The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Tim Patterson, Trade Show Guy & Author

Episode Date: June 16, 2020

Tim Patterson, Trade Show Guy & Author Tradeshowguy.net

Hi, folks. Chris Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com and bookauthorpodcast.com. You're going to be seeing this show featured on a few of our different podcasts at thecbpn.com, chrisvosspodcast.com. Go there. You can subscribe to online podcasts that we have and also go to youtube.com forward slash chrisvoss. You can see the video version of this on YouTube and maybe you'll like that better than listening to the audio. But we certainly appreciate all of our subscribers and everything. Be sure to refer the show to your friends, neighbors, relatives, and all that good stuff. Today we have a very interesting gentleman on the show. His name is Tim Patterson, and he goes by Trade Show Guy.

And he's written an author of two books and a third one that he's working on. Welcome to the show, Tim. Chris, thanks. I appreciate you having me here. It's great to be able to spend some time with you. Awesome sauce. I was interested in having you on the show because I tripped across you, I think on a Facebook comment or something like that. Social media works, huh? Social media works. It's made a million connections in my life, I'm telling you. There you go. There you go. Serendipity. We love serendipity. And I was like, Train Show Guy, and I'm a guy who's done a million connections in my life, I'm telling you. There you go. There you go. Serendipity. We love serendipity. And I was like, trade show guy. And I'm a guy who's done a lot of trade shows with a podcast.

We go interview a lot of our people that we do review products for and clients and stuff and promote them on our channels. And you're a gentleman who does some different things with trade shows as well. Give us your dot com so people can look that up as we're chit-chatting. Well, I've got a bunch of them, but the main one, I've kind of built this hub about six months ago called Tradeshowguy.net. That's probably the best place to find everything. I've got a couple of books there.

You can get free chapters or download a digital copy. You can go to our exhibit place. You can go to our webinar site and just a bunch of stuff there. Tradeshowguy.net would be the starting place. Tradeshowguy.net. And what do you do? Give us a bio rundown of what you do there. Well, I stumbled into radio when I was 19.

I did that for 25 years. The radio changed. I'm giving you the really short version. I got into this industry, which I really didn't even know existed in 2002 when I got hired as VP of sales marketing at a small company here in Salem, Oregon. They had an interpretive exhibit, which is different than trade show exhibits. Imagine going like to a visitor center at a dam or something like that. Someone has to design and build it. That's an interpretive exhibit.

Same skills and same design set can do trade show stuff. And they didn't do much of that. That wasn't their world. And they kind of brought me into, uh, they taught me the world. They said, you know, uh,

you're not really a sales guy, but we can teach you how the, the, the, the, the industry works. And so I slowly made my way. The first,

I think, uh, uh, exhibit I sold was at a kettle foods. You may have heard of kettle chips, a great one from there. We went to like Nancy's yogurt and Schmitz and Bob's Red Mill. There was a bunch of natural product stuff. And so that company closed down in 2011 when the owner said, you know, I'm done with this. I'm retiring.

And so I took a handful of clients and started my own company, a trade show guy exhibits doing essentially the same thing, although I don't do any interpretive stuff uh or signage a lot of that stuff uh mainly because corporate uh work is actually a quicker turnaround and there's a bigger margin frankly so yeah that's what i've been doing for nine years yeah that's awesome sauce and so you you basically help trade shows like if i'm a company and i want to go to a trade show and i need help setting up the booth, the exhibits, design. Is that what I'm understanding? That's exactly right. Yeah, I'll give you a good example.

This is pretty typical. I reached out to a potential client, let's just say Schmitz Naturals. This is about five years ago. They were looking for a new booth. They were kind of growing. A lot of the companies I work with are kind of in that growth mode. I don't know why it works, but it really does. They've had like a couple of banner stands and maybe a table cover and a couple of brochures, but they say, we really want a bigger,

better presence there. And so they're deciding to invest money in it. And then they said, so they get something that's designed that fits their brand really well, that is kind of stepping through a comfort zone in a sense because everything they had up to that point, they could ship on an airplane or take it with them and set it up, but now they need something that's in a crate. They've got to hire people to set it up, and that's something they aren't used to navigating.

But that's the stuff that we've been doing for a long time. So we work with the people that set up the booth. We work with the designers and fabricators. You know, I think it's probably the last 10 or 15 years, there's a lot of people like me that kind of work out of their homes, but they subcontract everything out. And once you know all those people in that industry, it's great to just say, you know, I need a designer that does X, I need a fabricator that does Y. And so you put these people together, you build a package, and you show them a design and the client says, great, we're off does Y. And so you put these people together, you build a package, and you show them the design, and the client says, great, we're off and running.

And then you just kind of manage the project. Sometimes you store the exhibit. A lot of companies don't have storage space. Others do. And then they have a need to have it shipped and set up. They do three or four shows a year or maybe one big show a year or two big shows. And so they need someone to handle all of that because it's kind of moved out of the, we store it in the closet down the hall with the banner stands to, we've got a really nice professional exhibit that shows off our brand. And it is, it's more expensive certainly than the banner stands and stuff, but it

really pays off. I've had the one client we did a 20 by 20 custom designed island booth for. And after the show was over, I, I talked to her and said, so how'd that go? And she says, we tripled our leads with that booth. We just, we just did an amazing job. People were just really amazed at exactly how the thing turned out. So that's the kind of work that we do. I write books to kind of show people what, what, what my skill is and give them a sense of how the industry works. Cause a lot of people get into it and just aren't, aren't unsure of a few parts of that. So as I was when I got into it,

well, let's feature those two books. Can you hold those two books up? So we get, so the first one is called trade show success, 14 proven steps to take your trade show marketing to the next level. Just kind of outline step one through Trade Show Success, 14 Proven Steps to Take Your Trade Show Marketing to the Next Level. Just kind of outline step one through 14, basically. Where do you go?

How much the budgeting? How do you get ready for the show? Are you going to the right shows? And then the booth itself and on and on. There's some chapters about pre-show marketing, social media, following up, keeping records. You got all these leads, now what you do. You know, here's an amazing statistic I heard when I first got into the industry, and it still is true.

Eight out of ten leads that are collected at trade shows are never followed up on. They never are, I can tell you that. And you know why? Because the leads aren't vetted correctly, and they aren't taken care of correctly. You know, people will come back from a trade show and say, the leads aren't vetted correctly and they aren't taken care of correctly. People will come back from a trade show and say, I got all these cards I got in the fishbowl. And so the sales people start calling and no one really remembers being at the show or dropping a card in the fishbowl.

So there's a process to collecting leads that makes them work and then following up, of course. The other book I wrote, I've been blogging about the industry for about 11 years now. And I have a book called Trade Show Superheroes and Exhibiting Zombies, 66 Lists Making the Most of Your Trade Show Marketing. And so what I did is, this was in 2018, I put this out. And I just went through and found all the lists in my blog. I kind of edited them down and put them together. You know, 10 things to look for in competitors' trade show booths. Your trade show visitors wants these six things from you.

Nine quirky, interactive things to do at trade shows. That's kind of what this book is about. And they're on Amazon. I just self-published them through their publishing arm. So that's the books, and that's kind of who I am and what I do. There you go, guys. You can find the books on Amazon. Just search for Tim Patterson, and you can find a link of course to his website on the chris voss show.com or any one of the other podcast sites this is going to appear on i think it's

going to be three um so i think this is pretty cool so the zombies things is kind of funny to me because i think it's great you have these wonderful ideas to people and of course i've seen the zombies that's what the funny part is because I'm thinking of all the booths that I've seen that I go to, and they're empty. And, like, I don't know if it's the, well, the boss is the way the employees play because, you know, a lot of times the ones I go to are in Vegas. So you're like, well, they're probably at the strip club um but i i kind of like those booths actually because you can never find seats at shows right they don't want you sitting they want you moving yeah exactly yeah i'm a big fat old man and we do about 10 to 15 interviews a day uh during the show and so i love zombie booths because i go sit in them then people start coming by and going so

what product is it? I'm like, dude, I'm just sitting here because, like, literally they'll do this thing. Like, they'll have this, and usually it's cheap booths, but they'll have this thing where they'll lay the cards out or the things out. One of the other big zombie things that I always see is I have this PR agent, and I love PR agents, but they'll be pestering me for like ever to come see their freaking booth. And I'm just like, finally, I'm just like, you know, and they send us stuff sometimes.

So we're like, okay, you know, we'll come see the booth. And make sure you ask for me. And we show up and they're gone. And they're like, where's your PR agent? And like either people in the booth don't know the PR agents there, which is kind of funny too. They're like, do we have a PR agent? You're like, what the fuck are you people doing here?

And then other times, you know, they go find the PR agent or they're like, we haven't seen the PR agent. We don't want to. And the PR agent, of course, the strip club. But we're at the bar, I suppose. I don't know. Or walking around trying to get new clients. But those are some of the funniest things that I've seen at, uh, well, I don't know

if they're the funniest thing. I've seen some weird stuff. I'm sure you've got some stories. Well, yeah. I mean, the people that, uh, the body language is, we talk to people about body language in a, in a, in a booth, you know, when you're walking up to a booth, the biggest thing that turns people off is food. If you're eating in the booth, people don't want to come and watch you eat.

You know, the other thing is like if people have their arms closed, that's like stay away. Yeah. And so there's the, for a trade show to be successful. And of course there's tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars that go into these booths.

You know, you go to the natural products expo West. One of my clients pays six figures for the space alone before they do anything else, just for the space. And so it's pretty astonishing how much money is invested in these. And so it's easy to go to the show and not get much back for it. But it's also, if you know what you're doing, it's the best place to put your marketing dollar. Because if you know what you're doing and your brand is well represented and the products are right, and you've got a staff that knows what they're doing, you can really kill

it because you've got a really focused audience that can come to your booth and you can talk to them. It's a whole lot cheaper than going to all of those various places throughout the country and talking to them in person. They're coming to see you. So I think it's a mindset and it's planning. That's really what it boils down to. And that's kind of what the books are about. I would think that you would really want to have salespeople in the booth. Cause you're right. I've seen that with the blocking and the person who's like, they're just, they're just some person who's not a people person and you know, some boss back East went just send those guys to the thing and tell them, you know, sometimes they're

the engineers who designed it they're not people people people uh people most times um and you know and yeah i you know i i would think you know like like you say the follow-up is abysmal like i've left my cards and thing i've given i've handed my cards to the to the pr agent I've handed my cards to the PR agent. I've handed my cards to when the PR agent is not there and said, can you give this to your PR agent? Follow-up is nearly abysmal. It really is. Yeah. And I don't understand that. As far as sending salespeople, I'm sure some of them are good, but some salespeople are not the people to be in the show. Sometimes it's your receptionist who's really bubbly and outgoing and is informed about what's going be in the show. Sometimes it's your receptionist who's really bubbly and outgoing and is informed about what's going on in the,

in the company. And she might be, or he might be better than some of the salespeople. So I think it's, it's, it's, uh, there's no wrong answers,

but it's just kind of like figuring out who is best. They can interact with those people. And sometimes you have too many people. Sometimes you have not enough. And so scheduling is an issue. There's just a lot of moving parts. And I'll be controversial here. I love booth babes and I'm sorry. I don't know what your position is.

Well, I, well, sure. I can't, we, we gotta love them. Right. But, and they, when they work hard at it, I think that in this day and age, in most cases, it just doesn't go over well. And it depends on the show. Is it a car show? And the show, you know, if you're going to the XXX show where they're, they're hawking all that stuff, those are required, right? But there are some shows where I think they'd fit better than others. I think in some countries in this day and age, they go better over better than others. In some locations, Vegas might be more appropriate than Seattle or San Francisco or Anaheim. Again, it depends on the show, and it also depends on the exhibitor.

Does the exhibitor want to give that impression or that as part of their brand, part of their image? I think it's a tough decision to make. You bring up a good point. The thing I love about, and I'm a little prejudiced to Vegas because I live there, but I know a lot of booth babes who, you know, that's what they do. But they have scaled it back to where they're not dressing so provocative now.

They're trying to keep it professional. But, I mean, some of these girls are just sexy as it is. But the girls, you know, I'll give a plug to the girls that are the booth babes nowadays i mean with the curtailing of the sexiness and the outfits that were a little too revealing i mean it did get crazy there um but now those guys are real professionals those they work hard and they know what they're real sales people i mean i've i've seen booth babes that don't know shit about the product be better salespeople for the product and better things than the things.

They have high energy. They know they're on a short-term clock. They know they got to do their thing. They're usually very people-oriented people. And, you know, it's funny. Sometimes they give a crap about the product. I think the other thing that really is effective at trade shows is, is, and again, it depends on the booth and the client and the product,

but hiring a professional presenter that's going to get up there and do three or four presentations an hour. If you have a guy who's really entertaining and very informative, you can collect a lot of leads over that. But you've got to be prepared as an exhibitor because if you get 20 or 30 people, you've got to have a lot of people be able to get those people and get information, ask them the questions

before they zoom off to the next booth, you know, once the presentation's over. So there's preparation in that, but I've seen presentation experts just really knock it out of the park by boosting the lead count for a lot of shows. Tech shows is one place where it really goes over well. So what's the best way to do it?

Is it list building? Is it getting people's names and emails from either business cards or maybe having them put their name on a list? I hate the list thing. I mean, I understand the thing of it. I go, hey, good for you for doing that. But making me write my freaking email just makes me kind of mental. Yeah, that's kind of tough to get emails out of people these days. Ten years ago, not so tough.

I don't mind giving it. Like, I'll give you my card with my email on it. But just writing, like, no one writes anymore. No one writes it, yeah. I don't know how your writing's going, but last time I tried to write on something, it looked like I was scrawling a kidnapper freaking letter. I know. Suicide note.

I have to do what? Wait a minute. Yeah, like a death threat sort of thing. It looked like a serial killer wrote it, basically. Well, I think that when it comes to making your time at a trade show pay off, I think you really have to know what your objective is. An example at a food show, a natural products

industry, the expo, a lot of that is food. You're sampling food, so you want to know what people like. You want to get the samples into their hands. Kettle Foods for a long time did a new flavor. They'd test two or three flavors every year, and they'd have people vote on them by just marking an X on a board or just asking the question.

And so you're getting information back, but you're also giving people a chance to sample. Interactivity in a booth is, I think, a way to get people to stop. And if you have something that relates to your show, like a demo or something, or to your product or service, then that also gives you information. So I think there's a lot of different ways to do it. And it takes experimentation, you know, what works this show might not work the next show. What works in this venue might not work in the next one and vice versa. I think it just takes a lot of willingness to try different things instead of

just showing up and hoping, and that's not really a plan, a strategy. Definitely. And I think, really a plan, a strategy. Definitely. And I think it's great you have the budget and the book because people really don't think about what they're doing. Like they'll buy, like I'll see at CS, not so much at CS, I'll see that in the cheap area of Eureka Park and CS. But, I mean, those guys are low budget. They're,

they're, they're just barely able to afford the show and I get it, but I'll see this at other shows or, or small off shows like pepcom or, or, or other shows where they don't buy a big enough table and they send like four fricking employees and they have a table that's, I don't know. I've never really measured it,

but it's like five foot. Yeah. And they're standing in front of this lane of people that, and, and the four employees or five employees are inundated and they're trying to show the product. You can't see the product. And you know, they're inundated by these SWAT. This is a copyrighted term, swag whores. This is my term that i that i coined it's going to be a good term it's a we'll be talking about swag whores and i'm a legitimate

reviewer we've been reviewing for almost 12 years now we review products i'm not a swag whore i'm not looking for free crap i don't you know i like i like free stuff if it's mailed to me and we review it but i don't want to have you hand me a box of headphones and and have me walk around the show with that i'm already dragging a gig bag and mics and cameras and and and to me it's just it just kind of is unprofessional i mean sometimes i'll take it if it's like really expensive or like you're not sure how soon you can get a ship to me or if it's really hot like if it's that show hot you know where i want to take it home be like this is the thing to see at the show maybe we'll take it but

it's really got to be something if it's a below a hundred dollars i'm probably not going to mess with it i just don't care and i'm just not going to carry it around but one of the challenges i have is i'll come by a booth and they're being inundated by the swag whores who want some free crap they're being inundated by you know whores who want some free crap they're being inundated by you know people who uh i guess they don't have any friends in their life and so they've decided to have a life conversation with the with the booth dude and the booth people don't know how to blow the guy off right and and uh and so i'll go by and i've got my big chris fosh show and every now and then somebody will see the Chris Voss show logo,

the one you see in the background here. They'll see that on me and they'll be like, whoa, shit, that's a guy we need to talk to. You know, they'll recognize me from the show. But I try and wander shows incognito. One time I followed Mossberg. I forget his first name. Walter Mossberg.

Big reviewer, apple reviewer and stuff i followed him around the show and it's kind of interesting to watch how he went around the show he pretty much stayed in canedo until he saw something that really stuck out to him and then he go talk to people and then it was funny to stand behind him because anytime somebody figured out who he was they would have this crap their pants look on their face because they knew who he was and it's like if you muck this you are we're screwed we're just right so there's there's a lot that goes into it and i'm glad you designed it i'm going to be interested to check out your books and read some of the details and hopefully maybe we can refer you some business um the um

uh but yeah there's a lot of thought that needs to go into trade shows. A lot of ways you can fail. I'm just amazed. I'm one of the few people that I come home with my business cards after a trade show and I email everybody. And I know that sounds old world.

I do the same thing. Yeah. You and me. This is like one show, right? Yeah, there you go. I go through, I make the little database and give them a shout.

And, you know, that's my follow-up. And I'm not as good as I would like to be. But, you know, you mentioned the interactivity at a booth and how to handle people. You know, like a guy wants to tell you his life story. And that is a skill to be able to politely disengage because your goal at the show is to find out, A, if they are a potential

customer, and B, if they are a potential decision maker, and C, if they have the money for it, and D, when they're going to buy. Once you figure all that out, then you want to talk to them. But if that doesn't scan, then you just kind of say, thank you, but I've got to move on over here because we've got a lot of people we've got to talk to. And you have to learn how to do that. But you're right. A lot of people go to shows to talk to. And you have to learn how to do that. But you're right. A lot of people go to shows that don't have that skill. And so that kind of hangs things up. And I don't know what you do as a guy watching the show.

Sometimes I just get frustrated. And I'll just, if it's something I really want to review, I'll be like, that product is really cool and we should feature that because it's like the standout product for the show. Or it's something that's innovative. Like I look for, like I walk by a million booths without even stopping right even if they see me and go hey chris i'll be like hey you gotta i've seen you know you're just a retread you've just put your name on something that somebody designed 13 years ago i've seen your movie um but uh i'll just

sometimes i'll just get frustrated, and I'll either walk away and think I'll come back, and I never come back, or I'll just reach in and be an asshole, hand my card to whoever's being there, the guy who won't shut up, and I'll just be like, Hey, Chris Voss, Chris Voss Show, review products, get back to us. And then they'll realize that the boat's going right by. I don't know which is the worst problem to have, to have a booth at an aisle that's so crowded in front of you,

you can't talk to more than one person or an empty aisle. Yeah. And we've seen them both. We've seen them. We've walked down the back sides of big halls and going, wait a minute, there's a lot of exhibitors, but half the booths are empty and no one's back here. And sometimes you can't even see the booth

because they buy a booth that's so bloody small and they've got the four employees blocking it right and yeah and you're just like man you should really buy i mean how much extra was it for that extra you know booth i know they're expensive but you really think about how much you lose and everything so i think it's great what are some of the other topics you talk about in your books some of the key points that are important well let. What are some of the other topics you talk about in your books? Some of the key points that are important. Well, let me break down some of the categories of the superheroes and zombies book. I mean, we've got budgeting, of course, is a big deal. Buying an exhibit, you know, how do you get the right exhibit, the right size?

Sometimes big is not better. Sometimes you need something smaller. You know, pre-show marketing activity, I think is very critical and probably one of the more overlooked ones um we talked about um that one is huge if you don't mind if i riff on that that one is really huge pre-show marketing um a lot of people don't realize how much people like me that are press are looking for what's hot and what's good now we hate getting in and day with 50,000 fucking emails right but um we we that's how we find what we're doing and of course what we do on social media is we watch for what's standing out so that's really important i mean people just think you can just go pop up a booth and be successful um there's those days are over yeah those days are over i mean i've gotten 5,000 emails and i've got 20,000 appointments and oh my god there's there's those days are over yeah those days are over i mean i've gotten 5 000 emails and i've

got 20 000 appointments and oh my god there's there's some of these uh there's some of these pr agents they hump my leg for appointments and if you're not doing that um well i guess good luck yeah i mean you've got of course social media you can blast out there uh if you have a newsletter make sure you mention it people uh. Of course, there's email. There's snail mail. You can send a postcard or send a... The old trick is like... This goes back for 20 or 30 years, but the old

Michael Jackson trick. You send one glove to a guy that you really want to come up with. It's a really neat glove. You say, I got the other glove for you once you show up at the booth. You know, this type of thing. You do that to me all the time. We get the review product for you when you show up at the booth you know this type of thing um yeah we got the review product for you when you show up yeah setting appointments uh i mean you try and do that uh i know that booth uh they're you know shows are crazy and chaotic and it's hard to schedule

stuff but if you can schedule appointments with the your top prospects and say i'll have a space for you at four o'clock on thursday see you there towards the end of the day. We'll have a beer there for you or whatever the case may be. And we'll chat for half an hour. I think appointments are a big deal. And I'm talking about direct mail. You know, you can obviously do LinkedIn and Instagram and Facebook and things like that. But there's a lot of different things. Sending something to somebody gets their attention probably more than anything,

especially if it's a substantial thing, whether it's a Michael Jackson glove or something else. Maybe it's just an invitation. I've got a really neat thing if you come by, but you've got to bring this card. And so that kind of puts you on their radar more. Definitely. You know, it's funny.

How do you feel about this? Because this always bugs me everyone wants me to come interview the ceo in the first day or two and then they're gone and it usually it's like a three or four day show right and they're like everyone seems to give up like halfway through the second day like and then the third day everyone's just phoning it in that's when you find zombie booze like people just like yeah it's the end of the it's the third day of the show it's just it's treated like a dog or well yeah i think the energy is really high uh you know that opening hour on day one and it's pretty high throughout

the day day two not bad depends on if it's a three or four day show but you're right towards the end of the second day it's like okay we're having the uh we're bringing the kegger to our um our our booth here at four o'clock uh you know on the second day third day it's like okay we're gonna have this and this and this but you're right if it's a four-day show i think national association broadcasters was four days i went to two days and took off and then the the expo West, the natural products is like three days. Uh, actually it's four because they got a day before, which is like at a different venue in the hotel nearby, which is smaller for the new hot products, but you're right. It can go along. It's a, it's a marathon in a sense. Yeah. And I, I really get

disappointed because when I do shows, we try and go booth to booth. I mean, every year, CS, I try and go booth to booth. NAB is a bit more manageable. But I'm really disappointed when I come to booths and they're empty or they're dead. One thing I also don't get is I'll go to booths and they'll have all this product that they shipped. And I'm like, what are you going to do with that product? And they're like, we're just gonna send it back i'm just like and sometimes they'll shove it at me and it's the third day or something i'll be like fuck it whatever it's the third day i'll carry it um uh but it's got to usually be something important but even then you know though

they're just trying to get rid of stuff and i'm like you should just like just get rid of it but even then it kind of bugs me that if there's so much that I have going on, people don't realize we'll have private dinners with CEOs, people are launching products at night. There's so much that we have going on at night and meeting with people. I mean, I don't party during shows. I'm there to work and make money. And people don't realize that I can't see, as a professional,

I can't see everything in the first day or two. And so I'm still wandering the third day and people are just going to give it up. That's what things are. I guess I would observe that, you know, on the third day, fourth day that,

uh, there's not as many people there. And so that's kind of when I've had some great conversations with people that have led to business on those days when, when things weren't as busy. And so I think if you're persistent enough as if it depends on what your objective is there, my objective is just to meet people. I'm not going to sell at the show because I'm not an exhibitor, but if I'm going to go just meet people at shows and say, Hey, how's it going? What's going on? They'll ask what I do. And you know, my, my badge will usually have the name of a client on. They say, you you're with,

I said, well, we did their booth. And, and so that can engender a conversation. But again, those can come, uh,

and they're more relaxed, uh, once the third or fourth day is underway towards the end of the day. Uh, it's like, it's not as crazy and chaotic. And so I tend, if I'm going to a show,

generally speaking, I'll stay for the whole show just so I can make sure that I'm there and keep collecting cards and keep meeting people as long as I can. And that usually is, there's some payoff in that. And I'd be a mean boss too. I'd be like, if you're going to Vegas, man, you're not partying at night. You go back to the hotel, do whatever. I don't know.

I don't know if you can even do that, but I would be a mean boss. I'm like, I don't want to hear that you're at the strip club I don't want to hear you hit the bar because I think that's half the reason because I've seen the hangover the next morning at the booth and that's just a horrible sales impression it's not a good look they're just sitting around going

I can't do that anymore I'm way too old for that and after a walk my Fitbit says you put on 7 miles today dude so I want to go back and just relax and oh yeah i have to go back home and crawl into a fetal ball just from all the walking i'm never prepared so lots of good tips for people to take and uh do with the show um what what any other recommendation you have or advice you have uh on on doing great trade shows and being successful at it? Well, I think, you know, if you have a good team, the right number of team, the people

are really, really buy in. I think the buy in is the great, is the great, you know, decision maker or the great lever that you have when you have a bunch of people in your booth. If they believe in what you're doing and they're part of it, even if they're the newest employee who's at the lowest on the, on the ranking versus the CEO, if the CEO is a good guy or girl and, and everyone buys into the mission, I think that really kind of is a big,

big part of it. Kind of one of the unspoken things. I should make a list on that. Definitely. Definitely. I mean, it's i've gotten to boosts and people are just melancholy they're just kind of like yeah we got a product here you know we're just phoning it in and then some people are are are genuinely bubbly and

outgoing and genuine without even trying and other people it's a stretch to get them a smile if anything you know how people i mean it would almost be in my opinion and i'll let you weigh in but it would almost be better i i swear to god some of the companies i've gone to their booths they've hired like a sort of guy that you see on the infomercials the high energy boom boom boom he's like let me show you the product here we got this product here and this thing is freaking awesome now it does this this this and they go they they they're fun to listen to and you just get captivated and hypnotized by them you're just like i don't know what you're selling but it sounds really cool i'll buy it now shut up and i would almost say that a company should hire try and see if they can hire somebody like that either from a talent agency or something um as opposed to sending boring-ass employees

that are just going to be phony. It goes back to a really good professional presenter. I know a number of them. I've seen them. And they work hard. They get paid well. But they know the client's product inside and out for that show and what they're pushing.

And the best ones have mixed some sort of entertainment in with them, whether it's magic or some sort of other entertainment. That way that draws people in, but then they can start tying in the client's software does this and this and this and whatever. And that, again, it's worth hiring those people for because they're just going to pay off. Yeah,, it, I think what a lot of people don't think about is that it is a sales, you know, it is a sales moment. I mean, you've got people

that are selling your product, your brand, your brand building. I mean, even if you're not selling product right on the spot, you're, you're building a brand, you're building a memory. Those are the companies I come back from and I go wow who really stuck out of the show with me and the people that were the high energy that had the sometimes their products weren't that interesting but they made them interesting i mean that's the that's the great thing about you know the guy who sells what's that seal thing you know the guy who sells the sealer on tv like you always remember those commercials i didn't i have no use for that product whatsoever, but if I ever need seal crap, I'm going to go buy that seal crap. But I know that brand. I know that

dude is high energy. They're entertaining and everything else. And so I think it's real important that, and I imagine in your experience to a lot of companies, if they don't do a show right and it's, they don't take responsibility for maybe where they failed or they haven't gotten educated with buying your books and reading them, but then they scale back. And they go, well, we really didn't see a big return on investment. And I've heard that before. A number of examples of clients that I've worked with who, Kettle Foods is one example. They got bought like three times during the time and bought and sold three times during the time I worked with them. And at one point, they looked at their budget and said, we're spending, the new owners, and we're spending that much.

And so they pulled back for a year. And it took them another year or two. They came back with a smaller presence. Now, of course, a few years after that, they're back with a big presence. But they had to reevaluate everything. That's one example. I've had another client that launched products at the Natural Products Show, got a lot of distributors out of it, got a lot of, you know, worth, you know, it was worth their time to come to do that. But after several years, they decided, you know, we aren't getting a whole lot out of this. We're seeing the same people over and over.

And they pulled back trade show marketing, didn't work for them to the extent that it did earlier. And it wasn't the most important thing. They had other avenues of marketing. So I think there's a cycle that it could certainly go through. Uh, and I've seen it a number of times. And, and, you know, I think if anything, you know, marketing is so important. Sales is so important, especially right now in what's going to go on. These shows are, uh, you know, like I so important. Sales is so important, especially right now in what's going to go on. These shows are, uh, you know,

like I said, I've got bets going with people as to what shows are going to be running in the near future. CS included, et cetera, et cetera. Um, I,

of course, uh, I'm pretty 100% sure CS is going to go on Gary Shapiro's. That's January, right? Early January. Yeah. And I think in January we'll have a lot of testing.

We're going to have a lot of, you know, we're going to have a lot of testing. We're going to have a lot of PPE. We're going to have a lot of different things. In fact, I went to the store the other day and found that they're selling now the big 95 mask. You can buy like a giant. And you can buy toilet paper now at the stores too. Yeah, you can buy toilet paper. Toilet paper is good, I hear. Not for masks, but you know. There you go. But yeah, the masks were expensive holy crap but i think

we're gonna have all that hopefully maybe we'll have a vaccine or maybe we'll have some sort of uh way to cripple the virus by then i'll keep my fingers crossed but it looks like these shows will go on and and they might have some social distancing to them still etc etc uh but uh uh you know putting putting and the other big the reason for the bet is people that i bet are going well people aren't going to be spending on marketing and i'm like that's the dumbest thing you can do is is not spend on marketing when you're down yeah you gotta let people know you're still there you gotta let people know you're still there you're still open you're still in business i mean we're still doing that today with the chris voss show and our review blog

we're writing people and going hey we're still here we're still doing stuff because there's so many people going out of business people don't know anymore and yeah are you even in business and to me honestly i think if you go to future shows in the next year or so uh you're actually going to get a corner on the market to me i i could be wrong but i think if you go to a show and your competitors don't go because they're crippled and even if you got to spend you know some pennies or borrow some money to get there i think you're going to stand at the show even more at these future shows because there's going to be less competition showing up for you i don't know you know it's that's a good observation a good thought to to to ponder um you know the big one i go to the natural products expo west they were going to push the show

i guess i mentioned i think in the green room that i was on the airplane march 2nd i had 11 clients there and by the time i got on the plane uh 10 of them had said we're not going to the show the 11th one said well we'll be there and then as i'm got on the plane 10 of them had said we're not going to the show the 11th one said well we'll be there and then as I'm sitting on the plane I got the email from the show organizers we're canceling the show and then like five minutes later I got a text from the

last client that said well obviously we're not going to be there either but I went down there and I had like I don't know five clients that had all their stuff delivered to their booth and I had to help coordinate shipping out and that so i made a week out of it i made a mini vacation out of it but they said at the time um you know we're going to do this in june or july and then they said well we're not going to do it at all and we have they have a fall one in september in philadelphia i think and now i think they've postponed that or canceled that. And so, you know,

you talk to people in the industry, some say, ah, 2021, things will be back to normal. Others say it won't be really till 2022 when everything is back to normal all the way. And I think that's, you know, obviously the exhibitors want to be comfortable. The attendees want to be comfortable. The organizers got to really weigh all that and value all those opinions of all those stakeholders to get the show even off the ground at this point. But you're right. I think some will go on. And we'll see how the, like the CES, I'm curious to see how that goes. If that's in January, that's six months away.

But again, that's only six months away. And it takes that long to plan for it. If you're going to be an attendee or an exhibitor, you've got to know what's going on. Yeah. It's a tough call. If you're going to invite people to boost to talk to the CEO, make sure the CEO is a people person and knows how to sell. Yeah.

I've met a lot of great CEOs. Most of them are because you don't get to be a CEO without having a big mouth. That's why I have a big mouth. And you've got to be some sort of a people person whether it's whether it's uh manipulating or or it's genuine so and i wish they would keep them there for three days like they bring them there for a day and i guess they have enough of it or something i don't know they figure they meet all the core people but it's so compressed in the first day i just really wish companies would leave people there for two or three days there's a lot of times i show up in a booth and i'll be like i'm gonna

have to come back later because you guys are overflowed it's day one it's crazy stupid um and i can't deal with all your stuff so well everyone should check out your book so go and hold them up again tim if you yes get a chance this. So this is Trade Show Superheroes and Exhibiting Zombies. And the other one is Trade Show Success. Trade Show Success. I really recommend if you're doing trade shows to get Tim's books because I want to see better shows. I want to see better boosts, being a consumer of boosts, if you will. They're like 100 pages, 115 pages, quick read, a couple hours.

Read them on the way home from a show or something. There you go. The, uh, uh, you know, it's, it's, and I want to see people be successful at shows. I mean, I do too. We do a lot to have them be successful. I love seeing boosts. I mean, the crazy boost that I see at CS,

they're like, I don't know, $10 million or $20 million. It's the same. Yeah. Come in. Yeah. That was a big shock when i got into the industry i said it stuff people spend that much on this stuff wow oh yeah you could buy five houses oh yeah for that i mean you should see what they spend to to put keynote speakers and the top

speakers of cs and stuff and uh it's just crazy and then south by you see a lot of i think what you would call interactive boosts that are really interesting, how they display them and how they go. Oh, the creativity level with booths these days. Just phenomenal. I'm always impressed. Yeah.

It's like insane. You look at the money, but technically when you're spending that kind of money, you make sure you squeeze your dollar. Yes. Yes. Yes. And work with a good team.

So, yeah. Well, everyone go check out Tim Patterson's books, and hopefully I'll be bumping him in some future shows now. That would be nice. Go to Amazon.com, check out his book. What's your website also, Tim?

Tradeshowguy.net. Tradeshowguy.net. Check him out and all that good stuff. Hire him to get your booths well, and then I'll be coming by and going, wow, Tim did such a great job. I want to review your products. This is awesome. So there you go.

Thanks to my audience for tuning in. We certainly appreciate you guys being here. Be sure to go to thecbpn.com or chrisvosspodcastnetwork.com. You can see all nine podcasts there from a variety of different shows that will make your brain so big you'll have to go – you might have to go have your cranium like extended like one of those domes put on like uh well the star trek brainiacs yeah the brainiacs you have the little brain things you might you might start seeing like little brain vessels coming out of

your brain you'll be that smart and no one will be able to win an argument with against you so there you go that or maybe not anyway guys we certainly appreciate you guys thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next time