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What we’ve learned in 10 years of being a promotional staffing agency

Posted 14/12/2017
What we’ve learned in 10 years of being a promotional staffing agency

It’s official – we’ve reached our tenth birthday as a promotional staffing agency! The trade show industry has transformed over the past decade, and we’re proud to say that Expo Stars has grown and evolved to keep up with these changes.

Our mission statement in short is to help exhibitors generate better results at exhibitions and conferences around the world.

Our journey as a promotional staffing agency

Expo Stars was launched 10 years ago as one-man band from my bedroom in Manchester, just as the financial recession hit the UK and the rest of the world. We’ve faced many challenges, but happily the business has grown from strength to strength.

Time has flown by, and we have steadily expanded our reach across the globe. We’ve now managed over 3,000 projects across 110 cities in 53 countries, and our promotional staffing solutions are provided by a network of more than 2,500 reputable, ambitious and engaging individuals.

Today, Expo Stars is a leading player in the exhibition and trade show industry. We offer a trio of key services: proactive and professional staffing, proven attendee engagement strategies and in-house team training.

Providing better promotional staffing solutions

As the founder of Expo Stars, I have a total of 27 years’ experience in sales and marketing.

My ‘lightbulb moment’ came to me while attending an exhibition. After 10 years of visiting various trade shows across the globe, one booth host approached me with a radically different approach than any of the surrounding competitors. They actually engaged with me.

This was the only time I can remember being proactively engaged by an exhibitor, and it worked. Within two minutes, this lead generator had gone from catching my attention to qualifying me as a potential client and gathering valuable lead information.

My first real introduction to trade show engagement got me thinking about the value of these skills, and the existing gap in the market for promotional staffing solutions that really worked. I’d found a pain – now all I needed was a product.

Going from local to global

My aim was to help companies generate more sales leads from exhibitions and trade shows, by offering promotional staffing solutions which would attract, engage and convert leads.

We initially focused on the trade show industry in London, with a small team of staff. However, Expo Stars quickly expanded into new regions as our clients expressed the need for a consistent level of promotional staffing across the globe.

Clients wanted the same high quality standards delivered across all of their trade shows, whether they were in London, Los Angeles or Lisbon. We adapted to this challenge, and now I’m proud to work with clients from LA to Melbourne, Hong Kong to Dubai. In total, Expo Stars has provided promotional staffing solutions in 110 cities across 53 countries.

What makes us different?

Expo Stars is unique as a promotional staffing agency, in that we put trade show results at the heart of our offering. We take a holistic approach, driven by the goals of clients and tailored to their unique lead generation needs.

This holistic approach has proven so successful, in fact, that we offer attendee engagement strategies as a standalone service for clients looking to use internal staff on their stands. This gives them a playbook to ensure the best possible results.

Our training masterclasses are also available to companies looking to upskill staff through an intensive training session. We teach clients how to be more engaging in the exhibiting process, using proven methods of attracting, engaging and converting relevant leads.

We’re not looking to keep all our expertise to ourselves. Instead, we want everyone to improve their offering, and make the trade show industry a more exciting place to be!

Promotional staffing of the highest standard

Our staff are also of the very highest standards. We reject around 70% of applicants, based on a rigorous interview process which focuses on communication skills, professionalism and confidence. Applicants’ credentials are also checked in regards to any languages or sector specialism they may have.

We then work closely with clients to understand their business objectives and match them with the right talent. All staff need the right language, skillset and market knowledge.

Expo Stars provides promotional staffing to companies operating across a range of complex business sectors, from aviation to pharmaceuticals. It’s essential to have a good level of understanding in these markets if you want to have any chance of engaging leads in a meaningful way, which is why we prepare all our staff with any essential brand collateral. This ensures they are up to speed with client offerings before they reach the trade show.

If your company could benefit from promotional staffing solutions that may generate better results at exhibitions and conferences around the world, get in touch.

Download your free guide to strategy, staffing and attendee engagement for exhibitions


Posted 14/12/2017