Setting Goals

The spring trade show season is upon us, sending marketing and salespeople and engineers on trips to shows in locations chosen more for their proximity to industry than scenic or tourism value. I've yet to see an industrial trade show in, say, the Bahamas in February.

As you get ready for trade show season, do you know why you're going? Is it leads? How many? Do you want to identify potential business partners? How many and in what areas? Are you going to do research on the competition, promote a new product, meet existing customers, close business deals? Or is the purpose of show attendance primarily to keep your company in view of customers?

You can't measure the success of a show if you don't know what you want to get out of it. With the economy in the state it's in, you need to justify the cost of show attendance and to do that, you need to know if you met your goals. You don't necessarily need to do anything formal, but you do need to write down somewhere what you want to get out of the show. Get specific. If you want to get leads, say so, and then say how many. "10 solid leads per day" is a better goal than "get leads".