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bi-weekly column with timely,
relevant and possibly irreverent
insight into the BC technology
industry.
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Something Ventured:
October 6th, 2006
By
Brent Holliday
Greenstone Venture Partners
Trade Shows: Boondoggle or Boo-Yah!
“Her ego wrote cheques incredibly fast,
But her personality didn’t have the cash,
I laughed out loud to my total dismay,
She ain’t pretty, she just looks that way.”
– Northern Pikes, She Ain’t Pretty
Ah, trade shows… the necessary evil
for technology companies. They are necessary for
getting access to concentrated customer groups and
getting PR messages out to the world. But they cost
money, can cost the company dearly if the show is a
disaster and tend to be drunken boondoggles for
marketing and sales types (and the odd investor/board
member that attends… ahem). I just attended my
millionth trade show since first attending one in
business school in 1992 in Florida. I was supporting my
company ICEsoft (www.icesoft.com)
at AJAXworld in Santa Clara. As I flew home, surrounded
by heavily festooned bag/knapsacks full of marketing
material, t-shirts and pens, I reflected on my years of
experience at these things and came up with some
immutable laws for start-ups attending trade shows. If
you want to get more than a hangover and a bag full of
magic eight balls, then follow these sacred laws:
Law #1 – Thou Must Go To The
Right Show – Face it, you have to go to trade
shows. Whether you are attending to gather information
on the market or presenting your company and/or products
to the masses, you have to attend. Depending on your
market space and the relative hype around it, you may
have many, many choices of trade shows or conferences.
If you are simply attending to gather info, you needn’t
be as picky as if you are attending to present or
exhibit. When you are shelling out big money (see Law
#2), you need to get to the right show.
As a start-up prudently spending
money, do your homework on attendance of shows and
quality of speakers. Be skeptical of new shows unless
they are run by big, established event companies. Call
sponsors and ask if they feel it is worth their time and
money. Ask the PR agencies which shows are hot and
which are not. Do not attend every show. Pick one with
good coverage of the market, the “can’t miss” show of
the year in your space and then attend smaller ones only
if the customer mix is different than the other shows.
Law #2 – Thou Shalt Spend The
Marketing Tax – Grit your teeth and prepare to pay
up, once you have chosen the right show to present at.
You have to get the show organizer on the phone and
bulldog your way into a good uncluttered location. You
will have to pay more to be near the door or beside the
big gorilla in your space. But do it. Do not end up in
the back beside the empty couches and the washroom. If
you are getting speakers, be a bulldog and get
uncluttered speaking time. Pay up for the “keynote” or
at very large shows, get some quality speaking time
(never just before lunch and never late in the day).
This is so important. Do not try
and save money here. Pay the marketing tax to the show
organizers. Even a snazzy booth and great products will
get lost if you are in a bad spot with terrible speaking
times.
Law #3 – Thou Must Have A Real
Product To Sell – Spending PR dollars and big trade
show dollars to “pre-launch” you product is like pouring
money down a hole. Those games don’t work anymore and
if they do, they only work for the biggest companies
with many product lines. A little start-up looking to
make a big impact and grab a few lead customers cannot
stand straight faced in a booth and say general
availability will be in July 2007. Not when all the
others are selling today. Only attend trade shows as an
attendee before your product is ready for prime time.
Laws 1 and 2 only work if you can satisfy the curiosity
of the customers (and your competitors) with real,
demonstrable product.
If you are a highly technical
product selling into a very sophisticated market (life
sciences, optical networking, embedded design for
example) where the product takes years to develop, then
there is a caveat to Law #3. Having your CTO attend
conferences as a speaker to launch white papers ahead of
the product is OK, as long as the technical discussions
don’t tip the hand on your product too much and your IP
is still protected.
Law #4 – Thou Must Train And
Test Your Floor Staff – Forget the booth babes (Law
#6) and train your staff rigourously on your product and
its core benefits. Your staff must be able to recognize
a customer or important potential partner. There must
be a plan to refer these important people to the right
staff member and/or to refer more technical questions to
the right staff member. Your staff cannot have their
valuable floor time eaten up by some VC who is an
investor in your chief competitor (amazing how many
companies don’t know this law) or some know-it-all
technical wiz looking to pooh-pooh your invention.
Test your staff before they go with highly technical
questions. Make sure they refer before divulging
anything that is a) wrong or b) secret. Engineers love
to defend their creation. If they are on the floor,
they need to know that you are marketing and “marketing”
does not mean a throw-down-drag-out argument to win
points over any propeller head that strolls along. Core
competencies of the product. Key differentiators versus
competition. Make sure their badge is scanned or their
card is procured. Recognize a windbag and have an
“exit” strategy.
My horror story from the AJAXworld
show is about a company who announced their big new
strategy for their product (open source) and had a booth
full of new hires. A couple of small problems… they did
not have a product yet (Law # 3) and they had
ill-equipped staff that didn’t know basic questions that
customers were asking. It seemed that everyone was
referred to the founder/CTO and he was quickly swamped.
This company was small and entering a crowded market
already for AJAX tools. They left the show as no threat
to anyone and I would imagine, little follow-up. In
short, a trade show disaster.
Law #5 – Thou Shalt Get An
Honest Assessment Of Your Performance – Marketing
people get so hyped up at these shows and tend to
overestimate the actual success of your company at the
show. You can get jazzed easily after a few positive
conversations with potential customers and a few dozen
cups of coffee. The reality is that you need to do a
holistic assessment. Is your booth busier than your
competition? It is natural to want to skewer your
competition (as part of Law #4, you might want to have
key weaknesses of the competition ready for your
staff). But an honest conversation with customers away
from your booth about what the competition is saying
about you and what they are touting as their advantage
is important. Send out your secret shopper to talk to
the competition and overhear their pitch to customers.
Bring back their key messages. Find out who they think
is a threat in the market (hopefully it is you). Talk
to and listen to the people attending… don’t just sell
them.
Law # 6 – Thou Shalt Not Do
Gimmicks – Booth Babes, hired pitch men, free booze
and any handout that will a) cause you to check a bag
going home on the plane, b) increase your threat level
at airport security or c) cause head scratching when the
bag is emptied later because there is no logo or
reference to what you do on the freebie is a No No. Big
signage, bright colours, stand-out uniforms, great
collateral (more on that in a minute) and strong visuals
(video, photos, charts) are the ways to attract people
to the booth. Gimmicks are hokey. They make you look
desperate. Free booze is the worst of all of them.
Sponsoring a free drink up for 5 minutes of uncluttered
pitching to the people who are already tipsy and will
not remember where their hotel room is, let alone who
paid for their booze, is a colossal waste of money. At
another conference I was at last year, the whole bar was
open in the hotel and after three 15 yr old single malts
and a couple of equally expensive cigars, I forgot my
own name, let alone the sponsors.
Good collateral is to the point.
It is not pages and pages of stuff that I can read from
your web site if I am interested. It is hard hitting on
the key differentiators and advantages of the product.
It is coordinated with your entire marketing push in
design and feel. In order to be cost effective, there
are usually two levels of collateral. The quick punchy
inexpensive postcard that everyone gets at the show and
the more detailed spec sheet/product description that is
behind the booth or under a table ready to be handed to
those that show keen interest.
Law #7 – Thou Must Follow Up
Relentlessly – The trade show gets you nowhere if
you don’t properly collect, prioritize and sort the
leads generated on the floor. Follow up must happen
within a week in order to keep the lead fresh. So many
companies collect the cards and then put the stack on
the sales guy’s desk when they return and never think of
the people again. It is a sin to spend the money at the
show and then let the warm leads die afterwards. If you
don’t have a process to deal with lead generation, then
get one.
While they cost big money, take
away valuable employee time setting up and tearing down
booths and take enormous organization, the trade shows
are a necessary part of growing your technology
business. For me, they have always been the best
barometer for your investment or the best way to check
out the industry before you invest. Just follow the
laws of trade shows and they should work out for your
company.
What Do You Think? Talk Back To Brent Holliday
Something Ventured is a bi-weekly column designed
to supplement the T-Net British Columbia web site with
some timely, relevant and possibly irreverent insight
into the industry. I hope to share some of the
perspective and trends that I see in my role as a VC.
The column is always followed by feedback (if its
positive or constructive. I'll keep the flames to
myself, thanks).
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