Home Show.

BamBamm5144

I know this has been discussed before but I am currently putting together my plan for the local spring home show.

I have ideas of what I am going to do but for you guys with a lot of experience in it, what have you found to be the most effective way to get leads?

My Driveway Dr

I am not quite sure what you are looking for in particular. Are you asking about booth setup, or give-a-ways, or interactive displays, etc? But in general the best way to get leads for us is to use a lot of visuals. We have a tv monitor running on loop the entire show that talks about our process, the finished product, and so on. Even though it is almost impossible to hear the audio, a lot of people stop and watch. We also have a booth display that shows pictures of the finished stamped asphalt driveways.

But personally...I think a very important factor that a lot of people miss... is that no matter what great displays you have, you should have it open and welcoming. What I mean but this is, have a booth that allows a customer to walk into and talk to you. We have the TV on one side, the booth display in the back, and a podium on the other side to get brochures and fill out lead cards. The middle of the booth is entirely empty. Customers are welcome to walk in and look at the photos, or the samples we have. When they come inside, they are now in your space and you have them locked in...free to talk to. Many people I see have the booth completely blocked off and cluttered. They have all these great pictures/samples and they put a table in front of everything. They then sit at the table. It creates a wall. Not the most welcoming. Also, when the attendees are in the middle of the aisles or walkways...that is the safety zone. they are free to walk by, glance, etc. If you keep them there with the wall, it is too easy for them to keep walking.

At our booths we always stand toward the middle of our booth, inside. If they want to talk to us they must walk up to us inside the booth. That's how we do it. But I'm sure there are many other strategies people like to use. Sorry for the long post. Best of Luck!

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DavidC

I see that you do exterior remodeling. One thing that we used in the past was a display highlighting gutter guards. We built a 1/2 dog house (sorta), shingled roof w/rain gutter and the guard installed. Set up a pipe with holes along it's length to run water from the top of the roof, which we littered with pine needles & leaves, the downspout ran into the front wall and deposited the water back to the bucket/pump. Kids and men cannot seem to walk past running water without stopping. Put it out front.

We used that for 3 seasons, only sold one gutter guard job. But getting them to stop and talk is step one. We did gather lead info over that display and later sold completely unrelated work to people that may have passed us by otherwise. We've since switched our emphasis to K&B and I had to find another useful draw.

I might find a pic if your interested. Might even be one already in my galleries here.

Good Luck
Dave

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Rob Pankow

We found moderate success by having some quality brochures. it's kind of like working a bar...you can't be too direct about your intentions. soft openers work well at making someone comfortable like "nice shoes" or "hey which booth is giving out those snickers it's almost my lunch hour". But then we'd have days where it'd be one of us in the booth doing paper work and that worked equally well. So i think soft openers or acting busy are good ways to get people's attention, that's just my experience there's a million ways to go about it.

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jhark123

I am interested also, I'm think about doing the home show here and it seems kind of expensive. 1,300 bones for a 10x10 booth.

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WarnerConstInc.

hot chicks can sell anything

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blackbear

just finished up my first home show this past weekend.

-have a nice brochure designed.

-have a display that is hands on (people like to touch and see actual product)

-teach them something

-make sure to have a couple of people on staff that know what they are talking about and friendly. days are long and it can get crowded,

-once eye contact is made offer a brochure. most will take one, unless they are a miserable worm.

-offer a special promotion

most importantly, hide the candy from the old people.

there are a couple of pics in the finish carpentry section.

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Inner10

You may have read this as a joke but at trade shows its seriously effective.

Just look at Mirage and ICRealtime.

BamBamm5144

Thanks for the pointers. I think one thing people do is overcrowd the booth.

I am going to have one roofing sample, one window and one siding. Also a table with literature. I believe I'll have my laptop running a slide show of completed jobs.

I already have nice brochures that list everything someone should look for to determine if they need a new whatever it may be.

I am going to avoid the "free" give away deal. I believe I am going to get business card magnets made up but rather then business information I will have the company name wrote up and offering a 10% discount on the card to present at time of proposal. I think the magnet part will keep it on the fridge.

blackbear

Magnets are the ticket. I gave out over 250 in 3 days!

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BamBamm5144

Have you seen results from these?

Inner10

I could give you triple that...doesn't mean I'll get and business from it.

blackbear

too soon to tell. Show was from this past weekend, fri to sunday.

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WarnerConstInc.

Hot chick picture on the magnet card.

That's it, my new cards are going to have a chrome naked lady on them.

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BamBamm5144

What was on them? Was it you regular business card?

blackbear

its another tool in the arsenal, why wouldnt you? they are dirt cheap. I think I paid 60$ for 500 of them. Even if half the people put them on their fridge thats still a lot of people looking at it many times a day. I wonder who they will call when they need some trim?

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blackbear

yep, was business card.

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WarnerConstInc.

They don't stick to stainless steel fridge's though.....

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Inner10

WOW that is cheap. Can't hurt.

Years ago I worked for a company who decided to setup a booth for the home show, after buying the display materials, brochures, paying 2 guys to stand there all day, plus the fees I don't remember getting any jobs from it.

blackbear

thats when you sell them a new kitchen with a new fridge that accepts magnets.

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