Show And Tell | How to secure -- and pull off -- a coveted git as a trade show panelist, a moderator, or even a keynote speaker
Ah, trade shows. They occupy a strange dimension somewhere between job fairs and extraterrestrial bazaars. But there is business to be done and a fair amount to be learned. Most trade shows have presentations, panels and keynoters and being a part of a panel, or delivering a keynote, is usually well worth the time: At minimum, presenters and panelists are usually offered free lodging and admission to the show. If you really do a good job, you can walk out with sales (or, at least, prospects). Keynoters even get paid.
So how do you get these gigs? More importantly, how do you get the most out of it? Here are some tips:
Snagging The Invite
Speaking opportunities at trade shows are reserved for people with proven expertise in their field — particularly those who’ve broken new ground in it. It takes time on the career path to do that, but once you have, you have to make some noise about it. One of the best ways is to publish articles in print or online trade journals, the more, the better.
Find out who’s responsible for the program at the trade show or shows you’d like to speak at, and send them some clips and a list of your accomplishments, along with a nice letter informing them of your interest in speaking, and what you’d like to speak about.
Be realistic — no one becomes a keynoter overnight. Offer to sit on panels and you might get lucky and be invited to present solo. Oh, and be patient. Program themes for trade shows are often set a year or more in advance, and speaker lists are often locked in six months out. While your topic might be of interest to the organizers, they may not have a suitable slot for you this time around. Drop them a tickler every once in a while, and make sure you introduce yourself at this year’s show, reminding them that you’d love to help out next year.
Also, take a good look at your expertise and see if there are analogous or parallel business sectors that could use it. They’ll likely have trade shows of their own, and those shows can be productive, too — particularly if a respected associate in that sector recommends you.
Keep It Interesting
So, once you get the invite, then what? Panel presentations can be enormously useful for attendees, because members are usually selected to provide a range of approaches on the topic. If you get invited, you should find out who else has been invited to join the panel. Be wary if you’ll be sitting with a direct competitor or with others whose expertise is identical to your own. Such situations can result in either unpleasant competition at the dais or boring presentations in which everyone says the same thing. Neither situation offers you much opportunity to shine.
If you’re the moderator of a panel, know you’re the lynchpin to the whole show. And make no mistake: Presenting at trade shows is theater. The moderator’s job is to keep things lively, interesting, and above all, dynamic. He or she may not have specific expertise in the topic area, but that’s okay. Their job is to moderate. The panelists are supposed to be the experts.
A good moderator will start talking with each of the panelists long before the show. When I moderate a panel of, say, three experts, I ask each panelist to send me a rough draft of their initial comments at least two weeks before the show (knowing full well I’ll be lucky to get them seven days out). It’s my prerogative whether to share the drafts with other panelists — I often do — but the goal is to make sure that each panelist’s information is interesting, informative and unique.
A panelist’s initial comments should last no longer than ten or fifteen minutes (a good moderator will read each script aloud and time them). Good panel sessions generate lots of questions from the audience, and you want to have time for them.
Good panel discussions are as entertaining as they are informative and, as mentioned, they afford panelists the chance to demonstrate their expertise and develop new contacts. But keep the sales shtick subtle. Oh, one more thing: Make sure that you get flowery recommendations from the organizers. They can help in securing subsequent gigs. Who knows? There may even be a keynote in your future.
Skip King is the president of Reputation Strategies LLC, an agency specializing in public relations, crisis and issues management, stakeholder communications and marketing communications. He can be reached at sking@reputationstrategies.com.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments