Welcome to the 24th episode of the #AskAPrivateLender​​ Podcast brought to you by Mortgage Automator. In this episode, Joseph and Lawrence talk about tradeshows which can be an important lead generator for anyone in the hard money industry.

We cover the practical aspects of having a booth, things to take into account, giveaways, as well as how to pick shows that would work best for you, who you are likely to meet there, and some tips on how to approach people and establish new contacts. In other words, everything you need to know to ensure a proper return on your investment in those tradeshows.

Listen, watch, or read the interview below. And stay tuned for more episodes coming up!

 

Lawrence: Today we’re doing something a little bit different. Since we’re coming up to the end of the year and the trade show circuit is coming to an end, we thought it’d be beneficial for everyone listening to hear about our experiences going to trade shows, things that have worked, things that we’ve learned over time. Just to give you insights to make an informed decision on whether going to trade shows is right for you. And if you do choose to go to some, what are some things that you should know about.

So let’s get started, Joe. Preparing for the trade show. You make a decision, you say you want to go to a trade show in 60 days, maybe a few months. What do you have to do to get prepared to go to the trade shows?

Joseph: I would say the first thing that you want to do is make sure that the show you’re going to is going to be benefiting your business. You want to make sure the people attending are actually potential clients of yours that you think would be interested in using your product or working with you. And then obviously the costs, the cost of the actual show itself, how many tickets it comes with.

You have to factor all that into budgeting for these shows because trade show season is very expensive, and you want to make sure you’re getting the most out of your dollar and essentially your booth, what’s that going to cost you, the show, the tickets, the hotels. It does add up quite a bit. It’s not just the price of the booth itself. So I think it’s imperative that you crunch all your numbers to make sure the show is worthwhile to go to based on the cost.

Lawrence: So you’re going into exhibiting at a trade show, which obviously I’d like to dive into a little bit more, but even before exhibiting, I mean, even attending a show, you buy a ticket, you go to a show. Number one, there are a lot of shows and you want to make sure that you’re choosing to go to the right ones that are going to benefit you or your business.

I would say from just even an attending a show standpoint, you want to go and see who all the sponsors are. That’s number one, every single organization posts who’s sponsoring the shows. You want to look at that list and you want to see off the bat, is there anyone on this list that I need to talk to? Because when you get to a show, you’re going to see, it’s overwhelming. There are a lot of people, some of these shows have 700 people, 1,000 people, 100 exhibitors.

And if you just show up without being organized, you’re going to notice at the end of the day that you forgot to talk to certain people, or you missed certain people at the show that it would’ve been beneficial for you. So I would say the first thing is, see who’s there, who’s exhibiting, write down a list of people that you want to go to their booth because you have something that you need to discuss with them. The second thing that I’d say is really important is the majority of the shows have their own apps and you register for the apps and they’ll give you a list of attendees who are going to be there. So you can connect with people ahead of time, have conversations with them, set up meetings in preparation for going to the show.

I think it is important to be organized because a ticket to go to some of these conferences is a significant investment. Then you have to pay for your travel, your hotel, etc. It is a lot of money. But the great part about it is if you make just one contact, if you meet one person that’s going to positively impact your business, it is well worth it in the long run. So just for attending, I would say those are some important points.

Going into exhibiting at a show, it’s a whole other animal. So personally, what I’ve noticed is that there are trade show booths and setups that look like it took five minutes to get prepared. And then there are really nice booths. And I’m not saying you have to go out and spend $10k on your setup and be the nicest booth at the show, make it look like you’ve put effort and thought into it.

So you need to actually prepare and get something designed, that’s great for your business to attract the attendees to your booth to come to talk to you. It’s not as simple as getting two banners and throwing them up and everyone’s going to come to you. But a lot of it is actually going out into the crowd and pulling people into your booth, right? That’s really important. So I’d say the design of your booth, making sure that you’re getting your point across is really important. A place to get your booths designed and set up, you can go on Alibaba, which is really inexpensive. They can still do nice stuff. They’ll print whatever you want at a reasonable price. And if you get it and you don’t like it, you print another one.

Joseph: Even ourselves, we’ve changed our banner cover, I think, 4 or 5 times just as we’ve been evolving the product, adding more material to it. The styles, you always want to look fresh at these shows. You don’t want to seem dated. Sometimes you wonder, “I’m not sure if I want to go over to those guys, it looks like that booth is as old as their business. They haven’t changed anything.” Is this someone that’s evolving, innovating in this space? Whereas you see guys, they have their cool light backdrops. They’ve got screens. They’ve got interactive videos that are actually displaying what they’re doing. I think that’s all really important to the show because there are, like you said, 50-100 exhibitors. How are you standing out in front of that crowd? How are you really attracting those people to your booth?

Lawrence: What do you think about having stuff at the booth to give to people? Do you think it helps bring people in?

Joseph: I have my own personal take on it. I’ve seen some people give out some incredible giveaways at the shows. I would say a common mistake that everyone’s giving away today is hand sanitizer. I think it’s a waste of money. It leaves no impression, you use it, you either throw it in your bag or you throw it out. A lot of these companies are backed financially and they’re looking just to throw stuff out by the end of the show, they don’t even care.

There was one company, I’m not going to mention their name, but they were giving out actual toolkits for construction and it had a screwdriver and all the nuts and bolts. And I took it home with me and still look at it every single day. And I believe we even use that tool kit to assemble our booth. That is something that I’m continuously looking at every single time we’re setting up our booth or I use it at home, but those are expensive. Those kits are probably $20-$25. So do you have a budget of tens of thousands of dollars to generate these kits over the trade show season? Some people might say it’s worth it. One deal from that client will pay for that toolbox.

I do find that pens and the little notebooks and hand sanitizers, everyone’s giving them away,t’s not original. It doesn’t say anything about your company. It’s just for someone to just come to pick something off your table. I actually see people walking by the booths a bit before the show starts, taking stuff off people’s tables, just because they want a freebie.

It’s funny, because we don’t actually give anything away in our booth, but we do have an interactive setup with monitors though, which I think attracts people to talk to us. I don’t think you should be giving anything away, but again, it is something that people do all the time. I would just say, think of something creative to leave a lasting impression.

Lawrence: I agree with you. I think people are spending so much money to attend. They don’t really care about a pen, right? And maybe they have a pen with your company name and hopefully, they’ll bring it back to the office and hopefully, it’ll be on their desk and hopefully, they’ll have a deal for you or whatever it is and they’ll look and they’ll remember you. I think honestly, just having a booth with proper information about what you do and how you can help them. It’s just as good. I don’t think you need to just have something for the sake of having it.

Joseph: You don’t need anything. I think having either material that’s actually more important, like rates, fees, whatever you want to charge if you’re a lender or breakdown of what your product does. But I actually think that one of the most important things about the booth are the people that sit in that booth or stand in front of that booth. What I saw at a lot of the shows is, companies will send employees, which is fine. Obviously, owners don’t need to be at every show. The employees have to care, though. Sometimes I see guys or I talk to guys and they’re like, “I just want to go home”. And I see guys packing up two hours before the show is over. That is the biggest turnoff for me, that says the people that are representing this company do not care about the company or the product.

And I think if a company’s spending a lot of money, the people representing that booth have to be passionate about the company. Otherwise don’t go to these shows because we’re spending money on your behalf for you to earn clients or whatnot. And you better be there until the end. Seeing guys pack things up and it’s not a lot of people, but I have seen quite a few times, show ends at 5 and I see guys packing up 2:30,-3:00. Like one thing is you want to pack up at 4:30-4:45 because the floor’s kind of starting to die down and you have to catch a flight. I get it. But guys who are saying, “I’m tired. I don’t care to be here anymore”. “I’ve already given up all my stuff. I’m ready to go home”. And I hear them saying that, that’s kind of a warning sign for me.

Lawrence: At every show you go to, they give you a table, right? And there are two chairs behind that table for you to sit at, lay all your stuff on the table and people walk by. And I think it creates a separation between you and the people at the show. So what we do that I like is we get rid of that table and we bring our own little standup ones. But the idea is I like to be standing eye to eye so you’re part of the show. It’s more of a conversation and people are just surrounding your booth. Everyone is there. You feel like you’re part of the crowd. It just makes it easier to talk to people. That’s what I found. And there are few that do it. I think it’s an important thing to consider if you are going to be an exhibitor at a show.

Joseph: Definitely more inviting. I’ve noticed that people end up getting the 10×10 space. So it’s not a lot of space. And if 6/10 of that space, so call it 60%, 70% of that booth is taken up by your table and your backdrop, very little real estate is left for people to come by the booth. I’d also rather look at someone in the face, shake their hand, and again, not having that divide between the table. But when it’s an open space, you can have more people in your booth and you can have more people listening, talking to what’s going on with whatever conversation you’re having or whatever product you’re selling.

You’ll notice when you go to other shows, maybe not even some of the shows we go to, some of the larger shows, the guys who have the massive booths, they always have couches there for people to sit down, interact, have a full-blown, like a comfortable conversation. It’s more like, “Hey, have a seat. Let’s chat.” It’s more casual, less formal than, “Hi, here’s my card. Take it. Pick up my flyer, take the little hand sanitizer and move on to the next conversation.” I think those guys actually have it figured out, there’s more schmoozing and more relationship building that’s done in those booths than there are in those 10×10 with the table.

Lawrence: We go to the hard money conferences, we probably attend about 10 a year. What type of people attend those shows?

Joseph: The larger lenders are exhibiting because they want the smaller lenders to sell their notes to them. For sure.

Lawrence: Right? Software companies, obviously all different types of software. So it’s not just LOS and servicing software. You have appraisal companies, construction software companies, you may get some ideas from. Brokers also walk around there. They want to meet lenders.

Joseph: Brokers and table funders who don’t pull anything on their own balance sheets. You’ve got servicers, guys servicing the notes.

Lawrence: Big note buyers who don’t even exhibit, some of them walk around. They say things like, “Yeah, I’m from Wall Street. I’m looking for books of business to buy.”

Joseph: I would say insurance companies. Law firms. They’re soliciting business from the larger clientele and the smaller clientele. The accounting firm is always there.

Lawrence: Every aspect of a loan. If you’re doing any big business in the hard money space and you think you’re weak in any aspect, going to a show, you will meet someone in the space that you’re looking for. They’re there. You may have to search, right? You may do your preliminary search on who’s going to be there, who’s exhibiting, who are the attendees, but you will find them. And I don’t even think it matters which show you’re going to, they’re there. And again, some of them are better than others. Some shows are bigger than others. So do your homework ahead of time. See which ones are good for you. There are shows on the east coast, west coast. You can find a show near you.

What about setting up the booth, traveling with the booth? I would say there are different ways to do it. We’re from Canada. So we have to lug it back and forth. Pretty common if you’re in the States to have the booth shipped, it doesn’t really cost that much money to do that. And I’d recommend getting it shipped many, many days before the show starts.

Joseph: Yeah, if you do ground shipping, it takes like 5-6 days. It’s very uncommon that there are back-to-back shows literally in different states or across the nation. So 9/10 times you can just have it shipped and show up to the next show two weeks later. Obviously, if it’s a back-to-back show like we had one in California, then as soon as that’s done, flying to Florida, you’re going to just take it with you of course.

There are companies that obviously have a little bit more money and they’ll just pay to have the booth set up for them at the show. Some companies that have 100+ employees with billions of dollars of funds under management can afford it. And so they’ll just pay for someone to take the booth down and store it and show up at the next event. It’s a full service, but it is probably as expensive to do one setup as it is to buy the booth. I’ve heard of setups costing $5k, which I’d rather set up myself at that cost. But again, that’s my perspective. Other people will have a different perspective on it.

Lawrence: So people who go to trade shows obviously go to get more business. That’s the point of it. Meet people in the industry, see what they’re missing, learn.

What are some things that occur over the course of a trade show and conference that people should actually participate in to make it worthwhile?

Joseph: Some of the shows do it much better than others. They really think about all the interactive events they can have before a show. So some of the conferences will throw a golf event a day before and they tend to be on weekends because they don’t want to take up people’s time during the week. You’re spending four hours with three other people. It’s an incredible way to get to know people over the time frame, more time than you’ll spend usually than any other time at the show with somebody, that’s number one and you might get lucky and sometimes you’ll play with people that are amazing connections. And some people that’s just a good time, either way, that’s amazing because even if they like you, they might introduce you to other people in the future.

So either way, building new relationships is always amazing. A lot of these events also throw cocktail events that are sponsored by some of the larger exhibitors, the night before the show.

And that is usually something in the evening between 6 to 9 or 7 to 10. A lot of connections happen before the show. So you’re going to meet people. You bring your cards. You say, “I’m exhibiting come by the booth in the morning.” Now you already know who you’ve got to chase down or who you’ve got to pull into your booth the next morning because you’ve actually had time to talk to those people before the trade show rush. Because the trade show itself, it’s very intense. There’s a lot going on. Cards are exchanged. Sometimes you forget, they don’t have something on them at the time they promise to come back to you. You’re busy, you forget, this is a great time to collect cards before the show starts. Because even if you don’t connect with them at the show, you’ve already made that connection, you can call them after the show and try to connect afterward.

Lawrence: Golf tournament. I love the golf tournaments because even if the people you’re playing with, there’s not a business connection there, you’re going to find very often, more often than not those people are going to meet people at the show, and they know what you are doing. And all of a sudden, now they’re bringing people to you because you’ve played with them for 4 or 5 hours, at the golf tournament.

Then after the golf tournament, there’s usually a little reception too. So you’re hanging out with them again, create this quick friendship with these people who are going to help you throughout that show. And it’s a two-way street. So you have to know what they’re doing because you also want to be the person that’s going to help them as well. So I think that the golf tournament, yeah like you said, is very, very important.

You do want to know when the cocktail receptions are. You want to know what parties are going on. You want to do as much as possible. One thing you didn’t bring up that I think is really important too, is at every single trade show you’re going to see, there’s registration and breakfast between 7 and 8:30 AM or 8 to 9:00 AM. And I think people are like, “Okay, I’ll show up for breakfast, I won’t show up for breakfast, big deal I’m going to make it on time for the show.” The breakfast is an amazing opportunity to meet people, though. Because everyone’s sitting at a table, there’s an open seat. You get your breakfast, you sit down and now you’re meeting 10 people before the show even starts and they’re a captive audience.

Joseph: Everyone’s very open about that. I was shocked how friendly everybody was and how welcoming they were hearing your story, whether you’re running a $5B fund or you’re just someone who’s starting in the business, totally open to talking to you to understanding who you are because they’re also there to meet people. And if you’re standoffish, or you’re not open or friendly, you’re going to leave the wrong impression on these people. So everyone is extremely friendly and you’re right that 20-30 minutes of just getting to know people at an 8-10 person table, it’s so crucial, you do it during breakfast and you definitely do it during the lunch. And so that’s again, two more opportunities to bring people to your booth if you’re exhibiting, or to know what booth to go to after lunch. You might have not gone to that particular area, or you might have seen that booth before not realized what they did and never bothered going over. So you’re 100% right.

Lawrence: What about a solo shop? You run your own business, you’re going alone, maybe you’re not as outgoing as you could be, maybe you’re nervous to go. How easy is it to open up a conversation with people and how would you go about doing that?

Joseph: I’ve seen certain guys take full advantage of those apps. The apps make it really easy. You can reach out to people. You can book these appointments. These are people who have booked time slots to talk to you. So it doesn’t even need to be a super social setting, maybe you are not comfortable in those social settings. Maybe you don’t know people as well, there is a bit of camaraderie at these shows where you see the same face and they all become friends now. So if you’re new, it would be easier to talk to them through the apps, to set up these appointments. And then when you see them in another social setting, it’s easier to go approach them again.

The apps I think are a great way to do it, but in general, I’d say everyone is quite welcoming and open to talking to you at the shows. Someone’s outside having a beer or a drink. “Hey, I’m so and so, I’m from this company. Like, what do you do? What brings you here?” And they’ll strike up a convo with you.

Lawrence: One thing I really like about the US shows as opposed to the Canadian shows, and not to talk poorly on the Canadian shows, but I feel like the Canadian shows the people are kind of forced to be there. They get their tickets from their brokerage or wherever they’re getting them from and they’re showing up and it’s almost like, “Yay, I get a day off work.” That’s the way I feel about those shows. The shows in the US, people are spending hard-earned dollars to attend, they’re flying across the country. It’s a big investment for them. So they’re not looking to be in the corner, not talking to anyone.

They want to talk to people. They’re there for a purpose. They’re there to grow their business. So if you are on the shy side, going up and talking to someone, they want to hear from you, they want to hear what you’re up to. They want to know if you guys can do business together. No one is there on a free ride. Everyone is looking to improve their business. You just got to go to people.

Joseph: It’s funny you said that because at the Canadian shows the ticket price is like $50 bucks, $100, almost like you can show up for lunch and get your money’s worth. Those shows in the US are $1,000, and they’re multi-day events.

Lawrence: Plus hotels, flights, everything.

Joseph: Canada’s been closed. So there have been no shows for the last two years, but the speakers at the US events, you got to see how much those rooms fill up when the speakers are there. People are listening. People want to know what’s going on with the rules, with the regulatory bodies. I find that they also make mistakes with the Canadian shows. They keep the exhibitors in the same hall as where all the speakers are. And so the exhibitors are sitting there flipping their thumbs for hours at a time. And so it kind of throws them off. Whereas if someone doesn’t want to hear a certain session, they’re still welcome to go and talk to exhibitors. So the US has done a great job in separating the exhibitors from the speakers.

Whereas like you might only get an hour of action time at a Canadian show. You are on your feet from 8 in the morning, till 5 in the afternoon, assuming there’s no second day of constant people coming by your booth. And I think that you can justify why, even if the ticket price is 10x the price, it is absolutely worth going to those shows.

Lawrence: How do you leverage existing connections that you have, people that you know, maybe existing clients, or people that you do business with while you’re at the shows?

Joseph: I would say, if you’ve got friends at the show, have them in your booth. If you’re just having a chit-chat and someone comes by, “Hey, oh, by the way, I want you to meet one of my clients,” they’ll endorse your product for you. If there are more people in the booth and they start hearing your name more and more, it buys you credibility absolutely right away.

I think something that we learned the hard way, in the beginning, was that we sort of isolated ourselves. We didn’t talk to as many people in the beginning, but now that we’re sort of veterans at these shows, we know a lot of these people and it’s very easy to get around. There are always introductions being made, but I think you have to make that effort. And some of these shows have organizations within them as well. I would probably recommend you join the organizations that throw these shows. Then you get to know the members even better and have even further deeper relationships with either potential customers or actual customers as well.

Lawrence: One thing that I think that we learned over time, and we only really started doing this regularly recently, is when you see an existing client, they come to your booth to say hi, take a picture with them. Put it on social media, ask if they can give you a testimonial on video, do whatever you can to engage and get as much content as possible. Because it’s one thing to be there, it’s another to share that you’re there.

And then you can get a whole other potential group of people that are interested to know more about your product. I think the more content you can put out being at a show, the better. For example, we do a video of setting up the booth, a walkthrough of the venue, pictures of existing clients, and video testimonials. We’ll do a wrap-up at the end, basically explaining what happened, some of the highlights of the show, and thank the organizations, etc.

Joseph: If you’re taking photos with people in your booth and people are smiling, when people walk by, they’ll be like, “Wow, there’s like some genuine relations built with these guys. Like maybe I should go talk to them too.” They’re seeing people having fun in that booth. They might want to be a part of that. You’re definitely giving off a very positive energy that people are going to be attracted to.

Lawrence: Usually the organizations hire someone to go and take photos and maybe they’ll have their own little wrap-up, but we’re almost doing some of the work for them. It’s like advertising for them. We’re telling people how great of an event it was. And we’re showing people exactly what happened and the highlights. And getting a share from an organization that throws these trade shows, that have thousands of connections, more than thousands, probably tens of thousands. It’s huge.

Joseph: Not only do your own followers see it, but now, especially with LinkedIn, the impressions that I’ve seen from some of the shares have been 2k-3k views on a reshare they’ve made of one of my posts. If I’m only going to get, let’s say 500 views, they reshare because we’ve tagged their name or they’ve liked it. And then people see that they’ve liked it or commented on it, which they obviously will. That goes from 500 to 3,000 literally right away. And that’s huge because now people that are not within your primary connections are starting to add you. I’ve noticed a lot of people started adding me after the shows that I was not connected with or didn’t even potentially connect with.

Lawrence: You get a business card, someone comes to the booth, maybe you’re not exhibiting, you’re walking around, you’re meeting people, you’re exchanging business cards. What’s something that you do with that business card? Because I know myself personally, I like to write about the interaction on the card. Because you’re going to notice you’re going to go home with 50 cards, 100 cards. How are you going to remember everybody? What do you do?

Joseph: I have two sides to my jacket pockets. I have a side that directly relates to my business and is probably a really good business connection and then the other side is for secondary connections.

I’ll also send myself emails or I’ll even say to them, “Hey, what’s your email address? I’m going to email you right now. You tell me if you have some time next week,” like I’ll start planning, rather than me having to put the info in and then reach out after the show. And sometimes people get busy. If they’re hot to trot, and they’re excited about what we’re offering, what we’re exhibiting, I’ll literally just send them emails right away so that they have my details. They can instantly reply. They can tell me what their schedule looks like. And I just booked them in for potentially a meeting or whatever as soon as I get back, essentially. I know you and Pavel have been very good about writing on the cards themselves, I don’t do that. But again, I just separate. And I know in my brain, I remember like the super 10 most important interactions I had that day and who I have to speak to and either emails have already been sent or we’ve had such good communication, I know for a fact, I’m going to remember for sure.

Lawrence: Every conversation I go into, one of the important things I like to ask is what are you trying to get out of the show? Why are you here? What are you trying to improve in your business? Because I think if we match, and maybe there’s a potential there, I want to write down right after the conversation exactly what happened. So when I’m emailing or calling them at a later date, I know what that conversation was. I just want to bring things up.

So for us, we’re a software platform, we’re a LOS platform. But if I’m talking to a lender and I’m asking them, how big is your business? How many loans do you have? What’s your current process? What software are you currently using? I want to know that information; when I’m reaching out, I can point back and say, “Okay, this is the person I’m talking to. I remember them, I know the conversation we had, I know the struggles they’re having.” So it makes it a little bit easier to connect with them after, but I don’t think it’s the right or wrong way. I think it’s whatever will work for you.

Joseph: One thing that I remember Pavel doing when he was by himself was he would just take photos of the name badges, but another thing that he was doing, he was booking demos or meetings right away. And we kind of stopped doing that. It’s something I probably want to pick back up again. I’d probably say like, rather than giving away anything, going back to the tables with the hand sanitizer, is to have a tablet there. If someone is really excited and you’ve had a really solid conversation… some guys will stay in your booth for half an hour asking every question over the rainbow about what your product can or cannot do.

If they’re that excited, I want to book the demo right away. Why do I have to even think about taking the card and making a note? And hopefully, he doesn’t get busy. We should be taking our own advice from this podcast. But I do think that not many people at the shows do that. I don’t see tablets at the shows unless they’re showing something visually to them. But I think that’s really important. I think it could really help solidify more leads long-term for people.

Lawrence: Let’s talk about the hotels. We have different shows, different organizations, different ideas as to where these shows should take place. Some of them are five-star locations, others not so great. And this goes on both sides of the equation. Like number one, I think it’s important to stay at the hotel where the show’s taking place regardless of the price. So you may go to a show and some of these hotel rooms are $500-$600 a night, and maybe that’s not in your budget. Or maybe on the other end of the spectrum, the hotel they’re staying in is not somewhere you want to stay. How important is it to stay where the event is taking place?

Joseph: I think it’s absolutely crucial. I think that if that hotel is not up to your standards, based on the way you travel personally as an individual or with your spouse, I think you have to suck it up. I think that it is imperative. If you’re setting up the booth, having to lug your booth from hotel to hotel is kind of a disaster. But I think that just being able to mingle with people in the lobbies, “Where are you going for dinner?” People always tend to be in the lounges or the bar at the hotels. I think that if a hotel is a nice hotel because that particular organization likes to stay in nicer places, you have to suck it up. I think if you’re spending money on the ticket, that’s a thousand bucks and you’re paying for flights and you’re already there to tell people like, “Oh, I’m staying at this more affordable hotel because I don’t want to spend the money staying at this hotel.” They’re going to be like, “Why are you here? If money’s an issue, do I even want to work with you?”

Lawrence: Or if you wait till the hotel sells out. You’ve got to book the hotel right away.

Joseph: And again, as an exhibitor, you have to book because they get sold out. As an attendee, yes, you can come last minute. There are discounts offered by the hotels for show attendees. So you do get a promo code that you can apply that will save you a few bucks to stay at the hotel. Because they want to incentivize you to stay at the hotel, but you should be booking way ahead of time, they do sell out. And then people end up getting stuck staying at other hotels, which could be just as expensive by the way, depending on the weekend, what’s going on there. Vegas tends to be a big hotspot. And if there’s some other event, another conference, the rooms get actually sometimes more expensive.

Lawrence: The shows themselves sell out too. We were at a show in Miami, I think it was in March and there were 200 people in the lobby trying to get a ticket to the show. Sorry, there are already 700 people here. You can’t come.

Joseph: And they came thinking that they could just show up and come.

Lawrence: So if there’s a show on your list that you want to attend, buy the ticket, and buy it right away. Make sure you have access to go because they actually do sell out. I know it sounds surprising.

Joseph: The good shows definitely sell out.

Lawrence: So if you’re planning on attending a show, exhibiting at a show, do your research, look up on the internet to see what shows are around. Make sure you have a ticket ahead of time before things sell out. If you have any questions about attending a show, whether as an exhibitor or an attendee, reach out to us, we’re always happy to help.

And don’t be shy, we’re at all the shows, we hope we see you there. If you’re at a show and you don’t know us personally, come by, say hello. Our next show is in a couple of weeks, I’m sure you can look up online or reach out to us to see which show that is. And maybe we can meet you.