One of the first steps for successful expansion is participation in a foreign exhibition. We publish tips on how to better present yourself at such events from their direct participant Alexey Grebtsov, Chairman of the Board of ROG.

 

 

From February 5 to February 8, Munich will host the largest exhibition of sporting goods dedicated to the autumn-winter 2017/18 season. Tens of thousands of visitors from all over the world will drink a lot of beer, eat a couple of cars of sausages and will not even gather for a morning jog. The plans of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, as well as last season, to organize a stand at the exhibition "Russian outdoor village". Just like last time, with a 99% probability we will bring a lot of impressions and almost zero orders from the exhibition. The question is, why spend public money, buy samples, and endure the hardships of winter Munich yourself? This question worries everyone who, having buried potatoes on May 1, on the 2nd, tries to collect the seeds that have just been sown. I don't want to wait. Hunger overshadows common sense.

 

So why do we need an ISPO? And what are we doing wrong? Let's start with the fact that for the first, second, and third year, be prepared for the fact that your stand will be like glass. People passing by look right through you. Well, or at the pretty girls you brought. Moreover, this is not a question of creativity and various marketing wonders that really help. Every year, another traveling circus comes to such exhibitions, which sparkles and splashes with creativity of the purest water and fresh ideas, which after the first year most will bury in the potato field. Business is very inert and conservative. No one wants to ruin their store or network by launching an untested product into it. This is the rule for any business, and therefore everyone is waiting. If you showed up for the next year and beyond, you have confirmed your viability. And in three or four years you will acquire acquaintances and, possibly, customers. And this is a normal process. Therefore, patience and only patience. As toxins accumulate in the body, so we have to get into their well-functioning organism of the closed market for us, winning a place for ourselves.

Make beautiful and competent catalogs! It's complete nonsense that no one reads them. If the catalog pleases the eye, they will take it, at least for stealing interesting ideas. Good catalogs are stored for a long time and are viewed by hundreds of specialists. You begin to exist in an established alien world, and this is the first step for the transition from the glass state. Of course, catalogs should be done in their "language". I specifically put the word language in quotation marks because it's not just German, English or Italian. Look at the catalogs of foreign companies, pay attention to what is indicated in the description of the goods. For­­be about GOST, they don't know them! Funny? And that's exactly what happens. Tested – our textile workers have not been able to describe the fabric in parameters understandable to foreign customers for several years.
A lot of people are ready to take a business card, but are not ready to take a catalog. Be prepared for this. On the business card, it is necessary to indicate who you are and what. In a week, when the business cards will be sorted, no one will remember why and from whom it was taken. It is not necessary to make two-sided business cards in two languages. Leave the second side for notes or give information about your products on it, but only, please, briefly. No matter how much I would like to write a poem, we must not forget that the font should be readable without a magnifying glass.

And so, you have reached the world level, printed catalogs and business cards, and arrived. Maybe there is a small opportunity to make a website at least in English? Funny again? But 70% of our companies' websites are not only in Russian, but were also updated at best six months ago.

 

So, we have the help of the state, a stand, samples, catalogs and business cards. Managers and beautiful girls are sitting on the stand. Everyone is waiting for the buyers to come, but they don't come. What's wrong?

ISPO is a storehouse of design, technology, marketing, advertising moves and very smart specialists. Take your smartest guys and let them dig their noses all over the exhibition. Let them hang out at the stands of the grandees of the industry, glue beards and noses, but they extract everything they can from specialists at the stands. Believe me, if you look at them with devoted eyes, catching every word, in 10 minutes–15 they will tell you something that the holy Inquisition will not pull out of them. In a few days, your guys will finish annual courses in design and materials science. Take pictures on the sly, record your thoughts on a dictaphone. ISPO, like any professional foreign exhibition, is a drive, a celebration and an opportunity to show yourself.

 

And do you know what will happen after all this? You will suddenly realize that you are a smart girl! Yes, yes, and your head is boiling, and you are not so far behind the bourgeoisie, you just need to fix it here and finish it there. Use the proven world slogan – «Steal with dignity ». Steve Jobs used it a lot, and old Bill Gates didn't disdain it.

We will succeed. No, we are already doing a lot. Over the past couple of years, there has been a clear breakthrough in the right direction. It won't be easy, but no one promised. Come to the ISPO to support our guys: they deserve it.

 

Author: Alexey Grebtsov