Retail Revival: Taking the team to a trade show

With Cultivate right around the corner, it’s the perfect time to think about how to maximize your staff’s experience at a trade show. These are huge events, with many opportunities and distractions, and new attendees can often feel overwhelmed.

Since it can be a significant expense to send your team to a big show, here are some tips so that you maximize their experience and what they bring back to the business.

1. Plan ahead

Once it’s decided who will attend a large trade show or event, have everyone look over the program with two things in mind. First, ask “What educational experiences will be most helpful to me?” Second, ask “Which of these programs would be most useful to our business?”

Next, consider the same questions but in relation to the trade show: “What businesses and vendors do I most want to connect with?” and “What new opportunities or products does our company need?” These two questions are especially important if you’re attending a show such as MANTS that doesn’t have educational sessions.

2. Divide and conquer

When two or more people from your company are going to a show, make a pact that they won’t attend the same lectures or always travel as a pack on the show floor. Although many are more comfortable walking or sitting with people that they know, doing so is not the most efficient use of the company’s time or money.

Many educational sessions have the audience seated at round tables, which facilitates connecting with other industry members. Encourage your staff to introduce themselves, and if there seems to be a connection or similarities, exchange business cards or contact information. You never know when these personal links will come in handy.

On the trade show floor, if your team splits up, it allows everyone to experience the plants and products with fresh, individual eyes. You might make a plan for the first day to have all staff members walk solo, and have each attendee make note of three or four booths they want to revisit the next day as a group.

Encourage your people to talk to the sales staff in each booth and ask questions. At the end of that day, meet for dinner with the expectation that every employee will come with a list of “I want you to come and see this plant/product, since I think that our store/customers would benefit.”

3. Takeaways from educational sessions

Make it clear that for every educational session your staff attends, they should come away with two or more takeaways that can help the business. When they go into a presentation knowing they’ll need to report back with at least two actionable or thought-provoking ideas, they'll have their antenna up for useful content. If your staff are old-school types who like to take handwritten notes, give them a small notepad at the start of the show. If they're visual learners, make sure they have a smartphone that can take photos.

4. Keep phones charged

Be sure your team has the means to keep their phones charged for a long day of photos and keeping in contact. In educational sessions, it’s fine to take photos of the slides on the screen, and it’s often faster than writing things down. Remind your team in advance that when they’re on the trade show floor, they should always take a photo of the vendor’s name before capturing pictures of the plants or products that catch their eye. Yes, people can take business cards and paper handouts, but these can be easily lost. Most of us go to great lengths not to lose our phones.

5. Bringing it back home

Not every employee can attend industry events, so it’s important that those who do share what they've learned or experienced with the staff holding down the fort while others were gone. Ask them to be prepared to share two or three plants, products or ideas they discovered in a group meeting. Think about holding an after-hours event with food and drink for all employees, with the staff who went to the show speaking about their most significant takeaways.

There is a wealth of information and assistance that can be gleaned at green industry events. With advance planning, you’ll see great returns from the investment made in sending your team to a trade show.