This is a good article on Why Small Businesses Fail to Grow. I am going to focus on ONE of the issues they state in this article, bu there’s more than one way for companies to fail. They can stay in business but fail to reach their potential, or fail to get beyond mediocrity, or just fail to grow. Failing to grow is not necessarily a problem — if the owner is happy with where the company is. There are many reasons some small companies grow and others hit a wall. There are external factors like market size, competition and demand. But there are also internal factors that have to do with operations and leadership. Take a look at the article to see all 10 factors - I want to focus just on this one. Marketing - specifically trade show marketing.

Marketing. This includes everything from branding to advertising to market analysis. How a company executes may be the major driver of its success, but how it is perceived is also crucial — perception, as they say, is reality. The other reality is that small companies can have a difficult time finding resources to help them with this critical part of their business. That means that the success or failure of a small company’s marketing frequently comes down to the abilities of the entrepreneur. Few people are good at everything.

This is why you need to get OUTSIDE help!  Even if you are good at marketing - trade show marketing is a bit of a different animal.  The definition of a trade show event is: a temporary market organized to promote trade, where buyers and sellers gather to transact business.  This means that you have to be prepared to promote your product or service in a quick and fast past environment without the luxury of a lot of time.  You have to capture the opportunity quickly, document it , and move on.  This is SO different from any typical marketing campaign where you can take your time.  Attraction is key - once you decide that the trade show event does contain your target market. 

I cannot say this enough - be strategic and plan.  Your trade show booth, graphics, messaging, and theme MUST attract your target market quickly and effectively.

This entire story can be found at: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/10/why-small-businesses-fail-to-grow/?nl=business&emc=edit_sb_20120411