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With my help, one of my clients chose a Hawaiian theme. The crew all dressed in identical Hawaiian shirts so that they would stand out. Plus, think about the prospects who are at the trade show. If you go to the trade show with a show of force—another thing I recommend—and you’ve got 5 to 10 folks at the show in Hawaiian shirts, every one starts to notice you. People even say to other people, “What’s with the people in the Hawaiian shirts?”

Rule 2: Drive Traffic

Let’s soup up the strategy even more. So one, we’ve got Hawaiian shirts. Two, we’ve got a backdrop of a Hawaiian beach scene at the booth with giant letters saying, “Win a free trip to Hawaii.” Three, we are serving tropical drinks all day long. So now we’re getting noticed, but let’s go further. We want to “drive traffic.” The free trip to Hawaii and the tropical drinks are designed to drive traffic.

Rule 3: Capture Leads

Now people get to the booth and, in order to enter the drawing, they need to give you a business card and fill out a quick little form that asks just a few qualifying questions. And here’s a tip about getting data from folks. If you ask, “What is the size of your company?” they will either lie or leave it blank. But if you put the same question in multiple-choice form, you can get a lot of information. For example, your simple form could say:

Size of company (check one):

____ Under $1 million

____ $1 million to $5 million

____ $5 million to $10 million

____ $10 million plus

If you are selling to a lot of small companies, you could start your choices with

____ Under $100K

Or you might ask,

How many widgets do you buy every year?

____ Fewer than 5

____ 6 to 10

____ 11 to 15

You get the idea.

Ask them two or three questions, all with categories of choices so that they can just check the box that applies to them. So now, not only are you capturing leads, but you know just enough about them to prioritize your follow-up. And naturally, while you are serving them drinks and encouraging them to register, you strike up a conversation and look for the pearls—the great opportunities for your particular business.

To get even more attention at the trade show, another client hired a very attractive model to walk around with the drinks on a tray and send folks back to the booth to register for the free trip to Hawaii. Every major city has modeling agencies enabling you to go online and choose a model to work your trade show booth. You can get an attractive model or two (a man and a woman is a good idea) for about $300 per day per model—a small price to pay to drive traffic.

Also, to soup this up even further, you can throw a luau party at a popular club. Then your model can say to folks: “Hey, we’re having a luau later tonight that’s going to be a ball. It’s by invitation only, so make sure you get your invite at booth number 2372—right over there.”

One of the best things you can do at a trade show is throw a party. But for Pete’s sake, if you do that, you’d better make sure you do it right! In one industry in which I worked, we became famous for our parties. Every booth in the entire place would buzz about our parties, and our clients would seek out my sales staff to get those coveted invitations.

The secret to throwing a great party is to do it at a popular club. Here’s how you do that for very little money. A week or two before the trade show, you call the most popular clubs in the town where the trade show is being held. Call your hotel and ask the concierge to name the hottest clubs. Call during the day and ask for the manager of the club. Here’s what you say: “I’m throwing a party in your town in two weeks and I’m going to have 200 people with me. I’m going to pick up the tab for them to drink all night. I’m trying to decide which club I want to use. Can you tell me about yours?”

You can see where a wise club manager would want you to come to his club rather than someone else’s. And most trade shows are during the week, which means on a Tuesday evening