to any country in the world. We have offices in the embassies and consulates all over the

world and we help companies find distribution partners, market information, background checks

and all kinds of information on foreign markets and companies. Trade shows are one of the

best opportunities to meet lots of people in one place at one time. It's just efficient

to be able to go and spend a few days and meet that many people which you wouldn't be

able to do if you're going around to visit people one by one. The key is to go prepared,

and some companies do a lot better job than others at going prepared to trade shows.

Aaron McWilliams: When you're displaying for a trade show some things that we found

that work really well is to be able have a video display that plays in the background,

something that attracts people to come into your booth.

Remember that when you're at a trade show you're there to

help people. You're not there just to sell a product. You have something that other people

need, and you want to help them grow their business by using your product. You want to

offer a product or service that somebody else can benefit from and somebody else can make

money with. And if you can help somebody else make money, you'll always be in business.

Follow up and follow through. When you're at a trade show people come up to you from all

directions, from all over the country and sometimes all over the world and it's real

easy to promise the moon and the stars, but it's not so easy to follow through, and to

follow up on that. But when you can take notes and you can follow up on that suddenly you're

starting to build that connection with somebody.

Ranck: We in the US Commercial Service have a lot of tools to help companies prepare for trade

shows and maximize their time. We can provide market research or assistance like that, contacts.

You want to exhibit at the show but not spend a lot of money, we have mini booth options

at some shows. Or we can support companies with a big presence. There's another program

that we offer now where one of our staff from the US Commercial Service will walk the trade

show on your behalf and promote your company, gather leads, and see what kind of competition

is there and then produce a report.

Don Aberle: As far as being in the right place the right time, I mean, you never know what that right

time is, you just got to do the daily things to get business, and that means attending

trade shows, following up and going to seminars. Make sure you have a plan in place that you

follow up with people. You got to understand that you're not the first one that's going

to that country, you're not the first one doing that trade show, you know, being from

a foreign country. Numerous people have tried, and what do they all do at trade shows? You

go down there, you introduce yourself, and no body ever follows up. You know, don't be

that company.

Greg Moll: I think the greatest thing about trade shows is it gets you out there and in front of the

potential of customers and potential distributors, buyers, decision makers. Make it interactive

and by that I mean get the customers involved who are coming by, something to make them

stop and say wow, or turn their head, or get them involved by actually using the product

or trying the product. Like, we have a scooter there and we'll let them ride the scooter

right up the ramp. It's effective to keep people involved in the show. You know you're

doing it right when you have people in the booth that you're giving a demonstration,

and you have two or three different layers that are watching the demonstration from outside

the booth. When you got ten guys and the booth next door has one guy, then you're doing something

right.

Chris Harris: With our Haybuster product, almost every time we can demonstrate our product, actually get

people to come through and, you know, touch, feel, see, discuss our product that's always

going to be better bang. Understand that people are coming to the show are busy, they've also

got an agenda and got to try and get into their minds and their lives. Other than that

I think though the most important thing I try and prep people for that are going to

attend the show is to work it. This is not a vacation you got to go there and be on point,

be, you know, dressed properly, speak properly, know your product well.

Jake Kamrud: A trade show may cost you ten thousand, but you may get fifty leads, or sixty leads, and

sort through leads, figure out how profitable, what's the probability of them ordering from

you is, and then you can put a value to it. So last fall, we were doing a trade show in

Switzerland, and we had one extra day at the end of the trade show where it was a free

day. Well, I hopped on LinkedIn and checked out the area for people that I had been connected

with, people in the same industry, and I found, just about four hours down the road, was a

company that I hadn't met with in the past, and they had some potential business for us.

So I drove down there, had a great meeting with them, and now we started the sales process

on what could turn into a multi million dollar sale for us. So that's an example where, just

being in the right place right time and knowing enough people in your region where, if you

can set up one meeting it just makes the whole trip worthwhile.

Tom Shorma: We were able to partner with the US CommercialService in their pavilion and arrange to have

a presence and a location at the show that far exceeded what we could have possibly afforded

individually by going in there alone. So by partnering with the Commercial Service and

in sharing in their facilities and their meeting space it provided an effective tool for us

to be able to arrange meetings with prospective customers as well as existing customers at

that show.