Our First Home Show

dougchips

This weekend was our first home show. After going to several shows to study booth set ups , displays, product samples, "free offers", ...........we finally pulled the trigger and gave it a shot.

Some facts so far:

1. About 20 other companies were selling windows that had displays. Some Home Improvement companies offered the service without any displays or samples.

2. I think only one other company had any deck displays.

3. Only about 1/2 of the window companies had any free promotion/offer.

4. We handed out almost 1,000 of our "one-million dollar bills" with our company info on the back. We ordered 2000 so the 1000 only cost us about $125, cheap for a free handout that people might hold onto.

5. We went through 7 bags of candy and one whole bag was stolen from our booth. The candy only attracted the kids so we could engage their parents.

6. 70% of the people passing by our booth lied to us! "We just had new windows installed" + "we just had a new deck installed", bullcrap! Funny how I will brush off other vendors all day, but when someone brushes me off they are nothing but a liar.

7. At the end of day one we had more leads than some booths that were 2x-4x our size.

8. Since we offered "10 free windows" as our promo and talked to the clients about their projects, hopefully the leads are top quality. Not sure what someone would do with them if they had no need for them.

9. For some reason people showed a real interest in Decks & railings, we got a bunch of leads.

10. I had a ton of fun playing around with my marketing and opening lines. "Oh, you sell decking" me- "this is not just decking, this is our new investment grade decking and rail system, did you know......................" some stuff worked and some stuff got some odd looks.

11. I (as always) got a good laugh when vendors had empty booths or their staff were sitting and reading a book. Some would eat their meals at their booth or chat on their cell phone. With a 10x10 booth costing around $35 per show hour plus the cost to staff them, some asss beating is in order.

12. I offered my staff a 3% commission on any leads that turn into contracts in order to work the show for free. Hopefully this will entice them to work the next show. The salespeople (2) will have to take a cut to 7% in order to cover the 3%, but with the lead quality being higher they should make out ok.

13. All of my staff worked 3-4 hours shifts, 1 or 2 shifts a day. After 4 hours your feet get a little tired and your voice gets sore from all of the talking. Seems like they all were able to maintain a nice smile for their shifts.

I will post some more results tonight when the show ends.

Ed the Roofer

Nice going DougChips,

It sounds like you made a real engaging marketing effort out of your booth. Congratualtions. Well, at least their are leads, now keep us informed on your repetative follow throughs to see if they A) turn into actual presentations for projects or B) if they are never available to ste an appointment.

Did the home show draw primarily from the geographical market you service, or did you get alot of inquiries from people outside your desired range?

Either way, you can cherry pick the best qualified leads and have an earlier start than most of your competition.

Ed

Rich

Hi Doug,
Can you explain your 10 free window promotion ?

6stringmason

I will never do another home show again. Thats my take on it.

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marc

Two questions for you.

Was it the Marlborough show that you were at?

When you say you got a lot of leads, what does that mean?


In my world there are three things.......
1. Prospects (this is a name and phone number)
2. Leads (This is a set appointment)
3. Customers (self explanatory)

We don't get a lot of prospects any more at show. We ask people to set an appointment and we give them an insentive to do so. Keeps us from having to play phone tag with them. Also we know that they are setting appointments with other companies and by the time we get ahold of them 50% of them will tell us that they are all set.

So I guess my question is did you get a lot of leads or did you get a lot of prospects?

ultimatetouch

Doug how many prosects did you get and how many days were you there?

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Thewoodman

One nice thing about the home shows is that some of the people that you talked to may call 2 or 3 years down the road.

Now you may be thinking what good does it do me if I have to wait that long for a Return on investment. If you do one or more home show every year that is planting alot of seeds for future work.

Mark

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dougchips

Most of the leads were within a 10-15 mile radius, well within our coverage area. We had 3 leads from the cape (60 miles) which we will still run, hopefully get 2-3 in the same day.

We will start calling the leads that did not set an appointment Monday morning and again Monday evening. Hopefully they are not flooded with calls.

dougchips

No the Foxboro show at the stadium.

Marc, our goal was not to get a list of names and numbers. Some guy giving out Red Sox tickets was bragging about getting 300 leads a day. God only know what he was selling, he goal was names and numbers. I only wanted leads that were interested in having new windows or a new deck. We offered a contest "win 10 free windows including labor and material". The contest rules are somewhat lengthy, but an important one was they need to have a house and we need to do the install at their house. We are not giving away windows so someone can sell them on E-bay. Once they filled out our form, we informed them that they get one entry for filling it out and 5 entries for setting an appointment. The forms had an area where we would fill out some details on what windows they were looking at and some other details. To answer your 2nd question, I like your definitions more than mine. I separated the forms into two piles, "leads" and "appointments". I think we had 12 appointments and 60-70 leads. What are your percentages? I was hoping that we could get a 50/50, not sure if our percentage sucks or average.

dougchips

Friday- 1-9
Saturday- 10-9
Sunday- 10-6

The last 2 hours of the night was dead everynight. For some reason the first two hours wer a little on the slow side. I posted some number in the above post, I will have to recount everthing on Monday.

dougchips

Hopefully so! If we could not interest them in a project, we handed them one of our "million dollar bills" with our contact info on the back. Hopefully enough people will hold onto them or will show them to a friend that might need a project. Either way a $125.00 investment only requires less than one job to pay off.

marc

We were at the Marlborough show and Portland Me. show this weekend.

Marlborough was a bust........only set 8 appointments
Portland we set 17 appointments.

Our goal is to set 1 appointment per hour. We hit that in Portland but not in Marlborough.

You win some and you lose some. This weekend was show number 6 & 7 for the year. We have 50 scheduled shows and are always looking for more. Face to Face marketing is the way to go in my opinion but you also need newspapers, direct mail, shared direct mail, site signs, trucks signage, internet lead providers, your own web site, canvassing and referral programs in place.

Out of all sources of leads, Face to face marketing and internet lead providers make up about 65% for us. We need 1400 leads to hit our goals so we get pretty creative at times. Last week was our first sunroom open house at a customers home.

dougchips

How many other non-appoinment leads did the shows generate?

We have another show in Providence RI coming up in a month or so. We are looking at a flower show in RI but they want $300 extra for being a "other vendor". Any hints on overcoming this sur-charge? I was going to include a garden window and some fake plants in out display, not sure if it will work. It seems like it might be a good opportunity to show off our company without 20 other window companies around. Do you get a good response at shows that are not titled "home shows"?

BTW, I had a few people from NH stop by our booth and we do not service NH. I'll have to get your info and direct them your way next year.

marc

I don't think we have more than 5 or 6 names that are not set appointments. It's just not what we are looking for. We do a lot of craft shows and YES we have to pay more because we are not a craft vender. The response is hit or miss but the leads that you do get are non competitive for the most part. The big boys will be there (Statewide, New England Sash, etc.) We will definately have to share info.

dougchips

At the boat show in Providence their were only one gutter protection company and one window company. I felt sorry for the window company they had a horrible location at the base of the escalators on the other side of the ropes. I am not concerned about the big boys, I much rather see them than the SWB's with their $200 installed signs.

Stone Mountain

I used to do home shows. I never felt I got a good roi.
A competitor of mine whom I am friendly with did the main shows in Toronto for 8 or 9 years, long after I stopped. He stopped too, about 6-7 years ago. Just not enough solid leads.
Like someone says: 4-5 companies at the show, they make an apointment with each one, by the time you get to them they're so confused they don't know what they want, or they've already bought.
They are also a major commitment: 3 or 4 days, regardless of weather, you have to have someone there at all times who knows what they are talking about, the cost of the both, the display, set up, take down, transport, handouts, parking, lunch and dinner for everyone, and so on. Just not worth it to me.

I have enough work anyway.

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Tscarborough

I always looked at doing home shows the same as if I did radio spots or a billboard: Straight advertising. Show leads that you have to call are a waste of time, but you WILL have people calling you from the shows. So long as you take that view, working the shows can be a valuable use of your advertising dollars. It also gives you a chance to observe your competition, and network with others in the industry.

These are my show guidelines:

No chairs in the booth, period. Any tables in the booth are against the back wall or in the center of the booth. People should be encouraged to step into, not stop at your booth.

It is worthwhile to partner with affiliated businesses to buy a bigger booth/ better location, and to have more people to man. Being in the masonry industry, we usually partnered with Sport Court and a landscape/nursery company, and got a BIG booth, full of pavers, walls, plants, and a section of court with a free throw game.

You can never have too many plants, too many gimmies, or anything cool.

You have to work the crowd. Engage them, but don't harass them (Well, some minor harassment is OK).

Remember that you are there to spread information, NOT gather leads. You will gather leads and prospects, but more importantly, you will be called by the ones who are really interested. I pass out cards, but never take a name unless they specifically request a piece of information.

Follow up on anything you promised anyone the next business day or two, period.

Most importantly, do not wear shoes that will make you angry in and of themselves inside 5 hours, unless you are tall, blond, and paid to bear the pain of those shoes.

I have worked everything from association meetings with 20 people to the World of Concrete with 80,000, and everything in between. I have also attended those same shows as a buyer.

dougchips

Good advise, chairs are the biggest no no's. I spent alot of time at the past few shows asking people how many leads they generated and whoever has a chair will have the lowest number. Drinking is an issue that shocked the hell out of me. They had a food court and most of the vendors sat in there and drank while the show was running. #1 not at their booth, #2 would smell like beer when they returned to their booth, #3 wrong message to send to the public. Some of the vendors were nursing hang overs for most of the show.

ruskent

I first home show is in a month. I have to work the whole show by myself. Its going to be tuff but i will manage. My two workers only speak broken english and i know no one else that could really work it or that would want to.

Hell i drove 30 hours stright when i went to texas, i think i can handle a couple home shows.

Do you guys feel its nesessary to give out free give aways? I only want qualified leads and i am going to push people to make appointments at the show. Luckily i am selling high dollor items. I only have to sell 1 job to not loose money on this show. Hopefully i get alot more then 1 though.

Matt

dougchips

Free giveaways--NO, they are for the scum that pay $10 to walk around and fill up bags of them. Other than a few pens and a few nice giveaways for larger clients, I would stay away from them. Most of the giveaways cost $1-$3 for items that will be discarded and never remembered. The only one that interested me was long sleeve tee-shirts for $4.00 each if you buy 1000. If I only gave them out to people who set an appointment, they would last my entire career. The labeled bottled water looked nice but it tells all the other vendors that you were looking at *** company.

For the workers with broken English, take a magic marker and draw a trach hole on their neck maybe people will feel sorry for them and enter your booth.(kidding)

You could get help from a temp agency with staffing. Just make sure that you tell them that you will reject anyone who is hungover and can not stand for ***hours at a time. We used some of our subs and their wives for staffing. So far everyone wants to donate their time for the next show.