Why Your Trade Show ROI Is Suffering and How to Fix Your Sales Team's Booth Strategy

0:00Welcome back to The Vault Unlocked. Most businesses don't have a lead problem. They don't even have a traffic problem. They have a system problem. And today, we're talking about one of the most overlooked and most expensive places where problems show up. Trade shows. Companies are spending$50 ,000,$100 ,000, sometimes even more to show up, set up a booth, and hope it turns into a pipeline. But there's no structure, no engagement strategy, no real conversion system behind it. So what happens? They burn money and call it brand awareness. Today's guest is Anders Boulanger, someone who spent years inside the trenches of trade shows, not just watching them, but engineering them.

0:44He's built a completely different approach, one that turns passive booths into high converting experiences using psychology, engagement, and what he calls infotainment. We're breaking down what actually separates the booths that get ignored from the ones that generate real ROI. Let's unlock it.

1:13So I have to ask or at least put out the statement because I've seen this too many times. Companies say most companies spend at least$50 ,000 to go to a trade show. and then they send their worst closers or their worst people there and hoping something comes from it. But today, Anders, you have a solution for this big problem. I want to hear all about it. One solution, maybe not just one. We're going to have like a kind of a multi-pronged attack and look at that. I mean, 50 grand and it depends on the industry. That could be super cheap. You know, I've been in million dollar booths. I've been in, you know, all kinds of, and then, you know, it depends on the scale of the business that you have, right?

1:54What kind of investment you want to make. But I think one of the things that we talk about, we talk about the trade show triangle and it's like, there's different levels of exhibitors. And so many are in the bottom part of that triangle where they are what we call a booth buyer. They buy a booth, they show up and they wait and they build, they buy into that myth. If you build it, they will come, which is from field of dreams. And if you believe that you're dreaming that this is going to work for you, right at a trade show. So, um, understanding that, that engagement is so key, understanding that it's going to take some energy, some being proactive.

2:32You know, there's a lot of things that you need to do to be able to make your investment worthwhile. And those who do crack that code are getting, you know, the, the three X, four X ROI, you know, from their trade show investment. And it's not an expense. It is an investment. So let's take a step back here. I wanted to open up with that kind of, you know, a statement there, but I do want to take a back, you know, back step here and go ask the question. Okay. Well, who is Anders and, you know, what do you do? I just went off on you. Yeah. You're like, all right, let's get into it. I love it. No, I love it.

3:04But yeah, you know, like just for the audience listening, let's, let's make sure we understand that, you know, who we're speaking to and how you even found, you know, this niche in the niche. Yes. Yeah. So a bit of background, when I was five years old, got a magic set for Christmas, became a magician, a kid magician, I guess, if you will. Paid my, well, did birthday parties, paid my way through university. I got a physics degree, went full time doing magic. And then at some point, well, around 2007, I got trained by my mentor who taught me how to do trade shows in a new and different way. And so what I became was what we call an infotainer.

3:42So I take magic, but I tell a story with it that is a marketing message. And this builds a crowd of people. It excites people. It kind of creates a peak state for people. And then we do qualification and a call to action and then lead a big crowd of people over to a demo. And we're creating MQLs, SQLs, creating opportunities. And I found a higher and better use for that skill set. And, and so over the years, you know, there's things that, you know, I'd see time and time again play out. And I'm, I'm a bit of a human AB test. Like I'm always going, well, is this going to work better? Is this going to work better?

4:21And, and seeing what moves people. And then also where, you know, exhibitors drop the ball, you know, like where I'm doing my best, but I can only, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. Right. Like sometimes I'd bring them over to the demo station. I'm like, where the heck's my demo guy? Like, you know, like we can't, you know, so, so there, there were these things that I noticed and started making notes on it. We started building trainings around it. And so now I'm on the faculty for the certified trade show marketing designation that's through exhibitor group and exhibitor magazine.

4:56And, and so it's just kind of all of this experience is kind of culminated into, you know, the expertise that we have now. So let's talk about trade shows as a whole, because I know I have my take on trade shows. And obviously, you support and do great work at trade shows. But have you seen trade shows evolve, I would say, over time, especially since we've got out of the 2020 era where trade shows came to a complete halt? Now, people coming back in and you can see they're starting to pop up a lot more. People are wanting to get back to them. how they changed i would say in the last 10 15 years to where they are today for sure if we go back 15 years ago uh there was still a lot more business card you know fishbowls and and and that kind of like how the lead was acquired i was watching video of my mentor from years ago where used to have this they pass out pencils and a piece of paper and you had to fill in your information on a sheet you know like so they were like passing stuff out to the crowds It's like, it was just wild.

5:58So now, of course, it's more scanning, you know, as far as whether it's a QR code, whether it's the near field. But now what we're also seeing too is, you know, this scanning is getting so smart and attaching even conversations, almost like the AI conversation recording. You know, there's a company called Backtrack. So you and I, Kayvon, you could come into the booth and we could just chat and start talking about what your pain points are, all that kind of stuff. And I say, hey, can I scan your badge? And in that moment, I could scan your badge and go back in time five minutes with our conversation.

6:34And that conversation then attaches to the lead. So when you think about following up in terms of relevance, you get all the follow-up. And I guess this is a whole other point, but you want that follow-up to be relevant so people open it the big dirty secret way back when 15 years ago was that 75 to 80 percent of leads are never followed up on now i think things have changed because we are more data driven i work with mostly tech companies so they got their tech stack and their you know go to market they got stuff figured out and yet swap card which is a company that makes these, you know, scanners and things like that.

7:17They're saying still that 70 to 75 % of the leads are never downloaded. So because they can see the fact. So I like, I have trouble believing that, but that's what their stats are saying. So it's just, so, so it's kind of like, I thought we were past that in terms of evolution. And yet two depends on, on which industry. So whatever industry you're in, you know, just take that professionalism up and be those ones that are actually, you know, using those leads and following up. So that was one side of, you know, that evolution. And then the other side, too, is analytics. So it used to be that you if you were the marketing person going to your CEO and they say, like, you know, how was this show we invested in?

8:06And you say, well, it felt slower this year. Like, yeah, it's hard to go to the boardroom to the C-level executives and talk about feelings. Right. So nowadays there are different solutions that allow you to actually have analytics. So whether it is based off of cell phone signatures so that you can actually heat map a booth and see where the hotspots were, how long people stayed, you know, the impressions around the outside. We actually use a solution that measures eyeballs. So it's AI, but it's ethical AI. There's no facial recognition, but there is facial analysis and it just makes that into numbers.

8:45So it's counting how many people walk by, how many people, what's the stop rate? How many people stop and look at the booth for 15 seconds or more? How many people come in? How long do they stay? What's their gender roughly, right? Like it's law of big numbers. Wow. Over, over 40, under 40 in terms of, you know, that the age demographics, and then it can, there's a few, oh, and energy. So energy meaning like really happy and excited would be like 85, 90, they put a number to it and like focused and serious would be like, you know, 65 to 70 kind of thing. So, so sometimes you can see the difference between what's happening in the aisle and what's happening in your booth.

9:26And, and if it's a, it's by a demo station, typically people People are getting more serious because they're watching, you know, and if and if it's a cocktail hour, you know, or you're giving away booze in your booth. Well, maybe it's going to be the higher energy. Right. So so anyway, so you can see all of this and now we can start testing and seeing what are we doing? Is it working or is it not? And then really applying those learnings to the next show. Right. And so it seems like from what I mean, when I said, what's the difference? It's AI completely advanced. I mean, just the data that you just mentioned, I'm sure there's more data points too, but just the data there can tell you instantaneously, is it successful?

10:09Is it not successful? I mean, when you were talking about people's facial recognition, like recognitions, and when people are coming to the booth, you'll be able to tell it doesn't even speak. Right. Does this booth itself aesthetically speak to the people? Are they being attracted before they even have a call or talk with the demo person or the quasi, let's call it the sales rep that's sitting at the trade show? Now, I know what you do is different, which I love. And that's why we're here because I've never even heard of this. And I think it's awesome. And you, I want to call it, you're the hype man at trade shows, but the hype man that has a plan and that delivers results.

10:45So talk a little bit about like exactly how that works and how you see companies, you know, in the sense of businesses that hire you versus don't at that same trade show. What are we seeing? Yeah, for sure. So I think what trade shows, you know, one of my frustrations with a lot of ways that other people look at it is there's like if we can just get more people at the booth. Right. Like it's just all about that, you know, and that is an important piece, you know, and we kind of talk about a three step model of we want to attract. the people, give them a reason to stop, but we also want to connect with them, give them a reason to listen.

11:22And so often we're so caught up of the attracting thing that, you know, we're giving away coffee. Like there's a barista giving away coffee in the booth and no one's even talking to anyone in that damn line. You know, like there's, there has to be reasons to connect and talk and just, you know, have meaningful interactions, right? Because at the end of the day, people are going going to visit 14 booths or something like that on average? And are they even going to remember being at your booth? Right? And you can't buy what you don't remember. So, so, so that they attract, give them a reason to stop the connect, give them a reason to listen, and then the convey, give them a reason to buy.

12:01And that's really where we're talking about, you know, conveying the message and the, the sales message that we would think about having at a booth. So oftentimes people have gaps in that and we're not getting there, right? It's sometimes it's a cry for attention. So what we do with our infotainment presentations is we bring all of that into one piece. And so we're kind of like a turnkey experience that we can even work in a 10 by 10 booth. So, you know, where sometimes you think, oh, I can't have an experience. I don't have enough space. Well, we come in and we start off by just entertaining to spike dopamine, right?

12:37People see that there's kind of a payoff. They want to be a part of something. So that's where that magic and the entertainment demonstrations that we have. And then once we win them over, we start then integrating in the messaging. And so what happens is they are now learning at the same time as they're being entertained, hence the term infotainment. And every time we do a new demonstration, we're taking people from point A to point B, and there's an aha moment in the middle. And that aha moment is usually where there's something amazing happening in the magic effect, but it's also where we introduce the solution of the company we're talking about.

13:13So what's happening is they're actually inductively learning, meaning they're putting it together in their heads. They're going, ah, and they're also seeing the connection with what we're doing. And that's what creates this peak experience that people can have. And meanwhile, we're kind of cheerleading them on a little bit. We're conducting the energy. And oftentimes I have people yelling out the company name. And this happened yesterday that someone introduced me to someone else on LinkedIn. And they said, oh, Anders was at the eFax booth. And this was the booth I was working at last week in LA.

13:50And she said, I remember that because he made us remember that. We were yelling that name out loud in the booth. And so these are those little like psychological, you know, kind of, you know, crowd dynamics kind of stuff that we really engineer engagement in the booth. And that's where we can kind of plug in and take something that is very stagnant, very passive, people just waiting and make it an event happening in the booth that people want to be a part of. And then we do the qualification. We'll ask some questions. Who's going to blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, you got to, we work with the company, whatever that is.

14:26We see the hand raising and then we take those people and we bring them over to a demo and then we kind of just lay them, put them right in your lap. Right. I love it. Layups already pre-framed. Yeah. Psychological warfare, I'd like to say, but I know it's not, but it's using psychology, which I love, which is, you know, why I got into marketing and what I love about marketing. I love to go deeper into some of that psychology, if you don't mind. of even where did you, you know, identify that? Holy moly. Like, because what I'm looking at when I see this is like, there's the booth with the business who already has its people there, like the sales, you know, the trade people there.

15:09Their booth staff. The booth staff, thank you. And then you are kind of sitting on top of that to really set the booth staff up for success. To me, I'm like, when I think about it, Like I, now I even know what exists. How do you even compete? Why would I even go? Like, why would I go to a trade show and not have someone like you? I just doesn't, it doesn't make sense. I go, okay. Like if there's 20 people at a trade show, one of them is using psychological warfare to get more people to my booth already indirectly or directly pre-framed. so now they've already raised their hand in a way of knowing i'm interested in what this is so my guys are not at my booth as a business owner they're not wasting time talking to the people who shouldn't even be at the booth and they're pre-framed we call those home runs where where i come from it does it does like cut to the chase and then so there's a few things happening there one thing too is the optics of a busy booth right when you have a crowd around a booth, they're like, what's going on there?

16:20Right. They're a going concern. They have what we call a net creating a magnetic presence. Okay. I love this is the stuff I want to talk about. Yeah. Presence. And so when I'm building a crowd, I don't care who the heck you are. You're not quite like, I will take a security guard if I need to, right? Like I'll, like, I always say I'm badge agnostic, you know, come, everyone can watch. We're all good. Let's make something happen. So I'm trying to build up that gravitational pull because we need to get past that, that critical mass, right? Like if I'm talking to three people, that's almost not quite a crowd yet.

16:55It's like three's company, four's a crowd. Then I get four people and now it starts having a little bit of more of a pull, right? And, and so if we really break down what's going on and I'll just slow down because you want to get into the psychology of this is, is, is I give, I gamify the presentation. So I give someone a chance to win$2 ,000. Wow. And so I fan out a fan of cash, you know,$40,$50 bills. I throw them down on the floor and then I do a magic demonstration on the floor. So I'm kneeling on the floor by all this cash and I might have one or two people watching me right now. So there's not a lot happening, but I'm on a microphone and I'm swinging for the fences, meaning I'm not playing small and not being on a microphone.

17:39and I'm doing a show. Like this is a performance and they can tell by the way that I talk about it, that this is going to happen. It's not like if we get enough people, we're going to do a little show here. Like that's not, that's not how it is. Right. It's like, we got like busker style. Yeah. There is, there is that there's a street performance for corporate, you know, it's street performing. I often say, uh, so then people watch me do it. And, and what happens is basically I'm using a shadow on a deck of cards cuts itself. It's like, it's, it's impressive. And it's, that's what I open with.

18:12And, and, but then I say, that's the warmup and everyone's like, where's he going? Like, okay. So now more, a few more people are standing around. So maybe we have five or six people. They're standing shoulder to shoulder. I do a thing where I, I, I take a marker and I draw an X sharpie on my hand and we do a fist bump and everyone fist bumps all the way around. And I'm like, we're going to create some connection. And this literally does create connection in the way that all these strangers now have touched each other. But what I want them to do is I want them to, I want to congeal the artery.

18:42I want to bond them together in a sense that I don't want them to leave. I want them bond them to me too, right? So we're a group. So what ends up happening, the last person who had already put their hand behind their back, brings their hand out, does a fist bump, opens their hand. They have the X, the X has gone off my hand. And they're like, whoa, right? So this is all just magic at this point. This is all just entertainment, dopamine spiking. And there's a little bit of like, what is going on? How did this, like, where am I? I'm at this booth and now all these things are happening. Then I get up on my stage.

19:15And when I get on the stage, I get on page, meaning I bring in the scripting, what we've planned to talk about. So we built rapport on the floor and now we get on stage and get on page. So now I usually say a little something to kind of get people to be in on it. Right. And I'll say, how many notice this is not your normal presentation. It's not a lot of PowerPoint here. Right. This is not a presentation. It's an experience. And we're going to co-create this experience, meaning it's not me doing it for you, but it's us doing it for each other. Do you want to have a good time? Say, yeah. And everyone goes, yeah.

19:51Like now they're like, yeah, let's do this. Right. And I go, take a step in. And then they come a little bit closer. And so I always want to keep them nice and close. The closer they are, the less chance they're going to leave. It's also more, everything's more impressive and they're shoulder to shoulder with people. So they're feeling their energy. And so we're, we're really, you know, architecting what, how they experience manufacturing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so that's kind of how, and then I get into the different routines, but we're just building out the crowd now and we're more people are stopping.

20:25Typically, the more I, I, I touch someone or interact with someone, the more interesting that is. And then at the end of the presentation, um, I'm going to give someone a chance to win$2 ,000. Um, at that point, when I say, okay, we're going to give someone a chance to win two grand, man, nobody's moving a muscle now, right? Everyone's listening. And then I can pretty much say or do whatever I want in that little minute or two minute before their patience is up, right? Yeah. But that's where throughout the presentation, I've said, who wants to win 2K? Raise your hand. And people raise their hand.

21:02How many people are having this problem? Is this true? And people are nodding their heads And I'm gauging their level of either frustration or the fact that they are right fit people throughout the presentation. And so at the end, I can ask these more direct qualifying questions and people are already trained to raise their hand. So they will out themselves at that point, right, whether or not that's the case. And then I make a case to go check out a demo. Now, whether we've incentivized it by a special gift that we're giving away, maybe it's just kind of like I sometimes say, we're going to do a three-minute save session.

21:42In three minutes' time, we're going to show you how to save time, save money, and save your sanity. You've already spent 15 with me. What's another three? Right? So see Suzanne over there. She's going to talk to you. I'll bring you over. And Suzanne's just smiling and ready because she knows. She's like, bring them all. She's a bright star. Yeah. Yeah. So, so that's kind of, and then, then I, I say that the loudest person who yells the company's name, if you need a cue card, it's right behind me on the count of three is going to get picked to have a chance to win my cash. And then I play a game with them that the odds are stacked in their favor.

22:18And yet I basically do it for a living. So I, you know, I I'm good at it. And the question is, do they get the cash? The odd time they do. I am very good at the game. So I try to keep my cash. And if the company wants me to give away some cash, I will give away some cash and intentionally lose. So there is there's some. So and if and if we wanted to, we could do it for less cash and lose every time. But this is just kind of the way that I choose my presentations. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So how many presentations would you do in a if I had brought you in or a business brought you in? Yeah. You know, say an eight.

22:54I'm going to say a typical 10 hour, 12 hour day at a booth. I mean, what shows are you doing? Well, there you go. I don't know. You tell me, yeah. I mean, I haven't done a lot of trade shows. No, it's all right. I'm not a trade show guy. Typical trade show is probably seven or eight hours a day. Sometimes I was just at one that was 10 hours a day. Yeah, okay. So as I say, it's a little long. But yeah, you're right. You're right. So typically we contract for - Like 10 to six, 10 to seven, right? Or usually - Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We typically contract for five presentations a day during the five easiest hours.

23:24Yeah. So the first hour is sometimes dead. Last hour is sometimes dead. Middle five, and maybe there's a lunch in there. You know, so it works out pretty well in a seven hour day. And then and then kind of rinse and repeat. Right. So we make the booth busy, make it happening and then let it go back to normal, which is always kind of a good like this. If you didn't have me, this would be like all the time, by the way. Right. You know, that kind of experience what that looks like. But it's also a little bit of a break for the booth neighbors because I can get sound complaints. And if I'm on, if I'm going all the time, they're like, Oh, like this guy's killing us.

23:59So it's kind of nice to have that like ebb and flow through. I was going to say there's, there's a couth to this and even, you know, and a respect, obviously. And my question is how do the, the trade show and the trade show, uh, do they give clearance on this or are they businesses just bring you? It's like, it's on my booth. I paid for the booth, love it or like it kind of. Sometimes it's that sometimes it's, it's, uh, usually the, The only thing that sometimes is a snag is some shows don't allow sound either at all or they don't allow it for a certain size of booth or sponsorship. So let's say a 10 by 10 or a 10 by 20, they didn't pay enough to have a sound system in their booth is kind of what they're saying.

24:44So I've done that. Sometimes I can do – I've actually in Europe one time in Barcelona, I had to do a show with no sound system. and it was interesting because I don't try to do that. That's like hard on the voice because you're trying to project and everything. But I found something interesting was that with a sound system, let's say I've got my crowd and Kayvon, you're like maybe 15 feet deeper and there's a bunch of space between the crowd who's actually having a good time. And you're kind of, I call these people like energy vampires. They're just gonna absorb and watch from afar, but they're not gonna give it back, right?

25:21They're not going to be part of it. I love it. And, and so if I was on a microphone, you could hear me from there. And so you could, you can enjoy the show from there. But what I found was when I wasn't using a microphone, those people, they had, they were tempted to come in closer because they couldn't hear. And so I was like, Oh my, you know, this is, it was, it wasn't so bad, but it's not a real, you know, you could still do that with the microphone with voice friction. Right. Right. That's well, I know that's true, too. And but there is almost kind of like a sweet spot where to do that. So you're saving your voice, you know, at the same time as as, you know, creating that intimacy.