Running a trade show is both an art and a science. Aligning all aspects of your show from getting the right venue, to publicity, to staffing is a job for professionals.
You may only get the chance to get an annual show right once a year, so it is essential that you get it right. Otherwise, you spend the next 51 weeks second-guessing yourself. Perhaps the most important aspect is hiring the right trade show staff. Building a dream team is vital to making sure you know how to make a difference and ensure a smooth-running event.
It’s remarkable how much of a productivity kicker an organization gets from top talent. A recent research cited by global consultants McKinsey & Co shows that high-performing workers are around eight times or 400% more productive than average ones.
However, attracting and keeping qualified and experienced staff has rarely been more challenging, as 54% of companies globally report talent shortages, the highest in over a decade. Talent shortages in the United States have more than tripled in the last 10 years, according to a ManpowerGroup survey, with 69% of businesses failing to fill positions, up from just 14% in 2010.
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1. Saves Time
If you don’t have the right staff ready to go, then you are going to spend longer getting ready for the show. This will involve training employees or even recruiting people to train up and show the ropes of how the show will run.
Well-trained staff don’t need as much training and you can usually trust them to go into the trade show and one-to-one engagement without extensive education.
When it comes to considering all aspects of health and safety, and the logistics of your show, the right trade show staff can be even more important. If you have a staff member who knows how to coordinate multiple stallholders and the audience, that can help with compliance and safety.
2. Customer Service Enhancement
Customers—both B2B stallholders and B2C attendees—expect a professional interaction at a trade show and having the right staff with a customer service background can ensure that people get the experience that they expect.
This maximizes the chances that you will achieve your business goals and create a successful event with all of the demonstrations going to plan, and stallholders having a successful and fruitful experience.
3. Business Growth
The best show team knows how to grow the show and make it a more successful event. This means promoting it to the correct people, and ensuring that you have enough stallholders to make a profit.
Trade show staff are good for business growth if you know what you are doing and have a clear plan. If you are looking to increase attendance, remember that you will need people working on the show a long way in advance, as well as casual staff to help during the show itself.
4. Reduces Turnover Costs
You may be able to get more effective employees at an affordable rate and reduce turnover costs, you might even be able to get by with fewer employees, as long as the ones you have know what they are doing.
Good staff can also manage expenses well and ensure that your trade show doesn’t rack up costs that are simply unnecessary.
5. Team Morale
Trade shows can be a mix of people from all different businesses. Your own staff helping you run the event should be experienced and enthusiastic. The experience is going to rub off on the those manning their stalls or doing demonstrations. Your trade show team will probably be diverse, but the leaders should definitely have management skills to keep the morale high and help others get up to speed.
The more knowledge your team has going into the event, the more likely it is that morale will be high, and this can even give a far better overall impression of the show, encouraging more engagement for future shows.
6. Protects Your Image
You want to be known as a good business and a good employer. Hiring the right trade show team will help you protect that reputation. People won’t see your show as a disorganized mess and be reluctant to pay for a stall in the future. Having the right trade show staff projects an image of your organization as a professional environment.
7. Maximize Productivity
Good trade show staff help you to get the most out of the show. This means they can help you to maximize productivity while you are there.
The right employees know how to make the most of the space, encourage engagement and create a productive environment for other employees. It’s not always easy to pull together a team, but a few experienced leaders can ensure that time doesn’t get wasted and that the show goes well.
Experienced trade show staff are an investment, but they can be well worth it considering all the benefits they can bring to your event, and the fact they can help to drive future growth.
Frank Derby is a Las Vegas-based event marketing strategist and communications expert working with GoldenMFG. With a background in traditional marketing, Frank provides insights offline promotions, PR, trade exhibitions gleaned from his 9 years of B2B experience.
