Temps can be of real value or they can be overattracting

Temps can be a valuable addition to your exhibit or they can just be an distraction.

I just left the National Association of Convenience Store annual convention in Chicago. Over 1200 exhibiting companies and thousands of attendees seeing what is new and different in the way of products, merchandising, financing and franchising.

With budgets getting tighter and tighter and the demand to keep sales personnel in the field, exhibitors are depending more on temps to fill in the gaps.

I saw two types of temps at NACS.  The first type – booth babes or “bimbettes”.  Scantily clad in short shorts, tight, low cut tops, with lots of cleavage on display, in high,high heels and even roller skates.  Branding on their butts and breasts.  Their role – attraction and sampling.  Or maybe over-attraction.  Some were strolling the aisles handing out samples or enticing show attendees to visit their booths.  The second type – professionally dressed women and men who mirrored the staff in attire and approacah. They were adjuncts to the staff having knowledge about the products being offered or displayed in the exhibit and who were the subject matter experts to handle qualified contact communications.

So how should you best use temps?  They should be hired as support for your full time staff.  They should mirror your staff in look and attire.  They should be trained to have enough knowledge about the company, its products or services to be able to converse with a qualifiable visitor until a warm transition can be made to a staffer.

To get the most impact from temporary staff, they need to a part of the team working the exhibit, not just eye-candy that is over-attracting and non-selective who in the end just clutter up the front of your exhibit with unqualified visitors sight-seeing.

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