I signed up for the San Antonio National Business Expo a few months before. I had no idea I would have a loss in the family a bit before the event, but bills don’t stop coming in for the living.

My Booth

Backdrop

I ordered a custom backdrop to stick onto my 10x8ft step-and-repeat frame. I historically used the frame to display art at pop-up shows, but have not done that in same time as frankly, people don’t buy art. I was a bit short on time, but I did try out a few different ideas for the background, and ended up with a “best of all worlds” background.

Wordy Background

At first I was wanting to use minimal colours, as I was not entirely sure how many colours could be printed on a background. Some printers allowed full colour. In this design, I listed all the possible services, making my preferred services larger, in a text-cloud.

Woods Adventure

I placed in some artwork from one of my established brochures and website artwork onto a background. In this version, I wanted to use the least amount of words possible, as I thought too many words lacked focus and confidence.

Phoenix Re-born

I missed the “sketch to full production,” wording from the first design, and brought it back in. In this design, I wanted to keep the graphics simple and have a clear focal point. I have always felt when tradeshow graphics have too much, it can look too insecure.

 

The Final Design

I ended up combining all three ideas together. I kept the focus on my one headline, and added in a faded word cloud with my services. I also added that little phoenix back into the woods scene, which I thought added a layer of richness to the seen, a quest for the viewer’s eyes, and a quest for one’s brand identity.

Promotional Give-Aways

Pens & Business Cards

I previously printed out these pens, but rarely had chances to give them away. I was able to add them to the booth display. Partially seen in this photo are freshly printed business cards on Neenah Classic Laid paper. I was happy with the price and quality from a new printer I found.

Brochure and Coloured Pencils

Historically, I would print these double gate fold brochures on my Epson printer. My printer has been acting very bad, bleeding the ink cartridges together (I mean, if I only want to print black, the it is okay). I bought a new printer to replace that printer. Sadly, that new printer is still in the box as I struggle to catch-up on tasks around my house. I ended up deciding it would save me time to just pay the same printer of my business cards, to also print the brochures. It did help save me time.

I considered many different give away ideas. I nearly went with lighters, like to ignite an idea, but I thought the playfulness and creativity from coloured pencils seemed more on brand. I definitiely did not want to order something that people would through away immediately, or be single-use.

With the coloured pencils, I felt a bit deceived though. I uploaded my design to an online preview tool, and it looked like there would not be a white background, and the ink would print directly onto the cardboard case. I thought the sticker looked a bit cheap in the real life version of the product, but what could I do about it at this point? I did like my catch-phrase on the container, “Graphic Design Starter Pack: Creativity Starts by Hand,” as a little kick towards AI slop and to remind people the value of humans designing for humans.

MLMs and Sales Pitches to Me

LegalShield

I was very worried the morning of the event, as I saw an MLM listed on the table assignment list of businesses. I did report to the organizer that LegalShield was an MLM. He said he did not know. I assumed he would not allow an MLM to be there, but the MLM was stationed diagonal from me. I avoid MLMs and walk fast away from them, so I thought any businesses stationed next to them might be overlooked if people were trying to get away from an MLM.

When I was younger, I was tricked into Legal Shield, myself. They skulk around networking events and try to sell to emerging businesses, as they don’t know better and get scared about potential legal costs. 

I thought the event may have dodged a bullet, when I saw this sign that said, “No Soliciting Exhibitors. No MLMs,” on it, but I guess if you were an MLM who bought a table, that was allowed. They just did not want loose MLMs walking around.

Well, LegalShield was there (purple booth in photo below). I was disappointed by that. The woman even went around and tried to give me a card, which I declined. I myself, did walk around before the event opened to the public, and picked up any cards that I did want. I thought it was weird for her to pro-actively walk around to pass out cards to people who did not ask for them.

The Sales Guy

I did have a few other salespeople that did not even have a table, try to hard pitch their services to me.

I thought it was funny how one particular man wanted to sell me his sales coaching. Like, I know that formal sales technique is to convert someone’s objections around into a need for the product, but I don’t want to do word games to win a sale. If someone wants design, they will buy it, particularly at a business expo. I told the guy I was not looking to spend money buying his services, I was trying to make money by generating leads from this event, when he was pitching his services. I saw the gears turning in his head, and then shared I knew his next step was to convert my objection into a hard pitch. I guess me speaking his next move caught him off guard and he backed down into a soft pitch. I was getting annoyed with him continuing to pitch to ME, while there were people wanting to talk to me stopped at my booth, but seeing I was occupied by this guy. He finally let me proceed to tell the warm leads about my services, ya know, the right I paid for when I bought this booth at the business expo.

He tried to come around again later, to talk about his neice’s art. I suspect he just wanted to establish a positive-friendly relationship with me, his target, so he could re-target me later or not leave a sour taste in my mouth.

Overall

The venue was nice. I have tried to rent that specific space before, so I know it is pricey. I hope the organizer broke even.

At first, there was a slow start to the foot traffic, but it picked up pretty well. I actually have a list of warm leads I still need to follow-up on (so I guess I do that next). I have been busy still processing the physical demands of the loss of my grandma, so I have been behind on that. I did not feel it would be a good idea to follow up with the leads while I just did not have the bandwidth to serve them well.

I did get on paying client from it. They guy himself was probably not the best fit for me. I think he expected professional design to be cheaper, since AI does it for free. I did do a bit of quick-turn-around work for him at the price he expected, but when I gave him a quote at the normal  professional price, he went silent, and that is okay. If the only way to win his business is to underbid, I’d rather have the night off to myself. I did get one good referral from him for a quick one-off project, so that was okay. I think I at least broke even from the event. If I get around to following up on the list of warm leads, I may come out on top.

I have a few giveaways left, but not tons.  I think I ordered just about enough so I don’t have too much inventory laying around. It is also stuff that won’t expire: pens, brochures, coloured pencils. I know sometimes places order things like chocolate or aspirin as giveaways, and those you can’t let sit around too long before you have to throw them away.

I did get annoyed how many vendors started closing down way early. I felt bad for the patrons to came to the last hour of the event, even with 1 hour left, so many vendors left. The guy looked at me confused and asked if the fair was until X hour, and I said yes. With the last 15 minutes left, I think just me and another vendor were fully set up still, per the event rules. I wanted to stay the full night, but what kind of last minute guest would walk into a venue with only 2 booths left. I did walk over to the organizer to get permission to break down, before doing so. (I once ran a pop-up market, and was pretty strict on the break down rules myself, and wanted to get verified permission before breaking down early.)

I’d probably do the event again. I just need to think of a better way to get the unwanted sales people to buzz off faster so the interested prospect don’t walk away while a guy is presenting a unwanted sales pitch to me.