The pros and cons of hiring exhibition staff from an agency

An important part of exhibiting is choosing the best exhibition staff to represent your business.

There’s a lot to consider when selecting staff, but one important question is whether you should hire internal staff who are experienced and knowledgeable in your company’s products and services, or hire staff from an agency, who are less experienced with your business, but significantly more experienced in trade shows and face-to-face marketing.

In this guide, we delve into the pros and cons of using agency exhibition staff or working with your existing team.

While not every event requires exhibition staff from an agency, there are some occasions where they can make a significant impact.

• High-Profile Events: Agency staff are great for high-profile events, where you need to upscale exhibition staff, and you lack the internal resources.
• Immediate Professionalism & Confidence: You may have an internal team with outstanding knowledge of your products, but less confidence in initiating conversations with guests. In these cases, agency staff can initiate conversations, qualify and funnel serious leads based on set criteria, before handing over to more knowledgeable staff.
• Need for Specialist Skills: Sometimes, you need specific or additional skillsets, such as content/game experience leaders or multi-lingual staff. Agency staff can fill these skill gaps.

When you hire staff from an agency, you gain immediate access to talented, confident and professional individuals who are already trained in exhibitions. Let’s explore the key benefits:

Exhibition staffing agencies specialise in providing experienced, knowledgeable and confident exhibition staff for your stand.

While agency staff may not be familiar with your particular business, they have a wealth of experience, training and knowledge specific to the events industry and exhibiting. They are confident networking with visitors and naturally project an air of competence that reflects well on your company.

Agency exhibition staff are a flexible solution for companies with fluctuating staffing needs.

If your business has multiple events throughout the year, an exhibiting team made up of agency staff can easily be scaled up or down to match your changing requirements, or to expand your existing team.

While your staff may be knowledgeable on your business processes, products and services, they may not be as familiar or comfortable with exhibiting and typically require training.

Agencies provide trained, confident professionals for your stand without the headache and overhead costs associated with training your full-time employees.

However, it’s worth noting that, unless agency staff are used to qualify leads before funnelling to knowledgeable staff, you will likely have to train them on your business, so it’s worth weighing which is more taxing before going ahead.

Exhibition staffing agencies often have a pool of staff with diverse skills, such as multilingual abilities, sales expertise or varying levels of technical knowledge.

This can be advantageous in catering to a broad audience, for example, using multilingual staff when attending an international exhibition, or staff with specialist knowledge when exhibiting within a specific industry.

Hiring agency exhibition staff means that fewer members of your internal team will have to take time away from their day-to-day responsibilities to prepare for and attend your event.

You’ll likely need at least one member of your internal staff to coordinate processes, but as more roles are fulfilled by agency staff, fewer members of your team need to be present at the event.

This means that standard day-to-day business can continue uninterrupted, as the event is handled separately from your ongoing business activities.

Now, let’s get into the cons of hiring exhibition staff from an agency:

While agency exhibition staff may be experienced in the intricacies of exhibiting, they will likely lack an understanding of your company’s products, values, and culture.

Not only can this affect the representation of your brand, but visitors could also interpret the staff’s lack of knowledge as a lack of business competence.

While staff will typically be given brand guidelines and briefs, this cannot replace the competence and knowledge that come naturally from being part of an experienced team.

Most teams understand each other’s communication styles and instructions well, because they have worked together previously. Inconsistencies in working styles, priorities and personalities can lead to miscommunication or less efficient working. Though with strong, clear communication and briefing processes, this risk can be mitigated.

Naturally, external agency staff will lack the long-term commitment and loyalty that internal employees often show.

Building ongoing relationships with visitors from one show to the next will be much more challenging with a rotating cast of external representatives.

It also reduces opportunities to lay the foundations of ongoing relationships, as the representative that visitors meet at the event is not the person who follows up with them afterwards.

With no control over training or recruitment, the quality of agency exhibition staff may vary significantly, leading to inconsistencies in how your brand is presented from show to show.

Comprehensive briefs and brand guidelines, as well as clear leadership, can help address this issue and ensure that all staff (whether internal or external) are clear on expectations.

While there are some disadvantages to hiring staff from an agency, they can usually be mitigated quite easily, using the following tips.

• Fill Specific/ Specialist Gaps: Agency staff are best used to fill a specific skill gap, such as a translator or hospitality worker. Try not to use them as the basis of your staff.
• Don’t Let Agency Staff Outweigh Internal: A good tip is to make sure the number of agency staff does not outweigh your internal team. This way, you can ensure knowledgeable members are around at all times.
• Keep Internal Staff for Serious Leads: If you need to up-scale your team with agency staff, focus their efforts on qualifying using a set of criteria before guiding them to knowledgeable internal staff. This way, you never risk looking unprofessional or seeming unknowledgeable.
• Use a Well-Respected Agency:  Not all agency staff will be good. Make sure to conduct good research and check reviews!
• Consider your Objectives: A good strategy for one business may not necessarily be right for another, so it’s important that you fully understand your objectives for your event and decide whether the benefits of this agency exhibition staff outweigh the potential drawbacks.

It can be difficult to decide whether to use agency staff, but when used correctly, they can be a great addition to your existing team. Just make sure to conduct some thorough research before going ahead, as your team is the face of your company at an exhibition.

If you are planning an event and would like to explore our exhibition stand design services, get in touch with our design team today at design@quadrant2design.com or call +44 (0)1202 723 500. Design proposals are free and without obligation.