Home » Working Women » Careers - Foreign Trade » Remember You Are The Host We understand that you cannot be at the venue all the 24 hours. So ensure that you allocate the manning of the stall in your absence, to staff who have a thorough knowledge of the product.Thorough product training is essential prior to the trade fair to avoid antagonising potential customers. Ignorant or incompetent staff is the second most common complaint that attendees have about trade fair exhibitors. Your people should know every detail of the products, availability, cost, shipping and any other concern that customers might have.

The most frequent complaint, attendees at trade fairs have, is that the personnel at the exhibit booth ignore them. Then why bother to exhibit at all? When you exhibit at a trade show, you are the host and any visitor to your booth is a guest. As hosts, it is your responsibility to make your guests feel welcome.

As a good host, you should exhibit an energetic, enthusiastic attitude. You cannot achieve that by sitting and gossiping with colleagues while barricaded behind a table placed across the front of the booth. Place the table with your materials to the side or at the back. It is better to stand so that you look alert and responsive to your visitors.

You could chit-chat with your colleagues after you return to your company. While at the fair, focus on the people coming to your booth. Be particularly careful about gossiping with your peers during lulls in the traffic; you never know when an offhand remark may come back to haunt you.

Turn off the cell phone and the pager. If you must be in contact, invest in a cell phone with a vibrating feature so that the ring of the phone does not disrupt the business in the booth. When you need to make a call, step outside to avoid offending potential customers.

It is a nice gesture to have some candy or other treats for your guests. However, you should avoid eating food in your booth. Visitors will feel disinclined to enter your booth if they feel that they are interrupting your meal. This is assuming that the smell of the food is not enough to dissuade them!

Sometimes the rush of visitors can be overwhelming. That's when the role-playing you did prior to the show is truly beneficial. Asking your visitors qualifying questions rather than wasting time in idle chatter, will help you look after the prospects rather than the passers-by. Be sure to introduce yourself whenever you start a conversation with someone, and always bring a conversation to a close. Should you find yourself busy when new visitors walk in, excuse yourself during a break in the conversation, introduce yourself to the newcomers, assure them that you or one of your colleagues will be with them shortly, and return to your original conversation.

Keep all conversations positive. Don't bad-mouth your competition and don't complain. No one wants to hear about your aching feet or about how bad the business is.