209 | Should I Invest In an In-Person Trade Show Right Now with Katie Hunt
Should I invest in an-in person trade show as the world starts to open up after Covid?
Today I want to publicly talk through a question that I recently received during our Proof to Product LABS group coaching call. Every month inside of Proof to Product LABS we meet for an hour and I answer questions from our community. Whatever it is that they are working on and need help with.
On our most recent call, Jodi asked “I’m trying to decide whether or not I should do an in-person wholesale show this summer. I could do my own booth at NY Now, exhibit in my rep group or another shared booth, try Shoppe Object or invest in a big direct mail marketing push and do the Faire virtual show. I WANT to be at the shows. I miss them and shows have been really helpful in growing my wholesale in the past. It’s been my best wholesale year ever (yay!) without doing shows, so I question whether or not spending the money is worth it. I wonder what attendance will be like as we come out of Covid and whether people will be traveling. I’m not sure where to focus.”
Ok, friends. Where to invest our time and energy as things start to open up is a very common question that I’m receiving from my clients and our community members. But, I want to flip this conversation around a bit before we can look at individual opportunities and weigh their pros and cons.
I want to focus first on our goals.
When we know the results we are trying to hit or the outcomes we are trying to achieve, we can build a much more strategic roadmap to get there.
So, during the call, I pulled Jodi into the hot seat and I asked her what her main priorities and goals are on the wholesale side right now, so that we could then figure out the best path to get the results she’s looking for.
Jodi reported that her goals were 4 main things:
She wants to increase her wholesale revenue
Meet & sign on new wholesale accounts
See & write reorders with existing wholesale accounts
In case the average order value for wholesale
Knowing what we know from Paper Camp, the average trade show exhibitor spends $10-12k on a trade show although I suspect we’ll see this number rise as we come out of the pandemic. But for this exercise we set a $10k budget and got to work brainstorming different options for Jodi to reach these goals.
Now, one quick caveat before I dive into my ideas… oftentimes we feel like there is only one path to meeting our goals and that’s just not true. In reality, we have lots of options but we may need to take a step back to take a wider view of the situation.
Ok. So, we know that the goals are — more wholesale orders, higher average order, new accounts and reorders from existing accounts. We have a budget of $10k and we want to figure out the best way to leverage our time, money and effort to maximize these results.
“You are running a business and that means you need to make educated, intentional decisions about how you’re utilizing your time, your money, your energy, all of that.”
I did a quick brainstorm on the LABS call and came up with four ways that she could meet her goals and stay within her budget:
The first is tradeshows. For purposes of this discussion, I’m going to lump all of the trade show options into one bucket. But, she could do her own booth at a tradeshow, she could pay a smaller fee to participate in a shared booth, like her rep booth.
Pros of doing a trade show is that she gets to see people face to face. It’s a consolidated spot for buyers to congregate. In Jodi’s case it's close to where she lives so some of the logistics will be easier for her than it will be for someone who might be flying from across the country. She’s historically had good ROI from trade shows and it's been a platform for elevated sales & contacts for her band. Plus, she misses people and I think most of us are craving face time with friends & colleagues. Trade shows are a great place to meet buyers from key accounts or markets you may have never considered before.
Some questions or cons for trade shows include questions about what will attendance look like? Will buyers feel safe traveling to be there? Exhibiting at a trade show is a lot of time, effort and hard work — which we can’t discount. And, results of exhibiting at any trade show are largely unknown. Oftentimes benefits of being at the show can present themselves through opportunities further down the road. So, a downside is not knowing what type of return on investment you’ll actually receive.
The second option we talked about was doing a road show. This involves traveling to meet with your stores at their locations.
The pros of this include being able to see people 1-1, rather than in a trade show or group environment. This means you can show them more of your products and possibly write larger orders. Being in the room with others leads to opportunities that are unquantifiable.
The cons of this is that it's time intensive and costly. People may not feel comfortable meeting right now and you may not feel comfortable with the risks of traveling. Also a roadshow would have you away from your day to day life and your business for a good chunk of time. So there are opportunity costs there.
The third option we discussed was doing a big marketing campaign that included a combination of direct mail, email and social media marketing. In the past, our Paper Camp community has mailed out creative boxes with samples, catalogs and handwritten notes. They’ve done smaller mailers or postcards. But, something physical that lands on a desk and has less distractions for your buyer’s attention compared to email and social media.
Pros of a marketing push: It can be done from home, no travel required. You can be sure, creative and on brand with the direct mail piece and the marketing campaign overall. A marketing campaign like this would cost less than traveling to a trade show or doing a roadshow, so you could maximize your budget there.
Cons of doing a marketing push like this… well, it can be time intensive to create the direct mail piece, write the content and send it all out. It can also be hard to track ROI from this type of marketing push. With email and social media we have analytics from google analytics or open rates & click-throughs but with snail-mail campaigns it is harder to track the return on investment.
The fourth area that I brainstormed to reach these wholesale expansion goals is to hire an in-house sales person. I talked about this a little bit on episode 205 of the podcast. But, hiring sales is more of a long-game plan.
Benefits of this option include that it's more of a long term solution than trade shows, road shows or a one time marketing push. You choose who to hire, how to train them and you’ll have control over the sales process and system. Meaning, you can give them templated emails to use for outreach, tell them how often you want them to follow-up and provide them with tools to measure sales success. Hiring an in-house sales person could enable you to build stronger relationships with your existing wholesale accounts & have a more personalized, thoughtful outreach plan. You also have flexibility in compensation packages. For example, you could pay an hourly fee, or an hourly fee with commission or bonuses or only commission / bonus structure.
Down sides to this option: it will cost more than $10,000 over the long haul, but ideally they will be bringing in more revenue for the business which makes their salary worthwhile. You do have to go through the hiring process & train them. And, for maximum success you’ll want to have a sales process in place like we talked about — so that they know how to help you customers in all phases of the customer journey. Another consideration — hiring someone in-house requires your team to be very proactive in outreach. At a trade show you may meet someone in line for lunch… but this option requires someone doing the outreach and less on the happenstance of meeting people.
Jodi is still weighing her options and thinking through her decision — as I know many of you are.
So here’s what I want you to take-away from today’s episode…
There are no wrong answers here. You need to decide what your personal and business goals are, what your constraints are (like budget) and then you need to weigh the pros and cons of each to determine the best option for your business.
Don’t discount the emotional drivers — such as missing people and wanting to see people IRL. Those are legitimate feelings. But, also don’t let them be the sole driver of your decision-making. You’re running a business and that means we need to make educated, intentional decisions about how we’re utilizing our time, money and energy to meet our business goals.
I also want to remind you that we always have options in our business. These are just four quick ideas that I brainstormed on our Proof to Product LABS call the other day… but there are certainly more ways to reach these wholesale goals while staying within the $10k budget. Creative problem solving is our super power as entrepreneurs… don’t be afraid to use it.
Alright, friends, I hope this was helpful to you. If you’re interested in learning more about selling wholesale or exhibiting at trade shows, join our Paper Camp waitlist. Since 2011, we’ve helped thousands of brands start and scale their wholesale programs. Our Paper Camp alumni sell to stores like Target, Anthropologie, Barnes & Noble, Container Store as well as independent boutiques around the world. I’d love to do the same for you! Join the Paper Camp waitlist here.
Thanks for tuning in today! I’ll be back next week with a new episode!
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Connect with Katie Hunt
Katie Hunt is a business strategist, podcaster, mentor and mama to four. She helps product based businesses build profitable, sustainable companies through her conferences, courses and coaching programs.
Website: prooftoproduct.com | Instagram: @prooftoproduct
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