Exhibiting at a conference? Your ultimate guide to rising above the din

Don’t be lost in the crowd.

Perhaps you’re exhibiting at Bootstrap Alley during Tech in Asia Singapore 2015 or some other conference. Not to stress you out – but there’s a lot riding on your time at the booth. Play it right, and you could snag that investment deal, sign up tons of customers, or get that multi-million dollar client.

As a veteran attendee at tech conferences (I’m a tech journalist), I’ve seen my fair share of fantastic exhibits and horrible ones. Here are a few things that’ll help you stand out like a peacock.

Have someone man your booth all the time.

The key here is to impress as many people as possible. Breaking for lunch or going for a quick toilet break could mean missing out on engaging a VIP. Depending on your available resources, get as many people as you need to just to cover the entire length of the conference. If possible, company founders or CEOs should be there. This is especially true for startups.

Nail your elevator pitch, and be prepared to answer every question.

Practice your pitch before the conference. Memorize it so you can come across as knowing your shit. Don’t be robotic, and don’t sound like you’re reading off a teleprompter. Be natural and conversational, and don’t be afraid to customize your pitch to suit the person. Remember, an investor looks out for different things as compared to a jobseeker or a customer.

If possible, get team members with different roles to the exhibition hall. For tech startups, the founder should be there to explain the vision, a sales guy should help to close deals, and an engineer should be on hand to answer technical questions.

Be natural, not stiff as a robot.

Networking starts before you attend the event, and ends way after the conference.

Don’t go into a conference like a blind bat. No, don’t memorize the venue layout. Know who’s there. Try to get a list of attendees from the organizers. Some conferences, like ours for instance, have a networking app which you can use to set up appointments.

So don’t just focus on your booth. Make sure you meet the people you want. “You should set up important meetings one to two weeks before going to the conference,” says Alvin Koay, founder of MobileAds, an online ad creator for agencies.

Namecards are essential (especially in places like Japan), so make sure you have loads of them. Place plenty of them at your booth, in case you have no choice but to vacate it for an urgent meeting. Namecards can be a nuisance, though, since you already might have stacks of them at home that you haven’t followed up on.

Apps like Evernote and CamCard have business card scanning features that take away some of the pain. I’ve used both. Evernote’s card scanner isn’t free but it features a sweet integration with LinkedIn that vastly improves character recognition and lets you connect with that person via the business social network. CamCard on the other hand has better OCR scanning and allows you to easily share contacts with your team.

Scanning a namecard isn’t the end of it. Do send a post-conference message to people whom you’ve met at the booths.

Remember, tons of other people are trying to get hold of that hot-shot investor. You need to stand out.

Mint is your best friend.

Why ruin your well-rehearsed pitch with a foul mouth that smells like dead fish? Pop in a peppermint for that extra edge. So simple, but so often neglected.

Give freebies.

Everyone loves free stuff. If you have a budget to spend on schwag like T-shirts, flash drives, or discounts and free trials to your product, go crazy. Or get creative. Anson Zeall, founder of bitcoin startup CoinPip, gave out frisbees at South by Southwest. Hyperlocal media site Coconuts gave out coconut juice with real coconut shells to attendees at a past edition of Tech in Asia Singapore. I’m not sure what the returns are, but they did make an impression.

Demo.

If you’re a company with a physical product, the size of your booth is the limit. Or maybe not. Got a 3D printer? Place it front and center. Let attendees play with it. Give printouts to them. Physical objects get more attention. I once saw green transportation company Smove place a freakin’ car in the exhibition hall.

If you’re a software company, don’t lose hope. Have tablets on hand to demo your products. Get a big monitor if you can, so more people can see what your service is about.

Don’t wait passively.

Don’t wait for people to come to you. Introduce yourself to them. Sure, not all of us are natural born salesmen. Work yourself up to it. Once you do it a few times, you’re in the zone. Even when you’re not pitching, take time to observe the crowd. That’ll allow you to tailor your pitch to them.

“With each person passing by our booth, we noted down their persona and needs. We realize there are more potential investors at the event than our main customer target,” says Zeall.

Keep up the energy level.

It’s a marathon. Don’t tire yourself out after talking to just a few people. Get some sleep (however improbable with all the pre-conference prep). Have some espresso or Red Bull on hand. Be sure to eat. Getting a few people in your company to the conference will allow you to rotate, rest up, and split up the work.

This is important. If you come across as lacking energy and passion, no one cares that you’re fatigued.

Focus.

In an ideal scenario, you’d send a team to a conference to get things done. Sometimes though, you may be the lone rep. In such cases, the need to optimize is even greater. Kenneth Lou, founder of wireless charging startup Novelsys, says you should decide on three goals at each event.

“These could be to raise investment interest, collect emails from potential customers, or find beta users,” he adds.

Don’t just stay at your booth.

Just camping at your exhibition area is a bad idea. Spend some time to meet the other exhibitors or arrange meetings at a nearby cafe. According to Koay, a lot of exhibitors are also your prospects. Talk to them. Often though, the best relationship building happens outside the conference itself. “Find out all the networking parties and try to get invites to them,” he says.

Stay fabulous.

It’s not too late to sign up for Tech in Asia Singapore 2015, happening on May 6 and 7 2015. Start here.

Or, you can check out our community events calendar to start flexing your networking muscle.