“Before You Hit The Venue” – Chapter 1 – Why Exhibiting Makes Real Sense for your Business

Stephan Murtagh, the Exhibition Guy in his book titled ‘Before You Hit The Venue‘ gives insights on all aspects of Exhibiting in an Exhibition.

The book will be published in TFT in a series for the benefit of its reader. Enjoy and do write back to us with your feedback.

Chapter 1 

Why Exhibiting Makes Real Sense for your Business

Ok first a little about me and why I am writing this book and my credentials to deliver you this information …My name is Stephan Murtagh – AKA The Exhibition Guy, I have spent almost 25 years in Exhibitions and been involved in many many shows over the years and have seen the good, the bad and the ugly of shows.

“Having spent 25 years in the Exhibition Industry, I became frustrated that the training courses I did and the online sales training were all theory and not based on real life situations. There was lots of lovely theories and ways to handle customer objections, but I found this was all just theory. Every customer is different, and a one size fits all approach just doesn’t work.With this frustration and an incredible passion to see sales people succeed in sales, I set up The Exhibition Guy to simply help people sell more with the best sales training. To bring my experience of managing and selling to the fore and use this to enable sales people to enjoy their job more and be the very best they can be.

As a qualified Fetac trainer, I am all about results and bringing this experience to your business on a partnership basis through effective sales process and sales strategy”.

Seen many companies do it right and unfortunately seen many companies spend thousands and thousands of € on stands and really really waste it. This can be really frustrating as these companies don’t come back to shows and just take one bad experience as the industry norm. Remember the first time you fell off your bike? Did you just give up and say the bike doesn’t work…No you got back on the bike made some changes to your approach and then loved cycling that old bike! (Eventually)

Getting any facet of business right the first time is rare, and Exhibiting is no different. This is why I wrote this book, and set up my business. To help companies do it right and make exhibiting more profitable in every way.

In this little book, I am looking to give you help on getting it right and ensuring that when you Exhibit that you get the maximum return from your investment of time, money, and the mental energy you have invested in helping your business grow. I am incredibly passionate about this industry and I am happy to state my objective as wanting to become THE Go-To person in the industry. This is not an attempt at arrogance but rather that my company can help you achieve massive success from exhibiting and that in the future you will look to us to help you do it even better. This is the first in a series of 3 little books on exhibiting and this one solely focuses on the “Before you exhibit” bit.

Ok, let’s begin!

Exhibitions continue to grow and according to the global exhibition industry body the UFI, 2018 will be the biggest year yet. As an industry Exhibitions are growing faster than the global economy as they work. I am guessing if you are reading this book you have either booked a show or are considering it. Realistically this is because they offer a multiple of features that can’ the offered by traditional mediums in one place at one time.

Most companies say the main reason for doing an exhibition is the actual sales you get from exhibiting and this makes complete sense but also consider that by exhibiting you can achieve many many other objectives also. To me a sale at an Exhibition is not simply a sale but rather the opportunity to gain a client and a client who will not buy just once but multiple times and this is important to consider over the longer term and how a sale is a once off, but a client comes back. Oftentimes companies don’t consider the other things they can achieve by exhibiting. I won’t bore you with lots of details but consider these as possibilities and it can really open your mind up as to why the exhibition industry continues to grow.

• Gain clients not just sales

• Meet and solidify relationships with existing clients

• Conduct market research for future product launches

• Gain new relationships with potential distributors of your product at home and abroad

• Get feedback on current product modifications that will make your clients buy more

• Meet potential superstar new employees without the need to use a recruitment agency

• Build relationships with new clients

• Save your sales reps time by using the event for future appointments

• Launch new products

• Meet your competitors and see what they are up to!

So, an exhibition can offer you an opportunity to solve multiple problems or issues at one time in one place with buyers who have come to a show because they are specifically interested in that sector. There is no other medium that can offer you all this in one place at one time, so when you are considering where your marketing €€ are being spent, maybe give a thought to what you can really achieve and not necessarily that Exhibitions are expensive. €5 spent on advertising is a waste of time if you get nothing from it. Have a look at the statistics below which give you some real figures about Exhibitions and why they work. These facts are taken directly from industry and represent the reality about shows and why the industry continues to grow.

• 83% of exhibition attendees have purchasing authority

• 85% of decision makers believe going to shows saves time & money sourcing suppliers

• Over 90% of attendee’s plan to purchase in the next 12-15 months

• 86% of exhibition attendees have not been seen by your sales force in last 12 months

• 63% of marketing managers agree that exhibitions are crucial to retaining market share

There are many other statistics in the next chapter which may surprise you but will also help in your planning for your upcoming show.

Note/Write down a list of 5 objectives you are looking to achieve at your next Exhibition – Go on be CREATIVE!