Why Your Trade Show ROI Is Suffering and How to Fix Your Sales Team's Booth Strategy

traffic problem. They have a system problem. And today we're talking about one of the most

“overlooked and most expensive places where problems show up. Trade shows. Companies are spending”

$50,000, $100,000. Sometimes even more to show up, set up a booth and hope it turns into a pipeline. But there's no structure, no engagement strategy, no real conversion system behind it. So what happens? They burn money and call it brand awareness. Today's guest is Anders Boulanger. Someone who spent years inside the trenches of trade shows, not just watching them, but engineering them. He's built a completely different approach. One that turns passive booths

into high converting experiences using psychology, engagement, and what he calls infotainment. We're breaking down what actually separates the booths that get ignored from the ones that generate real ROI. Let's unlock it. So I have to ask, or at least put out the statement, because I've seen this too many times.

“Companies say most companies spend at least $50,000 to go to a trade show. And then they send”

their worst closers or their worst people there and hoping something comes from it. But today, Anders, you have a solution for this big problem. I want to hear about it. One solution, maybe not just one, we're going to have a multi-pronged attack and look at that. I mean, 50 grand, it depends on the industry. That could be super cheap. You know, I've been in

million dollar booths. I've been in all kinds of, and then it depends on the scale of the business

that you have, right? What kind of investment do you want to make? But I think one of the things that we talk about, we talk about the trade show triangle. And it's like there's different levels of exhibitors. And so many are in the bottom part of that triangle where they are what we call a booth buyer. They buy a booth, they show up, and they wait. And they buy into that myth, if you build it, they will come, which is from field of dreams. And if you believe that your

dream and business is going to work for you, right, at a trade show. So understanding that engagement is so key, understanding that it's going to take some energy, some being proactive. You know,

“there's a lot of things that you need to do to be able to make your investment worthwhile. And”

those who do crack that code are getting the 3x4x ROI from the trade show investment, and it's not an expense, it is an investment. So let's take a step back here. I want to open up with that kind of statement there. But I do want to take a back step here and go ask the question, okay, well, who's Andrews? And what do you do? I just went off on you. Yeah, you're like, all right, let's get into it. Yeah, I love it. No, I love it. But yeah, you know, just for the audience

listening, let's let's make sure we understand, you know, who are speaking to and how you even found this niche in each. Yes. Yeah, so a bit of background, when I was five years old, got a magic set for Christmas, became a magician, a kid in magician, I guess, if you will, paid my, well, did birthday parties, paid my way through university, I got a physics degree, went full time doing magic, and then as some point, well, around 2007, I got trained by my mentor who taught

me how to do trade shows in a new and different way. And so what I became was what we call it, an infotainer. So I take magic, but I tell a story with it that is a marketing message. And this builds a crowd of people. It excites people. It kind of creates a, you know, a peak state for people. And then we do qualification and a call to action and then lead a big crowd of people over to a demo and we're creating, you know, MQLs, SQLs, creating opportunities, and we just found

a, I found a higher end that are used for that skill set. And so over the years, you know, there's things that, you know, I'd see time and time again, play out. And I'm a bit of a human AB test. Like,

I'm always going, well, is this going to work better? Is this going to work better? And seeing

what moves people? And then also where, you know, exhibitors drop the ball, you know, like, where I'm doing my best, but I can only, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make a drink, right? Like, sometimes I'd bring them over to the demonstration of like, where the hex, my demo guy, like, you know, like, we can't. You know, so, so there, there were these things that I noticed and, and started making notes on it. We started building trainings around it.

And so now I'm on the faculty for the certified trade show marketing designation that's through Exhibitor Group and Exhibitor Magazine. And, and so it's just kind of, all of this experience is

a whole, because I know I have my cake on trade shows. And obviously, you, you support in, you know,

“do great work at trade shows, but have you seen trade shows evolve? I would say over time,”

especially since we've got out of the, you know, 2020 era where trade shows came to a complete halt. Now, you know, people coming back in and you can see, they're starting to pop up. A lot more people are wanting to get back to them. How have they changed, I would say, in the last 10, 15 years to where they are today? For sure. If we go back 15 years ago, there was still a lot more business card, you know, fish bowls. And, and, and that kind of like, how the lead was acquired.

I was watching video of my mentor from years ago where you used to have the, they pass out

pencils in a piece of paper and you had to fill in your information on a sheet. You know, like,

so they were like passing stuff out to the crowds. Like it was just, wow. So now, of course, it's more, more scanning, you know, as, as far as, whether it's a QR code, whether it's the near field. But now what we're also seeing too is, you know, this scanning is getting so smart and in attaching even conversations, almost like the AI conversation recording, you know, there's, there's a, there's a company called backtrack. So you and I came on, you could come into the

booth and we could just chat and start talking about, you know, what, what your pain points are, all that kind of stuff. And I say, hey, can I scan your badge? And in that moment, I could scan your badge and go back in time five minutes with our conversation and that conversation that attaches to the lead. Wow. So, so when you think about following up in terms of relevance, right? You get all the, the follow-up and, and I guess this is a whole other point, but you want that

follow-up to be relevant so people open it. The big dirty secret way back when 15 years ago was

that 75 to 80% of the leads were never followed up on. Now, I think things have changed because

we are more data driven. I work with a mostly tech company. So they got their tech stack and they're, you know, go to market. They got stuff figured out. And yet, swap card, which is a company that makes these, you know, scanners or things like that. They're saying still that 70 to 75% of the, the leads are never downloaded. So because they can see the fact, so I, like, I have

“trouble believing that, but that's what their stats are saying. So it's just, so it's kind of like,”

I thought we were past that in terms of evolution. And yet, two depends on which industry. So whatever industry you're in, you know, just take that professional level and be those ones that are actually, you know, using those leads and following up. So that was one side of, you know, that evolution. And then the other side, too, is analytics. So it used to be that you, if you were the marketing person going to your CEO and you say, like, you know, okay, how was this show we invested

in? And you say, well, it felt slower this year. Like, yeah, it's hard to go to the boardroom to the, to the sea level executives and talk about feelings, right? So nowadays, there are different solutions that allow you to actually have analytics. So whether it is based off of cell phone signatures, so that you can actually heat map a booth and see where the hotspots were, how long people stayed, you know, the impressions around the outside. We actually use a solution that measures eyeball.

So it's AI, but it's ethical AI. There's no facial recognition, but there is facial analysis.

“And it just makes that into numbers. So it's counting. How many people walk by? How many people?”

What's the stop rate? How many people stop and look at the booth for 15 seconds or more? How many people come in? How long do they stay? What's their gender roughly, right? Like, it's it's log big numbers. Wow. Over over 40 under 40 in terms of, you know, that the age demographics. And then it can, um, uh, there's a few, oh, an energy. So energy meaning, like, really happy and excited would be like high 85 90. They put a number to it and like focused and

serious would be like, you know, 65 to 70 kind of thing. So so sometimes you can see the difference between what's happening in the aisle and what's happening in your booth and, and if it's a, by a demo station, typically people are getting more serious because they're watching, you know, and if, uh, and if it's a cocktail hour, you know, or you're giving away booze and you're both, well, maybe it's going to be a higher energy. Right. So so anyways, you can seal of this and now we can

start testing and seeing what are we doing? Is it working or is it not? And then really applying those learnings to the next show, right? And, and so it seems like for money, I mean, when I said what's the difference, it's AI completely advanced. I mean, just the data that you just mentioned.

instantaneously, is it successful? Is it not successful? I mean, when you're talking about

people's facial recognition and when people are coming to the booth, you'll be able to tell it that even speak, right? Like, does it even the just booth itself aesthetically speak to the people? Are they being attracted before they even have a call or talk with, you know, the demo person or the, you know, the quasi that's called the sales rep that's sitting at the the trade show.

“Now, I know what you do is different, which I love and that's why we're here because I've never”

even heard of this and I think it's awesome and you, I got want to call it, you're the height man at trade shows, but the height man that has a plan and then delivers results. So talk a little bit about like exactly how that works and how you see companies, you know, in the sense of businesses

that hire you versus don't at that same trade show, what are we seeing? Yeah, for sure. So I think

what trade shows, you know, one of my frustrations with a lot of ways that other people look at it is that if we can just get more people in the booth, right? Like it's just all about that, you know, and that is an important piece, you know, and we kind of talk about a three step model of we want to attract the people, give them a reason to stop, but we also want to connect with them, give them a reason to listen. And so often we're so caught up with the attracting thing that,

you know, we're giving away coffee, like there's a barista giving away coffee in the booth, and no one's even talking anyone in that damn line. You know, like there's there has to be

“reasons to connect and talk and just, you know, have meaningful interactions, right?”

Because at the end of the day, people are going to visit 14 booths or something like that on average, and are they even going to remember being at your booth, right? And you can't buy what you don't remember. So, so that they attract, give them a reason to stop, the connect, give them a reason to listen, and then they convey, give them a reason to buy, and that's really where we're talking about, you know, conveying the message and the, the sales message that we would think about having

it at booth. So oftentimes people have gaps in that, and we're not getting there, right? It's something that's a cry for attention. So what we do with with our infotainment presentations is we bring all of that into one piece, and so we're kind of like a turn key experience that we can even work in a 10 by 10 booth. So, you know, where sometimes you think, oh, I can't have an experience that don't have enough space. Well, we come in and we start off by just entertaining

to spike dopamine, right? People see that there's kind of a payoff. They want to be a part of something. So that's where that magic and the entertainment demonstrations that we have. And then once we win them over, we start then integrating in the messaging. And so what happens is they are now learning at the same time as they're being entertained, hence the term infotainment. And every time we do a new demonstration, we're taking people from point A to point B, and there's an aha moment in

the middle. And that aha moment is usually where there's something amazing happening in the magic

effect, but it's also where we introduce the solution of the company we're talking about. So what's happening is they're actually inductively learning, meaning, you know, they're putting it together in their heads, they're going ah, and they're also seeing the connection with what we're doing, and that's what creates this, you know, peak experience that people can have. And, and meanwhile, we're kind of cheerleading them on a little bit. We're conducting the energy, and oftentimes

we're, I have people yelling out the company name. And this happened yesterday that someone introduced me to someone else on LinkedIn, and they said, oh, anders was at the EFACS booth, and this was

“the booth I was working at last week in LA. And she said, I remember that because he, he made us”

remember that. We were yelling that, that name out loud in the booth. And so these are those little, like, psychological, you know, kind of, you know, crowd dynamics kind of stuff that we, we really engineer engagement in the booth. And, and that's what where we can kind of plug in and and take something that is very stagnant, very passive, people's waiting and make it an event happening in the booth that people want to be a part of. And then we do the qualification, we'll ask some

questions, who's going to blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, you got to, we work with the company, whatever that is, that we see the hand raising. And then we take those people and we bring them over to a demo. And then we kind of just, why I'm putting them right in your lap, right? I love it. And lay ups already framed. Yeah. Psychological warfare, like to say, but I know it's not, but it's using psychology, which I love, which is, you know, why I got into marketing

and what I love about marketing. I love to go deeper into some of that psychology if it's a real mind of, you know, even where did you, you know, identify that holy moly, like because what, what I'm looking at when I see this is like, there's the booth with the, with the business

their booth staff, yeah. The booth staff, thank you. And then you are kind of sitting on top of

“that to really set the booth staff up for success. Yeah. To me, I'm like, like, when I think about it,”

like, now I even know what exists, how do you even compete? Why would I even go? Like, why would I go to a trade show and not have someone like you? I'm telling for you. I just doesn't, no, no, no, no, it goes to it doesn't make sense. I go, okay, like, if there's 20 people at a trade show, one of them is using psychological warfare to get more people to my booth already indirectly or directly pre-framed. So now they've already raised their hand in a way of

knowing I'm interested in what this is. So my guys are not at my booth as a business owner. They're not wasting time talking to the people who shouldn't even be at the booth. And they're pre-framed. I wake all those home runs where I come from. It does, it does, like, cut to the chase. And then, so there's a few things happening there. One thing too is the optics of a busy booth, right? When you have a crowd around of a booth, they're like, what's going on there? Right? They're a

going concern. They have a what we call a net creating a magnetic presence. Okay. I love this is the stuff I want to talk about. Yeah. Yeah. And so when I'm building a crowd, I don't care who the heck you are.

You're not quite like, I will take a security guard if I need to, right? Like, I always say,

I'm magic nostic. You know, come, everyone can watch. We're all good. Let's make something happen. So I'm trying to build up that gravitational pull because we need to get past that, that critical mass, right? Like, if I'm talking to three people, that's almost not quite a crowd yet. It's like three's comforting fours of crowd. Then I get four people. And now it starts having a little bit of more of a pull, right? And so if we really break down what's going on, and I'll just slow down

because you want to get into the psychology. Well, I love to. Is, is, is I give, I gamify the presentation. So I give someone a chance to win $2,000. Wow. And so I, I fan out of fan a cash, you know, $40, $50 bills. I throw them down on the floor. And then I do a magic demonstration on the floor. So I'm kneeling on the floor by all this cash. And I might have one or two people watching me right now. So there's not a lot happening, but I'm on a microphone, and I'm swinging for the fences,

meaning I'm not playing small and not being on a microphone. I'm doing a show. Like, this is a performance. And they can tell by the way that I talk about it, that this is going to happen. It's not, like, if we get enough people, we're going to do a little show here. Like, that's not out of the way. Yeah, it's like, we've got, like, obscure style. Yeah, there is, there is that. This is street performance for corporate, you know, it's corporate street performing, I often say.

So then people watch me do it. And what happens is basically I'm using a shadow on a deck of cards,

“cuts itself. It's like, it's, it's impressive. And it's, that's what I open with. And, but then I say,”

that's the warm up. And everyone's like, where's he going? Like, okay. So now more, a few more people are standing around. So maybe we have five or six people. They're standing shoulder to shoulder. I do a thing where I take a marker and I draw an X sharp, you know, my hand. And we do a fist bump. And everyone fist bumps all the way around. And I'm like right and create some connection. And this literally does create connection in the way that all these strangers now have touched each other.

But what I want them to do is I want them to, I want to congeal the artery. I want to bond them together in a sense that I don't want them to leave. I want them bond them to me, too. Right? So we're a group. So what ends up happening the last person who would already put their hand behind their back brings their hand out does a fist bump opens their hand. They have the X, the X is going off my hand. And they're like, whoa, right? So this is all just magic at this point. This is all

“just entertainment, dopamine spiking, right? And there's a little bit of like, what is going on?”

How did this, like, where am I, I'm at this booth and now all these things are happening? Then I get up on my stage. And when I get up on, when I get on the stage, I get on page, meaning I bring in the scripting. What we've planned to talk about. So we built, rapport on the floor and now we get on stage and get on page. So now I, I usually say a little something to kind of get people to be in on it, right? And I'll say, how many, notice this is not

your normal presentation. It's not a lot of PowerPoint here, right? This is not a presentation. It's an experience. And we're going to co-create this experience, meaning it's not me doing it for you, but it's us doing it for each other. Do you want to have a good time? Say yeah. And everyone goes, yeah, like now they're like, yeah, let's do this, right? And then go take a step in.

And then they come a little bit closer. And so I always didn't want to keep the nice and close.

The closer they are, the less chance they're going to leave. It's also more in, everything's more impressive. And their shoulder to shoulder with people. So they're feeling

Manufacturing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So so that's kind of how, and then I get into the different

“routines, but we're just building out the crowd now and we're more people are stopping. Typically,”

the more I, I touch someone or interact with someone, the more interesting that is. And then at the end of the presentation, I'm going to give someone a chance when $2,000 at that point. When I say, okay, we're going to give someone a chance when two grand, nobody's moving a muscle now, right? Everyone's listening. And then I can pretty much say or do whatever I want in that little, you know, minute or two minute before I, they, their patience is up, right? Yeah.

But, but that's where throughout the presentation, I've said, you know, who wants to win two K, raise your hand and people raise their hand? You know, how many people are having this problem, you know, is this, is this true? Raise your, you know, and people are nodding their heads. And I'm engaging their, their level of, of either frustration or the fact that they are right fit people throughout the presentation. And so at the end, I can ask these more direct qualifying questions

and people are already trained to raise their hand. So they will out themselves at that point, right, whether or not that's the, the case. And then I make a case to go check out a demo. Now, whether they, we've incentivized it by a special gift that we're giving away, maybe it's just kind of like, I sometimes say, we're going to do a three minute save session. In three minutes time, we're going to show you how to save time, save money, and save your sanity. You've heard

you spend 15 with me, what's another three, right? So see, see Suzanne over there, she's going to talk to you. You got, you know, I'll bring it out. And Suzanne's just smiling and ready. Yeah, she's like, she's like, bring them all, right? Yeah, it's star. Yeah. Yeah. So, so that's kind of, and then then I, I say that the loudest person who yells the company's name, if you need a cue card, it's right behind me, on the count of three, is going to get picked to have a chance to win my cash. And then I play a

game with them that the odds are stacked in their favor, and yet I basically do it for a living.

“So I, you know, I'm good at it. And the question is, do they get the cash?”

The odd time they do, I am very good at the game. So I try to keep my cash. And if the company wants me to give away some cash, I will give away some cash and intentionally lose. So there is, there's some, so, and if, and if we wanted to, we could do it for a less cash and lose every time, but this is just kind of the way that I choose. I think my presentation. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, presentations, would you do in a, if I had brought you in or a business brought you in, you know,

saying eight, I'm, I'm going to say in typical 10 hour, 12 hour day on a booth. I mean, what shows are you doing? Yeah, I mean, a lot of trade show. No, it's a great show guy. Typical trade show is probably seven or eight hours a day. Sometimes I was just at one, there was 10 hours a day. Okay. So let's say 12 hours a day. Yeah, you're right. You're right. So typically, the contract in the 11, right? Or usually. Yeah. Yeah. We, we, we typically

const contract for for five presentations a day, you're in a fancy hours. Yeah. So the first, first hours sometimes dead, last hours sometimes dead, middle five, and maybe there's a lunch in there, you know, so it works out pretty well in a seven hour day. And then, and then kind of rinse and repeat, right? So we make the booth busy, make it happening, and then let

it go back to normal, which is always kind of a good, like this, if you didn't have me, this would

be like all the time, by the way, right? You know, that kind of experience with that looks like, but it's also a little bit of a break for the booth neighbors, because I can get sound complaints and if I'm on, if I'm going all the time, they're like, oh, like, this guy's killing us. So it's kind of nice to have that, like, Evan flow through. Yeah, I was going to say, there's there's a kouth to this, and you want to be in a respect, obviously. Yes, yes. And my question

is, how do the the trade so in the trade show, do they give clearance on this, or are they businesses just bring it's like, it's on my booth, I paid for the booth, love it or like,

“it kind of sometimes it's that. Sometimes it's, it's usually the only thing that sometimes it's”

a snag is some shows don't allow sound either at all, or they don't allow it for a certain size of booth or sponsorship. So let's say a 10 by 10 or a 10 by 20, they didn't pay enough to have a sound system in their booth. It's kind of what they're saying. So I've done that, sometimes I can do, I've actually in Europe one time in Barcelona, I had to do a show with no sound system. And it was interesting because I don't try to do that. That's like hard on the voice

because, you know, you're trying to project and everything. But I've found something interesting was that with the sound system, let's say I've got my crowd and cave on your like, you know, your like maybe 15 feet deeper, and there's a bunch of space between the crowd who's actually

they're just going to absorb and watch from afar, but they're not going to give it back, right?

“They're not going to be part of it. I love it. And so if I was on a microphone, you could hear me”

from there. And so you could, you can enjoy the show from there. But what I found was when I wasn't using a microphone, those people, they were tempted to come in closer because they couldn't hear it. And so I was like, oh, my, you know, this is, it wasn't so bad, but it's not a real, you know, you could still do that with the microphone with one fliction, right? So that's, well, that is true, too. And but there is almost kind of like a sweet spot where to do that. So you're saving

your voice, you know, at the same time as, you know, creating that intimacy, right? And not taking off all your booth neighbors. But, but typically what I'll do is I'll go to all the booth

neighbors around, especially the ones that are kind of indirect, you know, lying with my speaker.

And then I'll say, hey, you know, I'm going to be doing this thing over here. My job is to put a bunch of people right in this intersection. So when we're done with them, tap them on the shoulder, bring them into your booth, you know, and they're like, oh, okay, great, great. So I try to frame it so that they realize that this is kind of a fun and unique thing that they're going to be around. And, you know, you can, you can benefit everyone. Which they probably would benefit just from

a little bit more higher traffic. So what we've, yeah, and you know, at the funniest thing is I've had complaints from, from these booth neighbors. They said, your crowds are standing in our booth. And I'm like, well, then they're yours. But you take them, take them, like, really? You're welcome. You're welcome. But, you know, I've seen, I've seen, you know, things online, just videos of, like, just, I'd call them like angry, uh, trade show goers that, you know, they've been doing for

10 years, and they just, they hate themselves, they hate being there, and they hate anything that's unique, or that's actually bringing a positive vibe. I've seen that too many times. Yeah, definitely, I mean, you can get jaded, you know, spending a good money, it shows if you're, you know, not, not getting results. I can understand that. But there, there are other things out there. You can try. There's a science. There's a science to this for sure. I'm, I've done ask,

because I'm going to say you've been to, you've seen all the greatest shows. You've seen the smallest to the biggest, the widest to the top of the world, you know, all different types. When, when you think about all the greatest shows you've gone to, like, what's one thing, like, that stands out the most, whether it was the most interesting news that they were shocking thing you saw,

“or unique thing you saw, can you do? Like, what, what stands out?”

Well, I'll tell you, there's, let me tell you one, one, there was one moment at, at VMware, um, VMware World, I should say one time, where I was doing a presentation, but two boosts to my right at IBM, Tony Hawk was signing skateboards and they were giving away skateboards. Two boosts behind me was the mountain from the Game of Thrones, like, the world's strongest man,

and then Clay Thompson was shooting three pointers in a, you know, basically a half court

that they constructed as a trade show. But if this was all happening all at once, and so I was kind of like, okay, anyone who's not into fantasy, skateboarding, or, you know, basketball, you're my people. Come on, let's see, you know, this kind of thing. So, so celebrity appearances are kind of a neat thing that we see, but those are kind of fleeting, right? Like, that's only going to be for a short amount and the more famous, the person, the shorter amount of

“time that's actually going to happen. Um, I do remember seeing like an American ninja warrior course”

in a booth one time, which is, is kind of memorable. So people would try to do these things and it was, it was a very dumb-down version because obviously those kind of athletes were not attendees at the show. So, but, but there was a foam pit and there was, you know, things that you would fall into and try to do. Um, there was a skateboard half-pipe beside my booth one time. And that didn't really work that well. It sounded like a cool idea, but, you know, it wasn't as big of a draw as

they thought it would be, right? Sometimes, sometimes you get this wild idea, like, there's this one company called Fusion.io. And that was the company that used to, there, they're no longer, they got bought. But, uh, that was the one that did the, the Ninja American Ninja Warrior course. They did a bicycle-powered, uh, Ferris Wheel one time. So you got in this thing and you, like, pedaled it and it would make it go around, you know, and so people could ride this Ferris Wheel

that they constructed. Like, so wild and different, you know, whether or not they pulled business out of that, right? Like, this is that whole, you gave them an experience, you gave them a reason to stop is the relevance, is that connection is there that other piece to it. Um, and, and sometimes if it's more brand building, more that new kids on the block, like, we're here and you, you want

brand marketing and then, like, direct response in terms of, like, showing ROI, right? There is, you know, there is some crazy sponsorships that are sold at trade shows, you know, that you'd pay $40,000 for, to give away popcorn for a two-hour reception and there's, like, a dime-sized logo on the back. Like, like, like, you know, it's like, I guess that's brand building, but doesn't work. I mean, those are the things I think are mostly hard to attract, but I can't even

like you said nowadays with, uh, scan and codes and all that, yeah, becoming easier and easier. Yeah. So, if someone's listening here and thinking, hey, I'm, I haven't done trade shows or, you know, I've been thinking about trade shows, and we wanted to give some actual, like, you know, good knowledge, I would say to them, what would be like couple do's and don'ts, like, if, like, I'm talking basics, we're talking basics. Yeah, just simple, like, yeah, sure. Sure, sure, and a trade show.

“Here are the three things to look out for. Here's the three things you must have. I just, yeah,”

to have that conversation. I think it'd be great. Yeah. Well, I think we kind of mentioned a little bit in terms of capturing attention, typically, spiking dopamine is how we do that, and if we give a gift, if there's novelty at sake, you know, people, oh, I want that, right? And then you create phomo. So, that's why giveaways and, you know, raffles and things like that

are always so common at trade shows, right? So, definitely, some sort of giveaway is a good idea.

Right? It's a, it's a reason why you continually see it, you know, for, it goes way back, and it'll continue to go way forward. Another thing I would say is invest in your people. Like, trade shows are like a different world, and to really thrive in that world, you need to be operating, you know, at that level of energy to be, to be there all day, to show up, and to really, you know, be on your best-be booth staff behavior, if you will. So,

stay off your phone, you know, don't eat in the booth. We always talk about, you know, you want to avoid clustering, meaning don't be get internal and having this conversation with your other booth staffers, like, you know, you want to face the aisle, we say butts to the booth, not asses to the aisle, right? Like, it's like, you want to make sure you're facing the in case someone walks by. I did this last week, and if anyone follows me on LinkedIn, and I post a lot of these

videos where I kind of do walk and talk videos, and I took a picture of three people who are all hands down on their phones sitting in a booth, and you're going to see this all the time.

But the fact that I could get away with taking the picture, and they never saw me do

“it, right? It's like, I could have been a perfect fit whale of a customer for them, right?”

And whether I not, I looked at your booth or not, I walked right on by, but they'll never know, right? And so my message in that last video I made was like, don't be complaining about, you know, the ROI you're going to get a trade shows if you're pulling that kind of crap, right? Like, so when I say invest in your people, 49% of companies rarely are never trained their boost staff. So the 51% that do train their boost staff regularly, or quite often, most of them do it internally,

and I've been in and been at those internal trade show trainings. And here's what it is, Kavon. It's an event manager taking a phone and just going, okay, don't eat in the both, stuff you're phone, and it's just, it's just someone reading, yeah, it's just reading it, right? So, so we, we have boost staff trainings on our on our website on engageify.au that are meant, they're just, they're very affordable per person. And it's the idea that we just,

we don't want to give people an excuse not to train their boost staff. And the thing that we've found is it's the number one thing that companies need is the last thing they'll ever spend money on. And, and so the, the, the, the I candy of the booth and the whole, like, oh, we're going to do this when they, they pour all of their investment into that, right, and getting their people there, but they don't think about that engagement piece. And an 85% of your success at a trade show

is because of your boost staff. Okay. So there's all kinds of stats I can spout. I don't want to get into into too much, but that is, you know, it is no matter how much you click from place to place,

it'll never replace face to face. That's, you know, it's trade shows are about face to face.

And then what are like, uh, I get there was a little bit dews, I guess, in there, and don't it's in there. Yeah, a little bit. I just got up on my soapbox instead of romantic. No, I mean,

“if I think it's great, though, I mean, I just want to really get, make sure people heard that. Like,”

what I'm hearing is we need to have a giveaway and a giveaway, I mean, to their gift, you got to create some novelty, some foam all that kind of step one. That's like a step one, must have. So when, when thing about even going through a trade show, the question is, hey,

which is the most important, the spike dopamine is what you said. Number two, I'm going to call it

“trade booth etiquette, which is, yeah, salesman etiquette, which is every day human etiquette,”

but people, we've just lost that etiquette, which is what are the tools and what's the response abilities and how do people talk about that at the booth? Again, typical things, like not eating at the booth, not clustering at the booth. I love what you said, asked us facing in, not out. You know, being able to, to bring out that energy, so it's really people etiquette. What's one more? What's one more? One more is, you know, for, I talk about what is the kind of

person we want to engage with? Like, I call creating your own engaging persona, meaning

you know, sometimes people, especially if they're in the technical side, they might be a little quiet. This kind of thing, we need to kind of bring in different version of ourselves, just to amp it up, you know, just to, so, you know, whether that is smiling, being open, just being more personable, trying to crank up your warmth. So, we talk about Kobe Bryant, was the Black Mamba, right? We had, you know, Sasha Fierce was Beyonce's alter ego, right? You might have a pumped up

version of yourself, and just, you know, just bring that to the shows, you know, maybe when it's show time, when the show hours kick out, you know, kick into that extra gear, because there's, it's a lot of people are not going to do that. And how are you going to stand out at the end of the day? Like, we want to have these memorable interactions with people. Oh, personally, that would say, okay, really, what's engagement? Three is the idea of how are you going to engage? We're going to

rely just on your people to engage. We're going to hire people like you to engage. We're going to use music to engage. How are we going to create the hype? And, and no, and I love we said, too, is also know the people we want. So, what are the people we want to attract here? And I can tell you, those three simple things, I feel like a lot of businesses just don't even get right. A lot of them just sit back and wait, right, and just see what they're going to do. And even,

you know, and there's another thing that now, I just had a call the other day with a company, like, they, they sometimes say, well, we want quality over quantity. So, we're going to scale back on this and just try to get quality. And it's like, well, the whole trade show booth is a funnel, right? Like, it's like, the more people you get to the booth, the more good ones you'll find, right? And so, just making sure that you are filtering them and being able to find the good ones

“that are there. And that's why we do that whole, we find the quality in the quantity with our,”

with our call to action. But it, it's sometimes they feel like they're just like, I'm just going to find quality. It's like, well, how are you going to do that? You just sounds like you just want to sit back. I want to see what comes here and it tastes like, right? And it makes them want to come to you versus the 50, 60, 70 other booths. Listen, from what I'm hearing is that I said it in between, and I want to make sure this is not a paid promotion. But from what I'm seeing, and I'm

understanding here, if I was, I have a business myself, and if I was ever even thinking about doing a

trade show, I wouldn't be doing one without calling you first, because you, to me, seem like you are

the, the recipe for success. If you want to have an effective promotional and conversion, high conversion trade show, with that being said, where can they find you? Yes. So I did drop it before engageify.ai. So it's ENG, AG, I-F-Y.ai. We're not in an AI company. The AI stands for authentic

“interactions. That's what that's about. So on that, we have a learning hub. We have past webinars,”

we've done, we've got our trainings, we've got all kinds of tools there. Check that out, and then follow me on LinkedIn, Andrews, Blanche. I'm going to spell it, sorry, AMD, ERS, and then it looks like Boo Langer, B-O-U, L-A-N-G-E-R. I post all kinds of videos, you know, in the field, at trade shows, talking about these different tips. Awesome. Thanks for being here. Appreciate you. Thanks for having me, K-Bong.