Is a trade show worth it for a small manufacturer?

The organiser's executive has rung three times. A corner stall is still free, there is a discount if you book this week, and "all the big buyers come". A trade show is worth it for a small manufacturer when you can name the buyers who will walk past and give them a reason to stop. You also need the money and people for the weeks after. Much of the cost comes after the stall: samples, quotations, visits and your salesperson's time. If you cannot fund the follow-up, do not book the stall.

Who will actually walk past your stall?

Not "all the big buyers". Ask the organiser for the last edition's exhibitor list and visitor breakdown, and check both against your own buyers. Then call two or three companies that exhibited last time, in a trade close to yours, and ask what came of it. They have nothing to sell you.

For many manufacturers the useful visitors are a short list. Owners planning a new line or unit. Purchase heads. Dealers looking for a range to carry. Students, consultants and other exhibitors fill the aisles. They do not fill the order book.

So write down the companies you expect to meet. If you cannot name twenty, from last year's lists or your own records, you are paying for footfall, not buyers.

Timing matters as much as the visitor list. A show held while your buyers plan next season's purchases is worth more than one held while they are busy selling.

The cost nobody puts in the budget

The stall rent is the number on the booking form, so it is the number owners compare. Once everything else is counted, it may not even be the largest line. Cost the whole thing in three parts.

Before the show. Stall rent, stall build or dressing, transport of products to the venue and back, brochures and price sheets. Add any power, water or compressed air your machines need; halls set their own rules and charges for these, so read the organiser's manual before you assume.

At the show. Travel and stay for the people on the stall, and the factory days they are away. If your production head is on the stall, someone else is running that shift.

After the show. Samples and demonstrations for serious visitors, quotation work, visits to the best leads, and a salesperson's weeks spent on nothing else. Add any "show price" you give away to close.

Put a rough figure against each line, then ask how many orders at your normal margin would pay for the total. That number, not the stall rent, is the decision.

The go or no-go sheet

Book the stall only if every line in the first group is ticked.

• Twenty or more named companies you expect to meet
• Meeting requests sent to some of them before the show
• A reason to stop: a machine running, a new product, a price valid only for the show
• Named people who will call every serious lead soon after you return, with that time blocked
• Money set aside for the after-show work, not only the stall

The second group decides the size of the stall, not whether to go.

• Products that must be seen working, which need floor space and power
• Dealers you want to recruit, who need somewhere to sit and talk terms

Plan the follow-up before you pay the booking amount

Handling the cards once you are there is covered in the notes on a same-evening routine for visiting cards and turning trade fair cards into orders. The question here comes earlier, and it is about capacity. If the show brings fifty serious leads, who has the hours to work them?

If the honest answer is "the owner, in the evenings", the show will produce a box of cards.

Imagine a bakery equipment maker in Mohali

Imagine a maker of deck ovens, rotary rack ovens and dough mixers in Mohali, deciding on a stall at a bakery and food-service expo in Delhi. The details are illustrative.

The first year, the owner booked a large stall because the organiser said the chains come. The owner took two ovens. On the first morning the hall's separate charge for the heavy power connection came up, and the ovens ran only from day two. About three hundred cards came home. Both salespeople went straight back to dispatching festive-season orders. The after-show work had no owner and no money set aside, so the trial bakes and site visits that two chains asked for never happened.

The next year the owner called two exhibitors from the previous edition first, then listed thirty bakeries and dealers in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh to meet, and booked meetings with a third of them before the show. The stall was smaller, with one oven running from the first hour and the power ordered in advance. A show price held for a fixed period after the expo. One salesperson was kept off dispatch for the weeks after, with the cards as the only job. The stall cost less, and every serious visitor heard back while the oven was still fresh in memory. Only two orders had come by the following spring, and festive-season dispatch ran late because of the missing salesperson.

When to skip the stall and walk the show

Visit instead when your buyers are the exhibitors. OEMs and large brands take stalls, and a visitor with a capability sheet can meet a dozen of them in a day for the cost of the trip.

Visit, too, when you sell to a few dozen named plants that you could call on directly for less than the show's after-cost. And skip the show altogether in a year when your factory is full. A stall that produces enquiries you cannot deliver can cost you buyers.

Before you sign the booking form

Fill in the three-part cost, including the after, and write the list of companies you expect to meet. If the list is short or the after has no owner, keep the money. Weigh the stall against cheaper proof, too. A video walkthrough of your line can reach buyers who never come to the hall; the manufacturing hub has more on that. If you are weighing a show now, with event and trade show marketing to plan the lead follow-up, tell us what you need.