The Trade Show Chronicles - Chapter 16
- Julien Rio
- Jun 7, 2024
- 8 min read
6 MONTHS POST-EVENT
- "Everyone, please, sit down." my boss presides over the meeting. He has invited every department's Head. We all have an assigned seat, and I am just in front of him, on the other side of the table, Karen by my side.
I haven't really had a chance to work with her lately. Six months have passed since our last meeting to follow-up with the trade show leads and things have gone back to normal. She smiled at me when we entered the room but there has been no eye-contact since.
- "The reason why you are all here today is to review the roadmap for the coming 6 months to one year." Only department heads are usually part of this meeting. They discuss strategy, objectives, recruitment.
People of my grade have never been invited to join. It must be a first for Karen as well since she seems disoriented. She tries very hard to look like she belongs and frowns at every word our boss says.
- "There is no need to keep all of you here the entire morning, which is why I want to start with the major milestone for this semester and release some of you. Andrew, Karen, do you know why you're here?" Karen jumped when she heard her name, more focused on looking attentive than on really listening.
- "I assume we will join a new trade show and you would like us to lead the project?" I try.
- "Not 'a new' trade show. I want to join HKTDC Hong Kong Electronics Fair again this year. Does everyone agree?" All department heads vigorously shake their head in approval. Not one of them had been involved in the previous event, they probably don't even know what it was all about, but all give an energetic approval.
- "Good, then let's move on to..."
- "I don't agree" I say, cutting my boss in the middle of his sentence.
- "Excuse me?" he says, obviously not happy I would defy him in front of everyone. "You refuse to lead that project?" he asks between his teeth. Other people around the table avoid any direct eye contact with either of us, staring at their hands or pretending to read their notes. Only Karen looks at me, pale, grasping her armrest as if she was about to experience a car crash.
- "Not at all! I would gladly lead such project again!" I say with enthusiasm. "I just think HKTDC Hong Kong Electronics Fair is not the right show for us."
- "What are you talking about?" replies my boss, short-tempered. "It was a great event, we got more leads than ever before, talked to many people and received a lot of positive feedback!"
- "All this is true."
- "Then, end of story!"
- "But..." I continue, ignoring his response. "... data tells us a different story."
I quickly look around the table. Most people are still pretending not to hear anything. Some look fairly annoyed while the one at the right of my boss looks curious and expects me to continue. Karen does not dare move a finger and patiently waits for the torture to end. She must be praying that no-one notices she's here.
- "Do you mind?" I say, pointing at the computer screen in our meeting room.
- "Please go, Andrew, share what you have since it seems we won't be able to avoid it anyway." My boss now seems resigned and annoyed but no longer angry.
I open our trade show dashboard. I had reviewed this scene in my head a hundred times. I knew, sooner or later, I would have the opportunity to show what I had prepared. Today was my turn to shine and I wasn't about to screw it up.
My screen is now shared through the large wall-projector, and everyone is looking at it. Using a laser pointer, I show a first graph.
- "You see? Those are the leads we collected at the last edition of that event."
- "Yes, right, we all remember that, Andrew! 196 leads, the best score to date, we all know that! So, what's your point?" he is obviously very irritated but still wants to know where I am heading.
- "True. We did capture a lot of leads. Now, this figure on the right is the total amount that we spent for this event." Overall, Karen managed to keep the event expenditures within the original budget, but it does not seem to make her feel any better. "If I divide this number by the total number of leads, I get this new figure: our 'cost per lead'".
- "And...?" my boss asks impatiently.
- "And, on its own, this number does not mean much." I see him roll his eyes and get ready to jump at my throat. "But I took the liberty to compare it with other numbers that I received from Karen's department" I - and everyone else - can hear her squeak. No-one pays too much attention, but I know she now regrets to have shared her data with me.
- "This is the price we pay for ONE lead through Google AdWords, and that is what we pay for a lead through cold calling."
- "These two numbers are slightly lower, that's true, but the difference isn't significant" says my boss. "What's your point?"
- "It is true, the difference is rather small. Moreover, those leads we get through AdWords or cold calling are fairly high in our sales funnel while these we got at trade shows are quite down the funnel already."
- "Precisely, so what is your point?" He definitely lost the little patience he had left, and his face is turning red.
- "I understand you would like me to just spit the answer, but it is important I take you through the whole process for it to make sense. If you allow me, I will continue."
He sits back in his chair and unwillingly invites me to go on with a gesture of his hand.
- "See, from a cost-per-lead perspective, the show is more or less the same as other campaigns we have. Bear in mind however that Google AdWords are mostly automated and require MUCH less work than a trade show."
- "True..."
Happy to hear him approve, I keep going.
- "Now, what REALLY concerns me is our sales funnel. You see?" I display on the wall a funnel divided into 6 steps: uncontacted, first email, proposal, negotiation, lost and won. "For those of you who may not be familiar with Sales strategies," my boss seem to suddenly realize and regret there are other people in the room, "this is a sales funnel. When we meet a prospect, we put him at the tip of this basket. As the conversation goes, we move him further down towards the 'win' - or 'lose', depending on the situation."
Some of my co-workers seem to be getting a serious headache.
- "Now, the purpose of all this trade show was to capture leads, get them through this funnel and push them further down until converting them into customers."
- "Everyone gets that, Andrew!"
I ignore his comment and keep going.
- "As mentioned earlier, we have captured 196 leads at this event. Out of these, only 2% has been converted." I see him open his mouth and decide to keep going before giving him a chance to interrupt again. "The turnover represented by these 2 % is here, on the right of this chart. The problem is, when taking into account expenses on the left and revenue on the right, we get a Return On Investment of 100%."
- "That's amazing!" shouts the Head of Design before getting the killer eye from my boss.
- "Not really" I reply. "100% ROI means we JUST covered our expenses; we did not make any profit. And this does not even count all the work the organization represented or the actual profit: we are talking of gross revenue only!"
- "You are telling us you haven't done your job as sales and it resulted in a fiasco?!" yells my boss, searching for someone to blame. I keep my calm: I had expected and rehearsed this situation; I know exactly how to react.
- "No. As you can see from this funnel, most leads have been followed-through multiple times, as expected. None of them remains on the top of the funnel and we have used the same techniques that usually work. The problem does not come from our sales strategy."
- "What then?!"
Everything went exactly as I planned it. Even though my stomach is upside down, nothing can be detected on my face. I look calm and confident and will go through the situation: there is no way back anyway!
- "Please have a look at this graph" He yells "what now?!" as I point at the wall.
- "These are the 'tags' we used during the event. We used these labels to easily qualify and identify prospects. You can see things such as 'hot lead', 'cold lead', 'distributor', 'retailer', etc. Each prospect has a few labels that help us identify him."
- "For god sake, Andrew, DO YOU HAVE A POINT?!!"
- "We went to this event looking for distributors. Look at the graph. Less than 10% of our booth visitors were actually distributors. 35% were wholesalers, 22% were distributors and the rest were agents, competitors, random visitors..."
My boss keeps his mouth wide open. He obviously needs some time to digest the information.
- "I had the feeling most people I talk to were actually distributors... Are you SURE about what you are saying?" he says slowly, staring at my graphs.
- "Absolutely sure. You had the 'feeling' that most people were retailers because we had much longer chats with this 10% of our visitors than with the other 90%."
- "So... this year, the audience of the show was not the right one. That is what you are saying?"
- "I actually believe the same thing has been happening for the past few years as well. The only difference is that this year we DO have statistics and data. As you said, the event went well, we received great feedback, we all had 'the feeling' that there were plenty of distributors at the show... all this is only appearance, feelings, ideas. When we start looking into real data, things look very different."
My boss looks completely devastated.
- "Andrew, if what you say is true, we have been wasting tons of money for the past 10 years! Are you saying we should never participate in trade shows again?"
- "That is not what I am saying. Trade shows are great! These are probably the best place for us to get new business. However, if we join only one show per year, we should select it based on the audience we expect to reach. In our case, I made some research and there is another event, very similar, in Germany that may be a better fit..."
- "Hi Andrew, how are you?"
- "Hey Charles, I'm glad you call! How are things going for you?"
- "Doing good, doing good... I wanted to congratulate you for your promotion but... I can't hear you too well, where are you right now?"
- "Sorry Charles, I'm at CeBIT right now, in Germany. Just finished a training with the temp staff I recruited, make sure they know how to use our lead capture tool efficiently!"
- "Wow, that is amazing! Maybe we could grab a drink when you come back so you could tell me your story! Will you be back next week?"
- "Sorry, it will have to wait another month. I am travelling to Las Vegas next, for another electronic show. I convinced my boss to join 2 this time, I had great data to backup my claim!"
- "Well, I wish you the best Andrew, seems you came a long way since your call a year ago. Let me know when you're in town, we have lots of things to discuss!"
- "Sure, talk to you soon".
As I hang up the phone, I see Karen running towards me: some new problems to deal with.
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