Column: In-Person Events are Back -- What’s Your Plan?

By Tom Johnson, publisher, Set-Aside Alert

      If you’ve been working in the government marketplace for any length of time, I suspect you feel like I do: that virtual meetings with clients, colleagues and prospects for the last 18 months have not felt the same as meeting in person.

      Since late summer, we’ve seen more and more events returning to in-person formats, or at least hybrid ones. Starting with the HUBZone National Council meeting in August, we have returned to attending meetings, walking the exhibit floor, sitting in the auditorium during updates on changes in procurement regulations and dining on breakfast, lunch and dinner in group settings.

      Check the events in our Calendar and you’ll see numerous regional and national events with normal schedules of meals, seminars and schmoozing all around the country.

      Now is the time to establish policies and practices for your staff to enable this return to real-life successfully, efficiently and without a hitch. Here’s our list of suggestions for what should be covered.

Marketing Materials
1. Have you let your handouts and promotion materials get stale?

      Since you probably have not been distributing large quantities of copies and spreading them out in the real world, they may have been sitting in your computer memory or on the shelf in the supply room. Be ready when the next event comes along with current, up-to-date materials that promote you effectively.

     One-pagers are important for many events. For example, if you meet with a federal small business specialist and hand them your capability statement, the front page will probably be scanned into the agency’s repository – and anything beyond the first page may disappear, taking with it your prospects at that agency.

Display materials
2. Consider freshening up your banner, display table and booth designs. People haven’t seen you lately and perhaps have forgotten who you are. Catch their eye with a fresh look.

      Re-establish your logo visibility, your company’s unique areas of expertise, your size and industry certifications and your company’s clients and past performance.

COVID-19 measures
3. As you travel, throw a box of surgical masks in with your business cards, handouts and souvenir pens. You and your staff may need to mask up when manning your booth, or gathering at seminars or meals. These days, masks with your company logo might be popular swag and ways to get other people to promote your visuals, perhaps with a fun graphic or appropriate symbol. You may be asked to go for a night on the town by long-lost colleagues and customers so be ready to help others mask up.

Vaccination verification
4. Verify that your staff has been vaccinated before they depart for travel, or at least been appropriately tested within the prior 72 hours. You don’t want to spend $900 on someone’s airline ticket only to have them rejected at the airport, by the Uber driver, at the hotel check-in or at the conference registration table. Requirements are changing frequently and on short notice. There are many variations across regions, and even within states, counties, cities and individual businesses that you must plan ahead and make sure everyone goes prepared.

Planning ahead
5. Before you pack your bag and your exhibit materials, take time to plan your meetings and to identify whom you would like to contact.

      Will there be people at that meeting you would like to meet, or would you be better off selecting a different event that has less risk and more likelihood of impact?

     Some conferences seem to attract mostly people looking for new jobs or feature exhibit rooms where most of your time is spent talking to other exhibitors, with minimal foot traffic by actual prospects.

Meeting with decision-makers
6. Thinking specifically of agency industry days or conferences with speed-dating (one-on-one match-making sessions), have you checked out the mission of the featured agency mission and how that agency buys your products/services?

      Our colleague and government marketing expert Gloria Larkin has spoken frequently of TargetGov’s Rule of Three (https://bit.ly/3no7IpD). We all know about the government’s Rule of Two, but Gloria highlights another set of significant guidelines. Her third rule is “to never ask for or hold a meeting with anyone unless three or more upcoming contract opportunities have been identified to discuss… [I]f a contractor has done the homework and identified at least three upcoming opportunities through sources sought notices, agency spending forecasts, and previously awarded contracts it will be less challenging to actually ask for and schedule the meeting with … [a] decision-maker and carry it through to actually bidding and winning a government contract.” Good advice.

      As we get back to in-person meetings, we need to plan ahead to make these meeting opportunities as productive, efficient and effective as possible. In the past, I think of one subscriber in particular who always came to matchmaking sessions and conferences with a clear plan of attack and objectives of whom to talk to and how to focus attention on his company’s capabilities as related to agency’s needs. Are you that focused? Are you wasting your time and that of the agency’s/prime contractor’s representatives by grabbing whatever schedule openings exist without preparing to present your company effectively? Now is your opportunity to go on the offensive.

      A common mantra is “People do business with people they know and trust.” Are you ready to get back out and meet in person?

Tom Johnson is the publisher of Set-Aside Alert and a 45-year veteran of marketing to federal agencies, via GSA schedule contracts, small business set-asides, best practices for bid capture and web-based training. Contact him at tjohnson@setasidealert.com or visit http://www.SetAsideAlert.com.

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Column: In-Person Events are Back -- What’s Your Plan?

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