5 sweet event motivation tips

Keeping motivated on-stand all day can be pretty tiring. Follow these 5 top tips to help you and your team feel more motivated throughout the day.

You’re going to an event, you’ve got a great team lined up and you know you’re going to be raring to go at 9am when the doors open to visitors.

But the prospect of keeping motivated on stand all day – and keeping your stand staff motivated may seem a little daunting when reality kicks in. Probably at 10.32am.

Exhibiting can be exciting, but also physically tiring and emotionally draining affairs when you need to be on top form all of the time. After all, you’re on a stage where everybody is watching your every move. Even one slip-up can turn off a potential client and affect your sales figures.

It’s imperative that you remain motivated with a positive demeanour all day in order to reap the rewards of leads and sales. But is that even humanly possible?

Tip 1: Make it competitive

If you’re exhibiting with a team, make it competitive. There’s nothing like a bit of healthy banter and competition based on sales target to motivate your team to do their best on the day.

If they beat their targets – or even if they have the most collective leads or sales, acknowledge them. Why not give them a nice bottle of bubbly as a prize? It’s a small token of appreciation that can go a long way to motivate your staff.

Tip 2: Don’t use coffee or sweets as a booster

By all means, have a nice cup of coffee or tea in the morning because you enjoy it, but don’t use it as a motivational tool to keep your energy up.

We know that 20% of exhibitors use tea and coffee as a motivational tool at exhibitions. The only trouble is, using it as a tool will also mean that you’ll experience a ‘downer’ as a consequence, which is not worth living through.

Instead if you’re in need of a food and drink related boost, opt for slow-releasing energy foods such as porridge in the morning or a banana and make sure you drink plenty of water to keep hydrated.

With all that talking, you’re bound to get a dry throat! Just make sure that you keep all water bottles and food off of the stand as it could put visitors off.

Tip 3: Take regular breaks

If you’re exhibiting with a team, make sure that you book in a schedule of breaks, with a morning and afternoon break to rest your feet off-stand as well as a lunch break.

This time away from stand is important to rest your feet, collect your thoughts and have some down time.

After all, it’s near-on-impossible to maintain a happy-go-lucky attitude and reach your full potential if you haven’t had a pit stop or two. It can be tempting to think “I haven’t got time for a break”, but making this time and sticking to it religiously can help to make sure you’re on peak performance when on-stand without running yourself into the ground.

Tip 4: Remember there’s no I in team

Teams that exhibit together, stay motivated together.

Make sure that your team are well acquainted before you exhibit – they should act symbiotically on the stand, making sure that everybody knows their role, their expectations and how they fit into the team. This will help every member to feel a part of the team, which will in turn help them to feel motivated toward their common goal.

Tip 5: Choose the right people

It’s important to choose the right people to exhibit with you to reach your goals.

This doesn’t always mean choosing the most outgoing, driven people in your team that you think will perform best (although if this is a choice then that’s definitely the best choice!).

But in reality, it’s making sure that your team are prepared. They may not originally want to exhibit as they don’t feel confident. So make them confident.

Put training sessions in place before the exhibition to run through your key messages and your campaign messages so that everybody is focused on the same goals and understands what you’re trying to achieve. Making them part of the journey to exhibit and letting them know how important and valued they are will always help in increasing their confidence and excitement about the event – which in turn leads to a motivated and happy team.