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TRADE CONFERENCES ARE A GREAT ONE-STOP SHOP where you can scope out a potential market and find the contacts you need. Allison Boulton, a Vancouver-based consultant with Aslin Canada Trading, which represents B.C. food and beverage companies in Asia, shar

TAKE A LONG WALK

You don't have to pay the thousands of dollars typically required for a booth. Just show up and look around. You can do your market research, hear the speakers and make all kinds of valuable contacts: distributors, retailers, warehousers, graphic designers, customs brokers and freight forwarders.

SIZE UP YOUR COMPETITORS

Trade shows give you a chance to test the market in many ways–and see who else is already there. Boulton recalls her first wine trade show, representing B.C. wineries in Shanghai. “I had no idea so many places around the world made wine. North Carolina, Turkey, Tunisia. I said, `You guys make wine?' and they're like, `Yeah, that's what we think of Canada.' We were all there trying to sell to the world's hottest market.”

WORK ON RELATIONSHIPS

There's a lot of dead time at trade shows, and maybe that's your chance to spend time with one of your partners. “If your Australian distributor has a booth, and you fly in from Canada, it gives the distributor an elevated status: `meet the Canadian behind the product,'” Boulton explains. “Plus you can get to know your distributor, because there's always going to be hiccups. It's easier to work out your problems when you've spent a few hours with someone.”

PLAY TO YOUR AUDIENCE

Learn about the market where you're landing, and cater to it. “Most people in Korea speak beautiful English, but when I did a trade show there I had all my brochures translated,” Boulton says. “I received so much feedback. I was one of the only ones who did that.”

DON'T LUG YOUR SWAG

If you have a booth and you're giving away logo-printed freebies, have them made at your destination and delivered to your booth for one less thing to carry. ”There's a kind of ink that Canada allows that the U.S. doesn't,” Boulton notes. “So if you bring 1,000 pens across the border, you're going to get some questions.”