Name Not Found - Name Not Found - Name Not Found

Do you want your customers to find you?  Do you want to be accessible?  Are you a customer service driven company?

These are all questions that each company should ask themselves on a regular basis.  With technology today, it seems companies are looking for the easy answer.  Let's automate to make it simpler.  I don't need anyone to answer the phone when someone calls.  I can save some money with an auto attendant.  BUT, do you save money or do you lose money?

What happened to the personal touch?  What happened to service?

Let's say I am a prospect and I want to check out pricing on your products.  I came to your booth at a trade show and I got a business card of a sales rep.    How about this scenario?

I call the number on the card.

"Hello you have reached the I Really Don't Want To Talk To You Company, if you know your parties' extension, please dial it now, otherwise press 411 to access our dial by name feature".  

I know the reps name and enter 411

Press 1 to dial by first name, press 2 to dial by last name" 

I enter 1 to dial by first name.  I mean really the first names are often shorter and easier to type.  I don't know about you, but typing by letters on a phone is not a skill I have nurtured.

"Name not found, please try again".

I enter the name again.

"Name not found, please try again".

I try again.

"Name not found, please try again".

I press 0 to try to reach a person, and I get disconnected.

I call back - go to the dial by name and try to dial by last name.  Guess what.

"Name not found, please try again".

The next thing I do is search another company that does the same thing and call them.  They have a live person answer the phone and direct me to the sales rep.  

Who do you think I will buy from?

Today I made a call where no one answered the phone.  They had a dial by name feature so I thought that would be perfect.  Tried the first name, "no such person in the directory"  tried the last name, "no such person in the directory", tried the first and last name of another employee, "no such person in the directory".  I then got the message,

"THERE HAVE BEEN TOO MANY FAILURES"  Their phone system then just disconnected me.

Yes I know that I have already written about Auto Attendants.  Call me old fashioned, but please, if you want to provide good service to your customers and prospects, make it easy for them to reach you.  You can read my previous rant here if you would like Auto Attendant Rant #1.  

A word of advice, check your phone systems, dial by name and auto attendant features fairly regularly so you are sure that it is working.  

Call yourself and try your own system.  You may be surprised at what you find.

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Lori Hanken has been in sales and marketing for over 30 years.  She is passionate about service and providing value to her vendors, prospects and clients.  Lori is currently co-owner of Total Displays with her husband David.  They help people look great at events, trade shows, in retail, museums and develop long partnerships with customers and suppliers.  If you would like to learn more, email her at lori@totaldisplays.com.  Connect with her on LinkedIn here.

Read other Total Displays Blog posts at http://totaldisplays.blogspot.com/

Structure Design Doesn't Matter

The most important thing when purchasing or looking to purchase a trade show exhibit to consider is the partnership you will create with the company you select to provide your booth or exhibit. There are many reasons I say this. Many of our customers have been with us for over 25 years. They trust us. We are honest with them. We provide them with phenomenal service. They like us. They could get a booth from MANY other companies, many of them even local.

But they stay with us. They know we will provide them with great product and a partnership that will last for years.

1. How long have they been in business?

1. Are you working strictly with a salesperson that is compensated based on how much you spend?

1. Are the owners of the company engaged in the business and active on a day to day basis?

1. Does the company offer multiple lines of products so that you have a great selection or are they limited to only what they manufacture?

1. Is the graphic printing technology the most current and up to date getting you the best products?

1. Are the products well made, do the break easily, stand the test of time?

1. Is the company listening to your needs?  Weight, function, set up time?

1. Ask for references on the company, the products, their service.

We had a prospect visit our showroom last week.  They had been renting and 10 x 10 booth for 8 years from a local supplier.  I was shocked to say the least!  That company spent boatloads of money over the 8 years to rent that booth.  They could have bought 4 nice 10 x 10's for the money that had spent.

Everyone gets hung up on structure design.  Here is the reality.  Most of the decent trade show houses out there can build a nice booth.  If you have seen something you like, they can most likely build it.  Don't get me wrong, I am not encouraging taking another companies design and building it.  That is unethical.  Also don't misunderstand the difference between quality builds and cheap builds.  That is a whole different issue to be addressed later.  Cheap imported structure with fabric or vinyl graphics printed on printers that are 3 or 4 generations old are not a good investment.  But I digress.

Design is very subjective.  Think about clothing.  You can stand someone in front of 6 different people and ask them if they like the outfit you are wearing.  If they are honest you will most likely get 6 different answers.  Designers try to take thoughts, words and sometimes scrawling from a cocktail napkin and translate it into just exactly what the prospect wants.  Do they "nail it" every time?  Probably not.  But don't make your decision just on the concept alone!

If the prospect that had come into our showroom was our client, I would have chatted with them after the 2nd rental about potential purchase.  I never want to see a client throw away money.  It is a complete disservice to them!

Customer service and the partnership are ultimately more important than the booth design itself.  Guess what?  If you don't like the preliminary concept you can make changes.  Sometimes we have completely scrapped the first design and started over.  Did we miss the mark?  Not necessarily.  Sometimes the prospect is learning through this process more about what they want and can articulate it better as the process goes on.

Do you know what is ironic to me?  New companies buy from us all the time.  Often our best prospects are referrals.  But you know what?  I almost NEVER have anyone ask me for references.  I almost always offer.  I find that honestly a little strange.  That tells me people are focused more on the product than the service they will receive and I believe that to be a mistake.


Here are some questions to consider when selecting a partner.

Check out this great article from one of our manufacturing partners here for more insight in selecting an exhibit partner.

Happy Hunting
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Lori Hanken has been in sales and marketing for over 30 years.  She is passionate about service and providing value to her vendors, prospects and clients.  Lori is currently co-owner of Total Displays with her husband David.  They help people look great at events, trade shows, in retail, museums and develop long partnerships with customers and suppliers.  If you would like to learn more, email her at lori@totaldisplays.com.  Connect with her on LinkedIn here.

Read other Total Displays Blog posts at http://totaldisplays.blogspot.com/

A Unique Perspective on Exhibitor Live 2016

All the hubbub from Exhibitor Live 2016 is starting to die down thankfully.   You may be wondering, what is Exhibitor Live?  Just like every major industry there are trade shows.  This is the trade show for the trade show industry.  Imagine all the exhibit providers, designers, graphic providers, trinket providers, video, av and more in one place.  It can be very overwhelming.

Industry veterans love going to connect with their partners, their clients and to research and seek out trends in the industry.  We go every year for those very reasons and we always enjoy it.   We don't exhibit at this event.  We are actually a prospect or customer for many of the exhibitors.  We are a competitor of some.

A large majority of the attendees are actually in the trade show industry as a provider of some sort.

Now before I get into the orange tags, a few facts.   I actually grumble about going every year.  I don't want to take the time away from family and from our business.  I don't want to spend the money (I am frugal, not cheap), but every year I go and many great things happen.  This year we built a relationship with a new provider about which are very excited.  We are about to become a distributor for a brand new product in the United States.  Unbelievably excited about this.  We had dinner with some of our favorite people, drinks with many others and got to see friends and partners that we have known for many years.  This is not an opening for anyone to say, "I told you so."

Now we get to the coveted orange name tags.  I say coveted because every exhibitor is watching for those orange tags.  An orange name tag indicates that the attendee is an exhibit buyer.  So these are end users that are interested in learning more and are possibly looking to buy an exhibit, services or other accessories that the exhibitors at this show provide.  I actually just read a blog post from someone that had been to Exhibitor Live for 23 years.  She ran into someone in an elevator with an orange tag that she chatted with and they became a prospect.  Not a criticism, just an observation.  Nearly everyone at Exhibitor Live that doesn't have an orange tag is looking for the orange tags!

Many years we have brought clients to this show and walked the show with them, looked for ideas, introduced them to our strategic partners and spent time with them.

This year we had the unique opportunity to walk the show with a prospect.  This company is making a decision in the next month on a large custom island booth with audio visual.   They have not yet selected us to build their booth.  Maybe my perspective was different this year.  Maybe that made the dance different.

There were some unique things that really surprised me this year while walking the show with this prospect.

• One of our competitors for this prospect registered the company for the show under the exhibit house name.  So they had the coveted orange tag but they had a well known exhibit house listed as a company name.

Let's talk about this one a bit.  Interesting concept right?  If they are scanned, they don't get scanned with their actual company name.  Could this exhibit house be afraid of other display houses talking to what they consider as their prospect?  I am not afraid of competition.  You can't win every deal but if you fear you competition you will lose more frequently.  But that is a discussion for another post.

• While walking the show floor with them I was amazed (appalled) at the vultures.  I mean seriously people almost tripped our prospect to get to them.   Even if we were in the aisle having a conversation with them, people would approach our prospect quite aggressively.  Of course the ultimate prize was to scan them.  

But I guess the joke was on them when the company name was actually another exhibit house.  I am surprised by the aggressiveness of the exhibitors.  I thought we were supposed to be the professionals in this industry, the leaders, the role models?

• One of our suppliers had a booth directly across the aisle from a competitor.   After booth set up was complete our supplier left the show floor.  When he returned to their booth he found the competitor had taken some graphics off the back of their frame and they were looking at the frame.  

Just an interesting bit of trivia.  The same company that registered a prospect with their exhibit house name is the same company that was taking apart a competitors booth.   Please do not guess who it was as a comment on this post.  I won't disparage a competitor like that.

Am I the only one that finds these behaviors disturbing?

If you have read any of my posts, I believe in business with integrity and honesty.  We may get beat by someone that is dishonest but I can guarantee they won't keep that relationship for 25 years like we have with many of our clients.

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Lori Hanken has been in sales and marketing for over 30 years.  She is passionate about service and providing value to her vendors, prospects and clients.  Lori is currently co-owner of Total Displays with her husband David.  They help people look great at events, trade shows, in retail, museums and develop long partnerships with customers and suppliers.  If you would like to learn more, email her at lori@totaldisplays.com.  Connect with her on LinkedIn here.

Read other Total Displays Blog posts at http://totaldisplays.blogspot.com/

BE HONEST - Just Say No

I believe that every person's time is valuable.  That is right, not just mine, everyone's.  There are many frustrating things in business, but one of the things that really gets me going is someone that wastes my time.  I try very hard not to waste anyone's time.  There are really easy ways to do that.

The easiest way?

BE HONEST.  

Sounds easy right?  There are so many passive-aggressive, can't stand confrontation, can't say no people out there.  If you can't say no thank you to someone, then you most likely should not be in a decision making position.  Really - how can you engage people in a project and then not give them the courtesy of an answer?  BE HONEST.  I would rather hear no, than no answer.

Let's face it.  Salespeople can take the answer no.  So why are people so afraid to say it to us?  Salespeople deal with different levels of rejection on a daily basis.  It could be as simple as the obvious gate keeper that says, "Oh I'm sorry, he just stepped out.  Would you like his voicemail?"  Or it could be someone yelling at you, "Don't ever call here again, we are not interested in you or your products".

Which one do you think I prefer?  #2 - hands down - all day - every day.  Just say no.  BE HONEST. It is ok.  I can take it.

We are a very service oriented sales organization.  Many consultants would say that we give away too much valuable knowledge and information during the sales cycle.   That we consult and offer things that we should actually be charging for.  Well, that may be true, but we are not going to change that.  If you decide to do business with us, we will offer you a lot of information and a high level of service.

Here is where we get burned.  Someone calls, they are looking for a new display.  Of course they are usually on a really short time frame.  They have a show coming up in just a few weeks.  We jump through every hoop imaginable, get our partners engaged, have production on stand-by because the prospect has said that they really want this booth.  Guess what happens?  They quit returning my calls, they don't answer emails.  Seriously - BE HONEST just tell me you bought something else or you aren't going to do anything.

Let's not forget the perennial tire kickers.  "Lori, we are going to look at updating our booth for the huge industry show this year.  Can you do some N/C product concepts for us and renderings and spend 15 hours with multiple meetings in your showroom, and come to our office to visit further?  Then I will decide (again) to not do anything this year and ask you to call me again next year?"

Ok, I exaggerate slightly.  But not much.

If you are just looking for budget numbers and considering an update, BE HONEST.  If you let me know that, I can gauge my time and responses appropriately.  Most likely I can get you what you need to make a good decision without jumping through all those hoops.  Will I jump through them for you the next time - most likely.  Should I pre-qualify the opportunity more?  Possibly.  But trust me, I do ask the right questions and often get the answers that indicate it is an opportunity that should be pursued.  What is your budget, do you have decision making capabilities, is the decision maker on board, what is your timeline etc. etc. etc.?

If you are not in sales, you need to know that a good sales rep gets really excited about a new opportunity.  What is the magic number where you have burned me with a no decision or a no response before I will quit responding? I honestly don't know.  If I did know, I would BE HONEST.

Will I change how I do things?  Probably not.  I still believe in full service sales and I believe it speaks to our culture.  Should I change how I do things?  There are probably a lot of opinions about that.  If you choose to share your opinions, feel free, be nice but BE HONEST.

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Lori Hanken has been in sales and marketing for over 30 years.  She is passionate about service and providing value to her vendors, prospects and clients.  Lori is currently co-owner of Total Displays with her husband David.  They help people look great at events, trade shows, in retail, museums and develop long partnerships with customers and suppliers.  If you would like to learn more, email her at lori@totaldisplays.com.  Connect with her on LinkedIn here.

Read other Total Displays Blog posts at http://totaldisplays.blogspot.com/

What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

For many years I sold, installed and supported ERP software written specifically for wholesale distribution clients.  I lived, ate, slept, breathed distribution.  I worked in every aspect of the company including, sales, purchasing, accounting and customer service.  One of the age long conversations was about keeping manufacturing and distribution as separate entities.  When manufacturers started selling direct to the end user, breaking the distribution chain, there were lots of problems and lots of companies very upset.  It is virtually impossible for a distributor to compete directly with a manufacturer.  Typically the manufacturer did not have the infrastructure in place to support a direct sales team.

Fast forward a number of years.  I have left the software industry and moved in the trade show exhibit, retail, museum and event space.  We are a distributor in that industry.  We research and source the best of the best products in the industry.  We keep on top of trends so that we can best service our clients and prospects and help them look the best they can.  We feel this allows us to be objective in product recommendations and can truly listen to our customer or prospect to recommend the best possible solution without being tied to a specific brand or product line.

As part of our offerings we provide printed graphics, fabric, vinyl, sintra and many other substrates.   We work with a few providers but all of the providers that we use DO NOT sell direct to the end user.  We have a couple of companies that call on us quite regularly to try to get us to sell their printing.  We always tell them the same thing.

When our client's job is on your production floor, what is to stop a sales rep from seeing it and thinking, hmmm I should be calling on that client, I can give them better pricing.  We had a rep that I personally knew from college try to get me to buy from them.  We sent a couple of jobs to them because of my relationship with her.  A couple of months later, she emailed me asking me to price a shipping case.  She sent me a picture of a case with OUR logo sticker right on the case.  I questioned her and told her that this was clearly our client.  She said she was given this account when she started with this company.


If you have read any of my posts you know how important trust and relationships are to me.   So, she wanted me to sell her products, but yet she was selling her products to our customers.  How does this make any sense?  Why would I ever trust having my customer's work in their facility for their reps to poach?

There is another company that has wanted our business.  We have had similar issues with them.  We decided to give them a shot and to quote a job.  We sent them the details and we got "the" phone call.  He said, "Lori I had to call you about this quote request.  This company is a current client of ours and we are bidding on this job also."  Do you think we got that business? No, I am sure as they knew we were bidding they undercut their pricing to be sure their price was less than ours.  As much as I love saving a customer money, we are in business, like everyone, to make a profit.

I just found out that one of our long time product providers in another industry is also selling direct to the end user.  I am deeply saddened and disappointed by this.  I will be digging deeper to find out the truth on this one.  We have been led to believe that they only sold through a distribution channel.

So I put this right out there to all of you companies that are selling direct to the end user and through a distribution channel.  Until you decide which you are going to be, we are not interested in doing business with you.  We will compete with you.  And, I will be bold enough to say, we will win many of those deals.

If there is one thing in business that I despise more than anything else is companies that are deceitful.

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Lori Hanken has been in sales and marketing for over 30 years.  She is passionate about service and providing value to her vendors, prospects and clients.  Lori is currently co-owner of Total Displays with her husband David.  They help people look great at events, trade shows, in retail, museums and develop long partnerships with customers and suppliers.  If you would like to learn more, email her at lori@totaldisplays.com.  Connect with her on LinkedIn here.

Read other Total Displays Blog posts at http://totaldisplays.blogspot.com/

Do You Value Partnerships - Update

If you red my post Do You Value Partnerships? you may be interested in a quick little update about this situation.

To recap, we lost a deal when our prospect asked a competitor to bid on a project we already had a verbal approval on.  The prospect had a number of issues but the biggest was they wanted to get a better price.  Our supplier - quickly responded to them and gave them pricing. Their pricing was the same as ours but from my conversations with our prospect, our competitor bid way below retail to get the business.

I called our partner out for not truly valuing our partnership. I sent them an email that received absolutely no response.  It didn't matter to them who got the business, because ultimately they got the business either way right?


So we were just at a trade show for our industry.   We went in with absolutely no preconceived notions about this show.  When we walked by representatives from our partner, they did not say a word to us.  We were at a reception and they were there sitting at a table right behind us.  Nothing.  They looked right at us multiple times and walked right by.  Maybe they didn't see you, you might say.  Maybe once or even twice.  We saw them MANY times during the week, on the show floor, at receptions, in the lobby.  No one even said hello.  From the people with whom I have spoken they believe that they are embarrassed by what they did.  I don't know.  If it were me I would have made the effort to repair the relationship, not ignore it.

Needless to say, we found another well recommended supplier to replace them.  We talked to many people in the industry to find out who they were using and our new supplier came VERY highly recommended.  We even heard many negative comments about the service from our former supplier.  Today I am placing my first order with our new partner.

Lori Hanken has been in sales and marketing for over 30 years.  She is passionate about service and providing value to her vendors, prospects and clients.  Lori is currently co-owner of Total Displays with her husband David.  They help people look great at events, trade shows, in retail, museums and develop long partnerships with customers and suppliers.  If you would like to learn more, email her at lori@totaldisplays.com.  Connect with her on LinkedIn here.

Read other Total Displays Blog posts at http://totaldisplays.blogspot.com/

Gate Keepers - Friend or Foe?

In today's world of immediate gratification it is rare anymore to even find a company with someone to answer a phone.  With the trend of auto attendants more and more companies are opting to not have a live person answer the phone.  Personally I think that is a mistake, but that is a topic for another day.  As a result of dial by names and auto attendants, I am finding less and less the traditional "gatekeeper" of old.

I will date myself, but at one time in my professional life, I was that gatekeeper.  This was before cell phones, before LinkedIn and before email.  Yikes, yes I am truly that old.  Back then, when someone was incredibly demanding and would call for the president of the company, they would demand his home phone number.  99% of the time I would politely tell them that was against company policy.   Generally speaking though people would take a phone call from anyone that called.  It was simply a matter of saying, "No thank you, I am not interested".  

So today, much to my surprise I came across a rather rude gatekeeper.  Today I was calling on a large, local financial services company.   I had already been in contact with a person at that company and had built a relationship with them.  Unfortunately they had left the company.  So my conversation went something like this:

GK:  Hello, can I get your name please?

L:  Lori

GK:  Are you a current financial services client or are you looking to become one?

(Note:  I am actually a prospect for them and they were treating me as such initially)

L:  No I am actually calling for a different reason.  I was working in the past with Sue Jones.  She is no longer there and I understand that Joan Johnson has taken over those responsibilities.  I am trying to reach her to follow up on the work I had done with Sue.

GK:  What is this in regards to?

L:  Your tradeshows and events.

GK:  Where are you calling from?

L:  Minneapolis?

GK:  What is your phone number?

L:  952-941-4511

GK:  What is the company name?

L:  Total Displays

GK:  Hold on, let me check

L:  Thank you

GK:  Due to her position within the company I am unable to put you through.

Ok, that was a complete new one to me.

So what is a hardy, pig headed sales person to do?  I called after 5 and the gatekeeper had gone home.  I was able to access a dial by name and get my contacts email address.  No I didn't speak with her in person, but the door cracked open slightly.

Now keep in mind, I wasn't trying to reach the president or even a C-Level exec.  I was trying to reach a corporate events manager.

Brand is everything about your company.  It is how you answer the phone, how you treat people, the language you use, your marketing materials and so much more.  People seriously underestimate the depth and power of a companies' brand.

So this experience raises some questions for me?

1.  When your business is a B2C business does it damage your corporate reputation when you are stand-offish or not approachable?

2. With the advent of social media and auto attendants, how important is the gatekeeper?

3.  What does it say about the company culture?

Inquiring minds want to know.

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Lori Hanken has been in sales and marketing for over 30 years.  She is passionate about service and providing value to her vendors, prospects and clients. Lori is currently co-owner of Total Displays with her husband David.  They help people look great at events and trade shows and develop long partnerships with customers and suppliers.  If you would like to learn more email her at lori@totaldisplays.com.  Connect with her on LinkedIn here.

Read other Total Displays Blog posts at http://totaldisplays.blogspot.com/