t feel in control.

Ideally, staffers should be mic’d so that attendees aren’t straining to hear. But more importantly, why repeat the same thing to five or 10 different people when you can tell them all at the same time! It’s about efficiency and conservation of voice and effort … and you might as well get 10 leads out of a single conversation.

This is all just logical stuff. Staffers know this from real life and regular human interaction. It’s just about bringing it onto the trade show floor. If you can do just a little bit more than the next guy in the booth one over—if you can just make a little more effort—you’ll really stand out. Then, your company stands out, too.

“Make sure the human beings you put in your booth who will speak on your behalf and represent your company with potential multimillion dollar accounts know what they’re doing, know the environment and are willing and eager to do their job well. If you do that, you could have an empty booth with nothing else in it but the carpeting, and you will sell.” —Andy Saks, Spark Presentations

Sound familiar?

Yes, Sundance is all about promoting and selling movies, but it’s also a microcosm for many of the things we regularly discuss on this trade show blog. This past month, I had the pleasure of attending Sundance along with director/writer Dan Pavlik, and a condo-full of fellow cast and crew members.  We were there to promote our film, “Nominated.”

No, this post isn’t about boosting awareness for the movie; it’s about the adventure we had there … and how it relates to trade show success anywhere.  (But, if you really want to see our movie, we’re not about to stop you.)

Let me start by admitting something:  We weren’t invited. That’s right. Our film didn’t actually make it into Sundance.  But we showed up anyway.  We didn’t go to Park City, Utah, to “sell” our movie. We went there to enjoy ourselves—to have as much fun as we could squeeze into seven days. And, oh yes, to make a few contacts.

That was the best decision we could have made. And a big reason we were so successful.

Let me ask you something: Do you go to a cocktail party and immediately start handing out business cards to anyone with a pulse?  Do you get on Twitter and immediately start hawking your “How to Get Five Million Followers Fast” webinar?

Not if you’re smart, you don’t.

You also don’t stand at the corner of your trade show booth, run up to every attendee you see and scream, “Get in here and BUY MY STUFF!”

In the same vein, you don’t go to Sundance and try to force your DVD down producers’ throats or project your film on a snow bank. Yes it’s been done, and generally, it won’t get you any love.

But what you CAN do is be the life of the party and create such a fun and memorable scene for everyone around you that they flock to your side and eventually ask—on their own—“What brings you here?” That’s what we all did … and did … and did. We used trade show tricks and magic. We used humor and intrigue. We even used Rock Band. And when the festival ended, those producers had our DVDs and business cards. Those celebrities were wearing our buttons. Those attendees knew our film’s name and assumed we had a featured spot in the festival. It was a rousing success—all because we figured out a way to make people come to us.

I’m going to let Dan tell you the story in his own words (complete with a little name-dropping) on this blog later in the week. In the meantime, think about other social situations you’ve been in that might provide a good lesson on “how to behave” at trade shows.

—Ken Newman

Twitter streams are overflowing with loud, unsolicited advertisements for all sorts of random stuff. And while I won’t begrudge someone for attempting to raise awareness about their e-book, that approach really misses the point.

What business people and trade show exhibitors don’t typically realize with Twitter is the potential for connection. Sure, it’s not the same as engaging someone face-to-face, but when are you going to be face-to-face with Demi Moore (@mrskutcher) or the CEO of Zappos (@Zappos) or the Chief Technology Officer at Cisco (@Padmasree). Even with a “connection” to Cisco, Padmasree Warrior wouldn’t take my call or respond to my e-mail. But Demi and Tony and Padmasree are actively involved in the Twitter community and responding to tweets—especially if they’re clever or funny or helpful.

This is the equivalent of getting invited to “that party” and having a chance to start a dialogue and charm influential people with your personality. More to that point, you wouldn’t walk into that VIP party and immediately say, “Here’s what I’m selling!”  They’d shun you instantly (if you didn’t get kicked out altogether). But through a genuine conversation, talk might turn to what you do, and that person or the company that person represents might very well recognize a need for your services.

Twitter “conversations” are just as relaxed. It’s fun and often silly, but you can get work done within this budding medium. It’s just important to remember that Twitter is inherently a social model, not a business one. The business comes later … just like in real life.

This holds true for the flipside of the equation, too. Recently, Zappos posted the following tweet:

http://twitpic.com/f4pqp – Coolest. Toilet Seat Cover. Ever. (Never thought I’d use those words together)”

The other day there was a message about cool outfits Zappos employees made out of duct tape. (http://bit.ly/4P3h) And while Tony Hsieh just seems like a genuinely cool guy to hang out with, what’s subtly happening is he’s building brand loyalty. After months of connecting with Tony, how much more likely will you be to log on for that next pair of shoes or stop by if you were to see a Zappos booth at a trade show?

That’s because if you were at a trade show and you knew that a close friend of yours had a booth, you would stop by. You wouldn’t just go to the trade show and blow off a friend. A regular common experience with another Twitter feed will foster that sense of fellowship—even if it’s a big corporation. That’s powerful stuff. Certainly much more powerful than 140 characters overtly trying to sell me something.

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.

Great question, Emily. A lot of booth staffers simply fail to apply fundamental rules of human behavior at trade shows. Two or three staffers will just stand around in a cluster talking to each other. That’s basically saying to a tradeshow attendee, “Don’t bother us; we’re busy.” Then, if an attendee actually gets close enough, the booth staffer says, “Do you have any questions?”

You wouldn’t engage a friend that way.

You would first make a comment relevant to the both of you. You know, make some conversation: “Did you watch the inauguration?” was a natural question I was asked in January. Or how about something simple like, “Are you staying at a hotel nearby?”… “Did you walk over?”… “Isn’t this weather amazing?” It doesn’t really matter so long as it feels human. Booth staff should first be in the business of finding a way into the middle of a conversation.

The best stories are the ones that start in the middle and circle their way back to the beginning, anyway. When you do that successfully at a trade show, you get the attendee “into the mix.”

Most booth staffers just don’t get that. The main problem is a lot of people who show up at trade shows to man booths don’t have the necessary skill sets. That’s why Magnet Productions ends up doing so much consulting and booth staff training. These folks need to understand appropriate and fruitful ways of approaching attendees.

When conducting a training session, I sometimes just give the booth staffers a simple exercise. I say, “All you do is read their badge.” That’s it. I tell them to walk up to an attendee, flip their badge over, if necessary, and just say, “I see that you’re with [insert company name]. What do you do for them?”

People will answer that question. They’re not going to say, “None of your business.” But if you ask them a question for which there’s a “no” response, (such as “Can I help you?”), there will be a “no” response. It’s just simple sales technique.

It also works because people love to talk about themselves. It gets the trade show attendee engaged. It’s about making contact and asking the types of questions that get desired results. And it’s essential that your booth staffers “get that.”

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.