How to win best in show
If you'll read the criteria that the judges used to decide 'best in show', the actual booth's appearance was only one criteria.
The second criteria focused on the booth's staffing, how engaged they were with visitors. I couldn't agree more with the judges. With 21 tradeshow years at AT&T, a tradeshow without a booth duty schedule (e.g. so and so must be in the booth between 9 and 11) is unheard of. Kudos to the sales department for giving their utmost priority to welcoming existing and new customers to our booth. Standing hours and hours on your feet with a smile on your face isn't all that easy.
The third criteria in booth judging centered on how well the booth delivered the overall marketing message. Some of you may recognize the eye-catching graphics that were pulled directly from our advertising program. For our customers, the booth delivers yet another reminder of our vertical integration from the field to their stores. It's our main differentiation and the graphics integrated with an open-air farmers' market theme delivers it well. The overall marketing campaign is one worked on by Craig Wheeling, Bill Brindle and myself with a shout out to our graphic artist, David Litwin.
It's the little things and not so little things that sets this booth apart. A big thank you to Jeff Crawford and Armando Monterroso for the papaya and avocados trees that graced the corners of the show.
What might seem inconsequential is how the fruit was displayed. Bill was adamant about wanting the papayas stacked on their sides. It's how they should be displayed in the stores. Numerous existing and potential customers made comments about how they should sell papayas like that in their stores.
One gentleman (whom Sandra had been calling for over 6 months) literally walked up to me while I was standing besides the papaya display and said "that's it, I want those papayas" and with that he handed me his card and told me to call him next week for an order. The papaya display was the final push to give us this new account.
A shout out to the Quality Control team back in Homestead. Johnny, Alex and their team made sure we had the best fruit to show and it paid off.
Thanks to everyone who made winning 'best in show' happen. And that includes IDDG who developed and built the booth.
