No matter how small the booth or trade show is, do a canned demo every 20 to 30 minutes no matter whether anyone is at your exhibit space or not. The demo reiterates the one or two key messages your leadership has decided is most important for the show. Imagine everything you are showing will be seen by every one of your competitors, so this is not the location for showing the “secret new release.” Do that in a private hotel suite or offsite meeting room for important prospects.

Demonstrations are the heart of the booth. Without one, your booth staff will be standing in the aisles somberly waiting for someone to walk up to them. Or worse yet your salespeople will be talking to each other looking like they are too busy to be interrupted. In either cases the message becomes there is nothing interesting in this space, keep walking.” A recurrent demo lets you act like you have something important to share. Booth personnel can draw together the crowd use their sales skills to see if prospects in the audience have interest. The difference between booths offering a demo and those without one is night and day. One of them is a loser – make certain it is not you.