by Michael Crooks

Created on: August 29, 2007   Last Updated: August 30, 2007

My client was dumbfounded. The answer wasn't complicated, costly or hard to do. The question was, "How do I effectively engage people at the trade show?"

"All you gotta do," I said, "is invite people to take a sheet of your letterhead, make a paper airplane and see if they can fly it into the open window of one of your units."

My client was a Recreational Vehicle (RV) dealer selling motor homes, travel trailers and 5th wheels to the upscale camping crowd. She was spending a wad on trade shows but wasn't getting the results she wanted. So I went to an RV show and had a look around.

Talk about BORING! Every booth was staffed with polite people standing outside their RV's smiling and saying, "Hi. Howyado'in" to everyone that passed by. RVing is supposed to be exciting and fun. But not one single dealer at that show had a mechanism by which to break the boredom, arrest and engage attendees.

I went back and told my client, "You gotta give these people something fun to do. Something that captures the spirit of RVing."

That's when I shared the paper airplane concept with her. "If they get the airplane through the window," I explained, "then they have to go inside to retrieve it and receive their prize. You've got em where you want em INSIDE THE UNIT!"

Too often, tradeshow exhibitors believe that handing some cheap do-dad to everyone who walks by their booth is effectively promoting their business. Key words in that sentence are, "everyone who walks by." The whole point of a trade show is to find qualified prospects. That means you have to find out who is interested in your product or service AND can afford it. You can't do that if everyone is walking by. You need to employ effective traffic stoppers.

Here's how I engage people at trade shows. I use a water globe game where you attempt to get a golf ball to sit on a tee. I stand at my booth with the thing in my hand with 2 or 3 more sitting on the table.

I play with it and invite passers-by to try it. I tell them, "If you can get the ball to rest on the tee, I'll give you a free flashlight." You can offer anything you want, I just happened to get a heck of a deal on flashlights.

While they're trying to accomplish the task, I ask them what they do and ask appropriate follow ups from there. Most people can't get the ball on the tee. So after a couple minutes I say, "Would you like an easier way to get the flashlight?" I then hand them my "Needs Assessment Profile".

I say, "This sheet pretty much mirrors our approach to promotional

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