home show

[rocco 14]

Hey all I am doing a home show in March (my first) and just curious as to what everyone thinks is the best kinds of things I can do or take that might help in sales!

I of course have thought of these:

Plenty of business cards

making sure my business name is clearly seen

samples of wood in the restoration process (old/washed/brightened/stained)

samples of different shades of stain

pics of decks I have already done

brochure explaining services

thanks or the help.

[James 625]

I restored a cedar chair and brought one half cleaned and weathered. I called one of my cust. that I knew had these in their back yard. People at the show wanted to buy the one I restored.

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Have samples of different wood types there if you can.

Beth

[Mathew Johnson 123]

I am doing on in May... any more ideas would be benificial... I thought about asking the PWNA for promotional stuff to put out on the table as well

[newlook 265]

Call Doc and see if he can stick something in the mail for you :)

[Mathew Johnson 123]

Good Idea :-)

[newlook 265]

He said call him....right?:lglolly:

[Mathew Johnson 123]

LOL... Gotta love those West Coast Power Washers

[rocco 14]

Hey all thanks for the advice.

thought I would let you know I sent Doc a message and he called me just now. He gave me some excelent ideas.

ie: No eating or chewing gum, no conversing with the neighbors (he said get to know them but dont just stand there chatting with them while you have potential customers walking by), Say hi to everyone that walks by, Have professional brochures, have a professional appearance (polo or nice button up shirt with name on it), dont be the only one in the booth (have help from employees or family that know what you are doing) have your name above your booth and very clear with the service that you are providing next to it! The biggest thing I thought he said is to have an appointment book handy and set appointments for everyone who takes a brochure. If they cant set an appointment then get all their info so you can call them that night. He really stressed before and after pics! The booth that I will have is directly across from the concession stand and he said thats an excelent place and for me to get some napkins or condiments so people will stop by and grab them and check me out at the same time! He said get certifications from Wolmans and Olympic as they are free. Education is a huge benefit so the more the better!

Flat out he had a lot of advice, and very eager to help me out!

Thanks again Doc!

[Celeste 341]

Rocco,

Is there a fee involved to you to get in on one of these home shows? If so, would you mind telling how much? After you've done it, let us know how it worked out for you :)

Good luck

Celeste

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Doc has wonderful advice to give. We have also benefited from his advice in the past when getting into KEC.

The PWNA has doorknob hangers aimed at wood care. Call headquarters about them. 1-800-393-PWNA. They are also working on a consumer brochure.

Beth

[tidyjet 14]

Rocco,

How about setting up a PC with a power point presentation rolling in slideshow mode? Nice pics in it will get people to stop and look. Might help to reel 'em in.

paul

[dk34 14]

Even a laptop with Google's picture viewer, on slideshow loop, with an mp3 for background music is a free way to get pics with some attention.

[reed 500]

If you have MS Office, there is a power point program embedded. I found it to be useful for a great "running" slide show. I just made one for an upcoming homeshow I am doing in St Louis in March.

Reed

[RyanH 14]

Windows XP also has the ability to show image files (JPG definitely, most likely GIF and BMP also) in a slide show format...just dump them all in one folder and select "Slide Show" as the view. Makes them full screen and it looks really nice.

[rocco 14]

celeste,

Yeah there is a fee for the home show. it ranges between $350 to $1000 depending on the size of booth and location. There is also a fee to have electricity provided, $50!

I plan to grab my Brothers laptops and run them with XP as Ryan said! He has a couple of nice large screen laptops that should work well.

Ill try to get pics of the booth posted after the show!

[Mathew Johnson 123]

My home show is a bit cheaper. It is sponsored by the local paper. 35.00 for the booth and 350.00 worth of advertising

[Celeste 341]

We wish you much success Rocco and look forward to hearing about your results :)

Celeste

[rocco 14]

Hey all thoght I would update you all on the home show I did. I had some problems with my camera and was not able to get any pics of it!

I used a laptop with MS powerpoint to show off slides as well as list my services. It was displayed on a 27 inch T.V. right out in front so it grabbed attention! Then I had about 500 business cards and 100 brochures and went thru about half of those. I had 2 panels of fencing setup as my back drop and one panel was old and grayed and the other was nice and finished with wood tux. I had some wood samples of TWP on the table and I got some people stopping by simply due to the fact that i had them cause they had used TWP and really liked its results. I was always in the booth unless I was eating which i had a convenient cubby hole behind my fence I could hang out in. that way if there was any questions my family who was helping me couldnt answer they could grab me! I did take off to the seminar once and just had a hard time being away from the booth so I went back in a few minutes. My neighbors were all really cool as one was a chimney sweep company and we are going to be getting together soon and talk about some networking we can do for eachother. You know maybe a discounted price if you get both services from us kinda thing.

All in all I didnt get my expected number of sign ups but got more than enough to cover the cost of the home show and now I will work on word of mouth and Ill advertise in the neighborhood of all these people. I have mailers that I will send out to all the neighbors houses as well as the "Im not ready to do anything now" people that came by the booth. So was it worth the time and money?

Yes, and it being my first ever home show i expect to do much better in the next one!

Thanks all for the advice.

[Crownroyal 14]

Ive done two shows with great success, the first only had 48 vendors and I recieved 45 leads which I sold about 25 of them, the 2nd show had 571 vendors in the convention center and I recieved about 298 leads which I'm selling at the moment, it cost me 300.00 for the first one and 875,00 for the second. I did spend alot in advertising but it's well worth it.

I even won an award for best uses of space lol in my first show. I try to post pictures of the first one.

[Crownroyal 14]

how do you add pic's