How to staff a trade show stand and schedule the shifts.

Give every person one role per shift.

A stand where everybody does everything is a stand where visitors wait. Name five roles and give each person one of them for the shift. Swap roles at the break, so nobody greets for eight hours.

• Greeter and qualifier. Stands at the edge of the stand, says hello within five seconds and asks one question: what are you here to solve? Decides in two minutes whether this is a conversation, a demo or a polite goodbye.

• Demonstrator. Owns the screen or the product. Shows one thing in under five minutes, then hands the visitor on.

• Closer. Takes the qualified visitor to a seat, agrees the next step and books it. Also takes the pre-booked meetings.

• Stand manager. Watches the whole stand, covers gaps, runs the briefing and the debrief. Takes hot leads when the closer is busy.

• Floater. Not a separate person on a small stand: whoever is free. Restocks, answers the visitor who is waiting, and covers a break.

Staff for the peak, not the average.

There is no standard ratio, and nobody can give you a measured one for your show. Here is a rule of thumb to start from: one person on the floor for every 8 to 10 square metres of open stand, plus one person for meetings, plus enough people to cover breaks. Then replace it with your own counts after day one.

If you can estimate footfall, use arithmetic instead. A useful qualifying conversation takes 5 to 10 minutes, so one person handles 6 to 12 an hour at most. If you expect 40 visitors an hour at the peak, you need 4 to 7 people on the floor. Ask the organiser for last year's attendance by day, and use your own scan counts from the last show if you have them.

Rotate off the floor after 90 to 120 minutes.

A working rule: 90 to 120 minutes on the floor, then a real break of 20 to 30 minutes away from the stand. A real break means sitting down, water and no phone calls from the back of the stand. Lunch is 45 to 60 minutes and falls between 12:00 and 15:00.

A schedule template for day one.

This template is for a team of six on a stand open from 09:30 to 18:00: A is the stand manager, B and C greet, D demonstrates, E and F are closers. It assumes three peaks: the opening hour, the lunch hours and the last two hours of day one. Breaks go in pairs: C and D, A and F, B and E.

Keep the briefing and the debrief on every day. Footfall often thins out in the final hours of the last day, so use that time for follow-up notes. Never drop below your floor minimum before the show closes.

Protect meeting slots, and spread them out.

Pre-booked meetings are the most valuable hours of the show, and the easiest to lose. Put them in the diary before the show, and put your own breaks in the diary too, so a colleague cannot book over them. Then check the shape of the day: if both closers are in meetings at 12:30, the lunch peak has no closer on the floor.

Hand hot leads over within two minutes.

A hot lead is someone who asked for a price, a date or a meeting. The greeter's job is to keep them warm and pass them on, not to run the sales conversation. Write the rule on a card and put it on the stand: who is a closer, who takes over when the closer is busy, and what the greeter says while the visitor waits.

1. 01
   Step 1.

   The greeter says: 'I'd like you to meet Dana, who can answer that properly.'

2. 02
   Step 2.

   The greeter tells the closer the one-line reason in front of the visitor.

3. 03
   Step 3.

   If no closer is free within two minutes, the stand manager takes the visitor.

4. 04
   Step 4.

   The closer books the next step before the visitor leaves, and sets a next action date.

Brief the team for five minutes each morning.

The briefing is short, standing and at the same time every day. Use the same five parts.

1. 01
   Step 1.

   Yesterday in numbers (one minute): leads, meetings and the number of hot leads still waiting for a reply.

2. 02
   Step 2.

   Today's roles and breaks (one minute): read the schedule aloud, including who covers whom.

3. 03
   Step 3.

   Today's meetings (one minute): who, when, with which company, and who owns the follow-up.

4. 04
   Step 4.

   One message (one minute): the single thing you want every visitor to hear today.

5. 05
   Step 5.

   Kit and problems (one minute): chargers, spare phone, printed QR backup, anything broken.

Plan for a no-show, for languages and for tired people.

Name a stand-in for every role before the show. If one rep does not turn up, the stand manager does not cover the gap by working through breaks. Close the meeting slots that rep owned, tell the visitors who booked, and move the floor to the next row of the schedule. Ask everyone for their arrival time the day before.

Cover languages on purpose. List who speaks what on the roster, put the second language on the badge, and place the person with the language of your biggest target market on the floor at the peaks. Fatigue shows in the body first: arms crossed, phone in hand, eating at the stand, sitting while a visitor stands. Agree these rules in the briefing: stand open, face the aisle, no phones on the floor and water behind the counter.

End each day with a 10 minute debrief and three numbers.

Do it at the stand, standing, before anyone leaves. Ask for three numbers, then three decisions.

Then decide what to change: a role, a break time, the position of a banner. A live board on the stand screen shows card views, saves, leads and meetings for today, so the manager sees the shape of the day while there is still time to react. The funnel shows leads per rep once the show is over, which is the input for the next show's roster. The full pre-show timeline is in the trade show checklist for exhibitors, and the capture rules are in how to capture and follow up trade show leads. Set the days and the team up in the event settings.