Page 13 - EXHIBITION BOOK - BOOK 1 Before!_Neat

CHAPTER 4 GETTING YOUR EXHIBITION OBJECTIVES CLEAR

One of the biggest mistakes companies make when doing an exhibition is to go there without a plan or real
objectives. This is akin to going to war without a plan. Armies that do that get obliterated and in the same
vein going to an exhibition without a clear plan or objectives is really living in hope it will work. The
downside to this is that you can’t work out your ROI or ROO (Objectives) if you don’t know what they are.
The objectives can take many formats but knowing what they are is the first step. Very often people say we
are going there to make lots of or the most sales…. great but how many is lots? When you are doing your
projections for the business year you don’ t put in a vague sales number…. you put in a real number so
everyone knows what to aim for. Maybe you have certain KPIs in your business. Why are Exhibitions not
the same? As mentioned at the beginning of this book you can have many objectives, and all can be
measurable and should be…. So, consider the list below as a target objective for your next show…

o How many existing clients do we want to meet?
o How many new prospects do we want to engage with?
o How many actual leads do we need per day…per rep?
o What 3 key feedback issues do we need to get from visitors about product XYZ?
o How many appointments do we need to make for the first week after the show?
o Do we want to meet potential new distributors and if so how many?
o Can we use this as a recruitment drive and if so how many interviews do we need to set up?

I published an article some time ago on LinkedIn about this very issue and it seemed to resonate with
people, so I will replicate it below to show you what I mean…

ROI is a good acquaintance but ROO is your friend…LinkedIn – Stephan Murtagh

The whole concept of ROI in Exhibitions has been really overplayed and I believe the term is fundamentally
flawed because it focuses purely on sales made from shows when there is so much more to it than that….
enter stage left…ROO – Return on Objectives!

Yes, I totally agree that monitoring the return on investment from doing an exhibition is difficult and very
often this is one of the reasons why shows are dismissed as a waste of time. I get that, but I also get that
there are numerous ways to evaluate success and not purely on the number of leads you get. In reality it
takes some time after the event is over to really make a true and realistic evaluation and just because it’s
not immediately seen as a success doesn’t mean it isn’t. I would also say the converse can be true also
where a company gets lots of leads, but these don’t turn into real business. I just wanted to highlight a few
things that may let you look at Exhibitions in a different way and change the perception of ROI which will
offer you ROO as a better yardstick of success.