Trade shows for coaches.

As much as we would like to believe that the power of Internet-based social networking will fill our schedules with paying clients, old-fashioned, face-to-face social networking should still be a major part of your marketing program.

Since the success of your practices are fundamentally based on the success of our client relationships, it makes sense to interact directly whenever you can with potential customers. Seeing and talking to you will give the prospect a real sense of your style, interest, and professional manner. That’s where trade shows fit in.

Given the large number of trade shows available throughout the year, how do you know which ones to attend?

Before allowing some other experts in trade show marketing chime in, let me lay down CNE’s tradeshow marketing rule #1: The attendees at the prospective show need to closely match your target market profile. For example, if you do life coaching and your target market consists primarily of stay-at-home moms with a home business, don’t waste your money going to trade shows designed to meet high-end business executives. Of course, if they are your target market, by all means go.

In 25 years of marketing I can say with some certainty that most of the waste in marketing budgets goes for marketing programs that reach the wrong people. So, do your homework, define that target market, and then choose the trade shows you want to consider.

In a very helpful post, Trade show Marketing — Getting Ready for the Big Event, author Patty Stripes offers advice about several essential topics. Some examples:

Demographics of previous trade shows: Did the last show done by the trade show provider have a decent show of visitors? Is the trade show provider boasting about the numbers on its marketing material or hiding it in some obscure corner for the number crunchers? Did the trade show provider have a professional organization draw up the demographics of the visitors? Do the demographics fit your requirement? Answers to these queries should help you decide if you should use this trade show as a sales and marketing vehicle for your company.

What is the total number of booths and what is the occupancy rate a few weeks before the show? The thumb rule is that a trade show can have about 5 to 10 percent of empty stands about 2 weeks before the event which eventually gets filled in my last minute confirmations or by sponsors. If the numbers are higher that this, you should check the official reason given by the exhibitors to ensure that you don’t end up participating in a show which has too many empty stands.

Is the trade show provider offering a ‘desperate’ discount and doing unusual number of follow ups? If you get an offer for a trade show booth which is just too good to believe then it is probably too good to believe. ‘Desperate’ discounts are offered by event planners as a last ditch attempt to sell all booths as you should only participate is such trade shows if you have unique reason to do so.

Want to know the Common Exhibit Marketing Mistakes: Ten Tips on How to Avoid Them? You can find all ten in an article on Marketing Today, written by Trade Show Coach, Susan Friedmann, CSP. Giving visitors an incentive to come to your booth and having “giveaways” that work are two common sense pieces of advice.

Trade-Show-Advisor.com bills itself as a one-stop trade show resource and knowledge base. Indeed, I found plenty of sound advice for someone considering a trade show. For example, under Trade Show Promotions they suggest the following –

Personalized contact with your target audience prior to the event. This includes pre-selling attendees through phone calls, personalized invitations, direct mail, email, or meaningful giveaways to introduce your products and encourage conference registrants to visit your booth.

Marketing activities during the event to attract conference attendees to your exhibit booth. This includes live entertainment, hands-on activities, audio-visual programs, unique trade show booth attractions such as a cash cube money machine or high-tech interactive game, tradeshow giveaways (make them as distinctive as possible), and food – if permitted. Of course, a well-trained, professional, and welcoming trade show staff is essential to your success.

Follow-up initiatives after the show with each individual who visited your booth to help turn leads into sales. Send a personalized handwritten note, along with a customized company information packet or other appropriate material, within a week following the trade show event.

You can also find a very thorough guide to all things trade show in this lengthy PDF file, Trade Show Marketing Manual. Take a look!

Happy marketing at your next trade show! And don’t forget to bring plenty of candy (to keep your blood sugar up!).

Conference will focus on measuring the impact of executive coaching.

As reported in Alchemy Exchange, the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) is sponsoring a conference next month focusing on the psychology of coaching, the impact of coaching and best practices in coaching that maximise return on investment (ROI).

A study by The Human Capital Institute and DBM found that 60% of American companies use executive coaches and 78% consider coaching an effective way to develop leaders. But although most coachees and their managers agree that executive coaching is a valuable exercise, the managers need credible evidence to show top management that coaching is a worthwhile expenditure.

The SIOP conference will bring together leading-edge scientists and practitioners to explore meaningful ways to measure the value and return from investing in executive coaching. With executive coaching costing $20,000 to $40,000 for a six-month engagement, it is easy for decision makers to focus strictly the costs especially if they do not have a clear understanding or first-hand experience of the value that coaching. These decision makers need to be convinced that, if properly executed and deployed, an investment in executive coaching can add significantly to their business bottom line.

Click here to get more information about the conference,

Emergence Business Coaching offers tips on social networking.

Birds do it. Bees do it. Most of us writing blogs do it.

Social networking as a business development tool now seems as ordinary as sending out press releases used to be. The question is: are the some social networking strategies and tactics that are more effective than others?

Charisse, owner of Emergence Business Coaching believes their are. In a blog post titled Get Social, she offers some of her best thinking about social networking.

Here are some of the tips she gives to her business clients:

• Limit your participation to just a few websites, highly targeted to your market.
• Spend the necessary time with your profile to create the brand you seek (People recognize a rushed profile)
• Decide the type of people you’d like to network with, and seek them out
• Make it personal – get to know people, and ask how you can help them with their business
• It’s not about the quantity of people in your network, it’s about the quality.  One or two powerful connections can make a huge impact on your business.  Focus on finding them.
• Allot yourself a certain amount of time each day for participation on these sites.  Set limits.

As you would expect, Charisse is personally sold on the value of social networks.

These social networking sites are helpful for people who see the value of connecting with people they would otherwise not meet.  They become a valuable platform to showcase your business.  They offer a cost effective (mostly free) way for people to brand their business, and potentially gain client relationships or joint venture partnerships.  Social networking presents powerful opportunities to enhance your business.

A certified business coach, Charrise founded Emergence Business Coaching in 2006. She is a published monthly feature writer for several magazine publications, and has written her first book called “14 Lessons on Power”.  Visit www.emergencebiz.com for a look at her blogging.  She is actively engaged in public speaking and training workshops, sharing her unique message with the world.