Put Your Best Foot Forward

 

A couple weeks ago, I attended the College and University Public Relations Association of Pennsylvania (CUPRAP) conference in Hershey, PA (the sweetest place on earth!) and met some great folks from colleges in the Northeast. The CUPRAP conference was my first solo sales exhibition and I’ll admit I was pretty intimidated going in. It felt like a trial by fire but I took a lot away from the experience. I thought I’d share a few things I learned with you.

Making a first impression

I’m only 24 and was worried that my age would work against me in a conference setting. I wore black and white all three days I was at the conference, thinking that keeping my outfit basic would prevent people from not taking me seriously. However, I was immediately aware of how my age factored in when I was ID’ed during cocktail hour while explaining how to use Twitter as a public relations tool.

One trick that I found helpful was wearing a splash of color (flair). I clipped a flower in my hair and got a lot of comments about it. Think about wearing something that could be a conversation piece; vintage jewelry, an interesting tie, etc.

Presentation

When exhibiting or sponsoring a conference you will often be one of many in a sea of tables, so your display should be visible from across the room. I was fortunate in that the conference wasn’t overcrowded with other vendors.

I took a “less is more” approach in terms of handing out marketing material. I knew flyers and leaflets alone weren’t going to make me successful, so I relied more on interaction with conference attendees than on handouts.

I did create a powerpoint presentation that displayed customer testimonials, screenshots of our application, and logos of colleges and universities who use our service. I projected the slides on the wall behind my table so everyone in the room could see it.

Don’t be shy!

Even though I went into the conference wanting to get our message out and meet with as many attendees as possible, I made sure I took my time with every conversation. Establishing a one-on-one connection with every person I met is important.

It was also important for me to put myself out there and get personable with people. I made myself approachable by smiling a lot and making occasional light-hearted (but clean!) jokes.

Think on your feet

Whenever I had downtime I slipped into seminars and took notes. (I even tweeted a few of them like Andrew Shotland did here.) If you have a similar opportunity, pay attention to the questions people ask and re-work your pitch/presentation.

When an attendee asked a question about Twitter, I jumped at the chance to contribute to the discussion. I even added a slide to my presentation that said “Do you have Twitter questions? Ask me!” It got a lot of attention, and drew people to my table. As a matter of fact, it would have helped to have more interactive slides that asked questions and prompted conversations.

Reevaluate your approach

The first day of the conference I let people come to me because I didn’t want to be too aggressive. As time went by I started leaving my table and introducing myself to people elsewhere in the room. I found that many people were interested in what I had to say, but were wary of approaching me on their own.

Whatever you do, don’t be afraid to change your strategy along the way to better suit your situation. My change in approach worked well, and made me wish I’d been more outgoing from the very start of the conference.

As I mentioned earlier, I don’t have a lot of experience exhibiting at conferences, but I learned many valuable things at CUPRAP. Most importantly, I learned that sending press releases and talking with media on the phone is great, but sometimes it really helps to get out of the office and talk to people in person.