Tradeshow Warrior

Over the past seven years I have become quite the tradeshow warrior! I have worked a LOT of tradeshows. I mean, A LOT! Since I've entered my career in Marketing I have probably done 50 or so shows? Back in my dental company days there were about 10 major tradeshows a year that we'd attend. Now that I'm in aesthetics there are less shows, and being with a smaller company means we don't even exhibit at all of the main shows. Whew! Last year I worked at four shows, and it looks like this year I'll be doing four as well. This begs the question .. why do I go to tradeshows? For the beer of course! Totally kidding, I hate beer as most of you know.

Enjoying an iBeer at our Booth

What I Do

I think that 99% of my friends and family have no idea what I do for a living. David is the rare minority, only because he has to listen to me drone on and on about my job. I'm a Product Manager! What does that mean? Well according to wikipedia, a product manager "investigates, selects, and develops products for an organisation, performing the activities of product management" huh? That doesn't help you probably.

By clicking deeper into wikipedia and reading the definition for product management, I think this gives a better description of what I do: "Product management is an organizational life cycle function within a company dealing with the planning or forecasting or marketing of a product or products at all stages of the product life cycle.... Product management often serves an inter-disciplinary role, bridging gaps within the company between teams of different expertise, most notably between engineering-oriented teams and business-oriented teams. For example product managers often translate business objectives set for a product by Marketing or Sales into engineering requirements. Conversely they may work to explain the capabilities and limitations of the finished product back to Marketing and Sales"

  

AHA! Now everyone can finally understand how I started out in engineering, got a MBA, and somehow ended up in Marketing! Okay, but enough about me, back to the world of tradeshows.

The Tradeshow

So I've worked a lot of medical tradeshows which have all had several common factors.

• People (ummm medical professionals!) always try or do steal stuff from your booth (They pick stuff off the table and take it 'thinking' its a sample. Hello - LOOTERS!)
• There are always people who come by to tell you how much they hate your product and will never use it.
• You stand around in a suit and heels for 2-4 days ... and ignorant to this your male coworkers in *flat* shoes complain to you about how much their feet hurt .. as if you could possibly have any sympathy for them!
• By the last day of the tradeshow you've given your 30 second pitch so many times you just want to hand people a brochure and let them read it themselves.
• You are always paranoid that someone with a badge turned backwards is from the FDA and is leading you into a question that will get you or your company in trouble.

BUT  - its not all bad! There are also fun aspects of tradeshows.

• You get to spend time with the field reps and get to know them better.
• You get to talk to a lot of customers and get REAL feedback about your product and marketing materials. The perks of being in Marketing are AWESOME! Free products galore from friendly booth neighbors.
• Tradeshows are usually in big cities and traveling to a city you might never have been to before is fun.
• Going out to a nice dinner on the company is nice, I won't lie.

Beautiful Tradeshow Day in Vancouver

Ups and Downs

Working a tradeshow for my day job has a lot of ups and downs. Its fun and its fulfilling, but its tiring, your feet hurt, and its wearing to talk to negative and aggressive people periodically.

Playing w/Silly Putty at a Booth .. Where We Sold BONE Putty

Enter ... working the San Francisco Marathon booth! This past weekend I worked the SF Marathon booth at the Carlsbad Marathon expo as part of my SF Marathon Ambassador duties. There is only one word that describes the experience as a tradeshow warrior .... awesome! There are so many reasons that working this booth was the best tradeshow experience for me ever!

Booth Traffic

I hate to admit that I got to the expo about 15 minutes late (other volunteer commitment - had to swing by the Keebler Kids race first to pick up the supplies from the GOTR booth) and was shocked that the place was already packed! The expo was busy the entire day, and I never had one second with no traffic where I could sit down. I actually thought that I was going to lose my voice by the end of the day after talking for seven hours straight! There was a steady stream of people and I was talking to people passing by up until the last 15 minutes of the expo. WOW. I can only dream of traffic being that good on any other show I've worked!

Met a Lot of Great Runners at the Booth!

Target Customer

In my day job, not every person at the tradeshow is a potential customer for one reason or another. At the Carlsbad Marathon expo, just about everyone there is half or full marathon runner, so they are an ideal target for my 'product'.

Product

My product was a full or half marathon. With everyone interested in my type of product, the only other factors affecting their interest were location, timing, cost, and experience. San Francisco is a location that everyone loves, the timing doesn't conflict with any San Diego races (considering most Carlsbad runners are San Diego residents), the cost of the race was comparable to others, and the experience includes something incredible .. running across the Golden Gate Bridge! If you want an event that defines running in San Francisco this is it!

Proposition

I was offering a great product with a great offer. $10 off the registration fee if you signed up at the expo! Classical marketing will teach you that its important to have an offer, a sense of urgency, and a call to action. My offer was the race, the sense of urgency was the discount available only at the expo, and the call to action were my registration forms. This all worked out great at the expo! A lot of people signed up, and most of those who didn't still showed their interest in the race by signing up for the race newsletter ... which entered you into a drawing for a free race entry. GREAT idea!

Being the Expert

When I first started working a booth at tradeshows I was really nervous. What if a doctor (Gasp! Who knows so much more than me!) asks me a question I can't answer? What if I look stupid? I used to get so nervous talking to every doctor that would come up to our booth. I finally learned after a few shows that 95% of people ask the same questions, and if you can answer those you're fine. For those 5% you can't answer, its not mission critical and you can always get back to them later. I was a little nervous about working the SF Marathon booth since it was new to me, and hoped that I could answer any question that would come up. As luck would have it, I could! A quick skim of the FAQ's helped, but being a  SF native, having run both the half and the full course, and having run the Nike Women's marathon before all really helped out.

Last Few 26.2 Tattoos I Gave Away

Overall this expo experience was a lot of fun, I got to meet a lot of people, I got to GUSH about running, San Francisco, and the San Francisco marathon ... and I had fun (in flip flops!) at a tradeshow for the entire time ... for the first time ever. I absolutely LOVE what I do for a living and really like my day job, but its always fun to do something different as well.