7 Tips for Trade Show Exhibitors - Affiliate Summit East Review

Ok, so the Affiliate Summit East was a week ago. I know. But I wanted to post some observations. In this post, I would like to give a few pointers to people who might have paid the $5k to $7.5 k to be an exhibitor.This Affiliate Summit in Miami was my first for this industry but I have been an exhibitor in trade shows in the financial arena and have walked the floor at several more in cities throughout the US and the rules are the same.

1. Put people in your booth who know what your product is and can answer at least a few of the basic questions. I was amazed at how many semi-attractive women would hand out a flyer but could not answer even the basics of what the company did. This is not a post about women. There were more than a bunch of women at the summit who were experts in their field but I was amazed at the lack of information available from people manning the booths.
   At mortgage trade shows there are often models not wearing enough clothes handing out crap. You know not to ask them any questions. If you want questions answered, you find someone dressed like a business person and you ask them. Not so here.
2. Put people in your booth who are not actively pledging a fraternity. I went up to one booth and the guy dropped two f bombs and told me about his hangover in the first 30 seconds cough cough pepperjam cough cough. The guy stank of alcohol and asked what parties I had gone to the night before. I told him I spent the night with my wife and kids. He looked at me funny.
   Incidentally, I asked him, “What exactly does pepperjam do?” He said, “Everything.”
   Hopefully that includes running detox centers.
3. If you are an affiliate network, have an answer to the question, “What makes you guys different?” There seemed to be 30 affiliate networks there. If you can’t answer this question, you may want to reconsider your business plan. One company said, “Look, we all have the same offers. The difference with us is we will actually return your calls.” Excellent response. Now that affiliate companies are little more than commodity brokers you have to sell service. Without that you really have nothing to offer.
4. Affiliates do not care about your technology. In response to the above question one guy started telling me about the interface. I said, “So I get your code, put it on my site and when people click through and perform an action I get money. Right?” He said, “Yeah. Basically.” Thanks for the pen. Moving on.
5. Go to Azoogle and Copeac’s booths. I use Azoogle. Went to their booth. They acted like they cared that I am an affiliate. The woman in the booth gave me her card and told me to call her if I need anything even though she is not my manager. Went to Copeac. The two guys there were actively trying to recruit my business, found products they had that were comparable to what I was running, gave me the name of the guy who would be my affiliate there at the show. When I got home, the guy sent me an email within the first 2 days with an offer sheet. Nice!
6. Don’t waste your time talking to people trying to get your business. Let’s think this through logically. You leave your business for a week. You fly yourself (and possibly some employees) across the country and pay for hotel rooms and food. You set up your $4k trade show display, handouts and trade show crap in your $7k floor space. You stand on your feet all day answering the same questions all in the hopes of landing a few new clients. A new, interested client comes to your booth but you don’t talk to him because you are talking to the guy trying to sell you something. The guy who did not spend the $4k on the display, the $7k on the booth space, the handouts, the …
   There were four different exhibitors that I waited and waited to talk to, ultimately to no avail, while they stood there and got pitched a product. In the trade shows I exhibited at, I would have gone to the operators and had them thrown out. They cheapen the product the trade show offers. Why put up a booth if I don’t have to? I can see one guy getting trapped but this was a plague.
7. Follow up! the trade show was a week ago and I have gotten 3 emails. I handed out almost 100 cards. Why exactly did you do everything in #6?

All this week I will be posting my review of the Affiliate Summit. Check out some really positive things tomorrow.

This weeks posts has been sponsered by CPA Affiliates. They gave me tickets to the show and I am really grateful. Thanks Guys!