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  Tips for Attending a Trade Fair
 
  
 
Trade fairs can be extremely effective for making face-to-face contacts and sales or purchases, identifying suppliers, checking out competitors, and finding out how business really works in the host country. However, the cost of attending or exhibiting at trade fairs can be high. To maximize the return on your investment of time, money, and energy, you should be very clear about your goals for the trip and give yourself plenty of time for advance research and exhibition preparation.

You should also be aware of the limitations of a trade fair. The products on display probably do not represent the full range of goods available on the market. In fact, some of the latest product designs may still be under wraps. While trade fairs give you an opportunity to make face-to-face contacts with many people, both exhibitors and buyers are rushed, which makes meaningful discussions and negotiations difficult.

These drawbacks can easily be minimized if you have sufficient preparation and background information. Allow several months for preparation-more if you first need to identify the fair that you should attend. Even under ideal circumstances, you should begin laying the groundwork a year in advance. Don't forget that exhibiting at or attending a tarde fair in a foreign country means more complex logistics: numerous faxes and phone calls involving you, the tarde fair show operator, and local support people, plus customs and transportation delays.

Participating in an international trade fair, particularly at the outset, should be considered a means of fulfilling long-term goals. At domestic fairs, you may exhibit on a regular basis with short-term sales and marketing goals. But at a foreign fair, it is often best to participate as a way to establish your company, make contacts for the future, and learn more about a market, its consumers, and products. New exporters may not generate high sales, but they often come away with information that assists them with future marketing and product development.

Selecting an appropriate trade fair
Consult the listings of trade fairs in this book to find some that interest you. Note the suggestions in this chapter for finding the most current calendars of upcoming fairs. Once you have identified some fairs, contact the organizers for literature, including a show prospectus, attendee list, and exhibitor list. Ask plenty of questions! Be sure not to neglect trade organizations in the host country, independent show-auditing firms, and recent attendees or exhibitors. Find out whether there are "must attend" an exhibition for your particular product group. Trade fairs that concentrate on other, but related, commodities might also be a good match. Be aware that there may be preferred seasons for trade in certain products.

Your research needs to cover a number of points:
Audience Who is the intended audience? Is the fair open to the public or to trade professionals only? Are the exhibitors primarily foreigners looking for local buyers or locals looking for foreign buyers? (Many trade fairs are heavily weighted to one or the other; others may be so oriented to local activity that they may not be equipped to cater to international businesspeople.) Decide whether you are looking for an exposition of general merchandise produced in one region, a commodity-specific trade fair show, or both. Are you looking for a "horizontal"-one that covers a wide range of products-or a "vertical" show-one that covers those involved in the production and marketing of a narrow range of products through all stages of the process?

Statistics How many people attended the fair the last time it was held? What were the demographics? What volume of business was done? How many exhibitors were there? How big is the exhibition space? What was the ratio of foreign to domestic attendees and exhibitors?

Specifics Who are the major exhibitors? Are any particular publications or organizations associated with the fair? On what categories of products does the fair focus? Does the fair have a general theme or a changing theme? How long has the fair been in existence? How often is it held? Is it always in the same location, or does it move each time? How much does it cost to attend? Are there any separate or special programs connected with the event, and do they require additional entrance fees? What does it cost to rent space?

Before you go
If you have not already spoken with someone who attended the trade fair in the past, be sure to find someone who will give you advice, tips, and general exhibition information.

Make your reservations and travel arrangements well in advance, and figure out how you are going to get around once you get there. Even if the fair takes place in a large city, do not assume that getting around will be easy during a major trade fair. If the site is in a small city or a less developed area, the transportation and accommodation systems are likely to become overburdened sooner than in metropolitan areas.
Will you need an interpreter for face-to-face business negotiations? A translation service to handle documents? Try to line up providers well in advance of your need for their services.

For printed materials, pay attention to language barriers and make preparations that will help you overcome them. Assess your literature and decide what should be available in translation or in bilingual editions. Have the translation work done by a true professional, particularly if technical terms are used. Consider having a bilingual business card, and add the country and international dialing code information to the address and telephone number. Find out from the show organizers which countries will be represented, and prepare information in the languages of those countries as well, if necessary.

Do you need hospitality suites and/or conference rooms? Reserve them as soon as you can.

Contact people you would like to meet before you go. Organize your appointments around the tarde fair.

Familiarize yourself with the show's hours, locations (if exhibits and events are staged at multiple venues), and the schedule of events. Then prioritize.

While you are there
Wear businesslike clothes that are comfortable. Find out what the norm is for the area and the season.

Immediately after each contact, write down as much information as you can. Do not depend on remembering it. Several companies now make inexpensive portable business card scanners with optical character recognition (OCR) software to read the information into a contact management program.

Qualify your prospects before launching into a full presentation. Are you dealing with the right person? Ask open-ended questions to discover the person's true interests.

Consider arriving a day early to get fully oriented, confirm appointments, and rest up.

It is common sense: make sure you take breaks, even if you have to schedule them. You'll end up having far more energy and being more effective.

After the fair
Within a week after the trade fair, write letters to new contacts and follow up on requests for literature. If you have press releases and questionnaires, send them out quickly as well. Even better, send these leads back to your office while you are still at the fair so that your new contacts receive literature when they return home.

Write a report evaluating your experiences while they are still fresh in your mind. Even if you don't have to prepare a formal report, spend some time organizing your thoughts on paper for future reference. Aim to quantify the results. Did you meet your goals? Why or why not? What would you do differently? What unforeseen costs or problems arose?

With your new contacts and your experiences in mind, start preparing for your next trade fair.

If you are selling
Familiarize yourself with import regulations for products that you wish to exhibit at the fair.

Set specific goals for sales leads, developing product awareness, selling and positioning current customers, and gathering industry information. For example, target the numbers of contacts made, orders written, leads converted into sales, visitors at presentations, brochures or samples distributed, customers entertained, and seminars attended. You can also set goals for total revenue from sales, cost-to-return benefit ratio, amount of media coverage, and amount of competitor information obtained.

Review your exhibitor kit. Is there a show theme that you can tie into? Pay particular attention to the show's hours and regulations, payment policies, shipping instructions and dates, telephone installation policies, security, fire regulations, and extra-cost services.

Find out about the labor situation. Is it unionized, and what are the regulations? Will you have to hire your own workers to set up the booth, or can the organizer or showcase facility provide them for you?

Gear your advertising and product demonstrations to the expected target audience. Should you stress certain aspects of your product line? Will you need brochures and banners in different languages? Even if you do not need to translate the materials currently in use into another language, will you need to rewrite them for a different culture? Consider advertising in publications that will be distributed at the fair.

Plan the display in your exhibition booth carefully; you will have only a few seconds to grab the viewer's attention. Secure a location in a high-traffic area. For banners use copy that is brief and effective. Focus on the product and its benefits. Place promotional materials and giveaways near the back wall so that people have to enter your area, but make sure that they do not feel trapped. If you plan to use videotapes or other multimedia, make sure that you have enough space. Remember to ascertain whether you will need special equipment or equipment designed for different electrical current. Such presentations may be better suited to hospitality suites, because lights are bright and noise levels high in exhibition halls.

Attend to the details. Order office supplies and printed materials that you will need for the booth. Have all your paperwork-order forms, business cards, exhibitor kit and contract, copies of advance orders and checks, travel documents, and so on-in order and at hand. If you ordered a telephone line, obtain your own host-country compatible telephone or arrange to rent one. Draw up a schedule for staffing the exhibition booth.

Plan and rehearse your sales pitch in advance, preferably in a space similar to the size of your booth.

Don't: sit, read, smoke, eat, or drink in the booth; bad-mouth your competitors or complain about the trade fair show; ignore stand with your back to the aisle or lean on booth furniture.

If you plan to return to the next show, reserve space while you are still on-site.

If you are buying
Familiarize yourself with regulations on the products that you seek import into your own country or elsewhere. Be sure to get such information on any and all products in which you might be interested.

Set specific goals for supplier leads and for gathering industry information. For example, target the numbers of contacts made, leads converted to purchases, seminars and presentations attended, and booths visited. Other goals might be cost-to-return benefit ratio, amount of competitor information gathered, and percentage of projected purchases actually made.

List all the products that you seek to purchase and the number of units you plan to purchase of each.

Know the retail and wholesale market prices for the goods in your home country and in the country where you will be buying. List the highest price you can afford to pay for each item and still get a worthwhile return.

List the established and probable suppliers for each of the products or product lines that you plan to import. Include addresses and telephone numbers and note your source for the information. Before you go, contact suppliers to confirm who will attend and to make appointments.