December 8, 2016 Heather James

The Art and Science of the Exhibit Hall: Presentation Skills for Conferences

Presentation Skills for Conferences

By Andy Likes, TVG Vice President

How many of you have been to a conference in the last year? You probably remember lots of helpful breakout sessions and keynote speakers you’d love to hear again. Now what about the exhibit hall?How memorable were the booths and the people working behind them? All too often, trade show and conference booths are an afterthought. Many companies put very little thought into how they will utilize the exhibit space and how they will make it stand out from the competition. Simply put, they wing it. The end result? You can probably count on one hand the number of memorable booths you’ve interacted with in the last year.

Believe it or not, presentation skills are extremely important for exhibitors, and those skills require training. For many, a booth is simply a table to distribute materials. You may have a logo on the table, a banner stand, and likely some incentive—maybe a pen or leftover Halloween chocolates to entice people to stop and view your materials. I guarantee that a pen and chocolate won’t be memorable.

Making your booth, your company, and yourself memorable all starts with your presentation. How do you look, sound and feel? Yes, you want additional business, but what are you offering to everyone at the conference or in the exhibit hall? What is new or unique? Take a step back and think like someone walking past your booth, and how they see it.

First, that table is a barrier. It’s a wall between you and the potential client. Move it to the side, turn it 90 degrees and open up your booth so people can come in and you can move beyond the 9×12 space and mingle. It’s the interaction that will make you memorable; what you say and how you say it. You’ll need a brief, but memorable statement (no, that’s not an elevator speech). Change up what you say and how you say it. Be memorable.

The Vandiver Group has been helping companies tell their stories for over two decades. Do you need help getting noticed, so you can spend more time finding and closing leads? Give us a call, send us an email or find us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. We can help you discover that brief, but memorable statement and craft an elevator speech that works. The ultimate goal is to pay for that show booth with new business connections!

Have you been to a conference with an exhibit hall lately? What made it memorable to you? Contact us via our website to let us know!

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