A year or so ago, I flew into Chicago for a Recruiting Trade Show, which LatPro was exhibiting at for the first time. You know the drill: fly in, get to the hotel, get ready, set up the exhibit booth, and prepare to speak with hundreds of HR professionals. Except it wasn’t to be, at least the meeting people part. There appeared to be plenty of people at the conference learning sessions, but the traffic in the exhibit area was horrible, to put it kindly. There were almost no people, so two of my sales reps (who live in Chicago, luckily) and I spent our time talking to other vendors and complaining. But this is what we should have done, to get any worth out of our time there. And I’d like you to share your ideas on what to do in the face of such a terrible waste of time and investment.

First thing, which we did do, is to make sure that you speak with other vendors that are related to your business. (I’m not talking about the competition, unless you think they will tell you all of their secrets). In my case, working for a job board, it was speaking with the recruitment advertising agencies who were also exhibiting. I was able to meet some new people, tell some of them who had never heard of us about LatPro, what we have to offer their clients, and what’s new with our company. So after speaking with a handful of vendors, it was time to go back to complaining.

It would have been better time spent if we’d have done some or all of the following, while still keeping a presence in the booth for the random stray HR person that walked by.

We should have certainly prepared a contingency plan in the event that no one came and we had time on our hands. Creating a calling list to use as if we were sitting at our desks on a normal business day, we’d have been able to make some sales calls with our cell phones and conduct business almost as usual. Taking that a step further, we could have made that calling list from top prospects or clients close to the actual venue. Since LatPro mainly does business over the phone and via email, this would have been a great opportunity to schedule some quick face-to-face meetings with some HR recruiters in the area. While we couldn’t completely abandon the booth, two of the three of us could have certainly gone out to meet new clients. And even though I mentioned that my two sales reps were from Chicago, they were not from this part of Chicago.

In between calls, we should have been prepared to brainstorm for some projects that were on our quarterly goals list. For example, how to improve our media kit, what clients have been asking for in terms of products, what message we should be putting into our marketing materials.

A frank talk with the Trade show management could have landed us some spots in the learning sessions, so not only would we be able to gain some knowledge from the speakers, but we’d have also been able to tell the HR attendees also there about LatPro before and after the session, as well as on any breaks between. Roaming the halls to find people in between could be helpful as well (if you don’t get those passes), but isn’t always that productive when you’re catching people in a hurry off guard.

We could also have been building our prospect lists, to call later when we were at a real phone. We had a laptop or two. All we needed was motivation to go online to LinkedIn or Hoovers or similar sites and gather and record the information. A long list of fresh leads not gathered during prime calling hours would’ve been ideal for when we got back to the office. That was, after all, one of the reasons we went to this trade show in the first place (no, we wouldn’t have met in person the ones we found online, and no they wouldn’t have our brochure and business card; but that would’ve been second choice).

We did eventually pare down our staff by having me plus one local person for each day. There were no plane tickets or hotel investments to lose. So if that’s an option, go for it!

We will be better prepared next time. Even without preparation, a good attitude would have given us the insight not to waste the time and find something useful to do. What have you done when you went to a bad trade show? Why was it so bad and what did you do to pass the time? Were you like the “old” me or the “present and future” me?