Trade Show Success: How to Prepare for Your First Show

1. Introduction: Hi, I'm Shannon McNab. I'm a surface designer and illustrator from the Bay Area. I've exhibited at four art licensing trade shows over the past three years. I can say without a doubt that choosing to exhibit was one of the best decisions I made to help propel my business forward. But I also know that shows can be inexpensive and intimidating gamble. Especially, when there are so many little details that go into exhibiting. In fact, as I was preparing for my first show in 2017 I really struggled to find the information I needed and that's actually why I started chronically my show experiences on my blog three years ago and why I decided to make this comprehensive class. I want to demystify all of the confusing aspects of a trade show and give you the tools you need for success. We'll dive right in by discussing how to decide if you're prepared to exhibit. We'll also examine what makes a trade show-ready portfolio and it'll give you actionable tips on how to develop new pieces to strengthen your existing body of work. The second part of this class, we'll focus on trade show prep. Everything from designing banners and marketing material to creating your own show forums and pricing guide to advice on what mock ups to purchase for your booth. I'll walk you through a few client interaction scenarios as well as best practices to make the most of your show experience. Then we'll finish up by discussing the importance of a solid post-show follow-up strategy. This class is geared towards designers with limited experience who are trying to decide if exhibiting at a trade show is the right path for them or for those of you who already know you want to exhibit but you're intimidated by all the trade show of preparations involved. You're looking for a framework to follow to help give you a more successful show experience. 2. Two Methods to Decide If You’re Ready for a Show: Determining whether or not you're ready to exhibit at a trade show isn't an easy choice to make, especially since there's so many factors involved. One of the most obvious components is having a true passion for your art and the ambition to license your work, which motivate you to take such a big step in the first place. But passion and drive alone does not mean you're ready, nor does it automatically equate to a positive show experience when you exhibit. So how do you actually know when you're ready to take that leap? Well, there are two popular methods you can try that can help you decide whether or not exhibiting at a licensing trade show is right for you. The first option is to walk the show you're interested in as an attendee. Although attending and exhibiting will be vastly different experiences, walking the show can give you lots of helpful insights as to whether it's something you'd like to do. You'll see exhibiting designers interact with clients in person. Deciding to exhibit can be a difficult decision to make, especially if you've never been to or worked at a show before. By walking the show first, you'll get your own authentic glimpse of how it all works. You'll get to see how much attendee traffic there is and if you're lucky and a bit brave, you might even be able to talk one on one with a few exhibitors. Although if you do decide to approach an exhibitor it's important that you only do so when there's no one after their booth. If a client does walk by while you're talking, it's common courtesy for you to step away, even if you're not done chatting with the exhibitor. Con: timing can become an issue. Most shows usually run only once a year. So if you're hoping to exhibit sooner than a year from now, this option might not be a possibility for you. However, if you're on the fence or still feel like you're a beginner in the field, I'd say in most instances, it'd be worth it for you to wait and walk the show to determine if it's for you. Also, some trade shows actually run it twice a year but most of the time one of the shows will be bigger than the other. If that's the case, you're better off visiting the larger of the two shows. Pro: you'll see what styles of art are being presented and whether your art is a good fit. Each licensing show caters to a different blend of companies and markets and sadly, not all artists will do well at every show. For those that don't, many times it's because they didn't do enough research to know that there are isn't exactly what the attendee traffic was looking for. So by walking the show and taking notice of the boost with the most traffic, you'll get a good sense of what art styles are the most popular and can better assess whether yours will fit in to a particular show. Con: it can be expensive to attend as an artist, it can cost anywhere from 50 to more than $500 to purchase a ticket as an attending artist. For many people, that's simply too expensive, especially after factoring in travel costs. In fact that you're not allowed to approach attending companies as an attendee yourself. However, one way designers can get around this is to contact an exhibitor prior to the show and offer to help them during. If they agree, you'll receive a free badge from the exhibitor and get a first-hand look as a helper in their booth. Overall, I think attending a show can be a valuable method for determining whether your art will do well. It's best for people who prefer a little more time to reflect on their decision. However, if you're looking to make your decision more quickly or can't afford the expense of traveling to and attending a show, you can choose option number two, which is to schedule a consultation with a working professional in your industry. Many artists, agents, and surfaces liners, myself included, offer one-on-one consultations which can provide a much clearer idea on whether you and your work are ready for a trade show within a single hour long session. The good news with this option is that you'll get quality feedback on your portfolio and can implement their advice immediately. By spending the bulk of your consultation on a portfolio review, the advising creative should not only be able to tell you whether your art is ready for the market, but also give you ideas on ways to improve upon it, add to your existing body of work. If you tell them you're thinking about exhibiting at a trade show up prior to the session, you'll also hopefully have some time to ask them any major questions you may have. The main downside to consultations is that they can be expensive while paying for one-on-one session with an expert will not be as pricey as plane ticket and hotel costs for attending to show, it can still set you back a couple $100. In my experience though, the experts who value their time and set a high but fair price will usually provide the most value. My best advice for who you consult with is to choose the person or people you most often go to for guidance especially if you've developed a bit of a mentor mentee type of relationship with them already. I paid for several consultations myself over the years and those whom I developed a rapport with prior to booking the session, we're more insightful and encouraging than those who had not. 3. But Are You Really Ready to Exhibit?: The two methods we outlined in the last video are a great start, but they aren't the only ways you can gain insight on whether you're ready to exhibit. Instead, there are three other factors you can evaluate for yourself before deciding to pony up the cash to pay for a both. Number 1, the size of your portfolio. Because a trade show is such a large investment of both your time and money, you'd be wasting both if you exhibited with only a handful of designs. Now that doesn't mean you need hundreds of portfolio pieces to be ready. In reality, you only need to have 50 or 60 solid designs by the start of the trade show. But if that's too simple an answer for you, we'll go into what to design and how to present your work in the next two videos. Number 2, basic business knowledge. Now I know the business side of design can be daunting or boring at times, but if you only focus on the art, I guarantee you won't have a successful show. But you also don't need to have an MBA to be ready for it either. Instead, I'd suggest you focus on these three business fundamentals to evaluate if you're prepared. Long-term planning. The process of preparing for a trade show takes several months up to a year. You need to get into the habit of long-term planning, and be able to execute the plan. The good news is your plan doesn't have to be overly complicated. It can be as easy as keeping a document, listing everything you need to do plus a calendar with all your deadlines. Personally, I use air table for all my business planning because it helps keep everything in one place. If you're in need of a gentle push to keep you more organized, I have a link to my skill show class in the class resources PDF. It will show you how I use air table from a design business, including all my trade show planning. Finances, and budgeting. Not only should you have some money set aside for exhibiting expenses, you also need to prepare a budget that you can stick to. Show cost for individual exhibitors can range from a couple thousand to $10,000 or more. So doing some costs research beforehand for the particular show you're interested in is extremely important. If you want a little more guidance on this topic, there's a link in the class resources PDF to an article sharing a detailed analysis of all my costs associated with exhibiting at surtax my first time in 2017. If you're concerned about finances and want to keep costs down, you could also consider forming a collective with a few other designers or you split a lot of the costs associated with exhibiting. Unfortunately, I don't have any personal experience in working with the collective as I've always exhibited by myself so I can't speak to the pros and cons of doing so. However, I have included links to a blog post series written by the Four Corners collective on the pattern observer website if it's something you're interested in doing. Marketing and interacting with clients. The third business component you'll need if you want to be successful as a designer, and especially at trade shows, is that you need to get somewhat comfortable marketing yourself and your art, and be able to confidently talk with potential clients in person. I know that many artists, myself included are introverts. We can find it exhausting, or terrifying talking about ourselves, negotiating prices or reaching out to new people. But it's a necessary part of doing business as a self-employed artists. So if marketing yourself to others makes you uncomfortable, my advice is to take small steps to slowly build your confidence before the trade show. Number 3, your frame of mind. The last factor you need to consider is whether you have the right frame of mind to exhibit. Trade shows are incredibly expensive not only from a financial standpoint, but from a personal and creative one as well. You need to make sure you're prepared for the journey, and do your best to keep yourself in a positive headspace throughout the process. However, if that sounds too wooish for you, let me put it to you another way. You should approach a trade show as an investment in yourself and in your business. That means you need to go through the experience without any expectation that you'll make your money back. Instead, you should frame it as contributing to your growth as a designer. So whether or not you receive any contracts or clients from all your efforts, you will still have gained valuable insights about the industry and will be a stronger person, artist, and business owner because of it. With all that in mind, it's up to you to decide if exhibiting at a show is right for you right now. 4. Designing a Trade Show Ready Portfolio: As I mentioned in the last video, you should have a minimum of 50 quality designs in your portfolio to make your time and financial investment of exhibiting worth it. The best way to make sure you have enough art by the start of the trade show. This is set an art goal for yourself that's realistic. For example, let's say I have 20 weeks before my next trade show. Between now and then, I'll have some client projects, all the other show prep to complete, and some vacation and family time scheduled around the holidays. I would subtract around four 4-6 weeks for client and trade show related work, and another two weeks for a vacation. Which means I actually only have about 12 to 14 weeks to create new art. Knowing that I can comfortably create two new pieces per week, I would set a goal of between 24 and 28 new designs. I could go even a step further, and set monthly or weekly goals to keep me better on track. Once you've completed this process for figuring out how much are you can create between now and the show, you'll need to assess whether that gives you at least 50 designs. But there's a lot more that goes into portfolio planning for a trade show, than just the amount of pieces you have. Your portfolio should also show lots of variety. When I save variety, I mean that in two very different ways. First, let's talk about variety in terms of subject matter. A trade show portfolio should display a wide assortment of themes, but also a heavy emphasis on holiday and floral designs. Christmas itself is almost 50 percent of the surfaces I market, with florals right behind it, as the second most asked for theme. I'd suggest reserving at least half of your portfolio, to just those two categories. Then the remainder of your portfolio, you can focus on other themes you like to design for. Things like geometric-s, animals, food, or greeting card sentiments. Even within these categories, you should strive to show a range of themes. Like for Christmas, it's probably a good idea to include a few characters like Santa, reindeer or snowman. But also non character motifs like trees, presents, point set-is, and snowflakes. You can also throw some holiday phrases into the mix, if you enjoy creating hand lettering pieces. Again, the important part here is to include as much variation as you can when you're just starting out. The wider breadth your portfolio has the much likely you'll have a design that fits when a potential client asks to see a specific theme, which happens frequently at a trade show. The second way your portfolio should show variety is having a mix of patterns and illustrations. Unless all the markets you're targeting focused solely on one type, which is very rare. You'll be doing yourself a disservice, if you design too heavily towards just patterns or just illustrations. That doesn't mean your portfolio needs to be a perfect 50-50 split between the two. Especially, since it's likely you have an inclination to design one more than the other. Instead, I suggest building your portfolio, by designing what comes most naturally to you, whether that's patterns or illustration. Then take an occasional break from it and add one or two pieces from the other. The purpose of doing so, goes back to being able to capture a larger audience for your art because some companies only look for patterns, some only look for illustrations, and a lot of them look for both. The last thing I'd like to touch on is how to best create and display collections in your trade show portfolio. There are a few markets like bolt fabric that trend towards large collection of patterns. It's been my experience that smaller collections tend to do better at trades-hows for the majority of other markets. That's why I personally advocate creating small collections consisting of an illustration or hero pattern with an option to add one to two coordinates or placement prints. If you want to read about the benefits of including coordinates in your designs, there's a link in the class resources PDF to a blog post where I share their advantages. There's also a link to my quick 15-minute Skillshare class that shows you the exact method I use for building three pattern collections. However, if you're someone who enjoys creating larger pattern collections or illustration series, you don't need to change the way you design. Instead, you may just need to break up the larger collections onto multiple portfolio sheets. The benefit of presenting larger collections this way is that you aren't visually overwhelming clients that have smaller budgets. It allows you to license or sell each design or mini collection individually, which could translate to a greater profit than if you would include them all on a single sheet. 5. Booth Design Part 1: Banners: Besides building a strong portfolio, the next most important preparations for any trade show is creating a well-thought-out booth. That's because you have three seconds or less to grab a potential client's attention as they walk by. So it's incredibly important, thoughtfully display your art as best as you can. That's why your booth banners are the most important aspect of your booth design. The first thing you have to know before you start designing your banners is the layout and dimensions of your booth. You'll likely receive the information between six and two months prior to the show. However, if they don't give you exact measurements, it's always best to contact the show admin team directly and confirm the sizing because the last thing you want to happen is to create banners or design the space, and have it not fit correctly when you arrive. Once you've confirmed both the booth dimensions and your banner sizes, you can start developing what you want them to look like. The easiest way to do that is with a skilled down mock-up in Illustrator or Photoshop. Here you can see a screenshot of the final version of the mock-up for my 2019 Surtex booth, I build in Adobe Illustrator. The process of creating a booth mock- up can be time-consuming, so it's best to start the process as early as you can. Although you may find the idea of building your booth daunting, there are several loose guidelines you can utilize to help make the process a bit easier. First, you need to display variety. Just like we talked about for your portfolio, your booth needs to show breadth in subject matter. You should aim to include at least one holiday piece and one floral. However, depending on the size of your booth and how many banners you have, you may want to up that to a minimum of two holiday designs and two florals and just like your portfolio, you can use the remaining space to highlight your favorite designs from other categories. My fellow aisle mate at Surtex 2019, Liz Mytinger, did a fabulous job of displaying variety. She has a strong point of view and her work focuses almost entirely on cute characters. But she still managed to show a large range of themes within the nine panels of her booth. Next, you'll want to present a cohesive booth. The easiest way to do that is with color. Just like how you use color palettes in creating new artwork, utilizing a consistent color palette for your booth goes a long way in creating a unified booth design. I'm not saying you have to recolor your existing work to make everything an exact match. Instead, focus on two to three colors as the foundation of your booth design. Make sure that each piece you include contains at least one of those colors. Using my friend Lizzie Clark's booth from Surtex 2019 as an example, her booth banners focus on pink, mustard yellow, and gray. Each banner uses at least one if not two, of those colors and the result is an incredibly cohesive, and beautiful booth. Finally, you'll want to highlight your wild pieces. If you're booth is a traditional enclosed space like it's Surtex, you'll want your best designs on the banners at the edge of your booth as they're the ones most likely to be seen by people passing by. For me and my 2019 booth, that meant one of my newest florals and a highly detailed greeting card design. However, if you're exhibiting at a tabletop show like blueprint or print source, for retractable banners, are placed behind the table, you'll want your best designs placed at eye level on your banners. Here's my 2019 blueprint booth. And you can see that same floral from my Surtex booth showcased at eye level. Remember, you only have three seconds to capture someone's attention. So by placing your best work in a spot that has the highest likelihood to be within an attendee's line of sight, it gives you the best chance. They'll look and then stop in at your booth. Of the examples I've shown you from myself, Liz and Lizzy, you may be thinking that showing a few large-scale patterns in Illustrations is the only way to display your art in your booth. The reality is, that's just what we've found works for us. However, there are many successful designers who exhibit at trade shows that showcase several designs per panel. So I want you to feel free to experiment with the layout of your booth banners. Here's just a few of my favorite booth designs from the past few years to get your juices flowing. But if you're looking for even more inspiration, I have a link to my trade show booth design Pinterest board in the class resources PDF of this class. Now once you finalize your booth banner mock-up, you can move forward with creating them at full size and getting them printed. Depending on the printer you use and whether or not you get a test banner made first, can take anywhere from two to six weeks to receive them. So it's a good idea to order them at least a month prior to your first trade show. That way if anything goes wrong, you have time to fix it. For me, the absolute best printer out there for booth banners is Smartpress. You can find a link to both types of banners I've purchased on their website in the class resources PDF. There's also a blog post link, where I share my own booth banner snafu. It's worth a read if you want to avoid having your own banner horror story. 6. Booth Design Part 2: Mockups & Decor: Although the printed banners are the most important aspect of your booth design, it's also a good idea to consider adding in additional details like product mockups and decorations to liven up the space and show off your personality. You can do that in so many ways with the decor you choose and the best part is you don't have to spend a lot of money on it either. I suggest you look around your office or home, and chances are you'll find some cool objects that reflect your style. One of my favorite things to do is to bring a decorative face with me and then buy seasonal flowers to fill it when I'm at the show. Or if you're crafty, you can DIY some booth decor. The most popular option seems to be hanging banners or streamers made from paper, fabric or felt. For my own booth for search hex 2019, I handmade some pomp on banners from yarn that hung from the edges of my booth and my counter. It added an extra boost of color and when winzy to my booth. But hanging banners aren't the only thing you can do, so don't be afraid to get creative and come up with something unique for your booth. However, not everyone is super crafty, and many of us don't have lots of extra time to devote creating decor from scratch. Another great option for your booth is to bring products samples. This will be easy for you if you've worked with clients and already received product samples from them. However, if you're just starting out and don't have any samples yet, you can instead get mockups made, especially in this era of print on demand sites. It's incredibly easy to get one-off products made for you to use in your booth. However, the proliferation of these types of sites has its downsides. On the one hand, you can get easily overwhelmed by the plethora of choices and end up with analysis paralysis, or on the opposite end of the spectrum, you could go crazy and order your art on 20 different products and waste a ton of money in the process. To me, there are four guiding principles that you should consider before ordering product mockups with your art for your booth, are they products you want to design for? The first question you should always ask yourself is whether or not the product mockup you're considering buying is something you'd like to work on with clients. I know it can be tempting when you're starting out to be open to all markets and all products but you'll be better off if you narrow your focus, which leads me to point number two. Does your art style make sense for the product? There can be a huge variety in art styles within a single market but still not all art styles will work with every product. You'll need to ask yourself whether your designs work well on the product mockup you'd like to purchase and if they don't save your money and buy something better suited to your art. I made the mistake of purchasing two fashion scarves for my first trade show at 2017. However, if you look at my booth banners, you can see that the art I showcased at the show had a much younger cuter vibe that was more suited to gift wrap or stationary than women's fashion. Basically I wasted 60 bucks on product that wasn't a good match for the art I was presenting in my booth. Will it fit in my booth? Once you've determined that the product mockup you're considering is for a market you want to work in, and it goes with your art style, the next question you need to consider is whether you'll have space for it in your booth. If you're exhibiting at a tabletop show, you'll have very little space to work with, as most of the table space will be taken up by your portfolio. In this case, it's best to stick with two or three small products you can display that don't take up much space. Think of things like greeting cards, mugs, or journals and for traditional trade shows, the amount of space you have is really up to you. There's actually three different routes you can go. One, you could rent shelf space from the venue to display product mockups like I did at surtax in 2017 and 2018. Two, bring your own furniture for displaying products like I did for surtax 2019 or three, use the counter area to display products. Once you decide which option to move forward with, you'll know how much space you have to work with and it'll be much easier to decide how many products you'll need to fill the space. In this case, it's also a good idea to create a two scale planogram of any display you'll have. I created one for my 2019 Surtax Booth, as it was the first time I brought my own furniture and it helped me immensely. I ended up ordering just two different products to go along with my existing client samples to help finish off the space. I know for a fact that I likely would have ordered many more products had I not done the mockup first. How am I getting the product to the show? Are you close enough that you'll drive or are you flying across the country or around the world and the only room you have is in your suitcase? If your answer is the latter, you'll want to be very cautious about what products you bring with you as your space will be extremely limited. You also have the option with the traditional trade show to box up all your banners and booth decor and ship it straight to the venue. However, that's usually pretty darn expensive as you pay both for the shipping and the venue to hold and move your items for you. What do you do? Luckily, I've had lots of practice with this particular packing issue as I'm in California and every show I've ever exhibited at was in New York. There are two alternatives I've personally utilized that I suggest you consider. One, recruiting a local friend. This may not work in every instance for everyone. But I'm lucky to have a few East Coast friends I've been able to call upon. In one instance, my friend Lizzy, who was driving up from her home in Virginia, let me ship my banners to her and she drove them up along with all her own stuff. The following year, I sent my banners to a friend in the Bronx. Then once I arrived in New York, I took a train up to her place, picked up my banners, and took a lift directly to the venue. Two, bring a second suitcase you can check at the airport. If you don't have friends in the area of where you'll be exhibiting or want the peace of mind that everything will be traveling with you, the next best option is to bring a second large suitcase. For most flights, that means you'll have to pay an extra baggage fee, but I've found it to be worth the cost. In fact, for every show I've exhibited at, I've brought one large suitcase to check and one carry on so have never run out of room. No matter what decorations or product mockups you're considering for the show, it's important to not go overboard or get too complicated with your booth design. Remember the focus should always be on the art you're displaying on your banners. Any decor and mockups you decide to bring should enhance and not detract or distract from the art. 7. Pre-Show Marketing: I know many creatives get squeamish at the idea of marketing themselves, but it's an absolute necessity. After all, if you're not proactive with your efforts prior to the start of the show, you could end up missing out on meeting some great potential clients, so let's ease into talking about marketing with the area you're probably most familiar with. Instagram is the most visual social media platform. I'd say it's the gold standard of places for an artist to be. In fact, I'd say if you want to focus on just one social media outlet for all your marketing efforts, personally, I think Instagram should be it, so if you don't yet have an account, today would be a great day to start one. Instagram acts like a portfolio sorts for many designers, and allows companies and art directors a glimpse into our design process or offices and our most current work. As a general rule of thumb, I'd say it's a good idea to post to your account at least once a week for a minimum of six months leading up to a show. However, you'll gain more attraction, and have more art for potential clients to see, if you post at least a few times a week or even daily. On top of your regular posting, it can also be helpful to create a few trade show branded images that you post is the show gets closer. In these images, you need to make sure to include your name or logo, the trade show you're exhibiting at, and your booth number. You can also include the dates and location of the show if you have the space. Now how many images you design and how creative you get with them is up to you. But I suggest creating between two and six images. Once you've designed them, you can create a simple release calendar that shows you what day you'll post each image. I find the easiest way to do this is actually scheduled the Instagram posts in advance with an app like Later or Plan, or write the dates down and your physical or digital calendar. As far as when you should schedule them, I'd suggest posting your first image about two to three months before the show as your kickoff announcement that you'll be exhibiting, and your last image should be posted either the day before or on the first day of the show. Then depending on how many extra images you've designed, you can space them out between the first and last dates. One other consideration, specifically for Instagram is not to post trade show branded posts so often that they sit right next to each other in your feet. Instead, aimed to add at least five to six images to your feed in-between to space out your show branded posts. You could also choose to reuse your branded images provided enough time has gone by between them. Besides marketing on Instagram, the other simple but effective way to get your information out there is to submit your art to blogs or newsletter that run trade show previews. The most popular website for this is Print and Pattern. But there are others like Rise Design and Shine, Pattern Observer, or Uppercase Magazines, All About You newsletter. Now, not all of them will showcase artists for every upcoming show, so it's a good idea to research each option and make sure they actually share info about your particular show. Doing blog research will also help you decide how much art to send them and how to format the images as the guidelines are often different for each blog. But a good rule of thumb is to send between three and 10 images. Just make sure to include at least one of the trade show branded images you created for Instagram as part of the submission so that anyone reading your entry will know your name and booth number. Also for the remaining images you're sending that aren't branded to the show, it's important to at least include your name or logo, and your email address or website on the images. As it makes it much easier for someone to contact you directly, and can help deter people from stealing your art. One final submission tip is to make sure to send slightly different art to each blog. You should do this for two reasons. Each blog has its own file, and likely caters to a slightly different reader base, so your art should be curated to that, and two, bloggers also like their content to be unique, so while sending everyone the exact same Art is quicker, it isn't a good tactic. Now we've covered the two areas of generalized marketing that I think are the most helpful for trade shows. But there's one other aspect of marketing you shouldn't ignore, and that's direct targeting where you reach out to attendees prior to the show. While this is the most time-consuming aspect of pre-show marketing, I've also found it to be the most beneficial thing you can do. The best place to start is by asking all your current company contacts if they'll be attending the trade show. However, if you don't have any current clients, you can reach out to. There's one really effective way for finding out who will be at your show, and that's what your trade shows internal attendee search directory. Now, full disclosure, not every show has this capability, especially newer or smaller boutique like shows. However, if you're exhibiting at a larger or more established show like the licensing expo or SURTEX, it's something that should be available to you a few months before the show, and it's extremely valuable. Of course, most attendee lists are thousands of names long and well, you could go line by line researching every person and company, there's usually a slightly more efficient process. Most attendee directories have a search feature where you can limit the results by clicking on one or more search parameters. After you've searched through them all, you should hopefully have a list of anywhere from 25 to a 100 companies you'd like to work with, and the person or people at the company who will be attending the show. From there, you'll need to hunt down the email address of each person, which can be complicated and time-consuming in its own ride. Luckily, one of my classes, finding buyers for your art, specifically tackles this topic in video seven. You can find a link to that class and the class resources PDF. Now once you've found some of their email addresses, as it's unlikely you'll be successful finding all of them and that's totally normal, then you can reach out to them. I'd suggest that you send an introductory email about six to eight weeks prior to the show. You should keep it really short and sweet, attach three to five pieces of art then share a little bit about yourself, your art style, and that you're interested in working with them. If you need help drafting an email, I have a sample intro email script as part of the class resources of my finding buyers class. Just make sure to amend script to also include that you'll be exhibiting at the show, and don't forget to share your booth number with that. It can also be helpful to let them know you're available to take appointments so they can schedule time with you in advance if they'd like to. Appointments are pretty rare these days, especially for individual exhibitors, but it can still be a good thing to ask. Now if you don't hear back from anyone, or hear back from only a few people. Don't panic, because that's fairly typical. In fact, you should expect to hear back from fewer than 10 percent of the contexts you email. While that percentage sounds depressing, and may make you wonder why I'm suggesting you put in all this time and effort into direct marketing to potential clients, I want to let you know that just because they didn't write you back, doesn't mean they didn't open the email. In fact, I've had several occasions at trade shows where I meet someone at my booth that I reached out to but never responded to me via email before the show, so don't lose hope, instead, send them a quick follow-up email a week or two before the show just to remind them that you're exhibiting, show a few more pieces from your portfolio with them, and that you're still very excited to meet them and show them your work in person. 8. Preparation Timeline: Well, we covered printing deadlines for some of the materials you'll need for the show. I thought it would be helpful to discuss how to create your own preparation timeline to help you stay on top of all the details you need to keep track of. The best place to start, is to simply pull out a sheet of paper or two, and write a master list of everything you need to do for the show. The list shouldn't only include large items, like add to your portfolio, and design booth banners. It should include literally, every task you need to accomplish, right down to researching, and booking your hotel room. If you've been taking notes while watching this class, you can easily use those as a solid starting point. Once you have your master list, then it's important to set a deadline for every item on the list. This will require you to do some research, especially for list items that need to be printed, and shipped. By creating your task list with a timeline now, you won't have to end up making last minute decisions, right before a show when you're likely already hustling. So schedule a few hours or take a day, and research all the production, and shipping times you need to accommodate. I also suggest adding a week or two to most of your shipping deadlines to adjust for any unforeseen issues that may crop up. Setting deadlines will also give you a better sense of how much will need to get done each month, especially as some months will be much busier with show preps than others. It helps knowing in advance when you'll have less or more time to make new portfolio work. You'll be able to adjust your schedule accordingly. You probably won't be surprised to hear my favorite method for keeping track of every trade show task is with air table. As a reminder, there's a link to it in the class resources PDF. However, I know air table isn't for everyone. So you should feel free to use whatever method works for you, whether that's a Google Calendar, an Excel spreadsheet, or a bullet journal. As long as you keep your list handy at all times, it'll be just fine. 9. Final Thoughts + Assignment: I realized that your head might be spinning a little bit from the mountain of stuff we covered in this class. Of course, you may still be on the fence as to whether a trade show is right for you and your business right now or you may be unsure as to what your next step should be and that's where your class assignment comes in. Simply download the class assignment PDF which is a fun little quiz. It should take you less than 10 minutes to complete. Once you've finished it, you should have a much clearer idea of what their trade shows are right for you right now. After the quiz, you can move on to the portfolio planning PDF which should help you brainstorm ideas to help you get your portfolio trade show ready. Once you've completed both PDFs, I encourage you to come back and share what your trade show goal is in the project section of this class. Include an image or two of portfolio work that you feel are ready to go and what your plans are for adding to your existing body of work. Also, I realized it's very likely you still have some questions for me. If that's the case, I'd invite you to add them to the community section of this class. Doing so not only helps me address aspects of the show you want to know more about, but oftentimes your fellow designers will have the exact same questions, so it helps them too. Talking about trade shows is one of my absolute favorite topics, so I'd love to continue the conversation with you. I also want to say thank you so much for watching this class. If you enjoyed it, I'd appreciate it if you took a minute to leave a positive review or share it with a fellow designer who you think would find it helpful. If you do decide to sign up for an art licensing trade show, when you're ready to post your show announcement to Instagram I'd really appreciate it if you use the #tradeshowsuccess and tag me smncnabstudio in the post caption. [MUSIC] I really enjoy being a champion of small creative business and I would love to be able to follow along your trade show experience and help you make it a great one.