TRADE SHOWS PART 14 - MOVING IN AND OUT THE FREEMAN WAY

The buyer shows add another layer of complexity to the trade show experience. It is called Freeman. Freeman is a company that contracts with the company actually organizing the show. Freeman corners the market for handling the freight, booth building, electrical, video and other services for trade show exhibitors at shows across the country. They utilize union labor for all of their activities, which works well for Stanley Tools, not so well for startup entrepreneurs. I have no problem with unions and one of our products, the Bin Buddie, is and will always be made with American labor.

Chicago

We had to ship our booth to Chicago. As mentioned in an earlier posting, it was quite easy! We packed our boxes, called Freeman, the Roadway truck came and loaded the boxes, and the next time we saw them was at our booth space in Chicago. Our boxes were taken away and stored for us during the show, then returned to for repacking. We repacked them, left them at the booth, and about a week later, they were delivered back to our doorstep in Seattle. It cost us $1000 for this. We have researched a cheaper way to do this, and it’s not the shipper that’s the problem—they were about $200-$400 of the bill. The other $$400-$800 was what Freeman charged to unload the boxes at the loading dock, take them to our booth, store our boxes, and then get them back on the truck after we had repacked them. In reality, we paid $400-$800 for what amounted to maybe an hour’s worth of work for a couple of guys, since our stuff was in six very manageable boxes weighing a total of 300lbs. Not a lot of stuff. At this rate, someone is making a ridiculous amount of money.

Las Vegas

Freeman bled us dry in Chicago, so we had no more money to feed them in Las Vegas. The man on the other end of the phone was nice, but he had trouble understanding the concept of PacEasy being a startup and not being able to pay $400-$800 for loading and unloading 300 pounds twice in the span of six weeks.

Freeman indicates that you can indeed haul your own stuff in and out at these shows, and herein lies the tale. You show up at the loading dock, but you can’t haul your own stuff in from there. Because the loading areas are controlled by union labor, you can only watch helplessly as they unload your stuff, put it on a cart and take it to your booth for you as you walk beside the cart. We had one cart load of stuff and the bill for the 15-minute load and walk job would have been approximately $300.

Alternatively, we were able to move in through the front doors. So, were able to park and move in just fine with our handtruck (which handtruck we had been told we could use) no problem. It was a longer walk, but that $300 we saved was the price of our hotel, so for us it was a no-brainer. We got our stuff in, got set up and had a very successful show.

Our decision not to utilize Freeman's services was confirmed when, on my trips to the booth, I kept passing a Teamster member and Freeman contractor napping on a roll of carpet. This might have been fine, except that this guy was on the clock, and the people standing in the nearest booth did not seem too happy that he was napping on their dime. Apparently and through no fault of their own (a Freeman problem, they explained), their boxes had not arrived at the booth. Mr. Teamster, apparently having nothing else to do, decided to nap until the goods arrived on the scene. His nap lasted 45 minutes. There was a great deal of activity occurring all over the place, so I find it hard to believe that there was nothing else for this man to do other than to take a nap on this exhibitor’s dime.

Moving out, was pretty much the same. We had our handtruck, a smaller cart, and as Thomas broke things down and packed boxes, I wheeled them out. For an hour we did this. On my last trip into the building, a young man began shouting across the lobby, then whistling. No one could figure out what was going on. Apparently, my handtruck was not “allowed” in the building. I found it rather odd that, after using it to move in and move most of my goods out, it would suddenly be a problem. In addition, many other exhibitors were doing the same thing. I checked with one of them and he indicated that he does this for most of his shows and this was the first time there had been a problem.

Apparently, we were all supposed to utilize the cart service. You know, the one that previously quoted me $300 for 15 minutes of labor. Additionally, the people running the cart service were to decide when we would be able to utilize the service, which could have been the next day if they felt like it. Remembering the napping Teamster, I informed the young man that I did not have $300, unleashed a verbal torrent of logical argument at him, and then turned and walked away, leaving him stunned and speechless. Gee, was it the logical part?

Freeman does have a rather vague definition of handtruck it uses to attempt to force you to pay $300 or more for 15 minutes of cart service, but since we had been approved on the way in, and we had loaded in and almost completely loaded out, I could not see what this person’s problem was. If he was concerned about a safety issue, one guy was using an electric cart with a plywood platform tied to the back of it with what looked to be a shoelace. The man would put the cart into high gear, and the platform would swing wildly from side to side, smacking aside anything in its path. No Teamster in sight showed the slightest interest in this man.

Overall, our best advice to startup entrepreneurs would be to keep your dealings with Freeman to a bare minimum and watch every fee they want to throw at you. Do as much as you can do yourself, and if you do have to utilize Freeman/, have someone at the booth at all times supervising to make sure you are not paying for nap time.

TRADE SHOWS PART 13 - MOVING IN AND OUT ("PUBLIC" SHOWS)

Moving in and out of shows is like taking a temp job and being faced with an unfamiliar copy machine. It’s supposed to be familiar and pretty easy to operate, but you know it’s the little things that will make it seem like a mountain instead of a molehill.

This blog is about the little things in a startup entrepreneur’s life, and when I polled a few, they all agreed that the move-in and move-out tasks were a great deal more stressful than they realized.

For shows open to the public, they have been pretty easy. You go, you park, you unload. On the last day, you go, you park, and at the end of the day, you load. However, here are some suggestions for making things easier on you, especially if it is your first time:

Moving In

1. Before you even go, find out exactly where you are supposed to go to “load in”, or move into your booth. It can be outside, inside, on a loading dock, at a certain door, etc. Once I get my show information, I review a diagram of the facility where the show is to be held and the directions given me. I look for the traffic patterns, where the doors are, where the loading dock is, and where my booth is in relation to all of this. If the directions in the materials are not clear, I call or email and ask for clarification. I need to do much less asking now, but at first it was a common occurrence.

3. Plan to arrive and move in as early as possible. It gets nuts as the day goes on. Often, if I can get there right when move-in opens, I can be in and out before things get out of hand.

3. If you have kids, make arrangements for care ahead of time. This is no place for kids , and most shows prohibit anyone under 16 during move-in and move-out times. Sharp objects, exposed electrical equipment with lots of voltage, forklifts and other heavy equipment, and stacks of heavy, teetering boxes are everywhere.

2. Give yourself lots of time. Don’t plan any other activities for the move-in day. Just plan to move in and nothing else. I speak from experience (the Fed Ex guy is nice, but can’t hold the truck because I got held up trying to move in).

2. Find out how much it will cost you to park to move in, and what the details are. Do you need to pay for parking before you can get onto the loading dock or into the parking lot closest to the door you need to use? In most cases, parking is free for moving in. Some places have a time limit—only the first hour or two is free, and then you pay. Knowing ahead of time will help you strategize. Qwest Field in Seattle has a bizarre rule. If you move in the morning of the show, you have to first pay to park in the garage, then leave the garage and go to the loading dock to unload. However, you cannot buy a one-day pass and go do this; you have to buy a three-day pass. These people are obviously too used to dealing with pro football players if they don’t think people can see through this scam.

3. What are the parking arrangements? You can buy a pass for the duration of the show or pay by the day. The pass allows in-out privileges, the daily tickets don’t. Assess your needs, alternate travel and parking arrangements, and buy accordingly. Often, you cannot buy a multi-day pass once the show has started, so if you need a pass, get it when you move in. If you are staying in an RV, public shows often have special RV parking rates for overnighters.

4. Before unloading, find the show desk, check in, get any questions answered and problems solved, locate your booth space and the best route to take to get your stuff to it, and only then unload your stuff and move it to your booth. It will save you all kinds of stress and make loading in faster and easier. Your goods are safe in your vehicle until you are ready to deal with them no one has to stand around with a load of stuff while you check in and find your booth space.

5. A note about cart services. In some places carts are provided free of charge. In other facilities, you pay ($35 or so for half an hour) for cart rental. In many cases, the half hour cart rental includes getting back to your booth with your cart and then getting it back to the rental place. If you are a ten-minute walk away, you can see the problem. We suggest investing in a good handtruck/dolly/cart thing that can fit into your vehicle, and/or a folding, heavy-duty “luggage” cart. This goes back to a previous blog entry regarding booth design and portability.

4. Be courteous. People are tired and running on caffeine and adrenaline, and there is a great deal of activity occurring. I try to be conscious of others as I wheel my way through the maze. Introduce yourself to your booth neighbors when you get the chance. Offer to assist during setup if you see someone in need. Good vibes go a long way.

Moving Out

Moving out is much the same as moving in, only it happens much quicker. Some shows only give you eight to 10 hours to move out; others you can also do things the following day. On the final day of the show, I park strategically in the morning (arrive earlier and park as close as possible and in a place that allows the truck to be easily loaded. When the show ends, I can break down my booth and, using my nifty cart/handtruck, I can simply haul my stuff to the truck in the parking area. I may have to haul my stuff farther, but I get some exercise and get out of there a lot sooner and with a great deal less hassle than if I had attempted to utilize the load-out area provided.

If the show is local and I can come back the next day, I do so. I break down the booth and pack up everything, leave it at my space and leave the mayhem behind, go to the Bamboo Bar and Grill for some relaxation and recap with friends and family, then come back the next morning when there is no traffic or mayhem. I can often drive right to my booth space (even in a convention center or stadium), pack up the truck on the spot, and head out. With gas prices the way they are, though, I may have to rethink this strategy.

TRADE SHOWS PART 12 - VEGAS RECAP

The National Hardware Show in Vegas turned out to be a great show for us, even better than the International Home and Housewares Show in Chicago. We thought the opposite would be true.

In Chicago, one-third of the booth traffic was buyers and the other two-thirds was a mix of reps, industry professionals, and social groups and individuals just out of the house for the day. In Vegas, two-thirds of the booth traffic was buyers, and the other one-third was reps, industry professionals, and only a sprinkling of individuals just browsing. Now that we know, we are less inclined to go to Chicago next year and put more effort into our Vegas booth.

Additionally, the conversations we had in Vegas were quite relevant and convinced us make some major changes in our product manufacturing and marketing strategies, which will help our growth tremendously in the long run. We did not get the same kind of feedback in Chicago.

It may have helped that we changed our booth design for the Vegas show, but it seemed to be more than that. It seemed to be the focus of the event organizers on buying versus browsing. It cost attendees $100 to get into the show, no one under 18 was admitted (no moms and babies out for the day), there were some serious efforts to promote networking among show participants, and overall, it was just a more professional and productive experience.

We will definitely be going back to Vegas, we don’t know yet about Chicago.

TRADE SHOWS PART 11 - ADVERTISING

When you sign up for a trade show, you will be inundated with faxes and emails wanting you to spend money on various forms of advertising before, during and after the show. These include sponsored emails, video clips, ads in trade show publications, spots on various websites, electronic panel displays, new product showcase, etc. All in all, a dizzying array of possibilities for the show organizers to make more money off of you.

Enough already! Hang onto your hard-earned, limited dollars. Thomas, Mr. Sales and Marketing, has spent a great deal of time reviewing this information and testing out a couple of these ploys with our products, and he has concluded that the only one on which he would spend money again is an ad in the show’s publication that is handed out during the show. It’s a big, glossy magazine that mostly contains ads and articles about new products. Everyone picks one up and at least passively leafs through it, so this publication has the potential top present your product to a pretty wide audience.

I must add a caveat here. We did buy space in a “new product showcase” at our target show, the International Home and Housewares Show, and it may indeed be the one thing that gets us into Real Simple Magazine. It was where they discovered our products, rather than seeing our booth. As with most things in life, rules are better thought of as guidelines.

My personal experience tells me to avoid anything video. These shows resemble an ant farm, and my observation is that no one stands still long enough to actually pay attention to anything video.

I would also stay away from anything to do with broadcast emails to show attendees. Organizers put out so many emails prior to the show that I am sure no one has the time to read them. I end up deleting most of them without opening them.

I have a similar opinion of website advertising. Once I download the manual and get the information I need, I only rarely visit the show’s website again because I simply don’t need to. The site may get lots of hits, but your ad won’t necessarily get noticed.

I received a call the other day from a woman wanting us to spend another $300 putting our fliers in a display rack for buyers to take and to drive traffic to our booth. Since our limited experience points to the fact that buyers do not really utilize this information, we opted out.

We have learned that most buyers spend one day at the show, they know what they are looking for, and they don’t spend a lot of time perusing pieces of information first. They hit the show floor running, booth after booth, dismissing in a millisecond all that is not in their product category, and move on. What’s probably going to catch their attention the most is good, catchy, booth design that allows them to quickly scan and understand your wares and make a decision about your company’s products and ability to deliver the quantities they need.

TRADE SHOWS PART 10 - CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP!

We are on our way to Vegas for the National Hardware Show. We have no money despite how well we are doing, so we are going on the cheap. I can’t say that our cheap fixes will work for you, but perhaps we can give you some ideas that you can modify to suit your needs:

1. You can’t always find a show in a town where you have friends or relatives to stay with, but if you can, crash their pads. These people want you to be successful, and they feel invested in the process of getting you there when they can help out by providing a place to stay for the show or stop overnight on your way there.

1a. If you belong to a timeshare, stay there if you can! Also, many of these companies offer discounted airline tickets or other perks that can be used to ease the financial burden of travel.

2. Our friends and family, those who fly often and who have amassed airline miles they cannot use, have been very generous with them when we have needed them. We have had to buy four airline tickets since January, and all of them have been obtained with donated miles. Also, if you have a companion fare or a voucher, now is a good time to use them.

3. Spend some time calculating whether it would be cheaper to fly, drive, or get there by some other means. With airline tickets obtained using donated miles, it was definitely cheaper to fly from Seattle to Chicago and pay the $1000 it cost to ship our booth there and back rather than drive our truck across country for several days, paying for food, gas, and lodging along the way.

4. Some businesses have minimized their booth design such that they can get everything to a show via checked baggage and mailing a few extra boxes to the place they are staying. Most hotels and motels will accept your packages if you are a paying guest and they know ahead of time the boxes are coming.

5. Although we could not financially justify buying a ready-made booth backdrop, they can potentially save you a lot of money if 1) exhibit at shows frequently, and 2) the rest of your display can be boxed and shipped. New, they cost about $2500 apiece. However, they fold into their own shipping container and can be carried as checked luggage or shipped via UPS or Fed Ex. This gives you more flexibility in your shipping options which can lead to substantial savings, making the backdrop pay for itself over time.

6. The reservation services the show provides don’t usually have the best travel and lodging deals. You can get better deals searching on your own online for travel deals and budget hotels near the show location. For our Vegas show the cheapest room through the booking service was about $120 per night. I found us the Villa Roma Inn, which received uniformly great reviews on TripAdvisor. We have wi-fi, a pool and patio area, we are off the Strip, and we are easy walking distance to both the Strip and the convention center. We are sharing a room with two double beds, and our five-night stay is less than $300 for the two of us.

7. If you can, bring food, water, drinks, etc. on show days. Convention centers have uniformly mediocre food at best that is way overpriced. You and your pocketbook will be much happier with your own food and drinks.

That’s all I have for now. As always, sharing is good—keep the comments coming.

TRADE SHOWS PART NINE - OUR RETAIL BOOTH

I handle all of our retail activities, and our retail booth gets used frequently. I participate in the Fremont Sunday Market (a weekly flea/entrepreneurial market in Seattle), a few street fairs, and occasional specialty events such as pet fundraisers. I got married a couple of years ago, and my loving husband got me a good, used Toyota pickup in lieu of a ring! I am the kind of woman who appreciates this kind of thing. He followed it up with a canopy for my birthday. I can haul everything I need, including stock, in my truck now.

As you can see, the the booth can be set up either indoors or out. I discussed signs in the previous posting. The table and chairs are mom's cardtable hand-me-downs. The shelving is plastic, two four-tier units, one for each side of the booth, and I put two-tiered sections end to end. Each four-tier unit cost $20 at Lowe's. This shelving goes together and comes apart easily. The signs for our "strip" products are hanging on gridwall, two pieces of 2x6' gridwall each side of the booth. I got the gridwall for about $8 per piece off of craigslist. It is also available at any fixture supply store. We also have hooks and shelves for the gridwall, which were surprisingly inexpensive. Be sure to check out craigslist for used supplies.

I like to think really cheap for this type of booth, and I love seeing what solutions others come up with. Think old folding tables, kiddie tables, stacks of cardboard boxes, and plastic bins covered in tablecloths or fabric remnants for display surfaces. Old suitcases or trunk look great as display pieces, and you can transport your stuff in them.

I mentioned briefly fire retardant materials. Be aware that for indoor shows, you will need fire reisistant display items in your booth. You can use fire retardant fabrics, or treat flammable display items with fire retardant spray (anything wood, bamboo, or straw, especially) The spray is about $20 per quart spray bottle or about $45 per gallon. You can get the spray at a costume and display store or a theatrical supply store. The paperwork you receive makes the fire thing sound ominous and fraught with danger, but we have yet to encounter a problem. Regardless, it is good to be aware of the regulations and follow them as closely as possible.

You will need a 10x10 canopy if you do outdoor events, If you spend money anywhere, spend it on the canopy and sidewalls, essential where rain showers or blazing sun are an issue. My favorite canopy company is KD Kanopy. John provides gold-plated customer service, and their products are quality through and through. They are also rather pricey. You can use a backyard canopy, even, if you have one. Once again, be sure to check out craigslist for used canopies. I own a pedestrian Quikshade and sidewalls. My canopy cost me about $140 new at a local sporting goods store and the sidewalls I bought online, $130 total for three.

You will need weights for your canopy (20 lbs per leg), which can be made of just about anything--buckets of sand, cylinders of sand or cement, barbell weights, anything else you can find that is cheap or free, and sufficient bungee cords to tie them to the legs or frame. You can also buy weights that are made for the canopy.

I don't think I have anything more to add at this point. Again, keep the comments coming!

TRADE SHOWS PART 8 – OUR BOOTH DESIGN

I want to remind you of the four elements from a previous blog:

1. The clutter factor.

2. The color factor.

3. The labor factor.

4. The cost factor.

I want to start by discussing what you get when you plunk your money down for a booth. We are participating in three buyer shows (nonpublic) this year, and all of them have different booth configurations. It’s maddening. If you sign up for a buyer’s show, pay close attention to the exhibitor manual to determine what the booth configuration requirements are.

By configuration, I mean kind of booth space is provided for you. For our three buyer shows this year, we are encountering three different configurations (a different one for each show!):

1. A spot on the floor. Nothing else. You provide everything else, including a solid back wall (no pipe/drape allowed). (Our Chicago show)

2. A booth with eight-foot pipe/drape walls on three sides. You don’t get to pick the color. (Our Seattle show)

3. A booth with an eight-foot pipe/drape back and three-foot pipe/drape sidewalls on each side. Again, you don’t get to pick the color. You will often have height restrictions for your display with this type of booth as well. (Our Vegas show)

Our booth is tiny—either a 10x10 space or a 10x15 space. Between our retail show booth and our buyer show booth, we have built in an enormous amount of flexibility that allows us to handle just about any configuration easily without spending more money. All told, I think we have spent about $500 on our retail booth (including the canopy and side panels for outdoor events) over the past couple of years and closer to $1000 for our buyer show booth.

Below is a picture of our buyer show booth setup in a space 10 feet wide by 15 feet deep. In this entry, I will discuss this booth setup in detail, including the supplies used and where we purchased them.

When we arrived at our first ever buyer show, the booth was 8-foot high muslin drape on all three sides. Great if you have a black sign and your merchandise pops against muslin. Our signs are white. They disappeared into the muslin. Luckily, this show was in Seattle and I happened to have 45 yards of 210D urethane-coated nylon at home, and it was the right color to make the signs pop. This stuff is quite cheap wholesale from Top Value Fabrics (about $2 per yard). We set up our booth, took measurements, then went home and for the next five hours, sewed up 9’8” by 8’ high royal blue panels to cover the muslin. We put grommets in the top to be able to hang them from the pipe, and they hung great!

Our next show, the International Home and Housewares Show in Chicago, provided nothing but a spot on the floor. We ordered a metal frame from the Flourish Company (the frame for mesh panels) that cost $369 including shipping. This frame sets up with two people, breaks down completely, can be shipped or hauled in the truck easily, and allows us a great deal of flexibility because we can drape it with whatever we want. The bottom bar is adjustable, so it pulls the fabric taut. Because we needed a channel in the fabric to put it on the frame, we folded over the top of the aforementioned blue panels, then put a channel in the bottom, and voila! We could cover the frame with the same blue panels. If necessary, we can take out this stitching to again use it to cover muslin sides. The fabric panels fold and ship easily.

This panel idea is considered pipe and drape, and we received a violation notice for such (they do not allow pipe and drape of any kind). We did not understand the whole pipe and drape thing yet. By the end of show, however, we were informed that we could use the same configuration next year. Go figure.

This blue fabric is not flame retardant, which could be an issue at some shows.

Now to the pedestals. We priced pedestals, and ouch! Not in our budget. So, we made them. We ordered 12”x12”x40” cardboard boxes for $2.09 apiece from ULine. We bought fire-retardant fabric for $3.45 per yard from the local costume/display supply store (Display & Costume Supply) and made covers for the boxes. The different heights are achieved by cutting off the boxes at different lengths. We then fold the fabric up inside the box and tape it. They look great, and people always want to buy the covers from us. To create a smooth top, we put 12”x12” polystyrene plastic squares on the tops of the boxes under the fabric. These are not necessary, but they square things up nicely. You can get the plastic from a local plastic supplier like Tap Plastics and have them cut it for you. All told, the pedestals cost us $8.15 apiece. We placed empty packaging boxes on top of them. Our pedestals allow easy access to the booth and allow one to quickly scan our goods while keeping clutter to a minimum.

We design our own signs. We then email the files to U Printing in California. They are super cheap and very quick. We usually receive the finished banners back in about a week. I know everyone can’t do this. In that case, I would spend a little more and get some expert advice and service from a local sign shop. The signs were between $75 and $125 apiece, probably our most expensive item.

The fabric banners and tablecloth are from the local fabric store. One yard gives us three banners, so the banners and tablecloth fabric on sale cost us about $20.

We splurged on a new, smaller folding, shippable table, which cost us $22 at Costco. The chairs, small and lightweight, cost $17 apiece at our local variety store.

The flooring is 2”x2”, 3/8” thick foam squares that puzzle together. We paid $104 for 125 square feet through GetRung. You can buy thicker ones, but the thinner ones ship great, and with the carrying case, they can go as checked baggage on a plane. So, we like the thinner ones better. You can also buy carpet squares or rent carpet for your booth.

The other goodies are plastic sign holders and easels that we get at Best Fixtures International, our local fixture supply store. They probably cost us about $20 for what you see there.

Other than a few office supplies and informational fliers, that’s about it for us. I am sure I am forgetting something, but I hope this helps you. Happy planning!

TRADE SHOWS PART 7 – FROM THE BEGINNING

I noticed that I have been getting rather haphazard about the trade show information. My intent was to take you step by step through the process, not to bounce around here and there with our experiences. Once again, be aware that this information is all based on our experiences, and others may be different, more efficient, cheaper, etc. Additionally, keep those comments coming! Every comment goes a long way toward the collective education of clueless entrepreneurs everywhere. At least those who tune in to this blog.

I previously covered why we do trade shows of various kinds (doesn’t mean you should), how to find out about them and whether to sign up and lay down your dollars.

You’ve decided to go ahead and sign up for one, either a public or buyer show (not open to public). Now what?

1. Download the manual or any other available materials and read them! We have learned to do this before we do anything else. It may take some time after you sign up for the show for the manual to be available online or mailed to you, but make sure you read it the as soon as possible after it becomes available. It tells you how and by what date to order exhorbitantly expensive electricity, video, scantily-clad women to show off your wares for you, carpet, booth setups, and just about anything else you may need (we don’t rent anything). It provides shipping information, driving instructions, decorating instructions and requirements, booth configurations, and many other things. We immediately calendar any relevant dates. We also decide, based on the move-in and move-out schedules, what our travel arrangements will be.

For a local street fair or other public show, there will be no manual, but you will receive instructional materials. You just mainly need to know what times and days you can move in and move out and by what means.

After reviewing the manual, we call or email and get any questions we still have answered. We also calendar the booth assignment date. We call if we have not received notice by that date. It sometimes happens that the event company will take your money and forget to put you in the system.

2. Think about how you will get your booth equipment to the show. Will you drive and unload yourself, fly and ship, fly and bring your stuff as luggage, or some other combination? This ties into the design of your booth as well. If you plan to have an armoire in your booth, you most likely will have to ship it unless you live in the same city as the show.

You will be inundated with faxes and emails from shipping companies that want to give you a quote for shipping your goods to the show, even in you live in the same city as the show. If you plan to ship, go ahead and get a few quotes. The shipping setups are extremely easy—the truck comes to your house and picks up your boxes, moves them to the show site, and delivers them to your booth. All you do is get to the show, unpack, and set up. Empty boxes are then stored and returned to you after the show. You simply repack the boxes at your booth, leave them there and take off!

We are based in Seattle. We shipped our booth to a show in Chicago and the bill for 300 pounds (there and back) was $1,006. In a lengthy conversation with the truck driver, we discovered that it’s not the trucking company making the money; it’s the company putting on the show. The trucking company would have charged us about $200 for the whole thing. The rest was handling charges the event company charged once the goods got to the show site. It was hard spending the money, but it was actually cheaper for us to do it this way than driving to Chicago. Could we have hired our own trucking company? Ya, but the price would have been about the same because the financial hosing took place at the show site, not in the truck along the way and the trucking companies have no control over the handling charges.

Our next show is in Las Vegas in May, and we will be driving down and doing our own freight handling because it’s cheaper than flying and shipping our goods.

So, those are the first two steps we take. Concurrent with this is the booth design, which I will cover at length in the next few entries.

TRADE SHOWS PART 6—THINKING ABOUT YOUR BOOTH

Our booth for buyer shows is entirely different than what I normally look like at my weekly street market outings. I will post pics of both booths later on, when I actually have a picture of the “corporate” booth (we did not take one yet), and I will provide costs for all materials as well as sources for those materials, as well as why we chose what we did. Suffice it to say that for now, you want to consider some of the following when thinking about booth design:

1. The clutter factor. Make sure that people are not overwhelmed by the stuff in your booth and that they can move freely and quickly around it. Buyers know what they are looking for and it does not take them long to cruise the wares. Make sure that they can cruise yours quickly and efficiently—it leaves a good impression.

2. The color factor. Our mentor told us to add color color color! You don’t have to go overboard, but tasteful use of much color catches the eye of passersby quite well. If you are in the middle of an aisle, as we are the more eye catching you can do, the better. We made up royal blue sidewalls for our booth, which makes our signage and products pop!

3. The labor factor. Can you and at most one other person set up and break down your booth? The labor fees the show coordinators charge for booth setup and breakdown are outrageous! I would think of a booth design that can be transported in a canopied pickup or a rented van and that can be set up with you and at most one other cheap helper. We accomplish structure very cheaply and efficiently, and I will be putting this info in the blog with the booth pics. We also use lots of fabric and “soft” items that roll and fold and fit compactly into boxes.

4. The cost factor. You can put together a very successful booth for less than $1,000. We routinely get offers to rent booth setups for $2000 and up per show. We can’t even consider that kind of money right now, nor would we ever. Our booth is designed specifically to show off our products. No rental booth can do that for us.

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.

TRADE SHOWS - PART 4

Ah, Christmas/holiday shows! They sound great. Lots of sales opportunity. Lots of public exposure. We took a look at the finances and how much we could afford to lose, and we signed up for a couple of local ones. These were large (650 and 450 vendors) regional shows, somewhat expensive ($850 and $675, respectively, and the $850 gave us better ratios than the $675 show), and lots of time on one’s feet. We don’t know if we will ever do another one.

The event coordinators of these larger shows cruise the summer fairs looking for suitable vendors, which is how we got into these shows in the first place. We now think, though, that if a large show coordinator is still trying to fill slots for a late October or November Christmas show in July or August, beware. It harkens back to the point about vendor turnover. Large turnover or lack of interest from previous vendors means these companies have to be out diligently cruising for a new crop of suckers like ourselves. This is when getting information about vendor turnover, public turnout, and advertising avenues is more important than ever before committing financial resources. You might even get last year’s exhibitor list and call a few of them to learn about their previous show experiences. Experiences can vary widely between vendors depending on what they sell, but you can still get a very good idea of the overall trends by talking to a few of them.

We got lucky and broke even only because one show’s gains covered the other show’s losses. Once again, we did not follow our own advice about researching the shows (we had not yet devised our own advice at that time). However, given what other veteran vendors were saying at these shows, I don’t think our research would have done us much good. 2007 has not been a good year for most vendors, regardless of their successes in 2006, and most of them indicated they did quite well in 2006.

Our big learning experience was that attendee entry fees are an effective barrier to public purchasing. One show’s entry fee jumped from $7 in 2006 to $12 in 2007. The second, smaller show charged $14 per person. We heard from many attendees that this dampened their buying enthusiasm. So, the combination of economic downturn, a dour public and ridiculous entry fees did not bode well for our 2007 experiences.

Our second lesson was that our previous market research was reflected in these shows. When researching future shows, we will take a look at the typical attendee and see whether it fits our target demographic. Restated in English, we will take a look at whether the types of people attending the show are those who would normally be interested in our product. Despite the fact that these shows draw a lot of people, the show’s location, where and how the show is advertised, and other factors influence the type of attendee. What’s good for one vendor may not be good for another.

With that, best wishes this holiday season and I hope you all go charging into a new year of great successes!

TRADE SHOWS - PART 3

Our resolve to do no more public shows lasted until July, when I participated in the West Seattle Summerfest, part of our local community festival. It sounded fun, it would be downright economical for the exposure we got, and I wanted to get out and do something other than what I was dealing with in the office. What fun! Long, sunny days, chatting with friends and acquaintances who happened by, being part of the local community, all in all, a very good time. The show cost $345 and about 15,000 people attended, so the ratio of attendees to cost was great. We made a little money and the show had no associated travel costs, so no financial losses to worry about. Even though we love what we do, the day-to-day grind can take its toll. I found this show to be a great antidote to the grind and a good way to recharge my batteries. I am looking forward to participating again this summer.

Even though we did not make a lot of money, this show had repercussions later on in November and December, when people would stop by the booth at other shows and remember us. We love hearing this. It is said that it takes seeing or hearing about a product seven times before a person thinks about buying it. For now, I am thrilled with two times!

For larger shows, the applications can be found online and submitted usually 11 months in advance (for some very popular shows, you need to apply this early), and fees are due for many at least six months in advance. For a startup, it is difficult to gauge what will happen a week from now, let alone 11 months from now. Most street fair applications are not available until January (I will start collecting and processing online applications the first week of January this year). All monies are due usually only a month or two before the show. Besides the fun in the sun, the fees are lower, the time frame is more startup-friendly, and there are numerous street fairs to choose from in the summer months. In addition to your booth display, most of these shows require you to supply your own canopy.

So, if you are thinking about a relatively low-risk way to economically introduce your product to the buying public, do lots of convenient market research, and practice your sales techniques, you might take a look at summer fairs in your area.

TRADE SHOWS - PART 2

Our products have pretty broad appeal. When we first started thinking about trade shows, we were quite excited about the prospect of selling our wares to the public at such a venue. The public would love our products! We would sell out of stock! It would be great! What’s not to like?

So, we manufactured lots of stock, rented a truck to hold it all, reserved three hotel rooms for ourselves, and spent five days selling, uh, enough to make back about one-third of what it cost us to attend the show. Needless to say, we were not sold on public trade shows after this experience.

Using the analysis points mentioned in the previous posting, the analysis went something like this:

1. The “price per hour” was $23. That was sales approximately one unit per hour or so to try to cover costs, which sounds doable. The show hours were good—morning and evening hours, weekday and weekend dates.

2. The “attendance per dollar” was good. We had been told that approximately 30,000 people usually attended the show and the booth fee was $1,200.

3. We did not ask for vendor return information from the show management.

4. Advertising for this show was via several main channels. Additionally, this show was a popular one that had been going for many years.

5. The show location was great—easy to drive to and park, but also reachable by light rail and bus.

So, we should have done better than we did, right? Our Bin Buddie product was very popular with campers. This was a Sportsmen’s show. The analysis was pretty good. So where did we go wrong? The following:

1. We had a good grasp of our target audience, but we learned it was more narrowly defined than we thought. This show was in Portland, Oregon, and drew from southwest Washington, Portland and northwest Oregon. We have learned that this audience’s income and education level was not our ideal demographic, regardless of the fact that they all participate in outdoor activities. Our other efforts to date have borne this out.

2. Wrong gender. Our product is an “organizational” product. Most, but not all, men run from it at the first sniff. This was a show where men were the major purchasers. Women were present, but women shopping with men usually means that men will make the decisions, and it won’t be to look at Bin Buddies. We encounter this dynamic with all public venues at which we sell our products.

3. People come to these shows to look and score freebies, not necessarily to buy. If they do buy, intuitive, impulse-buy products do best.

We limped home from this show, licked our wounds, and reviewed our lessons learned. We resolved to do no more public shows—we could not afford any more major financial losses like this. There were, however, several positives that came out of this show:

1. As time passed, the information gleaned from this experience was most valuable when refining our sales and marketing efforts.

2. Approximately 30,000 people were exposed to our products. We got some into the hands of the general public, which is always good.

3. We made some price adjustments based on feedback we received. The adjustments have proven to be a good move.

4. We got a lot smarter about attending public shows, smarts we would not have developed had we not attended this show.

I will discuss our next effort in the next installment of my Trade Show series.

Our resolve to do no more public shows lasted until July, when I participated in the West Seattle Summerfest, part of our local community festival. It sounded fun, it would be downright economical for the exposure we got, and wanted to get out and do something other than what I was dealing with in the office. The idea was met with heightened skepticism, but I smiled sweetly and got permission to go despite misgivings.

TRADE SHOWS--PART 1

I have read about other people’s trade show experiences, and I have now had enough of my own to have actually have some information to pass on. The first installment is general information about shows—how to find them, when to think about them, costs, questions to ask, and any other general information that comes to mind. I will save my personal experiences for the second installment and beyond.

First off, just what is a trade show? I define them rather broadly to be a temporary marketplace (other than a weekly market) at which products are displayed and sold. The audience can be either the general public or a subset of the general public (street fairs, holiday shows, hobbyists, crafters, ski bums, etc.) or non-public shows open only to industry buyers (every industry has at least one show per year).

PUBLIC SHOWS

Why participate in a show open to the public? Here are just a few:

1. Participating in trade shows is a viable business model, and many businesses at public shows do just shows all year long. These are the vendors you see regularly at state and county fairs, and they travel the country selling at public shows of various kinds.

2. To gain exposure for your product(s) and to introduce the public to your company.

3. To do market research, practice sales skills, etc.

Shows open to the public require stock on hand to sell, and require that you have it with you in the booth or can easily be restocked. We only do local shows that allow us to restock easily if needed. That way, we do not need to rent a truck to store stock on the show premises. We learned this hard way, which will be more fully covered in the second installment.

We participate in public shows in the local area in order to 1) make a little extra money; 2) to gain exposure and introduce the public to our products; 3) to conduct market research; and 4) so that I can develop my sales/people skills. Nowadays, our goal is always to break even, and we don’t always make our goal.

We have participated in four public shows so far, three of which we have been invited to after an event manager saw our booth and products at another show. Beware that it is the job of these people to fill the booths at their show, not to make sure you have a good or profitable experience. There is a great deal to consider prior to putting down money for a show to which you have been invited. Put aside the pride and go into it with your eyes open. I list some questions to ask below.

NON-PUBLIC (BUYER) SHOWS

We have decided to participate in non-public shows open only to buyers in order to 1) introduce retailers to our products and 2) to generate orders from these retailers. No product is sold during the show; only orders are taken. There are some non-public “cash and carry” shows throughout the year, but these are less common.

Buyer shows require a completely different booth design and configuration for us, but they do not require stock on hand at the show. Our booth design for these shows is portable enough to fly around the country, and for 2008 we have several of these shows lined up in different parts of the country.

RESEARCHING SHOWS

When researching shows, I head to the two websites listed on the right, www.tsnn.com and www.tradeshowweek.com. I have found these two to be pretty comprehensive listings, and I always check both of them because their categories are a bit different and they don’t contain exactly the same information. To use the tradeshowweek site, click on Directories and then Tradeshow Directory.

When researching local shows not listed on the two aforementioned websites, I rely heavily on the web, especially listings in the local newspaper or a site that lists community events throughout the year. For fun, I like to participate in school bazaars, and I have to contact individual PTAs to find out about these opportunities. Other local shows in which I participate or plan to participate are local summer street fairs in different neighborhoods, a weekly Sunday market, the annual women’s show (bigger show than most local ones) and local “specialty” shows such as hobby shows, recreational shows, etc.

BOOTH DESIGN AND COSTS

Keep your booth design simple and inexpensive. You can do a lot with what you have around the house to begin with. Tablecloths from discount stores are a great bargain and hide just about everything. You want your design to be easily portable and easy to set up and take down. We design our own booths for both public and non-public shows. Fixtures for our public show booth have cost about $75 so far, and we have contributed some items from home (card table, chairs, tv trays). I can fit the entire booth and stock in the back of my Toyota pickup.

We do outdoor events regularly (weekly markets) and those tents you see run about $100-$200. Side panels for the tents, essential for inclement or very sunny weather, run around $40 per panel. In addition to side panels, you will need weights to hold the tent down in case the wind picks up. You can make weights (Seattle can get windy, so I use 20 lbs per leg) out of just about anything or buy them specifically for the tent. My weights are bricks held together with and wrapped completely in duct tape because they are cheap to make, compact and easy to transport.

I recommend a sign for your booth for public shows. Our 8x2 vinyl signs have cost us approximately $125 and $175 each. We use them for both indoor and outdoor shows. If your sign is handmade or smaller, it will be probably a good deal cheaper.

We are now designing and constructing our booth for the buyer shows we will participate in this year. We have budgeted $500 for this booth. We will be using a lot of materials from the local kite shop, which will save us tons of money. When in need of supplies and fixtures for something, we brainstorm to consider how to get what we need most economically. We get ideas from the most unusual places!

So, you have looked up some trade shows. Now what?

Booths cost money. Sometimes lots of money. My lowest so far has been $250 for a weekend I will be spending with hobbyists. Our highest fee is $2100 for a non-public show. Buyer shows are more expensive than public shows. Our average for public shows so far is $900 and for buyer shows about $1900. A buyer show in New York City will run you at least $3,000. These fees must be paid well in advance, so you need to plan for them.

You need to sign up to exhibit at a show well in advance, usually at least six months in advance, which means you have to be on the ball and perhaps start researching and planning shows during the development phase. We did not research buyer shows or sign up for any for our first year of operation. We probably could have exhibited at some buyer shows this year instead of waiting. However, this first year has allowed us to work out early operational bugs, work out manufacturing, and to gather information and knowledge we will need to play with the big boys in 2008.

One piece of advice I see is to attend the show in which you want to participate sometime in the future. This is not always possible or, in our case, not always economically feasible. If you can do this, by all means do it. If you can’t attend a show in advance and talk to the vendors, or even if you do, I recommend posing the following questions to the event managers when signing up for a show:

1. What has been the attendance the last 3-5 years? (or whatever attendance figures you can get) The show managers like to fudge these numbers.

2. What percentage of the vendors return from year to year?

3. What are the hours the show is open?

4. What is your advertising plan/strategy for the show? You are paying these people to drive traffic to the show, so you want a strong advertising strategy on their part.

Once we have the answers, we consider the following:

1. For public shows, booth fee divided by total number of hours the show is open. Kind of a “price per hour” measure. So far, our “price per hour” has ranged between $11.50 and $28. This give us an idea of how much stock we have to sell to break even. Typically, the more local the show, the more bang for your buck (street fairs are cheaper than regional shows). Additionally, we look at whether the show is open a variety of hours, midmorning to past dinner time to allow the greatest flexibility.

2. Total past attendance versus booth fee. We compare between shows. One show wanted $800 for an audience of approximately 600 attendees. Another show wanted $675 for what turned out to be 8,000 attendees. You need to know when you are getting took. I utilize a little formula that gives me a ratio for quick, easy analysis.

3. Vendor return percentage. This tells us how satisfied the vendors are with the show management and attendance. Other vendors are also a valuable source for this kind of information, and we get friendly with those around us when at the public shows.

4. Advertising—Are multiple mass channels being utilized (local newspaper, radio advertising, billboards, television)? This is extremely important for driving traffic to the show.

5. Show location. Is the show in a venue that is easy for people to reach by car and public transportation? Is parking convenient, free or reasonably priced? We have discovered that downtown Seattle is no place for a public show. The location (convention center) is inconvenient to drive to and parking is expensive.

6. Entry fees. Fees charged to the general public have been getting quite steep. Too steep and the public will not come, or will come and not buy because they have spent all of their money on entry fees.

That’s it for the first installment. I will be recounting some of our experiences, mistakes we made, and lessons we learned in the second and further installments.