What most companies get wrong about preparing for an in-person event.

Business events are expensive. Not only in the obvious ways like travel, booth space, hotel rooms, and branded pens, but also in the way they consume time. Whether you are booking a stand at a major conference centre or setting up a table at the local weekend market, preparing for an event demands focus and resources. It means weeks of distraction, from designing collateral to rehearsing sales pitches. And yet, for all that investment, many businesses arrive without knowing whether their message will actually work. They speak first, listen later, and only at the end of the event do they discover if their carefully chosen words resonated with anyone who mattered.

This is something you can avoid. One company I worked with chose to approach things differently before an event that was central to their growth. They already knew what they sold and why it mattered, but they wanted more than polished brochures. They wanted evidence. They wanted to arrive knowing which message would cut through the noise and start real conversations.

Here’s how we did it, and you can do it too.

The traditional approach (aka, what not to do)

Most businesses, large and small, prepare for events in the same way. Time is tight, so the focus goes on what feels most urgent: designing banners, printing flyers, and getting stock or samples ready. Messaging tends to be decided in a rush, often shaped by whatever sounds convincing inside the team rather than what will resonate outside it. By the time the stand or stall is set up, the message is locked in.

This is how habits form. At large conferences, companies copy what their competitors are doing. At local markets, sellers follow what has worked for others on neighbouring stalls. In both cases, the assumption is the same: you only really know what works once the event is underway.

That way of thinking explains why so many people end up with boxes of unused flyers, awkward opening lines, or booths that draw polite smiles but not serious conversations. It feels normal, but it is avoidable.

Starting with the audience

When I worked with this company, we began with the people they wanted to reach instead of with what they wanted to say. The organisers had published a brochure that listed the companies and job titles of attendees. Many usually skim that page and move on, but we treated it as raw material.

From that list, we built small LinkedIn campaigns. These were not designed to fill the sales pipeline in advance. They were experiments. Each ad spoke to a different challenge the audience might face. One focused on poor uptake of new systems. Another highlighted training gaps. A third pointed to frustrations with onboarding. The visuals and calls-to-action stayed the same so that any difference in response could be traced directly to the words.

The same principle works for smaller businesses. A café owner can write two versions of a chalkboard special and see which one sparks more conversation. A stallholder at a weekend market can post different product captions online and notice which draws more comments. The tool may change, but the idea here is the same: test your words before the big day, learn what attracts attention, and shape your presence around that.

What testing revealed

Once the messages went live, the results were clear. Some phrasing drew strong engagement. Others, which had sounded persuasive in internal discussions, didn’t work at all. Even more useful was the detail about who responded. Technical managers leaned toward one type of wording, while senior leaders gravitated toward another. By the start of the event, every element of the booth reflected the message that had tested best. The team also didn’t have to guess where to begin when it came to sales conversations. They knew which problem to lead with and which words opened the right kind of conversation. This simple change in preparation made it one of the strongest lead-generating events in the company’s history.

I’ve seen the same thing play out in smaller settings. A baker learns that customers respond more to “slow-fermented sourdough” than to “traditional bread”. A craft maker discovers that “hand-poured soy candle” draws more interest than “artisan candle”. None of this is obvious until you try, but once the pattern appears, it changes how you present yourself on the day.

Why it matters beyond one event

The lesson here isn’t that LinkedIn ads are the only way to prepare for an event. They are just one tool. The bigger point is about sequence. Most businesses spend heavily on showing up before they spend any time finding out what will matter once they are there. Learning comes at the end, when it is least useful. A better sequence is to test first, adapt, and then show up ready.

That shift saves resources because you stop printing materials that no one uses. It lowers risk because you avoid relying on guesswork. And it gives your team or your stall more confidence because you’ve already seen what resonates.

How can you apply this?

You don’t need a big budget to use this approach. The principle works at every level. If you’re preparing for an event, ask yourself three questions:

Who will be there? Use the attendee list, the organiser’s brochure, or your knowledge of regular customers as information you can work with.

What are the likely challenges or interests? Write down a few messages that address those, each in different words.

Where can you test quickly? It might be a short paid campaign, but it could also be social posts, email subject lines, or simple conversations with loyal customers before the event.

The aim isn’t to make sales before you arrive; it’s to avoid guessing. 

The bigger picture

Events are demanding (there’s no way around that), but they are necessary. They put you in front of the right people. However, they also magnify wasted effort if you arrive unprepared. Testing your words in advance is a small change that can turn a stressful outing into a growth opportunity.

The takeaway here for any business, whether you run a global software company or a weekend market stall, is the same: preparation is not only about logistics. It’s about testing your words as carefully as you test your products. Because in the end, it’s the words that spark the conversations and the conversations that lead to sales.