2x2 stall? Really? how good can that be in an event that has a footfall of 9000+ audience? This thought was nagging me while I was waiting to get on board my flight to Kolkata. What can we do to get maximum out of this event? what will be my competitor's strategy? They have a bigger space and an attractive setup, how can we pull the crowd to our stall?

Too many questions too little time to prepare. In the last call with my on-field team, they were clearly worried and requested to share some strategy. I muscled up and said with a firm tone not to worry and we can get this right. Nope, I did not have a plan, but it was important that my team felt confident that I am getting on board with a plan. There came my first lesson: When things are haywire, remember to keep calm. Stick to basics.

Spice jet announced a delay, as usual, and I saw this as a breather. I sat down in the cafeteria and listed down 15 things my team should do without fail and shared it to my team to calm their nerves. Nothing out of the blue but simple instructions such as they start off with a firm handshake, keep a smile always, do not hand the brochure first etc. These simple guideline worked like a charm as most of my teammates were participating in an event for the first time.

This was a 3-day event, every day from 10 to 7 and it is obvious that everyone is going to be drained very fast. Therefore, it is important to keep josh high. Every team has at least 2 who can connect with others and make them laugh, I Identified them bonded closely with and ensured to convey that their task was to keep the team motivated. While I identified the ones that lost energy and communicated to them, they would just walk up to them share a laugh and in a jiffy, they are up and running. There was my second learning, Your event's success is directly proportional to the team's energy

As a marketer, my first job at the event was to look at what other vendors were doing at the stalls and work out a plan to bring in more crowd to my stall. Since it was a bakery event there were stalls that sold essence, packaging materials and people bought them and carried around in a bag from the stall, that was the cue. They were bakers looking to buy in bulk. We positioned our best local salesman near these stalls and initiated conversations with all those who purchased and bought them over to our stall. This, my friend, is the third learning, always be vigilant. In any event, Observe. Strategize. Improvise.

Now that we were able to pull the crowd to our stall rapidly, we had to convert them. Thank full to our dev team back at the office for building some world-class products we just had to put them to the right use. Thus, the deadly combo an iPad, Bluetooth printer and a super cool sales guy who walks around with the iPad in hand and Bluetooth printer to the hip generating KOTs and handing them over to the crowd at the stall. This is the coolest learning of all, GIMMICKS WORK. People are at the event for a show. Give them one!

There was never a dull moment, in fact, we managed to close quite a few orders on the spot which actually brought in more energy to the team - we were hungry for more and generated a good number of leads and prospect.

To look back at the time when I started preparation for the event with just a few days left, the clutter that was in front, to the result we have reaped - wonderful. Although it is not yet done, we are still working on the followups, but as they as well begun is half done. With goals in front of us, here we are moving towards the post-event hustle and am sure the second half of the journey is going to be even more thrilling.