Is your organization planning to attend any trade exhibitions in 2025? If so, now is the time to ramp up your preparations.

Exhibitions can boost brand awareness, showcase new products and generate sales leads. But they also need a return on investment, as it can be a costly exercise to design and build an eye-catching stand, secure a prominent position in the exhibition hall, and take up employees’ time manning the stand.

While the stand attracts attention, human interaction seals the deal. But, when I visit exhibitions, all too often I see employees talking among themselves and looking disinterested – remember visitors can see from afar your body language and whether you are enticing or discouraging them to come on to the stand!

I believe these behaviors are down to a lack of preparation and clarity on what the organization is seeking to achieve from a trade exhibition. Some key pointers to consider:

• Those manning the stand need to fully understand the exhibition goals and what success looks like.
• Experience and knowledge of the services and products being promoted on the stand is important. But so are other skills such as elevator pitches, story-telling and promotion of key messages; which are often left wanting.
• Knowing how to create warm, friendly and welcoming connections with visitors, and using empathy, body language and listening skills to understand their interests and requirements.

Refresher presentation training is essential for all staff on the stand; particularly for those delivering keynote presentations or sitting on speaker panels, amid the noise and distraction of a bustling exhibition arena!  It’s unlikely anyone will be walking around the exhibition with a purchase order and ready to commit on the day. Training will help you achieve positive face-to-face conversations, communicate key messages in an engaging manner, and encourage follow-up meetings.

Spoken Word Communications can help with this. We train organizations on how to make positive audience connections , and promote services and products in a way that is engaging, informative and memorable. Above all, we want to help you ‘exhibit’ your company as the stand-out organization!