[EXHIBITOR EDITION] The Attendee’s Playbook: How to Plan for PACK EXPO Like a Vet

Guest: Robby Martin, Founder, 3-Fold Consulting

In this episode, PACK EXPO Veteran Robby Martin shares practical advice on when and how to start show prep, how exhibitor outreach can make or break a connection, and why personalization beats mass email blasts. This episode is packed with actionable ways to stand out on a crowded show floor.

Sean Riley: Hi, and welcome to unPACKed with PMMI. In this episode of unPACKed Exhibitor Edition, PACK EXPO Veteran Robby Martin shares practical advice on when and how to start show prep, how exhibitor outreach can make or break a connection, and why personalization beats mass email blasts. This episode is packed with actionable ways to stand out on a crowded show floor. So with all the fancy introductions out of the way, welcome to the podcast, Robby.

Robby Martin: Thank you, Sean. I'm really excited to do this, and hopefully, it will help somebody.

Sean Riley: Oh, anytime we can get an attendee on here to talk to the audience about the exhibitors and what exhibitors can do, we really want to take advantage of it. So I'm going to jump in with a two-parter, right off the bat. You're a long-time PACK EXPO attendee, so with your history of doing it, how early do you start researching companies, and what is the first thing you do when you start researching what exhibitors, what companies are going to be exhibiting at the show that you're going to want to stop by?

Robby Martin: It can depend on the year. There are times that I have been to where I had, in my workload at the time, I was really looking for what's new, what's different, what do we not know about, because there are always opportunities for that at any show. There are other years where I had specific projects going on and knew that we were starting to lean towards some solutions from a concept basis, so now I'm way more focused on types of equipment, who I might want to work with, those kinds of things. Now, all that said, for me, the searching, and I should add this. When you've done it for 25 years or more, like I have, there are also those that you initially go search because you want to be sure you're seeing specific people.

whenSean Riley: Exactly.

Robby Martin: That's a big deal for me, and that has grown in the later years of my career and my time in the CPG space. So those are kind of the three scenarios. The third one's easy, right? There are companies I know right off the bat I want to see. I usually start by searching them and getting them tagged in my planner on the trade show site, so that when I print that out, they'll be sure and be there. Hopefully, I will do my profile and indicate the types of things I'm looking for. That might change from year to year a little bit or from show to show, depending on my projects and where I'm focused. When I'm looking for just new technologies, I might actually check more boxes. Now, I may be stingier about who I really go see as well, based on pre-show communication or what I learned about those companies in the meantime. But the question you really asked me is, when do you start? And for me, I would tell you I typically wouldn't start before maybe three months out. I really get serious about it more like inside the last three weeks before I go to the show, where I might, if I haven't prepared well, and I'm coming down to only a week or 10 days left before the show, I'm starting to put a time in my calendar to be sure I'm doing show planning. So I've had times where my to-do list says, PACK EXPO planning.

Sean Riley: Because it can be overwhelming. There are 2,300 companies, and if you just try to show up, it's going to knock you down.

Robby Martin: Not only that, now I'll tell you there have been times where I took my last versions of Packaging World and I'm on the plane going through it and either pages or writing a list on a pad, right? So I'm not going to act like that never happens because that has also been the way I did it, but it's certainly not the most effective way. Using that plan ahead of time, doing the profile right first, and then using the planner ahead of time can make a big difference.

Sean Riley: Yeah, I would imagine it. Are there any other kinds of PMMI attendee resources that you utilized, or have you utilized in the past, when deciding where you want to go or how to get organized?

Robby Martin: Those are the big ones, and maybe that's because I'm a little bit unique, but I'm one of those who's, I think I'm going to pick who I hear from, not invite the whole world to try to reach out and grab me.

Sean Riley: I get what you're saying.

Robby Martin: Now, I also know that when I act that way, I'm not necessarily getting as broad a view as I ought to be, to be sure I'm not missing something at the show. I got away with that, if I'm honest, Sean. I could get away with that partly because I was in a CPG company that had a pretty narrow focus, especially in our core business. If I'd been at a bigger company with multiple platforms and multiple categories of grocery or HBA or whatever, I think I would've leaned in even harder on using the planner to organize my show prep, to really help me be ready to see the stuff I really need to see across, probably a broader set at that point in time.

Sean Riley: Okay. And you mentioned the show planner. Obviously, you use the exhibitor search. You touched on the Packaging World, providing the kind of game plan and a print version. Is there anything that exhibitors can do to make themselves pop in those situations, or is it really just what you stumble across?

Robby Martin: The show app really became a big crutch for me to use a lot.

Sean Riley: I would imagine. Yeah.

Robby Martin: I found that really effective. If I was at a booth and I'm talking to somebody and they're like, "We don't, but here's who does," and only at the show and usually most effectively with the app on my phone, could I figure out who that is, where they are and go, if I was really focused on trying to get somebody to talk about a particular topic. Sometimes I'll organize my show time in the half days. Maybe based on the building, or based on who it is, I'm going to plan to visit on a given day.

Sean Riley: No, that's very important, and I think I just assume that people are just because a younger generation is using it. I'm more from the print version like you, where I would have the printed out version like you were talking about, but I just assume in this day and age. But yeah, it's very important that everybody knows that there's an app, and the app is probably going to be the best way to move around.

Robby Martin: It is. I am not a super techie guy, but when I start to learn to use something, I depend on it quickly. And then, of course, I'm an old enough codger that I really get ticked off when it doesn't work right. And what I have found with the show app, is it tends to be there for me pretty consistently and can really help me. Because I don't know about you, but I have to remind myself what booth number I'm headed to, at least three times in the walk to the booth, if I'm not already in the out.

Sean Riley: Absolutely. We've mentioned there's 2,300 companies. What can they do to stand out on the apps, the printed material, or the exhibitor search? Is there anything that you've come across that has made exhibitors jump out at you?

Robby Martin: There are those, obviously, who do some sponsoring work within the planner, so they pop to the top of the list when you do a search. So technically, that makes them stand out, for me personally, that might or might not affect whether they're somebody I add to the list and go see, or whether I keep looking beyond that. When I think about the show and exhibitor, to me more effectively, I think the two ways they can do that are be really sure when I get to their booth that they're asking more questions than they are trying to tell me what they're selling. Because I'm usually looking for help, especially if I'm in one of those, "I think I'm going to be doing this and this from a call it unit ops machinery standpoint." And so, I want them to ask enough questions to be honoring of my time, enough to go, "We're not the right one. Here's who I'd recommend you go see." Or go, "You know what? We're not featuring that, but we do that. So give me a minute to get the right person or let me get the right video pulled up, or we owe it to you to do a follow-up after the show with you because we do that, but we don't have the right people here because we're just featuring something different." The place I struggle the most is when a vendor really wants to talk to me about the thing that probably their management hammered into their head the last 72 hours before the show opened, that this is what we're here to talk about, instead of those who are prepared to go, "No, we're here to meet people and find out what their issues are and see if there's a place we come alongside them to solve them." I'm usually looking for the ones that want to take that approach. And so to me, the standout sometimes happens in the engagement more than anywhere else.

Sean Riley: Do you have actual contact and connections for most of the people you're going to visit ahead of time? Do you make that and say, "I'm going to visit on XYZ day?" Or do you just have the companies that you're going to visit and then arrange them yourself, or both?

Robby Martin: Sean, in my history, there's an opportunity for a lot more of that. I believe, instead of just checking a box in my profile, or because I searched and I picked their company, and my search is somebody to visit, I get a canned email, a broad-based email. I think sometimes I would be way more likely to be sure I visit and learn from them, if when they identify me as looking for something they offer, somebody reaches out to go, "Can we try to book a time where we make sure we have the people here to meet with you?" Now, I understand a whole lot of them are probably getting 800 to 1,000 such leads.

Sean Riley: Sure.

Robby Martin: I can get that part. But for me, the difference makers would be the ones that say, "We may have something you're looking for. I'd love a chance to be sure we just schedule a time in the booth to be sure we have the right people there." The really big companies have coordinators in this development type of folks who do that stuff. I've had them reach out to me before the show and say, "What are the people from your company looking for? Because what I'd like to do is book a time to just have all y'all meet at our booth." And I've done it that way before, and it can be really effective because sometimes different people in the same company don't realize that three of them are going through booths asking all the same questions, and instead of learning together, they're not dividing to conquer, they're dividing to replicate. A system can work well, but if somebody reaches out and says, "We'd love to really talk to you about that and we'd like to make an appointment to be sure we get the right people here," that would help me be sure that their offering is getting on my list of stuff to check out at the show.

Sean Riley: Okay. Have any of those connections happened ahead of time? Have they led to any kind of memorable interactions like that that stand out with exhibitors?

Robby Martin: This goes way, way back, but I can remember a vendor who sold the company I was part of for over 20 years. They sold us our trade packers and our shrink. And when I started with the company in the early 2000s, that company's offering had not even really gotten into the servo age yet, but it came soon after I joined my company. And they reached out and said, "We've taken too long to get here, but we're here, and I want to be sure that we get all the people from your company together and spend time and demo this." And it happened to be a show where we had quite a number of people going. And so over time, because we'd worked with that company for a long time in that particular application, we bought a bunch of those machines, at a time when that machine really gained a lot of traction and sold a lot to other, both existing and new customers for that company. But the point was, we were already a pretty consistent customer forum, and they made the effort to be sure that something they knew they had needed to get to now that they had it, they prioritized our company as one of the ones to book time with at the show, for that purpose.

Sean Riley: I like that.

Robby Martin: If I were honest, there's probably been 20 of those over the 20 plus years, but I remember that one in particular because it was that big leap from chain and sprocket to servo world, that others had beat them to, but we loved everything else about dealing with this company, so we were actually pretty excited too to see where they were getting to.

Sean Riley: I like that. That's a win-win for everybody.

Robby Martin: Yep. That's right.

Sean Riley: We've touched on what to do ahead of time, what to do when you're there. How about keeping the conversation going after the show's over? Is there a follow-up strategy that you particularly like? Or, are there others that you found most effective in kind of building that, making sure that relationship continues and you're not just a lead that kind of falls by the wayside?

Robby Martin: Number one critical thing to me about that, both at the show and follow-up, is pretty extreme honesty. If I'm talking to them about a technology I'm interested in, but I know I'm going to take six months before I even have a project concept ready to try to sell internally, I'm telling them that.

Sean Riley: Okay.

Robby Martin: I don't need them calling me every other week for the next six months when I know I'm not going to move on it. Right?

Sean Riley: Right.

Robby Martin: Conversely, if we start to talk about something and they see a need they've never done before, but they're willing to try, I need them to be sure they say, "We've not done that, but we’ll take a shot at it." Versus, "Oh yeah, we can do it," when they've never done it before. That all starts at the show, but post-show, now they've got project timing context from me. I've got capability, workload, lead time, and maybe some price bracketing context from them. That makes follow-ups easy to choose timing for, and agendas for, open and honest contextual conversation really helps with guidance for what the right thing to do post is. So, it's hard to say there's a right time. Now, if they know and I know I didn't get to talk to the right person for the specific application, probably meeting that person needs to come sooner rather than later.

Sean Riley: Okay.

Robby Martin: That's probably going to start with, "Hey, I'm so and so. Your name was given to me by these folks who met you at the show, and I just want to start by making myself available to you to answer any questions that didn't get answered at the show." And then we kind of go from there. I'm going to hope they got the download of context of my situation from whoever I did talk to at the show, but it's also going to get me connected to the person who really can support me going forward. So those have to happen as soon as possible, or my contact list is screwed up. Right? They're not going to win points by frequency or rushing anything, and they can lose ground. I love it when anybody contacts me in that situation. It's also, "When's the appropriate time to follow up?"

Sean Riley: Love that.

Robby Martin: If they call me and I tell them, "Give me 90 days and I'll have a better idea of what our timeline looks like." And in 90 days, they're like, "Hey, you had told us 90 days and we're there. I'm checking in." If I got a beef with that, that's my problem, not theirs. And so, those are the types of things I'm talking about, I think, are really important.

Sean Riley: Okay. This was great, Robby. I really appreciate you, and we at PMMI and PACK EXPO appreciate you taking time out of your day to give us the attendee perspective and to help our exhibitors at the show have as much success as possible. So thanks again, Robby.

Robby Martin: Man, I'm glad to do it, Sean. Thank you so much.