You’re right! (About trade show appointments.)

Reading two recent MeetingsNet articles about the value of trade show appointments reminds me of a story attributed to the wry 13th-century Sufi philosopher Nasreddin.

A woman demonstrates the American Sign Language for "You're right!"
American Sign Language for “You’re right!”

Two men who were quarreling came to Nasreddin and asked him to adjudicate their argument. The first man presented his case, and when he was done, Nasreddin exclaimed, “You’re right!” The second man shouted, “You haven’t even listened to my side of the story!” He then presented his case and when he was done, Nasreddin exclaimed again, “You’re right!”

Nasreddin’s wife, who had listened to the whole thing, remarked, “They can’t both be right.”

Nasreddin looked at his wife and exclaimed with a smile, “You’re right too!”

Yes, although the articles express seemingly very different points of view, I think they’re both right!

Desirée Knight on trade show appointments

Let’s start with Desirée Knight, senior director of meetings at the American Psychological Association (APA), who shares a pessimistic view of the future of prescheduled appointments at her association events.

MeetingsNet: Five years from now, what won’t we be doing on the trade-show floor that we’re doing today?

Knight: We will not be doing appointments on the trade-show floor. We must rethink this concept and find new approaches to customer engagement. This will require the industry to develop new approaches to KPIs and different measurement tools. In the end, we are responsible for creating engaging events for our stakeholders. Setting appointments within the trade-show environment is not engaging and, quite frankly, for some, not a good use of time. Creating collaborative spaces with AI gadgets or open forums to discuss current trends and issues will help vendors and buyers reset their views on developing business. The next generation of trade-show attendees are looking for engaging content and not just 15-minute appointments.
Two Minutes with Desirée Knight, CAE, CMP, DES • MeetingsNet, Mar 07, 2023

Carina Bauer’s point of view

Two weeks later, Carina Bauer, CEO of the IMEX Group, parent company to two leading trade shows in the business events industry, defended the value of trade show appointments:

“Let’s start with trade shows essentially being marketplaces (they’ve performed this role for hundreds of years) where the primary motivation for showing up is to do business. When planned and managed carefully, appointments are an efficient use of everyone’s time. A prescheduled appointment tells a business-hungry exhibitor that a motivated buyer is interested in them. A pre-agreed appointment allows time for sound preparation on both sides of the deal—a detailed RFP is often met by an exhibitor who’s done in-depth and detailed research. That instantly becomes an ROI win-win.

ROI and ROE (return on experience) are clearly now more important than ever, and buyers are more discerning about which events they attend. However, our experience shows that once committed, 21st-century planners don’t want to leave their schedules to chance. In fact, what they want—demand—is flexible scheduling and to be treated with respect, e.g. no forced matchmaking or quotas. That means trusting them to do business; encouraging them to make appointments when they have firm business to place but also valuing their time spent in other ways such as learning or networking.”
In Defense of Buyer-Seller Appointments on the Trade-Show Floor by Carina Bauer • MeetingsNet, Mar 20, 2023

So, who’s right?

Associations’ needs vary

First of all, it’s important to note that Desirée is talking about the specific needs of her association. I have designed and facilitated events for hundreds of associations, and seen a large variation in the importance and positioning of trade shows at their meetings. Some associations do not even want a trade show component, while for others it’s a primary draw for members. Though I don’t know the specific objectives of the APA, reading between the lines gives the impression that the association wants its events to focus primarily on education and connection between participants, rather than creating and supporting supplier relationships.

Trade show organizers have a wider perspective

Second, it’s clear that Carina is coming from a wider perspective than that of an association meeting director. IMEX trade shows act as a marketplace for meeting industry suppliers and planners. Planners choose to attend because they see value in the convenience and efficiency of shopping for services and venues at one event. The ongoing popularity of IMEX trade shows, despite the significant impact of COVID, shows that trade show appointments meet genuine needs of both planners and suppliers.

Money, money, money

Finally, trade shows are the public face of a reality that few in the meeting industry discuss publicly. (It’s not mentioned in either of these articles, though it often influences decisions made by planners, suppliers, and trade show organizers.) The reality is that trade shows involve significant amounts of money. In many cases, they are the biggest event revenue sources for associations and the largest expense for participating suppliers. Some associations derive the bulk of their operating budget from trade show receipts and can charge low, sometimes no, fees to attendees. On the other side, the selling opportunities supplied by trade show appointments are perhaps the most compelling reason for suppliers to pay high fees to exhibit.

If APA (or any association) eliminates trade show appointments, they may see reduced revenue from suppliers that will need to be made up in some other area. (For example, by increasing participant fees to attend.) This is an issue that is discussed extensively internally by both:

  • Associations that are trying to optimize member satisfaction without sacrificing revenue; and
  • Suppliers that have to determine the value of exhibiting with or without secured and prescheduled appointments with potential or existing customers.

You’re both right!

Desirée and Carina are both right about the value of trade show appointments. The APA plans to move away from appointments, replacing them with increased opportunities for suppliers and participants to connect and learn in open forums that involve both groups. That’s what they and their members want. Meanwhile, IMEX has strong evidence that many association planners find trade show appointments valuable and are happy to attend them, especially with the sweetener of low or no attendance fees (and sometimes even subsidized travel and accommodations).

While trade show appointments may lead to tensions between the needs of suppliers and association members at meetings, it’s clear that they work for many though not all associations.

Sometimes, despite disagreement, everyone’s right!

Animated gif attribution: Clip from Learn ASL: Right, wrong, and more in American Sign Language for beginners

Suppliers and Vendors: To market to me—join my tribe!

join my tribe: Image of the cover of Seth Godin's book "Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us"

Join my tribe!

It continues to amaze me how few suppliers of products and services bother to attend educational sessions at conferences. Rather, they restrict themselves to the associated trade show. Folks, you’re making a mistake! You need to join my tribe! Peter Evans-Greenwood explains why:

“To sell to members of a tribe you must be part of the tribe. It’s not enough to be in conversation with the tribe, your identity needs to be interwoven with the tribe.”
Identity is a funny thing, Peter Evans-Greenwood

Is there a better place to join the tribe of the attendees to whom you’re selling than the conference sessions themselves?

I don’t think so.

Even if the sessions are lectures with time for Q&A at the end, you’ll get an opportunity to hear what someone—hopefully with expertise and experience—is sharing that’s relevant to your market. And audience questions may supply useful clues on pain points and selling propositions that you can address (perhaps during the session, if it’s done without a crude pitch).

And if you’re participating in interactive peer-to-peer sessions (like the sessions I facilitated at PCMA EduCon 2015) you are bound to meet and connect with potential clients. Smart suppliers and vendors know the value of building these kinds of relationships, and spend time cultivating them. Paying for a trade show booth but skipping the associated conference sessions? That’s throwing the baby out with the bathwater!

Instead of marketing to the conference tribe, why not join the conference tribe?

Minimizing vendor pitches during conference sessions

How can we minimize vendor pitches during conference sessions?minimize vendor pitches: photograph of a conference audience with one attendee raising their hand to ask a question

Traci Browne of Trade Show Institute has been reading my book Conferences That Work and recently wrote:

One of my biggest questions is around vendor pitching at peer-to-peer sessions and not letting them dominate. You know who these people are, they are everywhere and it’s hard to avoid them.

If you’ve read my book you’ll know that unwanted vendor pitches are not a problem at Conferences That Work. Why? Because attendees know that they determine what happens at peer sessions. Not conference organizers, and certainly not vendors.

The conference staff gives vendor representatives who wish to attend peer sessions a set of clear expectations. They ask representatives to sit quietly and observe, and only provide contributions if they ask for and receive an OK from the people present. They warn vendors that it’s possible the session attendees may not want them to be present, though this is rarely a problem in my experience.

At some sessions, attendees may share sensitive personal experiences or want frank discussion of commercial products and services. At these, the session facilitator asks at the start for attendees’ permission to allow vendor representatives to sit in. If someone objects, vendors are not allowed to attend.

When I ran traditional conferences with vendor exhibits, unwanted vendor pitches were a sometimes distasteful and seemingly unavoidable component of the conference experience. Since moving to the peer conference format I have not had one problem allowing vendor representatives to attend conference sessions.

That’s how I minimize vendor pitches during conference sessions.

Image attribution: http://www.flickr.com/photos/39852069@N03/ / CC BY-NC 2.0