Cover the whole event, not just your stand

The arithmetic nobody puts in the proposal

Four people, ten-hour days, half an hour per conversation, no breaks and nobody ever standing idle: that is about 240 conversations across three days. At a 100,000 visitor event it is under 1% of the people in the building. The number does not improve with a better stand, a bigger screen or a louder giveaway, because it is a limit on human hours rather than on attention.

Everything else in an exhibition budget is spent on the 1%. The stand build, the flights, the hotel nights and the week of senior selling time all buy a position that most of the event walks past. The only lever that moves the percentage is more people having more conversations, and flying in more of your own is the most expensive way to pull it.

If you are exhibiting

Your team flew in to run the stand and that is where they stay, selling to whoever walks up. Everyone else walks past. Reps go out and find the buyers, investors and suppliers you came for, qualify them against your brief in the hall, and bring them to your stand for the introduction while your team keeps selling to the people already in front of them. Nobody leaves the stand unattended, and nobody spends the afternoon walking aisles on a hunch.

If you are not exhibiting

No stand, just your team walking the event, and the same arithmetic with fewer people in it. Reps multiply how many people you reach and they speak the languages your buyers speak, which at a Gulf event is frequently the difference between a conversation and a nod. Meetings are booked into your calendar or held in the venue's meeting areas rather than at a stand you do not have, and you find out what the event is worth to you before committing to build at it next year.

What this is not

• Not exhibition staffing or promoters. Hostesses and promoters are paid by the hour to hand out material and draw attention to a stand. It is a useful job and a different one. Reps qualify against a commercial brief and are paid per outcome, so trade show booth staffing and this are not competing purchases.
• Not a lead capture app. A badge scanner records the people who already came to you. It cannot go and find anybody, which means it can only ever improve the record of the 1%.
• Not an agency retainer. No monthly fee for a team whose activity you cannot see, and no invoice that stays the same whether the halls were busy or empty.
• Not a contact list. Every contact is a real conversation a named rep had, logged with the hall, the stand and what was discussed, which is also what makes it disputable if it does not match your brief.

Who this works for

Companies exhibiting outside their home market who cannot justify flying a full sales team to Dubai or Riyadh. Companies with a stand who want the halls their staff cannot physically reach. Companies evaluating an event for the first time who want a presence without committing to stand space. In each case the purchase is the same one: outsourced sales representatives who already work these venues, booked for the days of the event and paid for what they bring back.

What you get back

Contacts in your dashboard as they happen, each with the hall and stand it came from and a note on what was discussed. Meetings booked into your calendar for later the same day. CSV export and invoicing from the platform, and one account for your whole team rather than a file somebody emails around after the event. You can act on a contact while the person is still in the building, which is the point of the whole arrangement.