EMT #58 with Lee Ali - The Most Overlooked ROI Driver in Trade Shows: Your Booth Team

In this episode of Event Marketer’s Toolbox, hosts Chris Dunn and Dana Esposito sit down with Lee Ali, Founder of ExpoStars, to unpack one of the most overlooked drivers of trade show success: your people.

Companies spend thousands—sometimes hundreds of thousands—on booth design, technology, and giveaways. But as Lee makes clear, most are missing the one factor that determines whether that investment actually pays off.

👉 It’s not the booth.
👉 It’s the team inside it.

Drawing from nearly two decades of experience and global insight, Lee breaks down how exhibitors can rethink their strategy—from the ground up—by focusing on human connection, structured engagement, and intentional team design.

1. Your Booth Team Drives 85% of Your Success

2. Start with the Audience, Not the Booth

3. Not All Booth Staff Are Created Equal

4. Trade Shows Are a Performance—Train Like One

5. Vanity Metrics Are Killing ROI

6. The Real Skill Isn’t Selling—It’s Connecting

There’s a tendency in our industry to chase the visible: bigger booths, better tech, more traffic.

But this conversation is a reminder that real impact happens in the invisible moments—the conversations, the connections, the way your team shows up.

If you want better ROI from your events, don’t just upgrade your booth.

👉 Upgrade your approach to people.

👉🏼 Join us for more insightful discussions like this by tuning into 'Event Marketer's Toolbox,' where industry leaders share the tools, tactics, and trends driving success in the event world.

This Show is sponsored by Blue Hive 

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Transcript

0:00:00

(Chris Dunn)

Hey, hello and welcome. 

0:00:01

(Chris Dunn)

This is Chris Dunn. You are on the Event Marketers Toolbox. Welcome aboard. I got a couple of friends with me today. We are doing a live show. It's been a couple of weeks since we've had an actual live event here. 

0:00:13

(Chris Dunn)

So super excited to introduce my friend Dana and also another industry friend that I've gotten to know a little better over the last couple of years, Lee Ali. So Dana, tell us a little bit about yourself and then we'll kick it over to Lee. 

0:00:26

(Dana Esposito)

So hey everybody, Dana Esposito. 

0:00:28

(Dana Esposito)

I'm the EVP of Strategy here at Blue Hive Exhibits. I've been in the industry for about 30 years. So I tell people that basically I'm older than dirt at this point and started off on the design side, the exhibit design side, but now I'm also a sort of corporate strategy and client advocate. And I am excited to have Lee here today from Manchester, England. I got to meet him in person at Exhibitor Live just a couple of weeks ago, which was wonderful. So Lee, can you introduce yourself? 

0:00:56

(Dana Esposito)

yourself and tell everyone a little bit about who you are, what you do. 

0:01:00

(Lee Ali)

Thanks, Dana. 

0:01:00

(Lee Ali)

I'm delighted to be here. Thanks, Chris, for the invitation. Hi, everyone. I'm Lee. As Dana said, I'm from Manchester in the UK. I'm the MD and founder of a company called ExpoStars Interactive. 

0:01:12

(Lee Ali)

We've been in the industry for about 18 years, and our job is to support exhibitors to help them engage better and get a better performance from their teams. And we have a network of about 5 ,000 engagement professionals dotted all around the globe. working for all our exhibitor clients. And then I'm also a strategist, a sales strategist, a business mentor. And then lastly, I'm a Reiki practitioner as well. And also a big Manchester United fan. 

0:01:47

(Lee Ali)

And I also do a lot of hiking. And obviously, you've seen me traveling on my LinkedIn everywhere. So, so far, I think I've been to about 51 countries my company. So yeah. 

0:02:01

(Chris Dunn)

Oh, that's amazing. Okay. Well, that's a, that's a, that's a great introduction. Appreciate it. It's, it's been a long time coming. You and I kind of bumped into each other a number of years ago. 

0:02:12

(Chris Dunn)

We met on LinkedIn, we met in real life at an exhibitor show or something, and then We were starting to put this together and I ran into you over at your shop and I was sitting there having a coffee or something. And I look across and saw that beautiful shiny dome. And I was like, I know that guy. So, yeah, great. Great to finally do this. Lee, what you do is like a missing piece, I think, of so many exhibit programs. 

0:02:42

(Chris Dunn)

So I'm super excited to be able to kind of roll this conversation out for a lot of folks. So hey, everybody out there, jump in the chat. Let us know where you're at, where you're coming in from. We'll do our best to engage. If we've got some questions that come in, Juana will help us kind of tee those up and add those to the conversation, as long as we can fit them in there. Quick before we jump into the meat and potatoes of the conversation, as we like to say, our sponsors. 

0:03:08

(Chris Dunn)

So Dana and I both work for Blue Hive. Without the Blue Hive support, we would not have a show here. So props to our company. I just hit 21 years with Blue Hive, and the company is 21 years old. I started just a few months after they had launched. So I've been on this lengthy journey here with a great company. 

0:03:29

(Chris Dunn)

where we fit in the market. We're kind of a mid -market size. We're boutique -y in our level of creativity, but we bring an awful lot more resources to the table. At the same time, there's a lot of great big players out there, but if you're not a massive multi -million dollar program, you're kind of, you know, just another company. You're a number. So we like to feel like we're 

0:03:55

(Chris Dunn)

that good space. We can handle really sizable projects, but we bring a lot of customer support and white glove style treatment to the table. In addition to Blue Hive, we're also supported by our friends at Fist Bump. Fist Bump is the agency who is running this podcast. They are so much more They are a great group of folks over there, very creative, have helped us kind of understand this media world. Not only how do we actually create the podcast, but then what do we do with all that content? 

0:04:27

(Chris Dunn)

So if you're looking for help in kind of stepping into more thought leadership and taking the heavy lift off of your plate, if you're looking to do a podcast and a show, they are the ones to talk to. So without further ado, let me kick it back to Dana, and we'll start with some questions for Lee. 

0:04:43

(Dana Esposito)

All right. So coming from, like, if I'm wearing my designer hat, you know, companies, they spend a lot of money on their exhibit, which, you know, I'm very passionate about the exhibit itself and also the experience. Like, what is the experience that the attendee is going to have at that exhibit? You know, is this something they're hand on tactile? Is it something digital? Whatever it is, is it communicating their message, right? 

0:05:06

(Dana Esposito)

These are all things that, you know, myself and the rest of our team here and other exhibit companies as well. These are the questions we do a deep dive for because we want to make sure that that exhibit, which is a giant marketing tool, is really working well, right? And we also we work with partner with agencies who do all that. But Lee, I, one of the things we really want to talk to you about is specifically how companies might be missing one of their biggest ROI levers or levers. I don't know how British say it. Um, because they invest all this money, this very important tool and everything goes along with it, but something there's some, some of them, they have a missing component and it's the people. 

0:05:48

(Dana Esposito)

Can you talk to us about that? 

0:05:50

(Lee Ali)

Sure. During the past 18 years, what I've seen on the show floor is that people have actually missed that opportunity or missed the understanding that 85 % of their exhibition success will actually be down to their people and how they actually perform. And that really, I think, is down to a lot of things actually but what it boils down to is just thinking that that kind of idea that build it and people will come and it will they automatically assume that their people are qualified to be on the show floor and to be able to talk to people and it doesn't work like that. Because you need to do a lot more than just build the booth, you need to be very strategic about your whole customer journey and the investment really is overlooked in people's budgets because a lot of the process and it really boils down to a holistic approach and a lot of people start with the booth design then they look at the customer journey and then the last piece of the jigsaw is always the people. and whoever's available. Whereas my thinking and my strategy that I advise to clients is start with your audience first, understand why you're exhibiting and then understand their why the audience is actually coming to the booth, okay, in terms of what the challenges are, what they're actually looking for in terms of aspirations, and then look at the visitor journey, design the booth around that. 

0:07:27

(Lee Ali)

And once you've designed the journey, okay, you understand, okay, who do we need to actually facilitate that journey on the booth, okay? And people don't pay attention to that because they are so tied up with the design process that completely gets forgotten about until the very last minute. If I had a pound for every last minute inquiry I've actually had for bootstaff, I'd be a rich person. 

0:07:57

(Chris Dunn)

So you're saying that a week's notice is not sufficient to fully train a staff prior to a large event? 

0:08:05

(Lee Ali)

No. That conversation about bootstaffing should start at the same time as you're building the journey. 

0:08:13

(Dana Esposito)

So you're really talking about looking at it from a much bigger picture and reframing when you're talking about the exhibit and experience and everything else and what your message is. You're also ahead of time thinking about who's going to be there to be able to communicate it in the right way to that particular audience. So for instance, when you're explaining this, I'm thinking back to, and this is an example I bring up a lot just because it's easy to picture without a visual, which was like we had a client years ago, who they were exhibiting at Midwest Vet. And the audience there were all like really high -end veterinary doctors for large animals, like horses, cow, like think the TV show Yellowstone. Think like big, important, costly animals. And then that exhibit went directly to IPE, the International Poultry Expo in Atlanta. 

0:09:04

(Dana Esposito)

And those audiences were completely different. So they already knew they were relaying out the booth. They had different graphics going onto the structure. And they had a different crowd activity that suited the audience. But you're even saying reframe your booth staff as part of your performance drivers. So literally, is it the same people at both shows manning that exhibit? 

0:09:31

(Dana Esposito)

It's not about availability of bodies. It's about who's right to speak and to communicate to those two very specific audiences. 

0:09:39

(Lee Ali)

Absolutely, yeah. People, again, there's an old saying, people buy from people who they like and trust. And sometimes your sales reps might not be the people that fit into that audience. Sometimes it's the technical experts who really want to have those deeper conversations with people who know the product inside out. So it's not usually the people that you think would be the ideal conversation starters at the booth. So I think research according to IAEE, 78 % of attendees want to talk to people who know the product and services inside out. 

0:10:30

(Lee Ali)

And one of the biggest frustrations that attendees report is not being able to get access to product experts. Because if you're getting on the plane and you're spending all this money and you go to the show, you want to have your questions answered. You want to find solutions and you want to come back with all the boxes ticked. And when you can't find the expert, so you get thrown around, okay, from pillow to post at the booth, then it does become frustrating and you lose the, you lose the audience to go somewhere else. So I think having that strategic approach with matching your booth staff to your target audience, that is the starting point of success. Because when they come together, they find common ground together, that will make the conversation more memorable, and it will actually make the follow -up process so much easier. 

0:11:34

(Chris Dunn)

Some great points. And Lee we saw you at Exhibitor Live a couple weeks ago, as you mentioned that you, you and Dana connected for the first time in real life. When we do a show for ourselves, and we are the exhibitor, it gives us an opportunity to put ourselves in our clients' shoes, which is tremendous. It helps us understand their pain points. We also get to experience those same things from this side. I know we could have done a better job with this, absolutely. 

0:12:04

(Chris Dunn)

Dana and her team came up with a design for the booth. She started rolling out the, the basic concept to our greater team, mostly to the sales team and the account management team who are the forward facing customer facing people. But, but by and large, you know, we ended up choosing a team for a number of different reasons. And I guess this is a little bit off topic, but I think it still speaks to the value of trade shows because they answer a lot of questions. So they help you check a lot of boxes is for us, for our people to get out and experience a show. It's beneficial for them as well. 

0:12:37

(Chris Dunn)

Right. It's they get to kind of see the other side. We sent a project manager. We sent an account manager. We sent a designer. We sent our digital expert. 

0:12:46

(Chris Dunn)

And we also sent a few salespeople when we did that. So we had a very rounded team. And I got to imagine, obviously, myself as a salesperson, I have a specific lens but folks who entered the booth and did this curated guided journey with Dana as the designer got a different a different flavor to that story. The folks who came through it and talked to Amanda, who is head of our client services, she's an account manager and oversees the account managers as she took them on the journey. She, I'm sure, imparted a different flavor. And then Derek, who's a project manager, who basically oversaw the building of the booth, like he's thinking about like, how did we build this thing? 

0:13:25

(Chris Dunn)

And how do we pull it all together? Right? So his story is slightly different. So yeah, I think that's really interesting to kind of expose that. And you don't automatically just kind of pick like, well, got a bunch of extroverts over here in the sales panel, let's send them. 

0:13:36

(Chris Dunn)

Maybe that's not the best idea, right? Absolutely. 

0:13:39

(Dana Esposito)

It was nice. I just want to say it was nice having that mixed group because if someone say I was taking someone through the journey and they had a question and I could tell that they wanted to get nitty gritty about say, like a project management, like something about building it or, or because maybe somewhere in their head, they've had frustration with that in their past experience. And they want to make sure that this new person they might be choosing to work with really has, you know, their act together in a way. I could very easily be like, you know, who we have here. let me grab Derek and I could pass them on to that person. Because a lot of people would pass people to me who started to have like design or creative type questions, same type of thing. 

0:14:20

(Dana Esposito)

I knew I had a whole flock of very differently versed people. So even if they went through the experience with me, I could still hand them off to someone who I knew that they would pair up with for whatever, you know, they were seeking. 

0:14:33

(Lee Ali)

Absolutely, you hit the nail on the head and everybody is looking for personalization. So when you have different members of the team who are all involved in the process of building a booth. So when you take that customer on a journey and introduce them to some of the people behind that journey, when you're building the booth, that gives them peace of mind. knowing that this team has got my back, okay, and they're specialist experts, and I can call upon them anytime that I want to, and they know what they're talking about, okay, and it's when, let's say you're talking to someone, Dana, and they ask a question, and you don't know the answer to that, okay, but then you say, oh, let me get back to you on that, and then people don't follow up on that, right, They forget about it. And that's when the disconnect starts happening. 

0:15:29

(Lee Ali)

So having that strategic approach where you're showcasing the team, you're showcasing the experience of building the booth, that is going to give so much trust and credibility to the, well, credibility for you and trust for the audience. And that's what they want to leave away with. And one of the questions again we ask is, what kind of feeling do you want your audience to walk away with? 

0:15:57

(Chris Dunn)

That's a great question. 

0:15:58

(Lee Ali)

Yeah. 

0:15:59

(Chris Dunn)

Yeah, absolutely. And we got a lot of people checking in here in the in the in the chat. We see our friend Rich. So we got Massachusetts represented here. We got Bancroft Canada represented. We obviously have Manchester, England. 

0:16:10

(Chris Dunn)

We've also got some someone in Spain. That would be a Wana, our friend Wana and Zadia, who I know is a Jersey girl. So and Tyson, another Massachusetts guy. So I can see a bunch of folks here. Thanks for weighing in. Thanks for checking us out here. 

0:16:24

(Chris Dunn)

Rich says another lunch break. Visit to the toolbox. So, you know, use, use your time wisely. This is absolutely this is multitasking rich. You're eating lunch, and you're also learning so you're absorbing all sorts of information. Appreciate that. 

0:16:39

(Chris Dunn)

You know, Lee. Again, we go back a couple of years and when we first started connecting, I brought you into one of our sales meetings and you shared some of the things that you talk about. We've looked at how do we figure out a way to work together so that we're doing a better job for our clients and exposing them to professionals like Lee and his company that specifically train people on this. And then life happens, right? And we kind of default back to what we know. And our conversations are like, what are you trying to accomplish at a booth? 

0:17:16

(Chris Dunn)

And like, how can we build you the biggest kick -ass booth ever? But the people that you bring and the presence of those people in the space is so important. I think you were sharing some data with us earlier. Why don't you tell the audience a little bit about just how important it is, the people that you choose, and then how those people behave in the space? Absolutely. 

0:17:38

(Lee Ali)

The key thing is, as well as showcasing your products, you're actually, as we talked about earlier, you're actually showcasing your team. And again, as I said, people buy from people that they like and trust. So it's really a question of how do you showcase your team? outside of the big video walls and the swag and the giveaways. And which is the most important bit in that group? Who are the people that are going to make the difference? 

0:18:10

(Lee Ali)

And it's always your booth team. And again, I shared the statistic earlier, 85 % of your success depends on how well your booth team is engaging with the audience. And that starts with not your typical sales skills but human connection building skills, soft skills, communication skills if you like and in this day and age post -Covid especially everyone's obviously got these devices and people take it for granted that something will actually happen and what we've done after Covid what has actually happened the trend that I'm seeing is that we've gone to our default behaviors and we don't actually know how to actually answer questions. We don't know how to listen properly and we don't know how to actually deep dive into what that audience really wants. So this is the starting point for me is to really understand who in the team can actually facilitate a brilliant journey for the audience. 

0:19:19

(Lee Ali)

Okay. And remember, that could be as I was preparing for the call for the talk. I mentioned that there was 15 different potential types of audiences that could visit the booth and if you don't know how to deal with each one of them, if you don't, if you haven't role -played. So the analogy that I always use is think of a sports team and obviously, I'm a big Man U fan and I always think back to the 1999 when we won the treble and In your sports team, you wouldn't send them out on the field without drilling all of these plays. You wouldn't put them out without any training and you have specialists in the team. So for our American friends, let's use the analogy of American football. 

0:20:19

(Lee Ali)

So you have, what do you call them? The quarterback. Okay, whose job... 

0:20:27

(Chris Dunn)

Not the striker, but the quarterback. 

0:20:28

(Lee Ali)

Yeah, it's the quarterback, okay? Obviously, then you have the receivers, okay? And their job is to focus on that specific task, okay? And they're trained as a quarterback, so it's always passing, passing, passing, and then dealing with the setbacks or getting sacked as they do. So, and an exhibit team is exactly the same. Okay, so you've got to have specialists. 

0:20:55

(Lee Ali)

Okay, so really looking at your customer journey and asking, right, okay, where do we create a curiosity? Okay, how can our team, who are the best people to actually stand in the aisle, okay, and actually apply? people and filter those sweat collectors from people who are really interested. And then you've got the teams behind that. So you've broken the ice. They're qualified. 

0:21:25

(Lee Ali)

They've listened, hopefully. They've asked the right questions. And then it's time to hand over to a specialist, a product specialist, or the next step in the journey. And that person will completely be a different personality to the person who's the greeter. And their job is purely to run through the demo, to ask deeper questions, really understand what the challenges that the audience actually has or what aspirations they actually have, and match the relative solutions to those problems. and then they need to know what happens next, okay? 

0:22:00

(Lee Ali)

How do you actually set up the follow -up process there? So there are templated steps that every conversation on the booth that actually needs to go through, okay? And that needs to be drilled. Your team needs to be selected based on the personality that they actually have. And they need to be drilled on all kinds of those conversations. Okay. 

0:22:23

(Lee Ali)

And really understand. So you need a selection process. Okay. And you need a journey on the booth where everybody has a role to play. Okay. And they've got to know their role. 

0:22:37

(Lee Ali)

And that kind of starts again, at the very, very beginning, in terms of how do you take a holistic approach? Because I don't know, Chris, when you actually go to a meeting with a client for the first time, it's like putting a piece of jigsaw together, right? There's so many moving parts, there's so many different departments who actually want their say. So you've got sales, you've got operations, you've got the team, you've got the marketing team. And where do you even start with, you know, selecting the right team, because it's not part of the conversation. 

0:23:17

(Chris Dunn)

Yeah, it's, it's, it's obviously challenging, like you said, everybody's got their own agenda, right? For the most part, like each group has, has probably their own ROI points, ideally, right? Every group should. but finding the common ground and finding that way to start that initial conversation can be critical. 

0:23:38

(Lee Ali)

Yesterday, just to interject Chris, yesterday I was talking to an event manager and one of the biggest challenges she had is she said is that I have no control over my sales team because I'm putting the event together and then when I talk about the bootstrapping, the sales director takes over and forces those people on me. And this is typical what I hear across the board is the event managers and the marketing directors or the CMOs or the people who are in charge of the event really have no say who actually ends up on the booth. 

0:24:16

(Chris Dunn)

Yeah, I think that's likely the case in a lot of scenarios. Zadie has got a lot of thoughts on this. She's dialing it in. 

0:24:25

(Lee Ali)

No surprises there. Preach! Preach! 

0:24:28

(Chris Dunn)

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, a properly well -trained booth staff with everybody knowing their role, it's a game changer. Like you said, it's You know, I think the sports team analogy is a perfect one, right? Everybody kind of has a similar skill set. They're all there on the baseball diamond for one reason that they can all, you know, do some things, but the pitcher is a different person than the designated hitter is a different person than the center fielder, right? Everybody kind of has a strong suit and a role and somebody to be able to put them into those roles is critical. 

0:25:01

(Lee Ali)

Yeah. We always talk about measurement, and this is where it lends itself because having those designated job roles, you can actually measure more effectively. And then you can actually understand where the gaps are in terms of upskilling people. OK, because if you designate someone to be at the front of the booth in terms of approaching people. And they're doing a fantastic job of actually qualifying. And then they're actually feeding those people for the demo. 

0:25:34

(Lee Ali)

But after the demo, if you're not getting the meetings set up, then there's something wrong with the demo. Right? 

0:25:43

(Chris Dunn)

Right. Yeah. You're right. That's helpful. Identifying the weakness in the, in that chain. 

0:25:48

(Lee Ali)

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So having these designated spots and actually having people looking after those specialist areas allows you to improve bit by bit. You know, if you improve maybe the body language of someone at the front, if they're not getting the engagement right. So let's have a look at the body language and see if that makes a difference. Then let's have a look at the opening line. 

0:26:13

(Lee Ali)

Okay. And there's like so many different areas where you can actually tweak that will give you those bite -sized gains. And at the end that will actually have a massive effect on the ROI. 

0:26:27

(Chris Dunn)

Yeah, that's tremendous. Khalid, can you kind of paint a picture? And obviously, like every company is a little different, right? Their go -to -market strategy is different. Their people are different and so forth. But obviously, you've built a company, and you're nearly two decades into doing this. 

0:26:42

(Chris Dunn)

You've discovered or created a framework that has some stickability. So can you kind of paint a picture and walk us through? And granted, I'm sure it adjusts, it tweaks for different types of companies and different customer journeys and so forth. But what does that look like to an event planner who's out there right now who's like, shit, I have a show coming up in August or whatever. How do I get my ducks in a row and how can I start thinking about this in the right way? Other than calling Lee immediately right at the end of this event. 

0:27:11

(Lee Ali)

Post -pandemic, I started thinking about all the conversations, all the clients that we've actually worked with, and I started looking at all our happy clients and the high -performing clients to see what they were actually doing. that made them successful. So we created a process called TEO, Trade Show Engagement Optimization. So everyone's familiar with SEO, Search Engine Optimization. So TEO is five pillars that we've put into the framework, and it's a holistic approach to setting up exhibitions for success. And it starts with really understanding how exhibitions align with your overall business growth plan. 

0:27:59

(Lee Ali)

So really looking at why you're exhibiting. Why that show? And even how does it actually correlate with what we're trying to achieve as a business? So that's the first distinction and really something that you need to dive deep on. With your sales team, with your executive team, And once the whole team's actually got an understanding of why they're exhibiting, then you can actually start on the second pillar, which is the customer journey. Really understanding who is our target audience? 

0:28:37

(Lee Ali)

How are we going to engage with them before the show? What does the process, engagement process look like during the show? And what does the follow -up process look like? And planning that right up until the sign on the dotted line, and then you start the boarding process. Okay. 

0:28:55

(Lee Ali)

So that's where we actually really look at breaking that journey down bit by bit, step by step, and really looking at the complete journey from start to finish. And then the third element is obviously selecting your team. Once you've understood what the journey looks like, who are the team that are actually going to be responsible for delivering that? So we're nominating, and there's like four key job roles that we need to look at. One is the captain, the team leader. Who is responsible? 

0:29:32

(Lee Ali)

Who is accountable for making sure that the people are actually doing their job? before, during and after. Then you've got obviously the greeters, the people who are actually responsible for pulling people in. Then obviously you've got your product specialists, the people who do the demos, and then you've got your customer service specialists. So people like if you have hospitality on the booth, we're looking at who are those type of people. Looking at personalities, you can do personality profiles and things like that to come up with those to match those roles with the right people in your team. 

0:30:10

(Lee Ali)

So you bootstrap Inc. Once you've selected that team, then you start the process of training them, briefing them, why they're there, and then also looking at incentivizing those performances, setting objectives, personal objectives, team objectives, and so on. What I always recommend to our clients is use trade shows as a privilege. OK, it's not something that is just given that you're always because you're a sales rep that you're always going to get to go to all your industry events. okay. You should be measured and you should be rewarded and you should earn your spot on the team. 

0:30:53

(Lee Ali)

It isn't something that should be just because you're on the marketing team or sales team that you're going to, it's given that you're going to go to the exhibition. Then really looking at if you achieve your objectives as a team, rewarding yourselves. What does the reward actually look like for the team? I always tell people to shy away from giving individual objectives to stop people. you know feeling loathing other people who actually achieve their objectives and then they actually give up so that's a whole psychology thing. and then obviously you've got your measurement, your metrics, your KPIs. 

0:31:37

(Lee Ali)

Really looking at what is it that you want to get out of the show? What is it that you want to know? What kind of pipeline do you want to build? Is it sales leads? Is it just brand awareness? Is it and how are you going to measure that? 

0:31:51

(Lee Ali)

Really looking at three core objectives that you can have as a team to actually achieve. Obviously you can have more but if you have more it makes it more difficult to manage the whole process and then lastly and again the most important out of the four is your follow -up process. What does that actually look like? When are you going to set that up and what does that journey look like when you actually finish the conversation on the booth? Okay. And that really, and then once you can actually dictate the follow up process, what you can do then is work backwards to all the steps. 

0:32:33

(Lee Ali)

Okay, so you look at, okay, so the customer is about to sign the deal. What needs to happen before that? It's a proposal. Okay. And before the proposal, what is it? 

0:32:42

(Lee Ali)

It's a discovery call and before the discovery call, it's the conversation on the booth and then what do you do is instead of making it a sales pitch, all you're doing is you're facilitating that journey for the customer and when I do my sales training, I do a switch. It's not making sales, it's actually facilitating a buying journey Because people around the world, generally, they don't like being salty. But they do like finding solutions. And if you can actually help them facilitate that conversation, and help them find that solution that's appropriate for them, that is going to make the follow -up process so much more rewarding. And you're going to close better. because what you've done is you've listened, you've asked the right questions, you've listened to people, you've set up the follow -up process, and if you've done it right, they'll actually be waiting for your call. 

0:33:42

(Lee Ali)

And I was at RSA just before Exhibitor. I had a visit to RSA in San Francisco, and I was also at ISE West. And RSA was a very interesting show because almost every Exhibitor was actually doing the same thing. So they had swag to entice people in. They have demo theaters with great presenters, infotainers. the journey was almost the same. 

0:34:12

(Lee Ali)

So people were enticed with like brilliant swag, like, you know, massive shopping bags and things like that. But the question is always, what is the reason that people are actually going to walk into that booth? Is it for the swag? Okay. Is it because you've promised them a piece of swag, so they sit in the demo theater, because they want something that's actually available there. 

0:34:38

(Lee Ali)

And that was a really interesting journey at ISE West. And again, it was almost spot on, but they had a massive queue of people. They set it up like the Louvre. and it was a security company and they said what would have actually happened if the Louvre had our solution, our video camera solution and It was a great set up, but the challenge there was that we actually put all the swag on one corner of the booth, okay? And there was like Stanley water bottles, there was speakers, there was all kinds of things. And people were looking at that and saying, oh, I want one of those. 

0:35:27

(Lee Ali)

And I physically heard people say, what do I need to do to get one of those? So what did they do? They actually joined the queue. And during the queue is a one -way conversation. There was no qualification. The demo was a one -way presentation. 

0:35:49

(Lee Ali)

So I went through it. I thought, obviously, I'm a naturally curious person. I thought, okay, let's see what this actually looks like. And at the end of it, nobody actually asked me who I was, what I was actually doing at the show. what my challenges were with security cameras or whatever. 

0:36:05

(Dana Esposito)

Such a last opportunity. 

0:36:07

(Lee Ali)

Yeah, absolutely huge. And they had loads of traffic. And they had queues forming. Okay. I mean, it's like three or four, three or four levels deep. Okay. 

0:36:20

(Lee Ali)

And that's for an exhibitor, that's a dream. But they didn't make the most of it because that personal journey wasn't actually there. Okay. So going to happen, I was talking about the follow -up process, is that they'll have collected a lot of bad scams, and they would have actually sent out emails. The reps would have actually started calling everyone who went through that experience. 

0:36:43

(Lee Ali)

And what they would actually be getting is conversations like, oh, I just wanted that Stanley Cup, so I joined the queue. Right, right. Yeah. Whereas the alternative would have been somebody to actually ask the questions as people were actually queuing in for the demo. Even before joining the queue, I would have said to pre -qualify people and say, right, if you want to go through that experience, we'll explain to you how our solution can help you do X, Y, Z. OK, please join the queue. And if they weren't qualified, they say, well, really, the experience is for people who have security issues. 

0:37:25

(Lee Ali)

OK, so there's nothing because people know, OK, that they have to qualify for certain stuff. okay and you need to make exhibitors obviously are looking for customers and they have a solution to give so people actually understand that they're not going to be disappointed that you didn't go through them they didn't go through the journey so it's And those are what we call vanity metrics. That company would have gone home and said, we went through 5 ,000 people through the day who had the experience. We got all these badge scans. But for the sales team, who are actually following up, they might as well have given them 5 ,000 contacts from LinkedIn and said, here you go, follow these up. 

0:38:12

(Dana Esposito)

Right. There's no relationship being built there. 

0:38:15

(Chris Dunn)

The coral fire was everybody who likes a Stanley Cup. 

0:38:20

(Lee Ali)

Absolutely. 

0:38:21

(Chris Dunn)

Hey, we got a question here. It's addressed to Dana, but I want to put it out to everybody. So this is from Wakil. What's been more critical in your experience, the team selection, the training, or the real -time coaching during the event? And it sounds like most of your work is done ahead of time. But Lee, why don't you jump in and answer that, if you could. 

0:38:40

(Lee Ali)

Yeah, you need all three. I think the team selection is the most critical part. Because if you get that wrong, everything else falls apart. Yeah. And once you've got that team selection correct, then you can personalize the training. Okay. 

0:38:59

(Lee Ali)

Depending on the job role. Okay. And then what you can do is through the team hurdles, we always recommend that people have a briefing in the morning. a quick hedge together in the afternoon, and then a debrief at the end of the day. And that looks like, okay, here's our objective. This is what we're going to do. 

0:39:21

(Lee Ali)

Everybody know their positions. Check in with them if anyone's got any questions. And then really check in with people, the team leader, what they should be doing is checking with everyone and say, how's it going? And keeping a live score of how that person is actually doing. Looking at their body language, looking at their energy levels, and if their energy levels are dipping, is do an immediate team swap. Because people do not want to see tired eyes. 

0:39:51

(Lee Ali)

or people slouching. And body language plays such a huge role, and I'll get onto that later on, but I think without the team selection being right in the first place, everything else doesn't really matter. 

0:40:05

(Dana Esposito)

Yeah, I can say I can recommend, so if I look at this from two angles, either like the question from Markeel, the question of from the client side, you know, and just answered it from the client side. If I pretend I'm the client for a minute, because after 30 years, I have been not only the designer for many exhibits of the company that I've worked for, but I've also been the booth staff, right? What I have noticed is in that instance, I'm almost playing a part of, not the whole role, but a part of the trade show and event manager role, right? And so I've worked at several different companies and Sometimes, you know, we're a good, our own good client, our own worst client, right? And so to speak to that specific question, I can tell you, yes, all of them matter, but even we will fall short. 

0:41:02

(Dana Esposito)

or I should say we meaning the companies I've worked for sometimes when it's our own exhibit remembering some of this stuff because we're so busy focusing on this other stuff that we're doing like taking care of our own clients and clients have the same problem they're taking care of their own customers right and so I would just say they're all important and I would say that when you're training your booth staff not only make sure you pick people who are really suited to be that type of ambassador who's very gregarious who could basically talk to anybody right? Even if they have a specialty, um, they're not going to be messing with their phone or doing other things that are kind of like this strange, like invisible turnoff. Like I'm not going to go up there. They don't look like they're open. They're full of people, but they're not open to talk to me. But it's very difficult to train your booth staff without them seeing what the booth looks like. 

0:41:51

(Dana Esposito)

Now for some clients, they may only have color renderings of what their exhibit looks like, but take them through going, okay, you know, if there's a journey, What's the conversation before the journey? What, if it's a journey in a certain order, what's the order? And have them, to Lee's point, practice in role play, like ad nauseum. And also, I've had some no choice but to kind of like train the staff on show site because everyone was everywhere in the world. Like some people saw some of it, some people saw all of it, but no one got to stand inside the exhibit until the exhibit was actually built. 

0:42:27

(Dana Esposito)

In a perfect world that we don't live in, you could bring your whole staff to your trade show and event partner during the preview when the booth is up. and everyone could practice it then. That's probably never going to happen. You could do it, but it's a lot of money and like flying everybody in. That usually is when they're finally focused and they're ready and they're open. Like they know this is all they're doing and they're ready to do it. 

0:42:50

(Dana Esposito)

So I try to have meetings going up to the event with images saying, and this is the path and this is the story and this is the script and this is why. And I'm going to, I'm going to go through the script with you and I'm even going to give you the script. You don't have to repeat it verbatim at all. You just have to get the gist and deliver it your own way. but I still notice a lot of them. And I'm assuming a lot of our own clients out there had the same problem. 

0:43:14

(Dana Esposito)

Trade show and event managers dealing with like, not just the sales team, but whoever's going to be the staff on site, um, getting their attention to like, it's almost go time. Right. And it's like, no, did you understand what I said? Yes. Then say it your own way. You do not try. 

0:43:32

(Dana Esposito)

Cause if you try to repeat it the way I said it, it's not going to be genuine anyway. So don't worry about that. If you know what I was trying to say, say it your own way. 

0:43:38

(Lee Ali)

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. You need to be completely flexible because that's where the learning takes place. It might be that the script that you've prepared doesn't actually work on the show floor because people don't want that technical language. They just want you to talk to a human being. Right. 

0:43:55

(Dana Esposito)

And a lot of the scripts I'm making are for the digital story so they know how to put it together. So I'll take that. So it's not literally like this is what you're supposed to say. It's like this is what's happening. 

0:44:05

(Lee Ali)

Yeah. Absolutely yeah and that kind of approach you can have three different layers so you can a training based on the sketches that your designer gives you okay and said this is the journey that we're looking at and then obviously once the book is built you've got the journey you can use obviously digital images and so on and then what you do is a lot of our clients do the day before the two days before they do a complete rehearsal OK, because it is a performance, OK, where everybody understands where the positions are and they go through the different scenarios that could actually happen. So having that three layered approach, because what you're doing then is you're consolidating that journey all the time. And by the time you get to the show, all the bootstrap will be well ingrained in the whole process. 

0:45:01

(Chris Dunn)

Yeah. You know, I keep coming back to just a little bit of a cliche saying, but, you know, the, we know that the golden rule is speak to somebody how you would prefer to be spoken to, but the platinum rule is talk to somebody or speak to somebody how they want to be spoken to. And I guess going back to, you know, some of our conversations about, you know, and this is part of the practice, right? This is part of how we dial into this. Not only do you have a number of different types of personas who are going to approach the booth, you have, you have, you have, We talked about this earlier, potentially 10 or 15 different types of people, right? Are you a student or are you in the press? 

0:45:40

(Chris Dunn)

Are you a distributor? Are you an actual potential end line customer? Are you, you know, whatever that is. Plus then we're also involving, if you're a the type of company that sells into multiple marketplaces or multiple vertical markets, then you're talking industry specific and inside those industries, maybe the vernacular is different or something like that. So you got to know a lot of those things, but that's where the training comes in, right? That's where the work 

0:46:04

(Chris Dunn)

ahead of time, like understanding who's our ICP, who are we likely to encounter at this show? If you're going to go into a show and you know you're going to be talking to a bunch of, you know, in that world, our clients are likely between 35 and 55 and they're likely female, right? let me brush up on kind of what's going on in, in society that I might want to pay attention to, or what are these, what are these event managers or what are these people struggling with at this point and just get dialed in on those conversations. So something that you've been banging the drum on, which, which I didn't think about so much was like, we're not just sales training here. We're, we're like, we're training on how to better have conversations and listen and all of those soft skills that, that are super important. 

0:46:52

(Lee Ali)

Oh, absolutely. Again, I think When you strip everything away from the booth, it's all about communication, isn't it? It's people selling to people, buying from people. And it's those skills that come in handy. It's asking good questions, knowing the talking points of the industry, breaking the ice with people. And again, this is an old analogy. 

0:47:23

(Lee Ali)

It's like the dating game, right? when you walk into the pub or you walk into somewhere and somebody catches your eye, you smile, you say hello, and you try to find some common ground immediately. And that's all it is. And the counterintuitive people, when I say this to a lot of exhibitors, they think, are you joking? I've just paid $50 ,000 or something for this booth and you don't want me to talk about my services. But the idea is that When an audience walks into 

0:47:59

(Lee Ali)

the exhibition floor, they're very defensive, they have because they don't want to be sold to you. So you need tools or icebreakers or questions that will help you find that common ground very very quickly to break down those barriers and I always use the example of the last time you walked into a retail store for example, you may have been looking at a jacket or something like that, the retail assistant comes up to you and says can I help you? And what do you do you clam up when you say no good? Just browsing. I'm just looking, I'm browsing, leave me alone and it's exactly the same on the show floor. People are like zombies, the reason I say zombies is because if you walk in the shoes of an attendee and obviously both of you have been attendees, you have 10 million things going on in your head. 

0:48:57

(Lee Ali)

You've flown overnight, you're jet lagged, you want to know what's going on in the office, you're thinking about the deal that's actually happening, you've got a customer who wasn't happy. You've got 10 million things on your mind. Okay. And what we've got to do as booth staff is filter through that. Okay. And grab their attention and make them curious. 

0:49:16

(Lee Ali)

Okay. And by that three to 10 minutes of their time. Okay. And you have to earn that. And you can't just do it by just standing there and fiddling with your thumbs and chit -chatting to your colleagues. You have to have intention to break the ice with all of these people walking past. 

0:49:39

(Chris Dunn)

Yeah, so I'm trying to do a good job here monitoring the time. We've got a little less than 10 minutes left. I'm also looking into the chat. We've got a gentleman by the name of Han who joined us. I believe you guys are friends or I know you're connected. We are, yes. 

0:49:56

(Chris Dunn)

He's got a great question. He's cracking himself up because it's kind of like Tinder, make a great impression, which is true and it's a fair point. But he has a good question. He said, if this is so important, then why do so few companies, so little companies invest in the training? What do people think? Why is this? 

0:50:15

(Chris Dunn)

And listen, you've built a business out of this. And I know that it's difficult on our end. We, as an exhibit house, like we own kind of that big number, right? There's a, people are going to spend money. We know it's going to have to filter through us. Unfortunately, more and more are paying it to the trade show hall and to the, all the services and so forth that happen now. 

0:50:39

(Chris Dunn)

And our, our piece of the pie is getting smaller, but like, I feel for you, like this, this is super important. And I feel like this is, it's, it's kind of on the, it's on people's dance card at the bottom. It's like, oh shit. Yeah. I should probably look into training our people. Or maybe not, or they don't realize that until they get to the hall and they stumble and they fumble through things and they blow opportunities because they weren't prepared. 

0:51:00

(Lee Ali)

Yeah. One thing I found is exhibitors don't know what they don't know. And the reason for that is that everybody on the show floor follows everyone else. I use the example of RSA. Everyone uses swag and an infotainer to their demos and things like that. And what people don't realize is the hard work that needs to go into that customer journey. 

0:51:21

(Lee Ali)

And what people don't realize is that their people are the number one asset. that are actually going to make the difference. And the challenge is that we don't have the education to really put forward to these exhibit managers, sales directors to say that your human capital is the most important when it comes to trade shows. Because we have technology companies who are selling all of the latest tools to get engagement and to measure. We have exhibit builders, we have AV companies, we now have all these robots as booth attractions. 

0:52:04

(Lee Ali)

And then we have the promotional merchandising companies who want to sell their swag and things like that. as promotional staffing agencies out there I'm a bit upset with you know my peers in the industry because they don't really shout about how important people are. Okay now when I started on this journey because I understood it because I've I've been in sales for 35, 36 years and I get it. And the whole reason I started the business from the outset was I was actually at a show in Chicago working for a software company. And I found that 70 to 80 % of the exhibit booths there were just being very passive. And I did some research and they said, well, we've always brought our salespeople and this is what they do. 

0:52:53

(Lee Ali)

And they think that salespeople are not the best. but it needs a lot of conversations at the top level, at sales director level and I think one of the things that I've looked at is really designing courses for the CFOs, the chief financial officers. 

0:53:16

(Chris Dunn)

The folks writing the big checks they understand what the impact is like this is costing us several hundred thousand dollars like we gotta do our due diligence and making sure we get the ROI out of it. 

0:53:25

(Lee Ali)

Absolutely yeah and then exhibitors really need to understand how much of a difference that people actually make. If they get the team right, they get the selection right and they get the process right because it's not, I remember the TO process I was going through the framework. But none of that actually mentions anything about booth building or how big you want the AVs to be or what tools you actually use. It's all about that common sense of working backwards, understanding why you're exhibiting in the first place all the way to planning that journey. And for me, that's really what it is about. okay, creating that experience. 

0:54:10

(Lee Ali)

And you look at Disney World, for example, you go there, you get a journey, your senses get crazy. And what we're doing as exhibitors, and you walk into any exhibit hall, first thing that you see is a sensory overwhelm, okay? And what we need to do is dial that down and get back to that human to human connection. 

0:54:32

(Chris Dunn)

Yeah, I fully agree. Hey, this has been a fantastic conversation, and I know we could go on and probably do another hour, if not more, on the same topic, because it's really interesting. We get some great participation today in the chat and folks kind of weighing in and now they're talking to each other. And this is all this is all good. So we're here to kind of build up this community and kind of add some great thinking to to our event professional network. So, Lee, before we let you go, kind of two things. 

0:55:07

(Chris Dunn)

If you had to if you had to kind of leave our our our listeners, our viewers with one or two kind of gold nuggets or maybe circle back and just put a pin in like, if you're going to do one thing, like start here. Like what's kind of the most critical starting point or thing that you want to leave with them? 

0:55:27

(Lee Ali)

Create a journey on the team. Sorry, create a journey, okay, for your customers. Really understand your customers. The first thing is really understand your target audience and who your target audience is going to be. Build a journey around that. and then select the people to fit into that journey. 

0:55:45

(Lee Ali)

So it's like a three -pronged approach. 

0:55:47

(Chris Dunn)

Right. But start with the customer, right? Start with who they are. 

0:55:50

(Lee Ali)

Always start with the customer, because at the end of the day, as exhibitors, we think it's about us, right? Because we're spending the big money. But really, at the end of the day, it's all about the target audience. And it's what they want. We're doing all of this brilliant work to serve them. And if they don't buy it, you know, if they don't come into that buy into that journey, then it's all been a waste of time. 

0:56:16

(Chris Dunn)

Fantastic. So I'm sure folks out there are wondering, like, how do I get more Ali in my life? I know I am. So what's the best way to reach out to you? How do you like to communicate, whether it's online or through email? What's the best way to reach Lee? 

0:56:32

(Lee Ali)

Yeah, sure. So LinkedIn is my social media of choice. So I'm on there. Obviously, we follow each other. And there's a lot of interesting posts that are from, you know, real life experiences and stuff like that. We also have our website, www . 

0:56:49

(Lee Ali)

xpostars . com. There's some amazing resources on there. We have a whole area dedicated to how to manage your booth staff, selecting booth staff, looking at, you know, the metrics of how to measure their performance and everything. And that's not something that we've even touched upon today, Chris. So maybe that's another conversation for another time. 

0:57:08

(Chris Dunn)

That's for episode, the next episode. This was episode 58, maybe like, maybe like 75 or something. 

0:57:14

(Lee Ali)

We'll circle back in a couple months. And then obviously my email is Lee at exportstars . com. Or you might see me on the show floor somewhere. 

0:57:24

(Chris Dunn)

There we go. There's many, many ways to reach out and touch base with Mr. Ali. So, hey, this has been awesome, Lee. Thank you so much for taking time with us. Thank you everybody who joined us today. Beyond that, this is 

0:57:35

(Chris Dunn)

this this obviously is captured you might see it played again on demand whether it be on YouTube or here on LinkedIn and as I like to do I love the podcast platform because I have this hour -long commute so I listen to a lot of podcasts so Spotify Apple music or Apple Apple is an option. So find us where you get your podcast materials. And wishing everybody a great rest of the week. Thank you so much for spending time with us. I hope everybody got a lot from it and we really appreciate you all. Lee, Dana, thank you for your time. 

0:58:09

(Chris Dunn)

Happy eventing, everybody. Cheers. 

0:58:11

(Dana Esposito)

Bye, buddy. 

0:58:12

(Chris Dunn)

Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Dana. Bye -bye. Thank you.