Don’t Let the Walking Dead Staff Your Trade Show Booth

Illustration depicting an illuminated neon sign with a trade show concept.

zombie-521243_960_720This is one of the most repeated mistakes seen at exhibits: staffing a trade show booth with zombie employees.  It’s an easy mistake to make and can be difficult to solve if without a strong manager at your trade show booth.  Finding the right team and reinforcing high performance in your trade show staff is key to avoiding zombie employees at your trade show booth.

1. Recruit Internally

Current employees already know the company, it’s goals, challenges and products/services.  Current employees have a vested interest in their personal performance and the well-being of the company. Managers will be looking for results from these employees when they return from the trade show.  And if the company doesn’t perform well, the employees will be affected. Hiring your trade show booth staff internally will help reduce the costs of training.  You will also feel confident that you are including high-quality employees based on their past performance with the company.

2. Manage your Trade Show Booth

This is particularly important when managing a large trade show booth where you are expecting high traffic.  With a larger booth at a high traffic event, you should have more people running the trade show booth and a manager to coordinate everyone.  A manager will help your booth staff stay focused and energized at the trade show booth.  To prevent your staff from becoming trade show booth zombies, they need to take breaks.  Having a manager at your trade show booth will prevent your booth from becoming understaffed while employees take their breaks.  A manager will be able to ensure that each member takes a break while ensuring your booth is well staffed throughout the event.

3. Give Incentives

Who said Trade show giveaways aren’t for trade show booth staff? Create competition for lead generation with cash and recognition incentives. This will increase the lead generation you will create at your trade show booth. This increase in lead generation is guaranteed to repay the investment you made in your trade show booth and cash incentives. Not all members of your staff will be motivated by by cash incentives alone. That’s why offering a recognition incentive in addition to the cash incentive will ensure you can motive all members of your trade show booth staff. You can do this by recognizing your top performer in the weekly business news letter or by offering a special certificate.


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APG Exhibits

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