TRADE SHOWS PART 5

As I mentioned earlier, we are participating in several buyer shows this year, all of them in different markets—gift, home & housewares, hardware/housewares, and pets.

Our first ever buyer show, the Seattle Gift Show, ended on February 5. All in all, it was a good experience for us, although not in instant sales. Be forewarned: our industry mentors have informed us that the buyer shows are not for orders, but for contacts. So, go into them with the mindset of making as many contacts of various kinds as you can, rather than racking up as many orders as you can.

But, you say, these shows cost lots of money! If I don’t get a monetary return, what good is doing the show? That is a question everyone will have to answer for themselves. For us, the Seattle Gift Show was rather quiet. Too quiet for my taste, actually, but Mr. Sales and Marketing was satisfied. We gained the following: 1) possibly a new manufacturer who will bring our necessary up-front costs way down and allow us a great deal more flexibility in our overseas manufacturing, 2) exposure exposure exposure; and 3) face time with press people who stopped by and were only too willing to hand over their cards. This will all pay off in the long run, as other earlier efforts seem to be paying off for us this winter.

All of our show expenditures get charged to our advertising expenses, because in reality that’s what they are—a face-to-face advertising/networking opportunity (notice that two out of three mentioned in the previous paragraph are all about advertising). We have found word of mouth and face to face to be our most effective and certainly cheapest forms of advertising in the long run, and this is just one more networking avenue. What is nice about these shows is that you can choose your target audience, so you might think of the cost as the price to pay for accessing your most desirable demographic if your model is about business to business sales.

I will blog more about the specifics of our booth, moving in, moving out, and what we do to bring down the costs of transportation, food and lodging for these shows at the end of March when I have pics to post as visual aids. We can’t do these shows without the help of family and friends, so if you are hesitant to ask for help, now is the time to get over it.

Our next show is the International Home and Housewares Show in Chicago March 16-18. This is the global home and housewares event of the year, and so we expect the show to be huge and hectic. Wish us luck! I will bring back all the details, as well as start talking about show specifics.