sales & marketing
by kendall cobb

At a recent meeting of the Business Marketing Association in Kansas City, a presenter from Denver, George Dennis, effectively convinced the attendees that they should be more alert to what they give away at trade shows. Dennis is a corporate intelligence expert who has personally gathered tremendous amounts of information from companies at trade shows. It’s another tool that corporate intelligence ‘spies’ use to learn more about your business.

Business intelligence operations are a fact of life. Today about one-third of Fortune 500 companies maintain funded and staffed intelligence departments—triple the number from 1996.
Trade shows, where the purpose of the show is to put information out in the open, provide a unique supermarket of facts and figures for competitors. At this supermarket, trained collectors get fresher and more varieties of information from people with first-hand experience than they could ever get from a brochure or phone call.

And, done correctly, business intelligence is legal, ethical, and undetectable. It’s done every day.

Corporate intelligence workers begin the process by pre-trade show planning. During the first planning meeting, product managers, technical specialists and marketers meet. What comes out of the meeting is a list of desired information.

At the same time, these product managers and market strategists decide what is not going to be revealed about themselves. We have found that most manufacturers have no idea that they have secrets others may want. But corporate intelligence experts do.

There will be several tasking meetings to refine the questions, making sure the information isn’t already known within the company. At the same time, a collector team is formed. The team picks through the floor plan, speaker list, and exhibitor personnel, pre-registered and press attendee lists. Team members call their friends and former colleagues. What they’re looking for are the most likely people to know the desired facts. They’re also boning up on all the target companies’ press materials, Web sites, chat groups, financial and personnel news. Does a competitor have a press conference scheduled? What’s it all about? Has the collector team cultivated a press contact to attend for them?

Travel day, and the game begins at the airport. No logo wear. Check the frequent flyer club, the restaurants and ticket lines because interesting sources are all over.

When the show starts, the work continues. In a panel room, one collector goes to the end of the line that rushes up to a targeted speaker, noting badges and listening to the questions being asked. When the collector’s turn comes, a simple thank you for a stimulating talk may be all it takes for an exchange of cards—perhaps an invitation for drinks or dinner. Another collector, who happens to be a guest speaker herself, heads for the speakers’ lounge. In this cozy environment, invited ‘experts’ regularly share confidential information amongst themselves because they are, well, experts.

As you can see, your plans to promote your company at a trade show can have adverse side effects. Our experience shows that salespeople love to talk and they let their guard down when they are away from the office. Careful companies don’t let their guards down though. They work to understand the traps that are out there, and to educate their sales and marketing sales people about what information is not to be revealed, under any circumstances. They will be joining their colleagues for additional training and information-control procedures, all in the name of today’s jobs and tomorrow’s profits.

Kendall Cobb is a project director for Missouri Enterprise and is the current president of the Kansas City chapter of the Business Marketing Association. He may be reached by phone at 816.482.1192 or by e-mail atkcobb@mebac.umr.edu.