 www.emfinfo.com |
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Well known for her 30 year history of high dollar production and growth-oriented leadership, Kathleen has worked extensively with companies and individuals to leverage learning as a business success strategy. Clients ask Kathleen to work with them on increasing Production, Profitability and building high-performing recruiting teams in the Executive Search, Perm and Staffing industries. Having served as Chief Learning Advocate with Global Recruiters Network, Inc (GRN), Kathleen worked with the almost 200 franchised offices to implement a learning strategy that increased system-wide and individual office revenues by launching over 1000 hours of annual learning content. While National Practice Leader with StarbridgeGroup, Inc. Kathleen worked with training and consulting companies around the world to recruit and hire executive talent to convert their business goals into reality. Her tenure in the learning business has included highs and lows in her various roles as practitioner, search team leader, building and managing a 15 person search firm, as a franchise owner and a franchise consultant and learning leader. Kathleen now works with a variety of recruiting and human capital companies as a speaker, trainer, coach and business consultant. Kathleen began her professional career in 1980 when she traveled around the country teaching sales effectiveness to thousands of fund raising executives on behalf of a national non-profit organization. After several years, Kathleen shifted into sales, starting with opening new territories and moving up to Vice President of Sales for an educational software firm. Moving into recruiting provided Kathleen with a powerful way to leverage her sales and executive experiences, and her long history of helping executives build organizations and struggle with career decisions established her as a trusted advisor and coach. Kathleen has remained a leader in the executive search industry for the last 20 years of her recruiting career, and was selected in 1995 for membership in the Pinnacle Society, a recruiting industry honor society recognizing 75 of the top executive recruiters in North America. Kathleen was honored to serve as President of this prestigious organization for 4 consecutive years, and has now returned to the organization as an honored member Emeritus. Kathleen’s core expertise is in helping others learn and get things done. Working with others as coach and consultant, she is known for helping her clients build dreams, make plans and execute to create results. Often that means laying out a roadmap, identifying roadblocks and building a detour so the journey is productive. Kathleen Kurke specializes in Productivity and Profitability Coaching in the Recruiting Industry. If you or your team would like to make better choices on working Job Orders to increase your production and pro tability, reach out to Kathleen at kathleentkurke@gmail.com.
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Trade Shows – Bonanza or Boondoggle?
By Kathleen Kurke | Monday January 15, 2019
It’s the beginning of the year and you’re likely starting to see promo ads for the industry trade shows. They’re often in glamourous sounding destinations like Vegas, San Diego or Denver, and the ads for the show are tempting with offers of technology or prizes to the lucky winners. The allure is obvious: lots of people in one place, it’s days out of the office and off the phone, travel sounds glamorous, and trade show swag is tantalizing. You begin to dream of all the placements that could happen with that many prospective clients and candidates all in one place.
Trade shows can be a bonanza for growing your business. Or, they can be an expensive and low-return boondoggle. It’s your choice.
Let’s look at the facts about trade shows:
• There are over 10,000 trade shows in the US/year, and the number is growing by 3%/year.
• It’s a $100B industry.
• There ARE lots of people in one place – not uncommon to have 10K to 20K visitors/show.
Trade shows relevant to your desk specialty can be a valuable tool to elevate your visibility and credibility as expert in your specialty.
• You should know what they are and when they are.
• Which ones do your clients exhibit at to connect with their customers?
• Which ones do your clients attend to get access to their suppliers?
• They are a source of new news and industry intel.
• It positions you as a person “in the know”.
• Some you follow; some you work.
SPOILER ALERT: You don’t have to attend a trade show to make money from a trade show. You can work a trade show by working the trade show by attending on-site or just working it while virtual.
On-site: you invest the time, effort and money to work the show and attend the show
Virtual: you invest the time and effort to work the show, but you stay at home
Blended: you invest the time and effort to work the show before the show to decide if you should spend the money to attend the show
And, whether you pursue an on-site or virtual attendance strategy, there is work to do before, during and after the trade show.
Before
Your ‘Before’ the trade show work should begin two months prior to the trade show. Doing the ‘Before’ work will help you get a return from a trade show, regardless of whether you’re attending on-site, virtually, or working a blended approach. Or, it will help you decide if your time and money is better spend staying at your desk and working the trade show virtually.
• Identify exhibitors
• Build target list for Marketing calls
• Build Trade Show conversation into all Marketing and Recruiting conversations
• Create Send Out/connection possibilities for Trade Show floor
• Close for Assignments
• Close for F2F meeting opportunities
• Schedule closing interviews
• Call speakers as referral sources on open searches
• Set quantifiable goals to justify travel and out-of-office expense:
Potential assignments
Send outs
Client visits
• Request complimentary “Expo Passes” that can get you free or discounted admission
STOP AND DO NOT PASS GO: By beginning to use a trade show as the focus for your marketing and recruiting 2+ months prior to the show, you should be able to generate data to determine whether you’ll get a better return on a trade show by spending the travel time/money to attend on-site, or whether your time is best spent working the trade show from the profit center of your desk in your office. You should NOT invest time/money in attending a trade show on-site unless you have the following in place 2 weeks prior to the show:
• 10 scheduled meetings (date, time, place, purpose) with clients, prospective clients and/or potential candidates
• 3 open job orders on which you’ll be able to do focused name gathering and/or introductions
• 3 hot candidates with which you’ll be able to generate unscheduled marketing conversations
• 50 target companies identified by booth/aisle number where you are looking to gather intel
If you choose to attend a tradeshow on-site with anything less than these 4 money making activities lined up, you are choosing a tradeshow boondoggle. Remember, trade shows can be a desk building bonanza, or they can be an expensive boondoggle. It’s your choice.
During
Your ‘During’ the trade show work begins as folks are arriving at the trade show. You can do the ‘during’ work regardless of whether you’re on-site at the trade show or working the show virtually. If a significant portion of your target clients or candidates are at the trade show, you want to work it as though you are at the trade show, demonstrating the same urgency and time sensitivity they’ll be experiencing while at the trade show.
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On-site |
Virtual |
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Work each aisle of the expo with a plan Know what and who you’re looking for (NO “Hey, I just wanted to say ‘hi.”) Schedule send-outs |
Keep working the phones Work to capture Search Assignments Work for candidate referrals Schedule send-outs |
After
Some of the best return on working a trade show happens by continuing to work the trade show ‘After’ the trade show, and you can benefit from the trade show regardless of whether you attended on-site or virtual. Just as you spent the 2 months prior to a trade show asking powerful questions about industry forecasts and hot topics as a way of uncovering needs, so can you use the same topics to create meaningful and business building conversations after the trade show.
For the 2 months after the trade show, leverage the trade show in your conversations by asking powerful questions:
“What was hot at the show?”
“Your biggest surprises?
“What were your goals at the show? How did you do with those?
“What companies caught your attention?
“How does what you learned at the tradeshow shift or reinforce your career goals?
“What changes are you making in your business based on what you learned at the trade show?”
“What skill sets do you need on your team to become/stay a leader in your space?
There are many advantages to incorporating tradeshows into your ongoing desk-building business strategy.
• Touchstone for urgency and advancing
• Deepen your industry expertise
• Insight into industry issues and trends
• Big boost to your database
• High volume activity in compressed time
• Add variety and interest to your Marketing and Recruiting calls
When you leverage the Before, During and After strategy when working a trade show, you can choose whether the trade show turns out to be a bonanza or a boondoggle.