EXHIBITORS: How to get the best of a Food Trade Show!!!

If you are a small business, trade shows means a great opportunity to meet potential buyers, strengthen bonds with customers, discover new trends in the industry, and get to know all types of stakeholders related to the business.

But, at the trade shows small businesses handle many variables at the same time, for instance: setting the booth, carrying the samples, preparing food, … that makes it easy to lose focus on what is really important at the show, which is, know the right people and close a deal.

Whether you are exhibiting at the Fancy Food Show, Sial Paris, Anuga, Natural ExpoWest, or just a regional show, here are some tips for exhibitors to bear in mind in order to squeeze it all at the shows, and close a sell!!!

1.    In deep knowledge of the industry.

2.    Try to get the best position within the exhibition as possible.

3.    Once you have been assigned to a specific booth number, study the whole exhibition map.

4.    Emailing: you may send an email to your clients with the exact location of your booth and take the opportunity to mention the new line of products that you are launching at the show. Send them a nice picture of it!

5.    Meetings: 2 weeks before the show, you should start planning meetings with your clients that you are going to have during the show. Shows tend to be huge, sometimes overwhelming places and your buyer may get lost and just forget to stop by and visit you! Buyers have hundreds of booth to attend. Make sure yours is one of those!

6.    Check with the company that is making the show if they are organizing any type of business event. You have to be there!

7.    Know about your products!

8.    Potential buyers: identify those potential buyers that you ´d love to work with and contact them! Email, phone, everything! If they have a booth, go there take some samples with you along with your business card and your booth number, so they could go back and visit you!

9.    Walk, walk, walk and walk! Don´t stay at your booth, just go out and walk all the show, talk to people,  you´ll learn a lot!