By Jack Cumming

My purposes in attending the Boston LeadingAge Annual Conference were to stay up to date on business trends affecting older people and to provide a resident presence. LeadingAge is not a grassroots organization. The resident presence is needed. The Exhibit Hall is filled with vendors hoping to connect with provider businesses.

Challenge of Age

One consequence of my resident status is that, at age 89, I am older than most attendees. My legs now ache when I walk, and I often need to sit to rest. That is most likely an aftereffect of polio in my childhood, though that’s never been confirmed. There I was, wandering the exhibit hall, looking for a place to rest for a moment.

That’s when my eye caught an empty booth. There was a table with two chairs. The vendor was CareScout™, but it might have been one of a hundred other booths. That empty chair was too much to resist. I sat down, figuring I’d get up if the booth crew arrived from Care Scout. But they didn’t.

Thinking Like a Vendor

As it turned out, I sat there for the better part of an hour. A vendor friend from another company saw me there and came by to take the other chair. As we sat there, it occurred to me that no one would know we weren’t the Care Scout representatives. I decided it would be interesting to experience what it’s like to be a vendor at the convention.

That change of perspective from merely resting to having a new experience made my rest much more interesting. The first thing I noticed was how passersby averted their eyes, lest they be drawn into a sales conversation. I have to empathize with that lonely vendor experience. A few booths are filled with vibrant conversations. Most booths, however, have little to make someone pause.

Most Are All Set

As I thought about it, I realized that most people who might want to learn more about whatever the vendor offered likely already have an established business relationship with a competitor. Unless they were actively shopping for a change, they would be unlikely to pause. They certainly wouldn’t want to identify themselves. No one likes to be hounded by salespeople looking for a sale.

During the 45 minutes or so that my friend and I sat in the booth, no one stopped by to ask about CareScout. It made me realize how discouraging it must be to staff a booth. At one time, NaCCRA, the National Continuing Care Residents Association, had a booth at the LeadingAge Annual Conferences. My experience then was very different from the experience of impersonating a vendor selling a product or service.

In those days, some people would drop by the NaCCRA booth to get a sense of the resident mindset and how they were thinking about the industry. The booth also provided a gathering spot for those few residents who attend LeadingAge Conferences. A few providers fund the travel for resident leaders in their communities, but for most residents, the expense outlay alone is more than they can afford. My attendance this year cost roughly $3,000, which is still thought to be considerable.

Where’s the Spark?

As I’ve thought about that vicarious vendor experience, a few ideas have come to mind.

1. It’s naïve to think that a booth staffed with no more than a salesperson will attract interest. You have to have something to grab attention.
2. Offering candy may seem like a good idea, but water and coffee may be more welcome.
3. It’s more congenial to have customer seating to bring visitors into conversation than to have a barrier table with customers standing.
4. If you have something that differentiates your company from your competitors, lead with that, so people can know instantly if that’s the feature that they lack and need. I asked one vendor what differentiated their service. The answer was that they serve senior living businesses. Snore. I moved on.
5. Best of all, have the CEO and other corporate principals in the booth, so they can get feedback and respond to prospects’ wishes.

A crowded exhibit hall is not the best place to get your salespeople in front of prospective customers. They can do that for themselves with their relationship-building skills. You may consider the LeadingAge Conference a “must-appear” event requiring an investment in a booth, but it’s also a wonderful listening opportunity to take your business from good to great.

Be Creative

If your business is creative and leading-edge, then that creativity should appear in your booth. The right hook will get people to pause and talk. They can learn from you, but more importantly, you can learn from them. That’s much better than a salesperson in a chair, struggling to stay awake while passersby have glazed-over eyes or averted glances.