Taking full advantage of exhibition attendance

Ever been a wallflower at a party? It is galling to see other people surrounded by an admiring circle when you’re stood on your own. Imagine how much more exasperating this situation would be if you had paid for the privilege. Yet, this is effectively what many companies do when they don’t make the most of their attendance at an exhibition. A company may have paid exactly the same per square metre as a neighbouring stand which is inundated, whilst it’s own stand is having trouble attracting any interest. How do you avoid ‘wallflower syndrome’ and capitalise on the opportunity to exhibit your wares? Here we look at how to get value for money and make the most from every show you exhibit at.

Where to go and why: selecting your exhibition

The motivation for meeting attendance should not simply be to keep up with the Jones’ –— a protective measure driven by the fact that other companies are attending. A competitor may have a specific purpose for attendance, which may not apply to your company. Hence, the initial question to ask would be, “Why should we take part in an exhibition and which is the right one for us?”

Identify your company’s motivation for attending an exhibition. Do you want to promote a product, announce a collaboration, a geographical launch, or a combination of these? An exhibition is the ideal arena in which to make your market presence felt and establish your company as a key player in the field. However, this is only the case if you have matched your needs with a suitable exhibition – there is no use launching the latest instrumentation to speed up the drug discovery process at a show aimed at hospital doctors. A good clue, although it should not be the sole impetus, is whether your direct competitors will be there.

Conducting some research will help you address these issues. You may not be familiar with all the appropriate exhibitions in your field, particularly if they are overseas. Contacting the exhibition organisers or browsing their website will help illustrate the focus of the exhibition. It is worth asking for a list of companies that attended the previous year, and a contact name at three or four of them to obtain some feedback on the show’s success. If possible, a visit to this years shows can be useful, before committing your company, and its finances, to any particular shows the following year.

Location, location, location

The exhibition hall could be viewed as a large shop floor. Retailers spend much time and money on consumer psychology and market research when designing the layout of their stores. A few tricks of the trade (and many of them based on common sense) should be taken into account to avoid the ‘graveyard areas’ of the hall. A stand near an entrance or a lecture hall exploits high traffic areas and ensures yours is one of the first to make an impact on potential clients. By positioning your display near a refreshment area, you can exploit the fact that people often stay in these areas for longer, as well as providing a suitable area to take a client for a longer discussion.

If, due to time constraints in enlisting, you have been allocated a less than desirable location for your stand, it becomes important to ensure its visibility. A high tower emblazoned with the company logo, for instance, can help attract attention in a packed exhibition hall.

Is big always better?

Depending on what your company is hoping to achieve from exhibiting, the Texas theory (big is better) may not always apply. A large stand, which fails to attract many visitors can convey entirely the wrong message. Equally, a very small stand can lose you potential business if it is too busy or not manned by enough representatives. Does your company have collaborations with others? By linking up with complementary, non-competing companies you can create a really impressive stand and share costs.

How many stand representatives will be there? Are you planning on having a PA system or audio-visual equipment? Has the stand location forced you to consider a larger, more attention-grabbing display? These aspects all need consideration when planning the area of the display and whether you opt for a modular or purpose-built stand.

Although purpose-built stands can have more impact, modular systems are becoming more and more flexible, and are sometimes the cheaper option. Investigate different offers available and ask for demonstrations where possible. Bespoke stands, if designed to be flexible, can also be economical, as they can be used more than once. Will costs be accrued for stand assembly, transport (a real consideration overseas) and storage? A PR / design agency or stand manufacturer can help resolve these concerns.

What you chose to display at your stand obviously depends on your company, the products, launches, demonstrations etc. However, freely available literature, although informative, won’t allow you to obtain the names of the people who pick it up or their interests. So what do you do?

Making the most of your stand

There is little point in spending time and money on a stand if the people manning it cannot maximise on this potential. To encourage visitors to stop and talk, staff should ask open questions, making it much more difficult for browsers to make a sharp exit with “I’m fine thanks - just looking”.

Staff should be aware of what’s being exhibited and the messages the company wants to convey. Technical questions should be anticipated and at least one person on the stand should be able to help if asked about a product that doesn’t fall within their natural field of expertise. Staff should try and persuade any stand visitors to fill out a brief enquiry form, which will profile their requirements and could generate sales leads. If they don’t have time to spare, staff should try at least to request business cards or contact details and make a note of the visitor’s interests. Any valid enquiries should be followed-up as soon as possible after the show and if any prospects didn’t attend as anticipated, this provides the ideal excuse to mail them and let them know what they missed!

Concept and theme – a prime opportunity for creativity

An exhibition stand is a company’s chance to present its products in a creative and fun way. Client interaction and incentives such as a competition, or an imaginative product trial can work well. If your company has an established suite of marketing activities, tying your stand in with this theme can help promote a strong brand identity.



Alternatively, you may want to generate impact by trying something entirely different. If a competition is your method of generating stand traffic, this is a good way of getting entrants to question the staff on their products. The level and mindset of the audience should be taken into account when organising this competition. Giveaways are still surprisingly effective, have a look at your desk to see how many promotional pens you’ve picked up through conference attendance! However, it is advisable to be wary of last minute gimmicks as this may only serve to attract opportunists rather than those genuinely interested in the company. If you plan to use any potentially disruptive media — large displays, audio-visual equipment, PA systems, be sure to notify the organisers beforehand.

Communicating your attendance

By far the best policy to ensure your stand is busy is to concentrate on pre-show publicity. You can make use of the free promotion from the excerpt featured in the organisers free catalogue — and again this entry can be used as a basis for any press releases alerting attendees of your presence at the exhibition.

The organiser can help PR activity in other ways: they may have a list of journals intending to preview or visit the show, they may give you access to their mailing lists, supply logos for use on preview materials, provide you with free tickets to send to guests and arrange pre-show tours.

Sending out a press release or even a simple letter, particularly with an incentive like a free ticket or the chance to enter a competition, is good practice. An alternative would be to add a mini-alert to your newsletter or a flash across an advert, informing people of your attendance and stand number. Sales reps and agents should be aware of the company’s attendance and can be given tickets to distribute.

Value-added attendance

To get the most out of exhibitions and conferences, take the opportunity they provide for networking. Liaise with agents and distributors, particularly if they happen to be based overseas and organise a distributor meeting if needed. Many companies use meetings as a chance to arrange a satellite workshop, perhaps in a nearby hotel, for more in-depth discussions with a particular body of experts.

Most shows are attended by the press – which provides a chance to profile new products with editors and journalists. If in doubt of who you ought to contact, enlist the help of the conference organisers or your PR company. Alternatively, approach the inhabitants of the press room yourself – or at least stock the room with company information (although there is no guarantee of its uptake).

Was it a success?

To ensure that the answer to this question is ‘yes’, if not this time, then in years to come, an evaluation of your attendance is essential. Appraise visitor profiles and numbers; stand location and design; stand manning, training and value for money versus other promotional activities. From this assessment a decision can be made about attendance next year, or perhaps the need to make a different selection in your choice of exhibition.

 

 

 

You made the sale, bagged the order, and closed the deal. Everyone’s happy. The customer is ready to sign the document because they love you, love the product, love the company and can’t wait to have the product in their hospital or theatre. The order book is open. There is plenty of extra money. But in your eagerness or nervousness to “make the sale,” you leave all the extra money on the table.

Up-selling or add-on-selling is the single biggest lost opportunity in sales. Up-selling can be defined in one word: Ask. Want another word? Question. Want another one? Suggest. Another? Recommend. All of these words make up the core of the up-sell process. And up-sell is the sister to a referral – both are sales-after-the-sale. Both are “in addition” to what you already have sold. The big difference is that up-sells are now and referrals are later. Both require asking or further engaging – but the referral can also be earned.

Both referrals and up-sells are sciences that must be mastered to maximize the use of time and pounds of profit. What could you up-sell? What can you add to an order? What else can you ask for when a customer places an order? How much more could you earn by doing that? I think the answer is “lots.”

Every business has options. Not just upgrade a model to a higher-priced one. I mean sell a car and up-sell prepaid repairs and a warranty. Or sell a suit and up-sell a shirt and a tie. Mobile phones have covers, batteries and chargers. Appliances have warranties. And the same runs true in the medical world. Operating tables have various attachments, camera systems have all the various hand pieces and accessories, and of course with all equipment you can up-sell service contracts. What is it for you? What could you or, better stated, what should you be adding to your orders? Do you have a list? Do you have a great way to add them?

The up-sell sales theory is: Once the purse strings are open, empty it.

The customer is in a buying mood. They have already made up their mind and are open to any suggestion that will help them. It all rests on your ability to engage, combined with how much trust you have built. Think about how you buy. As soon as you make up your mind to buy that pair of shoes or shirt, you’re looking around for “what else.” Or if the assistant makes a suggestion, you’re all ears (or should I say, all wallet).

Do you want to make more up-sales? Not making enough of them? A strategic advantage can be had by the way you ask for the up-sell. Look at the classic model: There is the same old question you hear at any convenience store, “Anything else?” This is a feeble attempt at up-sell. Too generic. And usually not even answered. People just lay their money on the counter.

Now let’s look at the classic example of upsell in modern business, “Do you want fries with that?” Millions of pounds have been generated from that single question. Possibly the greatest up-sell question ever invented. It’s a specific request. And many are likely to just say “OK” without giving it a second thought. This question has been upgraded to “value meals” and other variations. But the classic example will reign supreme. Everyone reading this has heard that question and responded in the affirmative. That’s powerful. And it’s money in the bank.

If the convenience store employee would say, “Most people forget cigarettes, a bag of crisps and something to drink, what have you forgotten?” the additional cash results would be staggering.

There are two options in up-sell. You can ask or you can tell. Asking is the softer approach, but telling has more power, especially if you are confident you are helping. The lost science of up-selling is broken down into forms or elements. Here are a few to contemplate:

• Recommend I think you should also get…
• Suggest You may also want to add…
• Consult I have personal experience with this and I urge you to…
• Question Have you thought about…? Have you ever tried…?
Do you know about…?

• Power phrases My experience has shown me…, the best value is…, the most profitable way is to add…
• Make it a deal If you buy another I will discount…
• Comfort them Most people take…., everyone else uses…
• Ask Would you like…?

Up-selling is not top-of-mind awareness. And sales people are busy thinking about the next thing. Often, in retail sales or catalogue sales or inside sales, the other phone is ringing, or a customer is waiting and you have no time to add profit or more profit to the sale. Big mistake. Or the big mistake of management thinking it can have fewer salespeople or pile up salespeople with paperwork. This is not only a big mistake, it is also a stupid mistake.

 

 

 

By Margaret Mackay RGN & Anne Nears BSc,RGN

Introduction

This article aims to inform those within the medical device industry about the issues of patient confidentiality and informed consent and how these issues relate to medical /surgical representatives visiting and working within the operating department and hospital environment.

The increase in medical negligence litigation has forced a re-examination of the issues of informed consent and patient confidentiality. Given that the industry representative wishes to promote and evaluate his product as it is used in direct patient care, are we now reaching the point where the industry representative is being asked to provide evidence of competence encompassing consent and confidentiality.

As we explore these issues we aim to identify the benefits which would be shared by the medical device industry, the health trusts and ultimately the patient.

Informed Consent

Informed consent by definition is consent given by the patient after a full and comprehensive explanation of the procedure is given. Consent should be sought by the surgeon or physician who will carry out the procedure or someone who is capable of carrying out the procedure. For consent to be valid, ‘a patient must be competent to make the necessary decision, be provided with sufficient information and act voluntary’....(BJS 2001) While debate continues about the difficulties of obtaining informed consent and whether patients who have little knowledge of the disease process and surgical options can ever really be fully informed, the healthcare professional must strive to provide the patient with as much information as is wished, in language which can be understood and then give the patient the opportunity to reflect on this information and ask questions.

The Human Rights Act 1998 Article 8 which was implemented in October 2000 states that ‘everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.... unless it is in the interests of national security, public safety....’ Therefore, to maintain patient confidentiality and privacy the possible presence in the operating theatre of industry personnel and the reasons for their being there should be fully explained to the patient. At what stage this consent should be sought is again a subject of debate. Some surgeons are now discussing the role of the industry representative in the operating theatre with the patient, and recommending that it is in the patientís interest for the surgeon to have the verbal and technical expertise of the product specialist/industry representative during surgery. Armed with this information regarding their procedure and any individuals who might be present, the patient must then be given every opportunity to fully discuss this information with the consultant and have their questions answered honestly and in a manner which the patient can understood.

Verbal and written consent should always be obtained before any procedure is undertaken. The patient has the right to refuse consent to the presence of individuals from any discipline if they are considered to be non essential to the procedure. Non essential personnel may include medical and nursing students, paramedics in training as well as representatives of the medical devices industry Failure to obtain informed consent from the patient for any clinical procedure including taking photographs could result in the charge of trespass against the person. (The charge is of assault in Scotland)

Confidentiality

The right to confidentiality is enshrined in law. All hospital staff owe the patient a duty of care and have a contractual obligation to respect patient confidentiality both within their place of work and when they are not on duty. This legal obligation is also incumbent on all industry representatives/product specialists who have access to clinical areas and confidential patient information. They have a legal duty to respect the confidence of all patients (Dimond 2002) and this includes verbal information, written data and copies of any images in whatever format, taken by themselves or others. (DOH 1996) A concern has been identified during our training courses, which relates to the industry representative taking photographs of the patient in theatre without the patientís knowledge or consent. Whether these photographs are taken as digital or conventional images, the lack of patient consent constitutes a gross invasion of their right to confidentiality. It is worth noting that even though the patient cannot be identified,

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“ The patient has the right to refuse consent to the presence of individuals from any discipline if they are considered to be non essential to the procedure.”

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freely given consent is a requirement for all photographic work. (DOH 2001) The legal implications of this breach of confidentiality to the hospital trust are enormous. If the photographs were to be used in advertising material for the medical device company, the patient would have legal redress for compensation through the courts. The hospital trust, having had no knowledge of the event or even the presence of the product specialist in their hospital, could also sue the company.

The overriding consideration of the hospital administration in knowing who is present during procedures is that of patient safety both psychological and physical. At the outset of an operation all the theatre staff employed by the trust will have provided documented evidence of their right to be present in that area through the terms of their contract of employment. Within this remit it is incumbent on the trust to ensure that staff employed in this area, conform to the laid down standards this area, conform to the laid down standards of qualifications and experience required. Management Regulations 1992). If the trust, therefore, requires a minimum standard of education and training for the personnel employed in order to ensure patient safety and confidentiality then they should expect no less from individuals from outside agencies. Patients could then feel reassured that all persons present would be fully aware of the obligations required of them in the context of confidentiality.

The industry representative should be made aware of the Data Protection Act 1998 and should have a contractual duty to their employer to comply with the legislation defined within the act. This legislation requires that all patient information should be made secure against unauthorized retrieval and/or use and as such the industry representative is not authorized to access, retrieve or store any patient information. In addition, the Caldicott Guardianship requires that patient records be anonymised as far as is practicable and a hospital unit number should replace other identifiers when records are passed from one healthcare professional to another. Indeed the notes of patients in theatre or any other clinical area should not be made available to any personnel not directly involved in their care. (Caldicott Report: Section 8) Across the industry a standard should be developed which mirrors the contractual obligations of the NHS staff to respect patient confidentiality.

Medical Negligence -

ëIf any harm occurs to a patient as a direct result of a visitor disclosing confidential information outside of the perioperative environment, then this could be deemed as an assault and the patient could argue that the department had been negligent in safeguarding their interestsí. (BJPN 2002) There are four elements which require to be proven before a negligence case would succeed. First, that a duty of care was owed, secondly that a breach of the duty has occurred, thirdly that the patient suffered a harm and finally that the cause of the harm was the breach. (Davies 1998) When the industry representative is in theatre, without the consent or knowledge of the patient, the duty of confidentiality owed to the patient has been breached. If the patient can show that s/he has suffered a harm, either physical, emotional or psychological, and that the harm was caused as a result of the breach, then litigation may be successful. (DOH 2001)

Risk Management

The manufacturing processes for medical devices are regulated and products are risk managed throughout their lifespan. When a medical device comes into the operating department the manufacturer/distributor has to be active in risk managing the product including off label use, use error and reasonable foreseeability for the misuse of the device. (ISO 14971) Medical device companies routinely risk manage their workforce and workplace but seem to stop short of managing the risks inherent in their representatives going into any area where clinical care is delivered. While just the presence of an extra person is in itself an additional risk, in an already risk managed environment, the industry representative is there providing verbal and technical assistance and in-service training. On this basis, the industry representative becomes an important resource to the theatre/clinical team especially when new technology is being introduced. If industry representatives are to be in theatre during live surgery, the medical device industry will want to ensure that the hospital standards are met and the patient’s rights are safeguarded.

How best to risk manage this and who’s responsibility is it?

The regulations are in place and this is an issue of compliance for the industry. Risk management is only effective if the risks to patients and/or staff have been reduced. For the medical device industry to be seen to be proactive is this area they must show that their representatives have an awareness of the potential risks and are competent to work within the hospital and any specialized areas where clinical treatment is delivered.

Conclusion

The complex issues surrounding informed patient consent and confidentiality may be debated as ethical dilemmas, but what is clear is that the patient is owed a legal duty of care, part of which includes consent and confidentiality.

It is the hospitalís responsibility to safeguard the patientís rights including the right to autonomy and self determination. Hospital policies are in place to ensure patient safety and compliance with government regulations. In certain trusts, hospital managers are now limiting entry to clinical areas to those industry representatives who can show objective evidence of externally validated training, in order to ensure the trustsí compliance with clinical governance. Medical device companies would benefit from the development of Standard Operating Procedures, which mirror hospital policies on consent and patient confidentiality and by doing so ensure compliance for their representatives. Compliance will always support the industry representativeís presence in areas where clinical care is delivered.

The need for the industry as a whole, to reach consensus on accredited training which is externally validated by a recognized educational body, has been identified. Although the patient appears to have surrendered himself into the care of the hospital staff ñ his legal rights prevail and patient advocacy should ensure that these rights are not breached.

Margaret Mackay, RGN, Clinical Nurse Advisor, Theatre Skills Training.

Anne Nears, BSc. RGN, Senior Research Nurse, University of Glasgow

References

1.British Journal of Surgery Vol 88(10) Oct 2001 pp 1283-1284
2. Caldicott Report 1997
3. Data Protection Act 2001
4. Department of Health 2001. Reference Guide to Consent for Examination or Treatment
5. Davies. Medical Law (2nd Ed) Blackstone Press Ltd
6. Dimond Legal Aspects of Nursing 2002
7. Department of Health Guidelines The Protection and Use of Patient Information 1996
8. British Journal of Perioperative Nursing [Vol 12] No3 March 2002
9. International Standards Organisation (ISO) 14971