Mike Urbonas – Product Marketing/Management and Business Intelligence Blog

Source: Tamar Weinberg (Flickr CC), self-proclaimed Schwag (Swag) Addict.

Note: I categorized this post as product marketing, but this really falls under marketing communications… oh well… Also, to experience the full dry, wannabe-comedic effect of this post, imagine Andy Rooney is reading this post to you.

The quality of a trade show is highly inverse to the number of tschotske hunters trolling for swag.  I’ve manned trade shows where I basically spent the day “feeding the bears” (with tschotskes).  My former employer wisely chose not to return to that show.

I also recall another tradeshow, held in the same venue for two years in a row, in which a local fellow, making the most of his free exhibit hall pass, showed up both years explaining he collected ball point pens as a hobby and whether my company giving any away.  Sorry, no pens here, for either year. I am grateful that the two higher ed technology conferences I just returned from were the polar opposite of those mulligan events and highly worthwhile!

Still, whether you call them tschotskes, trash and trinkets, giveaways or swag, you want to give your visitors something at trade shows.  Ideally, you want your tschotske to be something of interest and useful, such that they want to keep it for a long time, and ideally of some direct relevance to your company.  Touring the booths at a recent conference, I came across a number of interesting tschotskes:

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I am hooked on Shark Tank, the new ABC business reality TV show. Originating from the other side of the pond as Dragons’ Den on BBC, then on CBC, Shark Tank is now here in the US.

The premise of the show: five investors (also known as “venture capitalists” or “VCs,” but on the show they are…”sharks”!) listen to pitches from entrepreneurs seeking an investment into their businesses. That business may be an active, “real” business operation, like Tod Wilson, the very first entrepreneur on the show, who successfully secured an investment in his retail and wholesale pie business. Other proposals might come from one person with a great, or not-so-great, product idea, reminiscent of the past ABC series American Inventor.

The VCs might extend an offer to invest in the entrepreneur’s venture, perhaps offering to buy it outright, using their own money on terms they specify. The entrepreneur might accept, counteroffer or decline. Things get even more interesting when VCs compete against one another when presented with an investor pitch particularly like  (whoa, “feeding frenzy”!).

I like Shark Tank because it gives the viewer a taste of what’s involved with starting a business and getting money from outside investors to make it a reality. You have to have a product or at least a product idea that solves a problem that people will pay you for. The entrepreneurs, virtually all of whom initially offer a sliver of ownership for a hefty investment, soon realize they must give up substantial, even majority, ownership in the business in exchange for an investment. And you had better deliver an effective presentation.

I like the Shark Tank review by The AV Club which sums up what the program has going for it quite well:

So what does Shark Tank offer? Frankly, it offers a lot of solid business advice in a time when solid business advice is lacking. The five “sharks” at the show’s center are about as far from someone like Jim Cramer or the rest of the CNBC buffoons as you can get because they’re investing their own money and not trying to get you to invest your money.

All that said, there is one key piece of entrepreneur homework I would like to see more of on Shark Tank: market research.

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