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How to Maximize Your Trade Show Exhibit

A trade show, also known as a merchandise show or market week, is an exhibition or a business gathering organized by companies that showcase and demonstrate their new products and services and also their latest offerings. Trade shows also provide opportunities for companies to meet their customers, to learn new trends and to identify new prospects.

Trade shows are not open to the public and can only be attended by company representatives, members of the trade and members of the press. One advantage of holding a trade show is that it shortens the time it takes for companies to look for prospective customers. But the major disadvantage is that customers and prospects pay little attention to the many exhibitors and their products due to the many distractions and the busy atmosphere inherent in trade shows.

Exhibitors can make effective use of trade show displays in trade shows to direct visitors to their main display area. Trade show displays are used to give visitors a better understanding or appreciation of the products or services being marketed. Although exhibitors are only supposed to put their trade show displays within the confines of their designated trade show exhibit area, exhibitors also display items in strategic areas of the fair grounds. Trade show displays often used include banner stands, counters and cabinets, panel display etc. that clearly display the company logo, basic company information and company slogan.

The trade show booth is an important component of the trade show display as it aims to enhance the brand and marketing experience for the visitor. It facilitates valuable direct face-to-face contact between the companies and their prospective customers. The whole booth set-up includes counters kiosks, lighting, flooring, literature racks, banner stands and high impact graphics, with the booth design, the staffing and the handouts the main factors to a successful trade show booth.

Many companies prefer to rent pre-owned trade show exhibits and displays rather than to buy or to create them from scratch to save on the trade show booth construction costs and also on the expense of warehousing the displays after the trade show is over.

Trade shows demand a lot of work and effort, and exhibitors have to plan well in advance so as to make the trade show a success. It is because any successful trade show offers exhibitors with a very valuable opportunity to build relationships face-to-face with their clients and to close lucrative business deals.

How to Print an eBook in a Booklet Form

With the digital revolution, eBooks have become a prominent form of literature.  However, eBooks are limited in their scope and reach, as they can only be read from your computer.  In some cases, you may want to take the eBook with you for personal reading, and in other cases, you will want to print its contents to share with the world.  Here is a look at how you can transform your eBook into tangible, physical booklet.

How to Print Your eBook

If you have Microsoft Word, printing up an eBook for your own enjoyment is simple.  Following the below directions will give you a printed book with measurements of 8.5” x 5.25”.  Every printed page will give you four pages of a book, two pages on each side.

From there, you will either need to type your information into a Word document or transfer the information into a Word document.  Give the page landscape orientation with two columns on each page.  Print a test copy, layout the pages in book form, and number them.

Now, you will need to go and open as many Word documents as you have full sheets of paper.  If you would like to have the title of the book and page number in the header or footer, put those in now.  Again, set the document to create two columns, and set the margins to 0.5” at the top and bottom and 1” at the left and right.

Now you have to make sure that your book prints so that it will be readable without a lot of cutting and stapling.  If you look at your sample book, you will see that on the paper that the 1st page is not shared with the second page.  For example, if you have a 12 page eBook, the 1st and 12th pages are on the same sheet, the 2nd and 11th pages are on the same sheet, and so on and so forth.  Using each Word document as a separate layout of pages, copy and paste the proper page contents into the columns.  For example, in a 12 page book, your first layout will be page one in the first column and page 12 in the second.  Save each set as different spread or layout, so pages 1 and 12 would be layout 1, pages 2 and 11 would be layout 2, and so on.

Print another copy.  The eBook should now read like a regular book.

Sharing Your Booklet with Others

If you want to share your eBook with others, there are a few extra steps to take.  You will need to design covers the same way as you did the pages.  From there, you will need to print the book.  When printing, ask that the copies be double sided and then bound.  You will then have a professional looking book for sharing with friends, clients, and anyone else.

If you are using a professional printer to print up your eBook, you will want to contact the printer to see if there are any special layouts that you should create to make the printing process easier.  They may want you to separate the pages into separate documents like listed above, or they may have you send in just the original document.

Important Note

Newer versions of Word do offer “book fold” as one of the templates you can set for your pages.  If you are just printing one version for yourself, this can be an easy feature.  However, editing a specific page becomes difficult in this format, and reprinting a page is next to impossible.  Unless you want to run off an entire book every time you edit, it may be best to do your own manual method or entrust a professional printer.

How to Increase ROI on People Development Investments

Organization X brought in an outside seminar company to «give the supervisors and managers a little boost.» The seminar company suggested the executive group attend a preview as a way to support the development, to become aware of what was going to be presented, and to customize the message to meet the unique needs of the organization. They were all too busy. OK — how about a 4 hour overview ? Still too busy. The CEO ended up telling the seminar company to «Just give the people your message — so and so at (biggest company in town) said it was a great program.»

And so they did. They delivered an intensive 5 day, 4 hour per day leadership skills seminar to all the supervisors and managers in the business. They focused on trust, communication, self development, goals and objectives and using teams as a key means to deal with the businesses challenges. They discussed ways to overcome the adversarial relationship that existed between the people who did the work and their bosses. Homework and on the job assignments were developed; action plans formalized; personal skill requirements identified. At the end of the seminar, the attendees were fired up. They interpreted the messages coming from the seminar leaders as coming from their management — there was no reason for them to feel different. Bad assumption.

When the seminar participants returned to work the following Monday, they did so with an enthusiasm that had been missing for some time. When the CEO asked them about the seminar, they were positive and enthusiastic and thankful they had the opportunity to attend. The CEO and his staff felt good — everybody seemed motivated — money well spent.

And then the managers and supervisors started to use their newly acquired behaviors, beliefs and skills. And the trouble started. The leadership wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, but they knew it wasn’t what they expected. They reacted with their «business as usual» approach, and the managers and supervisors became frustrated and angry.

Things were back to where they had been before the seminar within two to three weeks, except all the seminar attendees had developed a layer of cynicism that they had not had before. Whatever trust there had been in the organization disappeared, and the leaders were puzzled that what had started off with such high expectations had turned to negative before their very eyes.

If this story sounds familiar, it’s because it happens every day, in all kinds of different organizations. It happens because the purchase of a service — a potentially very valuable service — is done when leadership sees the need for change, but the activity is not leveraged by internal design and development dedicated to ensuring the message and outcomes are what the leadership wants. The result is unintended consequences and frustration for all involved, including the development organization. They became event managers — not contributors to identifying and developing change and growth strategies and actions.

How to ensure your own critical people development investments are effective and carry a high ROI?

Ask yourself these seven questions. The answers will help define the best way to go about developing the skills, expertise and abilities of your people while increasing your ROI on development investments.

1 — How much time will be spent on customizing this seminar to meet out unique requirements? Are we trusting to a third party to represent our interests to our own employees? Focused time spent on development and customization of programs to fit your organization ensures that the objectives of the effort will be consistent with leaderships needs and expectations. Never trust to a third party to represent your interests to your employees without your extensive input — they can’t.

2 — How many people should be sent to public seminars? When a public seminar appears to meet your objectives, send a team of at least three people. Why at least three? To paraphrase what Peter Senge says in his 2008 book — «The Necessary Revolution» — one person, even the CEO, can’t make change happen by themselves, two people can have a conversation, but three or more can make change happen.

3 — Are we expecting this activity to improve individual poor performance? Don’t use seminars to attempt to improve poor individual performance. It’s not gonna happen. That’s a subject requiring one on one work, with the manager of the poor performer leading the way.

4 — Have we reviewed the content and objectives of the development? Do we support the objectives and message? For seminars to be successful, the leaders whom the participants will look to for support must be fully acquainted with the objectives, and sign up to support the participants. When the leadership says it’s too busy to spend the time necessary to get conversant with the content, spending money and effort on the content is a waste.

5 — Are our actions consistent with the message we are sending? Realize that action from the leaders within the organization speak louder than any words from even the most accomplished speaker or celebrity. Action speaks so loudly that what is said cannot be heard.

6 — Can we accomplish the same objectives using our own people? Who do we have that can teach others? Who do we have that can learn by teaching others? The best way to learn something is to teach it to someone else. Use that principle to develop the people in your organization. Make your own people your best meeting and seminar and meeting leaders — and your champions of change. Use outside services to train your own leaders.

7 — Are we using this activity to meet our needs, or are we trying to squeeze our needs into the goals of the seminar? Use third party seminars and development activities to advance the goals and behaviors identified by the organization. Don’t let the tail wag the dog.

It’s tempting to look for answers and silver bullets in the literature provided by professional development organizations. And their expertise is valuable. But its value is so much greater when blended with the unique needs of your organization. Plus, there are no silver bullets.