Trade Shows Are Forever: A Be Bold, Be Different, Be Memorable Thriller

The scent and sweat and stale-roasted almond stench of a trade show at 3:00 p.m. can be deadly. Greene was trying to get out of the massive hall without being spotted by an enemy ... or an ex-girlfriend. Someone came up behind him from a darkened booth. Greene felt something cold and hard press into the small of his back. A gun muzzle?

"Good afternoon, Mr. Greene. Going someplace?"

It was a cruel voice, laden with menace. Beads of sweat trickled down Greene's neck and into his shoes. He had sprinty sweat, apparently.

Damn! He thought. They found me!

"I sincerely doubt that EXPO show security will approve of you sticking guns into distributor's backs," Greene said coolly to his assailant.

"Oh, hey," replied Paige Millard from Jetline, "It's not a gun, it's our #FL119 Mini Metal Carabiner Flashlight. I thought you might want one for later tonight when it gets dark and scary outside!"

Greene, irritated, spun around, reached up and slapped Millard silly, which he usually was anyways.

This is a true story, aside from the fact that it's completely fictional. But how does this exciting intro tie into the informative article that follows? Wait for it ...

When you approach our industry as a Bold, Different and Memorable partner, you connect with clients in ways that exclude price-cutting and product-selling in your go-to-market strategies. One way to separate yourself from that bottom-of-the-barrel pack is to specialize in a vertical market or vertical approach. And one such approach that anyone can be an instant specialist in is the trade-show arena. And January and February are the prime trade-show months of the year.

Trade-show marketing is an area where you don't need technical knowledge and you don't need to speak the client's language. What you DO need to know is the following shadowy untold secret: The least important part of your client's trade show is your client's trade show. Yeah. I know. It's nutty. But the fact is, it's all about pre-marketing the event and post-show follow-up afterwards. That's where trade-show success lies. (Or is it lays? Perhaps it's merely reclining with a cold glass of lemonade.)