You’re attending a trade show. What leadership skills should you have to make it a success?

1 Set clear goals and expectations

Before you attend a trade show, you need to have a clear vision of what you want to achieve and how you will measure your results. Do you want to generate leads, increase awareness, or launch a new product? How many contacts, sales, or feedback do you aim to collect? How will you follow up with your prospects after the event? Communicate your goals and expectations to your team and assign roles and responsibilities accordingly. Make sure everyone knows their tasks, deadlines, and deliverables, and provide them with the necessary training, tools, and resources.

3 Engage and inspire your audience

One of the most important skills you need to have as a leader at a trade show is the ability to engage and inspire your audience. You need to capture their attention, interest, and curiosity, and convey your value proposition in a clear, concise, and compelling way. You also need to build rapport, trust, and credibility with your prospects, partners, and influencers, and show them how your products, services, or brand can solve their problems, meet their needs, or fulfill their desires. Use storytelling, demonstrations, testimonials, or case studies to illustrate your benefits and impact, and invite questions, feedback, or suggestions to create a dialogue and a relationship.

5 Learn and improve

Finally, as a leader at a trade show, you need to have the skill of learning and improving from your experience. You need to evaluate your performance, results, and feedback, and identify what worked well and what can be improved. You also need to gather and analyze data, insights, and trends from the event, and use them to inform your future decisions, actions, and strategies. You also need to share your learnings and improvements with your team and other stakeholders, and implement them in your next trade show or project.