The Booth Staff Meeting

The show is about to start, so it's time to gather the staff for a briefing before the attendees flood onto the show floor. At NACStech, we had a staff of about 12 for the 7 workstations. The meeting was led by the two main sales people for the business unit. We took 15 minutes to brief them on three key topics and take a quick tour of the booth:

1. How to take and record leads.
2. Booth etiquette, rules and expectations.
3. Customers and others to expect in the booth.

A quick tour taking them to each station confirmed who was to demo what product or offering at each station.

How to take and record leads. We emphasized that leads are why we are at the show. We demo'd the lead device, scanning a badge, showing them how to fill out and attach the comment form and where to stow the finished lead. (for the record, the first day yielded 54 contacts, which is actually up by about 30% over last year's show).

Booth etiquette, rules and expectations. No eating, no drinking, smoking, talking on cell phones or congregating needlessly. Engage the customer, deliver the messages you've been coached with, and qualify people before gathering the lead.

Customers and others to expect in the booth. The sales guys gave us a short list of which top customers would be by and what demos they expected to be shown. We also advised the team that press and media should be directed to the VP of Marketing or me.

The first day went well. Looking forward to the second day.

Lesson learned: plan your work and work your plan.

TTSG