The Accidental Destination: Consumer Trade Shows Without Brand

You know these shows: They come into a new market suddenly, they use the cheapest methods to promote, they don't have any added value for either the exhibitor or the attendee and they work to sabotage what long-standing shows [like yours] worked their entire life to build. These crappy shows with benign names that mean nothing aren't taking over the home show industry, left to their own devices, we think they have the ability to destroy the home show industry.

Wow. Pretty strong assertion. But in our years of watching low budget enterprises like [you fill in the blank] slither into new markets, we've seen them take down long-standing tradeshow businesses. We've watched them seriously challenge quality home shows.

We wondered how they can harm shows so effectively. No question they are vastly different than their successful show counterparts.

Then it dawned on us: They do it by creating a home show that is completely value-less to everyone but themselves.

Opposite these drop-in-and-drop-outs, traditional consumer trade shows have a long history of making themselves a positive part of the business landscape in which they operate. They add substantial value to the small businesses in their community. They spend substantial dollars with local media. They give. We know shows that donate millions back to grass-roots programs within their communities. They are vested and are continually re-investing. They have Brand.

But the other shows - the thrown together vampires run by short-term capitalists - are none of this.

And sad reality for show managers hoping to be top-of-mind, is that the bulk of consumers have zero idea that Trade Shows are even an industry. The best that most consumers can tell you is there are "MAJOR" shows and "minor" shows in their city. And to them, a "MAJOR" show is reasoned to be the big show at the major convention center in town. But consumers have never thought that there is a third show in their market - the rival show.  Like a young stallion staking out an established herd of mares, the rival show is small, inexperienced and is led not by its brains but its mojo.  It challenges the MAJOR show - stupidly - and loses.  But rival shows don't care because there are so many MAJOR shows to test across the country.  And one day, some day, they will find an old stallion of a show that is feeble and weak enough to actually overtake. 

Which brings us to the true reality that most consumers ending up at these rival brand-less shows do so completely by accident.

But once inside a low budget, no frills show that's sparsely populated with disappointed, often angry exhibitors (if they haven't packed up and left yet) - the attendee feels burned. Bad for the attendee, worse for you is that the burned attendee generalizes this lower standard as the new standard for the Home Show Category. Worse yet, those consumers' resistance toward attending another homeshow is so great, it would take a very expensive change agent (aka big advertising budget) to reverse their negative opinion of all trade shows.

Guess what? That low-budget, vampire show just lost you another consumer from your pool of potential show attendees.

But if they are so unsuccessful we wondered, why are these rival companies still around and able to continue to grow into new markets?

Well, what we think saves these brand-black-holes is that there are still awesome consumer trade shows like yours educating new consumers on what to expect from a GOOD home show. Think on this: Is it possible you're actually making consumers FOR these shows through your ad strategies with healthy budgets, your creative promotions, and your beautiful shows?

You bet you are! And [you tell us who] steals these wide-eyed, ready to buy, consumers away from you with their step ford wife approach: similar name, similar dates, same location, number one on Google...

The scales will finally tip against rival shows IF ever they find themselves in the majority - which we hope never happens.

As you can very well guess, WorldView is not a big fan of this type of show. But we absolutely watch them, study them. And we'll continue to keep our eye on them...

Learning lessons, early failures make for future successes

Learning Lesson: Don't start something without tracking it from the get go.

Take this blog for instance. I started it with the greatest of intentions. So great that I thought that the momentous occasion of WorldView Blog's inception would be enough for me to remember the pass codes and user IDs associated with it.

But business demands immediately pulled me away from this side-venture long enough that by the time I had time to insert the magic keys to re-entrance - not one combination of the hundreds I tried worked.

I admit it (which is totally in my skill set to do): I screwed up. I took for granted my ability to recall my whole life's craziest details only to realize that: 1) all the numbers I can think of, 2) all the capital and lowercase combinations I might decide, 3) coupled with the names of all the animals I've ever raised IN MY LIFE - add up to a limitless list of possibilities of passcodes even to the inside guesser...Not to mention the plethora of email addresses I've been stockpiling over the years.

Short story: Mission Impossible.

Thank goodness I can hack into Google help - you try it...it's truly a backdoor job to try to get "people help." But true to my form, I figured out how to get in far enough to gain a live assistant who in minutes found my keys and gave them back to me.

Lesson Learned: Failing Now Paves the Path for Future Success.

And it's true. I know I will be much more relentless, and logical, in my documentation especially in areas that aren't yet habit/areas that don't fully make sense-yet.

A new online account like this blog is a fine example. But for practical business purposes, how about those crazy calls we get that seem not to fit now, but we find ourselves searching down later? The company whose grills doubles as a cooler? Or some mom who left a message last winter about her son - some guy named Juan Martin del Potro...

If You're Not Growing, You're Dying

An all true mantra to go on, and something that helps me continue to work on making myself, and my businesses all become better.

Are all my moves the right ones? Not necessarily.

But they all end up with a lesson that brings learning. So, in the end, even wrong moves and missteps are keeping me on track.

Take, for instance, the action of adding this blog. Is it the right move? Who's to say - but without question I know I'm going to learn from it.

I think having my own blog will jettison my knowledge on the topic. Already I've learned how promotional Blogging can be for parent company, Google. Case in point: as I set up my blog, I didn't have the choice to not include ads. My choice was where I wanted their ads placed. And sure, BlogSpot illuded to this being money generating for me, but not without my making a secure account first. Like I need another password or to tell another stranger where my mail goes, or to list what credit card I'm offering up to either be hacked or to be used for billing me when the fine print changes. Sure, by being guarded, I'm possibly forgoing millions in ad revenue that this blog IS CERTAIN TO generate (in it's selling you things I have no idea about). I say, let the cash pool. Might be a nice surprise for the government when I die.

Just a few keystrokes inside the Blogging community, finds me learning even more. Like how, even as I'm composing, spell check's instructed me to capitalize the term blogging (oops, there it goes again, and this time I have chosen to defy). What's up with that? Are the same powers at work with Blogging as Googling? Comment if you've got that answer.

Regardless of how my inner battles and diatribes on the topic go, the format -of Blogging - is here to stay. At least as long as the initial intent behind our 1st admendment continues to be viewed with the same lense.

It's just my opinion... ...and you're always welcome to disagree.