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Health & Fitness

Tips on how to be a successful vendor at an event!

Are you investing your time and money by participating in an upcoming business expo, career fair, street festival or fair?  Read below for some helpful tips!

Vendor fairs, street fairs, summer festivals, non-profit events, township sponsored events and business expos are all a great opportunity to reach a large audience and raise brand awareness. 

For small business owners this might mean opportunities of going to events and fairs to educate the community about their service or product.  However, in order to participate in such events, businesses struggle with the balance of attending the event or working in their business.  Sometimes, it is hard to justify taking the time off from ‘making’ a product or providing a service in order to attend an event.  Other times, our clients tell us they would prefer to keep their higher pay employees in their office and utilize per-diem/temporary staff to attend these functions.

Things to keep in mind when you are ready to hire temporary staff that will represent your brand at an event:

  • Training: When hiring temporary staff make sure that they are given some hands-on training so that they are comfortable representing your company. 
  • Resources: They should be provided with your top 10 questions that most customers would ask.  Also, make sure they have all of the resources necessary to showcase your brand.
  • Confidentiality: Remember to have them sign any confidentiality agreements your company has (and/or make sure the company you are working with has something similar in their system).  
  • Branding: Also, the person you choose to work with should represent themselves as an ‘employee’ of your company.  It would be beneficial to give them a company logo shirt or ask them to wear something that matches your company’s culture (a staff member representing a law firm would be dressed differently than a staff member representing a florist). 
Next step: plan out the day and know who will be in attendance!

When putting together your ‘plan of action’ for the day, take the time to research how many people are expected at the event, what is their average age, profession, income level etc. 

Most of this information will be available to you via the organizer of the event.  It is important to remember that every event is different and should be customized based on the factors mentioned above.  Make sure your literature, giveaways, and attire match the events. 

A jeweler might focus on more inspirational and religious items for a church fair, while for “art in the park” events they might bring out their most unique, colorful items.  It is crucial to read all vendor/participant agreements – as some events have strict guidelines for collecting leads, giving items away etc.

Don't forget to have a strategy for what needs to happen after the event!

When a business is preparing their ‘vendor’ participation, it is important to focus on what will happen after an event is over.  How will you capture your leads, will you follow-up with the leads via phone call, email, mail? Do you have someone in your office that will be able to put all of the lead information into a database?  A lot of focus is usually spent on preparing for the ‘event’ that we tend to forget that the hard work starts after the event. 

The investment doesn’t end at the end of the day and a marketing campaign should be structured around these new potential clients.  

We have recently attended a college job fair.  Here are some tips that could have made a big difference for some of the businesses represented:
  1. Make sure if an employee from your team attends the expo that they have an interest in the outcome of the expo/the employee candidates. You do not want your employee to attend the expo if they only see the event as a “free day away from work.”
  2. If a candidate at the event does not seem interested in working for your company/discussing it further with you, then do not push it or trap them into talking to you. Let them continue walking – you will eventually find the right candidate that is interested in talking to you further!
  3. Don’t bombard possible employee candidates with questions! When talking to them, make it a comfortable experience so that they actually want to work for you!
  4. Make yourself accessible and inviting. Do not hide behind any signs at your booth.
  5. Try to stay at the event until the end. Don’t leave early because you may miss some good candidates who are not able to come to the event until a certain time.
  6. Don’t pay for a booth and then not show up to the event – this does not provide a “good look” for your company.
  7. Don’t leave your booth unattended. Someone may be interested in your company when walking by, but they will have no one to talk to about this.
  8. Always dress professionally – it will make a good first impression!
  9. When working at an expo as a team, have a strategy to determine which candidate is a good fit for your company. For example, you can use the number system for each person that you talk to. After they fill out the necessary paperwork for you, write a 1,2, or 3 on the back of their paper: 1 could mean “YES,” 2 could be “give them a chance,” and 3 could be “NO.”
  10. Make sure your pens work PRIOR to the expo. Little personal story: ASC attended a career fair at a community college and we did not check any of the pens beforehand. The students interested in working for our company had to try multiple pens before being able to completely fill out our small questionnaire!
  11. Look approachable, welcoming, and friendly! Don’t sit at your booth – instead, stand. Also, do not have your arms crossed or be on your cell phone/laptop. Don’t you want people to feel comfortable approaching you?
Our staff always enjoys providing event assistance.  Our goal is to help you grow your business by eliminating over-head costs, time restraints and stress.  If you are interested in finding out more information about our team of Personal Assistants we would be happy to schedule a complimentary meet-n-greet.  Let us handle your staffing needs while you focus on growing your business.  As always, there are no minimums to utilize our services.  Please note, on average it takes us 4-6 weeks to on-board a new client.  Contact us early to make sure you give yourself plenty of time to go through our process.  We look forward to hearing from you soon!
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