 But when you focus on the follow up first, I think it forces you to reverse engineer your process. So as you're meeting with as a sales team before the show and you're saying, hey, this is what we want to do. This is what we want to say. This is our pitch. Right? Welcome to the Smarter Building Materials Marketing Podcast, helping you find better ways to grow leads, sales, and outperform your competition. All right, everybody, welcome to Smarter Building Materials Marketing, where we believe your online presence should be your best salesperson. I'm Beth Popnikolov, and in the house with me today, I have Steve Coffey. He is our director of growth and spends maybe more time at trade shows than at least a lot of us, if not even your average manufacturer. And with getting back into the swing of trade shows in real life in 2022, and we've got AIA coming up, which is one of the bigger ones in the summer, we thought it'd be a great time to let's just take a pause and talk about what's a solid trade show strategy? What should you be doing there? Should you even be there? We're going to get into all of it, but first and foremost, Steve, thanks for your time. Hey, Beth, great to be on the show with you. And as always, pleasure and an honor. Excited. Yeah. I'm excited. You're basically a trade show expert. We should really add that to your job. So I was talking to someone the other day actually about how the term road warrior means something different nowadays than it used to, because people used to spend a lot more time on the road at trade shows than they do, but I still spend a lot of time there. Yeah, you do. Okay, so first, let's talk about, I mean, this is really our first trade show season in two years. We tried it virtual. It wasn't great. We're just going to skip right over that guy. And it had like a little bit of a lackluster come back at the end of last year, but IBS in January, we did an episode about that actually on location together, and it was back in a big way. I think I remember 30,000 attendees were total, maybe 30,000 between exhibitors and attendees. That's big. Yeah. For a post-pandemic-ish world, that was a lot of humans in a single space. So talk to us before we dive into AIA and strategy, how have trade shows changed this year? So that's a great question. I can remember the first time I went to AIA. It was actually my first trade show in the building space, and I walked in and it was massive. It was at the Vegas Convention Center, and I just stood back and took it all in, and it was so much energy there. It was a really positive show. So I'm excited about it. I think also, to your point, the way that trade shows have changed has impacted the way that people research, the way that people in their manufacturers' audiences approach the booth, what they're looking for, what they're looking to get out of it. AIA being such an incredible show, heavy on continuing education and things like that. But I still think audiences want to see manufacturers, they want to engage with them, they want to walk in the booth, they want to talk to somebody, they want to experience it, they want to have it in their hand, outside of the samples that they have in their office. And that desire, I think, is still alive and well. I get excited going, right, in flying, getting on the plane, making my dinner reservations and going. It's still kind of exciting. So I think that excitement needs to be taken advantage of. I think companies should approach AIA this year in 2022 with a strategy, right? I think there should be a definite strategy. There's more than there would already be, just naturally, that we would just kind of go through the process of going at it with a trade show. This year, the reason I say that, is that this year, the economy is different, right? It's on the minds of the audiences that manufacturers are selling to, you know, the architect and builder, they're concerned about things that perhaps they weren't so concerned about in 2018, 2019, and as we're moving back into some level of normal, right, back in the trade shows, you know, the economy has changed. The hourly wage growth is moderate, output has declined in Q1, real disposable income has dipped for a lot of consumers, payroll continues to be an issue, you know, inflation continues to be an issue, there's all kinds of issues we can go down through the different points of things that are on people's minds. So that being the case, I think it's paramount that as companies look at AIA this year, they look at it and say, how can we take advantage of it, what's the best way that we can walk away with this show having something for us, but then also something for our customers to take away? So, I look at it as a lot of excitement, but I look at it as a huge opportunity as well. And be ready for those tough conversations, right, like if you're a manufacturer that's going to meet with architects or anybody in the channel, here are the things that you have to be able to address, pricing, availability, lead times, like you need to know all of the circumstances and not, you've got to, you're going to have to have an answer and probably a real answer, not a PR answer, or, I mean, just don't pretend like that's not going to come up. So an example, I had, I was talking to a builder actually at IBS, and he said that he would go into a booth and he would not tell the company that he was a builder because he didn't want the generic sales pitch, right? He was worrying about availability, he was worried about pricing and labor and all of these different things. But he wanted the truth. He wanted the truth, right? And he just didn't even want to bother. And so I thought, man, what a shame that a builder couldn't, he didn't feel comfortable enough to go into manufacturer's booths who have spent so much investment in time to, you know, allow their audience to perceive them well, and he didn't even feel comfortable to do that. So, you know, I think that's where the opportunity lies and kind of making that happen. So, yeah. Don't give them the pitch, give them the real deal. Exactly. Yeah, nobody likes being sold to, right, Steve? Yep. Nope, they don't. They don't. So what advice would you give a manufacturer that is maybe they're exhibiting at AIA or they know that they're exhibiting at a trade show this year? Good question. So I think some companies are, you know, I mean, some companies are downsizing depending on the complexity that they may have around COVID. Some companies may be even bowing out and, you know, you'll walk by big open areas. Big empty spaces. Yeah. There are a lot of those at the builder's show. Yeah. Walk by one. And there was, there was not even a phone number, it was just a sign that said this manufacturer was supposed to be here and that was it. So, you know, I think companies are changing. Sometimes they're even downsizing booth size. Yep. The investment in the booth reps. We all know that the crowds aren't back to pre-COVID levels yet. AIA has a very large and healthy membership. I have a lot of optimism about the attendance rate this year. I think it'll be really good. But having a plan is so important. And I think there are a few things that are specifically important that the plan needs to consist of outside of just the normal, right? I would say, and let me start from the front to the back, or the back to the front. So I think most importantly, think about the follow-up first. A lot of people will think about the follow-up after. Think about the follow-up first. What do you want your customer to walk away with, right? Now, I think it's important for a sales rep or a sales team that's on the trade show floor to think about what they want to walk away with, right? Is it leads? Do they want to craft the perception of their brand inside the individuals that they're talking to? Are they trying to, you know, position themselves in the market a little bit differently depending on the size of the company? If it's a smaller company, they may want to be making an impact, right, growing their awareness. If it's a larger company, they may just want to be pushing a specific product more than others or establishing, you know, based on competitors and things like that. So depending on what the company themselves wants to walk away with, the customer, you also want them to walk away with something as well. But when you focus on the follow-up first, I think it forces you to reverse engineer your process. So as you're meeting as a sales team before the show and you're saying, hey, this is what we want to do. This is what we want to say. This is our pitch, right? Thinking about the follow-up and saying, hey, this is what you can walk away with. When you have an effective follow-up strategy in place before you go, it makes your floor experience a little bit easier in my opinion because the sales reps are knowing, hey, this is what you are going to walk away with. So, hey, I'm going to follow up with you Monday or Tuesday next week to touch base. Instead of, you know, just saying that, I would say, hey, I'm going to send you a piece of information that's, you know, it's going to be really valuable to our conversation today and make that personal. So we can, I mean, Beth, we could probably talk all day about how the follow-up, you know, strategies and things like that and how the follow-up should go. Well, but to your point, you know, knowing that, hey, you know that an email is set, it's written, it's created, it's been QA'd, it's in your email platform and even a sequence of emails, hint, hint, all with valuable information, not just sales pitches, pitches, second hint, but like, you know that that's done because often what we see is people get a bunch of leads and then they come back and it's a dead scramble and inevitably in there some other fire drill happens and suddenly the email scramble is scrapped because it's no longer a priority and now you're not following up with anyone. So if you know that's done and set, you're just emailing your contact list of warm leads, not your hottest leads because those should get personal touches, but your warm leads are going to your marketing automation specialist to just hit send and it makes the post-show hangover so much easier to handle because you're wrecked when you walk out of a trade show. I mean, it is, it's eight, nine, 12-hour days of hyped up sales conversations, strategic thought processes and brainstorming and it's like, it's the most fun. Like, it's so fun. I also agree, I'm psyched when I'm getting on an airplane to go to a trade show. I low key love it even as a digital marketer, it's fun to be in a room with that many people that are excited about what we do. But you've got to have a plan going in for what you're going to do after or it just, it just doesn't get done. Absolutely. And the reason I say that is because I sign up for every, I let everybody scan my badge, I sign up for everything I take. Everybody's cards, I give out my cards to everybody. I want to see who does follow up, right? How many people follow up on average? I would say it's probably between 20 and 30 percent. And it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart. Yeah, I know. I mean, that's even, honestly, that's higher than I would have guessed. Because we, we do the same. Like I know one year, I think it was IBIS, IBS 20, it must be 2019. So right before the world went sideways, maybe 2018. We created a specific email and registered it and everything on a badge. And then we had that badge scanned by a hundred manufacturers for these specific research purposes of like, what does everybody's follow up cadence looks like? Do you know how, do you know how many follow ups we got? How many? One. Wow. And it was from Ford. Wow. Yep. See, there you go. I think every follow up at a minimum, right? Should consist of a solid campaign, cadence of emails. It should be a solid question as well that you're asking after the show. It should prompt discussion, right? Don't just say how I'm so and so we met at the show. Here's the information, right? Ask, ask questions. How did you, how did you feel about the show? Did you learn anything? Did you get any new products? How did your education go? Your CE classes, et cetera. And then I think it should also be and include an intriguing call to action, right? There needs to be some next step that you've already anticipated them taking and developed for them to go through, whether that would consist of a, you know, a specific landing page or something like that. At a minimum, that's what you need. And when you start, when you go into the show with that follow up already created, which you should be doing now because it's coming up. It's coming up. Yeah, then I think that enables your floor experience to be a little bit more effective. Your sales team is going to be that much more effective. Yeah. And importantly, you need to have measurements of success for that follow up, right? You need to be able to say for both your presence at the trade show and the follow up campaign, how are we measuring the success of this outside of we attended and we sent it? Exactly. Are you looking for a specific number of warm leads? Are you looking for a specific number of closed sales that you can tie back to it? Wouldn't trade show ROI just be a glorious thing? Are you looking for conversions within your emails to download something or raise your hand for a sales conversation or request, you know, a quote or something like that? Like what's the next step you want someone to take with you? We often say you can't measure it, you shouldn't do it. And that even applies or maybe especially applies to trade show attendance. Yeah. Well, I don't think the data has to be as elusive as oftentimes marketing teams can make it out to be. Yeah. If you have that strategy and plan already in place, and then it makes the data collection process a lot easier to track, hey, this is the conversations, either the follow ups that we had from that. And I think that leads me into the second point that I think is very important and that is, first of all, to talk to people and collect the information. I ask, oftentimes ask reps and teams in the booth. I'm saying how are you, what are you hearing, right? What are you talking to your audiences about? And it's oftentimes they don't have any way of collecting the information outside of just retaining it as sales teams. And that can often get loose or lost because, and I say this admittedly, sales teams are bad at inputting data into CRM. So all of that, all of that, I raised my hand. So that's a problem, right? You lose a lot of information that you're gaining. That's information that's... Well, you're so sure you're going to remember it too. Like, it's such an intense conversation in that exact moment. You're like, oh, I'm never going to forget this guy. Exactly. And then you just do because you move on to the next exciting conversation. I mean, if you're crafting marketing plans, the information that you gain from individuals on a trade show floor is paramount. You have to be collecting and retaining that. But I think in order to get that information, it's important to collect it. There's many different ways that you can collect it. You can retain it. You can have notebooks, right? Or they can just take notes on their phones and then just have all the sales team or the reps submit that at the end of the day, the trade show, and then just collect that all into one document and then sift through it. And then you'll find, you'll bullet point the commonalities in all of the the conversations and things like that. And you'll typically get a really good pin on how people are feeling, right? But you should be asking as well if, you know, what are architects feeling? What are builders feeling? What are they asking about? What are they wanting to look at? What are the major points that they're considering? I've always heard it be really effective when you have an 80-20 rule. 80 percent should be listening and 20 percent should be talking. And most booze that you walk into, that's not the case, right? Because they're coming to ask questions, tell me about this product. You can tell them about the product, but 20 percent of it should be that you're discussing about the product because you should have a really robust digital presence where they can find all of that information that you can send them to, right? But you should be listening. You should be asking questions. What are you currently using? Right? What, you know, things like that. So I think that's important. I'm notoriously bad for when I walk up to a booth, I'll just walk right through it. I'll just slowly just walk right through the center of it. I want to see who comes up to me, engages me in conversation, right? What do they say? It's like walking into a department store, right? Can I help you? The common answer is no. Yes, I do need help, but I'm going to naturally say no. I want to see how reps interact with me, right? And that can oftentimes be really important. So be willing to talk to people who are in your booth. Don't just try to figure out, is this my target audience? And then just dismiss them if they're not. You can learn a lot of things from the amount of people and the amount of experience and the amount of professions that are in that room and for a company to take advantage of that and then input that and make sure that it comes through on the information is actually fed through the proper channels to impact marketing, to impact sales, to impact product. That's that's that's pivotal for a company to really get a pulse on the industry and how people are feeling. So I think that's a really important point. Yeah, I think you're saying something that's really important that if I'm if I'm honest, and even in our prep, we were talking about this. But if I'm honest, the conversations that I've had with certainly not all but a good amount of people within booths at trade shows over the years, they I've been really frustrated most of the time. Now, we're all friends here. I know that I read like not your target demographic. Yeah, so you're probably also I'm not getting your A effort. I I want to respect that, but I also just it annoys me. Yeah, but even still, I feel like I walk into booths. I'm pulling information out of you so often. And you're not asking me any qualifying questions. So you have no idea who I am. You've just kind of decided that I'm probably not a contractor, which in your defense, I'm definitely not. But also, I'm not completely ignorant to the building materials world. So when I ask questions, it's interesting to me that it's not triggering in your mind, there might be something more that you would need to ask me about projects or solutions or experience that's going to help you qualify me. I don't walk up to people and say, like, hey, I'm in marketing because anybody in marketing knows you don't do that because then they just shut you down hard. Exactly. I'm also not trying to steal people from conversations. And if their booth is busy, I will very quickly volunteer, like, hey, I'm never going to buy from you. There's three people over there that look like builders. If we're at the builder show, you definitely should go talk to them. Like, I don't want you to spend your time with me. I want you to talk to prospects. But I mean, Steve, we were just saying I can walk through booths and I get I mean, I don't get a single person to stop and talk to me or I also was telling Steve at the builder show this year. I was in the siting manufacturers booth. They were very small. I didn't I honestly didn't recognize their name. And I but I asked them about their colorizing process for their products. And the guy looked at me like I had three heads. I mean, this must have been the first time he'd ever been asked how they make their sighting red because he was just so thrown off by this. But I know from the manufacturers we work with, their colorization process is really pivotal to what they do. And so in my mind, this is a very normal question. But just those types of things of you've got to be ready for important conversations and not making assumptions about what people are there for and what they're not for. But I think I like the 80 20, you know, what questions are you asking? Yeah. What are you learning? We want you want voice a customer survey. This is it, man. You are on the floor with your customer. What would be a win outside of a lead? Yeah. What if you learn that there's, you know, a huge multifamily development going up in an area that you're the rep for? What if you learned that as a takeaway or asked about something, you know, an issue that they're having with a competitor that you haven't heard before? There's so much opportunity in the questions that you can ask versus just being there to answer questions about products. Exactly. And I reiterate the importance of all of that information is so valuable, but it does no good if it just sits in salesman's heads, right? And that's a dangerous place for things to sit long term. So I think, again, focusing on collecting information, making sure that your team is talking to everyone, having valuable conversations, have a way to collect that information, pull it together and then sift through it, right? Go through it and then appropriate that data to the right teams, right? That can actually draw insight from it. So maybe even setting a few meetings after after the show to follow up on that piece specifically. Obviously, you're going to follow up on leads. You're going to go through all the different channels, but making sure that you're actually focusing on collecting that data and putting it. And I think, too, Beth, another important concept outside of that and just collecting information is making sure that you have you're thinking very carefully and companies do this, but thinking very carefully about how you want the audience to perceive your brand as they walk away from the show. Right. How if you're if you're a say, you're a smaller company, not as much market share, you're trying to grow that. Your strategy may be to, you know, have a company say, hey, I've never used this brand, architects, builders and more willing to use brands that they've never used before and more willing to walk into a booth and say, hey, what is this about? Show me the innovation of this product. Why would I want to use this versus anybody else? They're willing to do that. And you can craft the perception of your brand in the marketplace with people who are just walking right in front of your booth, right? Your audience is right there. So you can you can engage them in conversations, but you should strategize and plan. How do I want this person to perceive my brand when they walk away from the booth? A follow up, you know, has an impact on that. You're willingness to actually engage someone in conversation as they're walking through the booth, making them feel special, asking them questions. That goes a long way into making them say, hey, these people care about me, right? They're interested in what I have to say. They're interested in my story. They followed up with me in a very well structured campaign. They care about me. That's a perception that they have of your brand, and you have the ability to craft that. If you are brushing people off, if you're not engaging them in conversation, you're not making them feel special and taking each individual that walks in your booth as a special opportunity, then that can negatively impact the perception of your brand. They're willingness to engage with you online. They're willingness to share. They're willingness to advocate word of mouth and things like that. So I think that that's really important. Concept is you need to think about right now before AIA. Think about how do I want our audience to actually perceive our brand? Are we trying to shift our market presence in any different direction? And I think that's really important. Yeah, I totally agree. That's great. One other concept that I think is important, that's kind of a no-brainer, but it's really, really important is you need to have a really good attention grabber. When I do walk up to someone in the booth, I can't tell you how many times I get a generic, a generic introduction. Hey, can I help you? What are you great at? Yeah. A customer service. Exactly. Or when I walk into the booth, they'll say, are you an architect? Are you a builder? And I'll say, no, I'm not. And immediately, it just kind of sets the conversation off and not a good path. So it's the department store problem, right? Can I help you? No, you can't. I'll just browse here, right? Or yeah. So I think the attention grabber is really important and similar to how you would approach a digital messaging strategy, right? Of saying the right thing, approaching the right thing. You as a sales team or use a company, you need to make sure that the attention grabber is consistent, whether they're right in front of you or they visit the site or they visit the landing page from the campaign that you've crafted in the follow-up. Is there conversation with you consistent? That should start with the attention grabber. The attention grabber can consist of a lot of different things saying, hey, thanks for stopping by the booth. It's nice to meet you. If you are you an architect? Have you used some of the tools on our site? Because I'll show you some of the information on our products here right here. But have you been on our site and used this tool, right? Even a question and saying, have you used this or have you done this? You're positioning yourself as being willing to have a back and forth conversation and listen to them. That's so important. And the reason I bring it up is because I don't see it a lot of times in the booth when you're there and you walk in and you're talking to them. It's really poorly done. That affects the conversation and their willingness to open up. When you say attention grabber, Steve, I typically think of something that's going to get them to step in the booth, but you're really talking about something that's going to get them to engage more deeply in a conversation with your team. Is that right? Oh, absolutely. So you're right. We can talk about the messaging on the banner and things like that. That's equally as important. I'm actually talking about their conversation with the individuals in the booth. I think that's really important. Like it's one thing. Yeah, we need to drive the traffic. But then once they're there, you've got to do something with that. I just think it's such an important piece that I wanted to highlight of the foot traffic is often like, oh, our booth was packed. Yeah, but let's talk about the conversation. How did your team lead that conversation? So I think what you're saying is just really, really important there about bringing them deeper in and asking them those open-ended questions. Absolutely. I think architects and builders, they are there for the purpose of educating themselves and learning about brands, learning about new products. They may have worked with a brand there that they're in the booth for 20 years. They're very familiar with it. They want to talk to the people. They want to engage. They want to have a conversation that goes back to crafting your perception of your brand with this audience. This person may have used your product for 20 years. If you don't treat them with respect when they walk in your booth, that may be the first time that they've interacted with someone in person for two years. If they go to another booth, a smaller brand that's up and coming, and they treat them well, they act like they care about them, I don't think ever before the willingness for a builder or an architect to engage new products and brands has been prevalent. So that's an important thing that companies need to take advantage of. Manufacturers need to take advantage of. And that starts with the attention and grabber with the individual that you're talking to when you walk into the booth. That's boots on the ground stuff. I love that. Steve, if you could give a manufacturer one piece of advice for how to have these incredibly impactful conversations that are gonna leave their leads with an excellent perception of their brand, set them up for a follow-up. I mean, this is a tall order. It's basic stuff, but it's a tall order if it's something you haven't done. What would your one piece of advice be? Have more snacks and espresso bar in your booth. I have a rating system for manufacturers and the snacks that they have. I look for that. So I would start there. Perhaps the second thing that I would focus on is refer to the conversation. Think about when they walk away, when the show is over, everything is back to normal. What do they have to interact with? Start there. Is it a landing page? Is it a digital engagement? Is it a conversation? Is it a sample that they walked away with? Whatever that is, focus there. Reverse engineer it up to the attention grabber. When they first walk into the booth and then in obviously booth design. Most companies have their booth design already established and built, if not on its way. So you've got an opportunity to really work with your sales team and focus on that, but also think about that digital component and that follow-up after reverse engineer it. That's probably the one thing that I would say. Also make your dinner reservations. Those are gonna go quick. Ahead of time. Yeah, that's true. Those guys block up. I've got one bonus tip for you. So we've talked a lot and basically you could boil a lot of this down to brand consistency. What they see in the booth, what they hear in the booth, what they find online, what they get in your follow-up emails. All of those things need to be beating the same drum. They need brand consistency. I am friends with a purchaser at a builder that's based in the Midwest. And I ran into him at the builder show and walked the show floor with him. It's one of my very favorite things to do because it's the opposite of being a marketer at a trade show because it's like walking through a concert with Mick Jagger. Like he's an absolute celebrity. It's very cool because people know that he has purchased power. In the homes that they build, one of the elements in their bathrooms, they were looking for an alternative product for it. Brought me up to the small booth and he was like, hey, I just want to tell you about this really cool. You know, like their booth was not stellar, but their product was really cool. He ended up having a great conversation. So all of the things that exactly Steve said, previously the product they used was from a pretty big brand. They weren't impressed. So they ended up going to this much smaller manufacturer. Okay, so a month later, I get an email from him that he's like, listen to this. So this small bathroom product manufacturer, they actually were owned by a completely separate company. And he only figured that out because he was like, okay, it's time for me to make my purchase. I'm going to go back through the cards that I was given. I know the name of this manufacturer. I'm going to look for it in the cards and I'm going to reach out to them. The brand on their cards was different than the brand in their booth. This is like an eight figure sale that they almost lost out on. And it's only because my friend is extremely persistent. Like I think most purchase agents would have just been like, screw this. I'm going to go to the next 75 people that are desperate for my business. And I was like, I want to write this person an email, like change everything, do whatever it takes. So that's your bonus is make sure that what's on your booth is also on your business cards. Please. Please. Please, that's your PSA. Awesome. Okay. Well, Steve, thank you so much for spending time with us. I'm pumped to hear back from you after AIA and get all the insight on why it went well and what didn't. And for our listeners, if you want more great insight like this, head to benvio.com slash podcast and subscribe. Thanks everyone. We'll see you soon.