A Lamb Amongst the Wolves

Here’s something to keep in mind. If you are at the show - odds are, so is your competition. And here’s the real kicker… Do you know who most of the new customers you picked up at the last couple of shows are? The unappreciated ex-clients of your competition!

Nothing beats trade shows for meeting clients and prospects face to face. But consider this, your competition has the same advantage. Listen, I’m not kidding around, it is imperative you let your customers know you appreciate them or our competitors will.

Here Is My Horror Story

It was my first trade show. I was a young businessman who had landed a huge account. Now, the year before we had purchased about $250,000 worth of T-shirts from our primary supplier (which was respectable) and $50,000 from our secondary supplier. (If you haven’t figured it out yet, I started in this industry as a T-shirt printer!)

I decided to take a walk over to my primary T-Shirt supplier’s booth. (Who we had bought about $250,000 worth from during the course of the year)  What happened? I stood for about 10 minutes and was completely ignored. (Keep in mind, the average attendee will wait only 3 to 5 minutes without being attended to.)

Ok, so I left and came back a few hours later. Sure enough, there I was in the booth again for about another 10 minutes - completely ignored. Man, I thought I was a big fish to these guys, but they didn’t know or even care who I was.

So here’s what happened next. I went two isles over to my secondary supplier (who I ordered a small amount from during the year). They came up to me immediately and spoke with me as if I was the biggest customer they ever had!

To this day, I remember our conversation. They gave me a nice promotional pen, thanked me a million times and asked what they could do better.

The following year I bought $1,000,000 worth of T-shirts from them and only $50,000 from the other guys.

But it didn’t stop there either. 12 months later the rep from my old supplier showed up at my plant. He was completely blown away by the expansion.  He was eager to know why our sales with them had dropped so dramatically. My response? “We got a better deal from the other guys.” He still thinks he lost the business because of pricing.

I learned a valuable lesson that day. I decided that when I started exhibiting at shows I would do everything I could to avoid this ever happening to me.  Like many other businesses, I have many customers who I’ve never met face to face. Keep this in mind… trade shows are a great opportunity to either build on our relationship, or destroy it.





About the Author
This entry is from Part #3 of the 7 Deadly Mistakes Exhibitors Make When Purchasing Promotional Products For Trade Shows - “Forgetting Existing Customers”  RJ Williams is owner of Poor Richards Promos.com and Williams Marketing & Sales. With 15 years experience in the promotional products industry, RJ's goal is to help educate business owners and trade show exhibitors on how to maximize their business using reusable/retainable promotional products.