What Did I Just Do?
Yesterday evening I did something that will turn out to be either brilliant or incredibly foolish. An exhibitor we have been courting for several months said the most dreaded 10 words for show organizers: “We’re just going to walk the show floor this year.” I couldn’t let it go. The trouble with being so deeply convinced that your show is absolutely perfect for an exhibitor, is that you are willing to do whatever it takes to prove the value of your event to them.
With barely a thought, I said “Julie I know if you exhibit at our event you’ll see the ROI. I am so convinced of it, I’ll hold the invoice until after the show is over. If it worked for you, you can pay us. If the show was a flop, you don’t have to pay.”
Yikes…..
But her eyes immediately widened and she said, “Well that’s an interesting proposal - I’ll talk to my team.”
As I walked away, I wondered to myself if I sounded passionate or desperate. It’s certainly a purple cow idea, but how realistic is the model? Now, I should say that we are talking about a 10×20 space tops - not a 30×40 island. My risk is relatively small. But what kind of precedent does it set? Even if they have a great show, will this exhibitor expect this deal every time? And what if my measure of success is different from their measure of success? Obviously I can’t run a business that allows only satisfied customers to pay….or is the tradeshow business a place where this could work?
I can’t see myself offering this kind of thing very often - if ever again. But it got me thinking about how far I’m willing to go to prove our show’s value to exhibitors and sponsors.
Two years ago, I spent a month-long vacation trying to figure out how to make exhibiting at a tradeshow free. That’s right - free. Space is free, sponsorships are all barter. The conference was free for attendees. No one paid a thing to exhibit or attend - but we took a cut of every business deal that happened at the show with a special “credit card” all deals were made with. As you can imagine, I could never make the numbers work - it was just too difficult to track deals that happened after the show (where most do). But in the back of my mind, I’d still like to figure it out someday.
This concludes my crazy thought of the day. You can now return to the realities of the tradeshow business.
June 10th, 2005 at 1:18 pm |
It wasn’t a crazy idea until you posted it here. Now that it’s possible the entire world of podcasting will know Julie got a special deal - what do you think the odds are everyone else will want the same deal?
So, do I give you time to pull this post or just link to it now and get the snowball rolling?
On the “no-pay show” idea, if you vertically integrated… maybe you could do it. As you’re essentially disintermediating, you should be getting a decent cut of sales. So let’s say you had a fully functional ecommerce site with your exhibitors products on it and you offered attendees (not exhibitors) an incentive to purchase from your site (some % of your cut of the sale), you could capture some of those “after the show” sales. Any exhibitor who doesn’t make money for you gets cut out next year. Not the easiest thing to do, but it could work. Distributors wouldn’t like it though.
June 10th, 2005 at 1:48 pm |
That’s the problem with this type of blog isn’t it Rich - do I blog this or not - is a question I have to deal with EVERY SINGLE POST it seems. Do I blog that a big company turned me down to exhibit? Do I blog that a company that was exhibiting has pulled out?
Transparency is sometimes ugly. But do I really have a choice if I want to do this blog? I don’t think I do if I want this to be credible.
You mentioned on one of your posts I think about taking less money from a client in hopes for the big payoff because of results - is that much different than this? Perhaps…
This blogging stuff ain’t easy.
Tim