Showing posts with label exhibit hall. Show all posts
In about two months, individuals will be heading to Washington D.C. to attend the 2016 SHRM Annual Conference. This will be my 16th SHRM Annual Conference, and, based on my years of experience, here are the things vendors should NOT be doing as they prepare for the big event and the thousands attending:
1. Do NOT treat students with disrespect
Ideally, every person who walks through the exhibit hall should be addressed with respect. However, it is inevitable every year that my students will come back with horror stories about being treated rudely by someone manning an exhibit hall booth. I know you are there to make potential sales connections, and a student is unlikely to be a customer anytime soon. However, if these students are dedicated enough to travel to Washington, D.C. to attend the conference, they are dedicated to the profession, and will likely be a potential customer in the future. They are also there to learn about the product/service you offer and what you can bring any HR professional who chooses to buy from you. Don't burn a bridge before it has a chance to be constructed, as those students will remember who did them wrong!
2. Do NOT offer a booth drawing if it is not authenticI expect to go 0 for 16 in having my name drawn from a vendor for one of the booth prizes, despite having my badge scanned or business card submitted over a thousand times over the years. Why? Some (I said, some, not all) vendors offer the pretense of a drawing for a booth prize when, in actuality, they will only choose a winner from a current customer. That being said, if a vendor is not offering a legitimate random drawing, and are just fishing for leads, what kind of customer relationship are they really offering?
3. Do NOT offer unremarkable swag
You are going to have a big chance to get your company brand and name out there. How do you want it to be remembered? Do you want it to be forgotten a week after the conference when the attendee is cleaning out his or her travel bags and asks, "why did I grab that?!??!" So, how can you avoid this scenario? Pens, shirts, squeeze balls (for the kids), and candy are always winners. But, something that will stick will be flash drives and phone chargers with your name on it. Just a suggestion.
See you in two months in DC.
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The Speakers
- Hillary Clinton - didn't get to see her. Closed to press.
- Blake Mycoskie - Nice inspirational message. Hard to screw up a talk about shoes at a HR conference. Definitely fit category 1 of Tim Sackett's 3 categories of HR speakers
- Jennifer McClure - Talked on the Future of HR and knocked it out of the park. Definitely book her for your future HR conference.
- Steve Boese - Excellent presentation on harnessing social tools.
- I probably have spent less time there then in any previous conference. As a professor, I'm not likely to be a customer of whatever product is being hawked. My name is not going to be drawn for a booth prize. And, I learned long ago that SWAG remorse is never a good thing.
- I felt bad for the booths in the 3500-4300 range. It seemed like they were the discount casinos in "Vegas Vacation" where games such as "Pick a Number Between 1 and 10" and "Flip a Coin" were being played
- I was disappointed to hear from students, yet again, that some booths treated their visit with disdain. These are your future customers. Treat them that way.
- It is still a heavily dominated female crowd. On three of the four shuttles I've taken, I was the lone male among 30 or 40 females.
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