Trade Show Clutter
If you are working at or attending trade shows, you’re going to go back to your room with sacks of brochures and sales materials. These are mostly clutter. I try to pick up as little as possible and pitch what I get foisted on me before I leave the floor. There never seems to be enough trash cans at these shows, so I leave a pile of them by the front door There are people who are paid to clean up. Let them earn their keep.
Back in the room, I immediately pitch the fancy folders and pretty brochures. All I keep are fact sheets and really pertinent data. Gifts like mouse pads, and t-shirts. I leave for the maid with a note and a tip. Business
cards should be entered into your contact manager right away, but nobody does that. At least keep them together with note scribbled on the back as to who the person was (use your dominant learning skills to describe them) and date the cards.
Carry a notebook or your PDA and take notes when you’re talking to people at the trade show booths. Put business cards into a plastic card holder with clear pages. I found that a three-ring binder with several clear plastic pages was perfect for the little useful information I needed to collect. For the rest of the year, I referred back to that binder and always found what I was looking for. Make an index as you go. You can clean it up later.