Chamber's business expo changes locales

The event will be held 9 a.m.-7 p.m. Oct. 7 at the Springfield Expo Center in Jordan Valley Park.

The venue is new for the event, which was held the past two years at Bass Pro Shops.

There are 200 vendors registered for the event, and spaces are still available. Vendor participation is up from the 2003 expo, which had about 175 participating vendors, according to Kristin Lochner, chamber event coordinator .

“It’s a wide range of businesses from the Springfield area displaying their goods or products or their services and it’s just a chance to go around and network with each of them and see what they can offer,” Lochner said.

Lochner said that as long as spaces are still available, they can be purchased up until the week of the event, but she said that late registrants won’t be able to have their names in the programs.

A new look

While it does offer more space for the event, Springfield Expo Center also comes with some restrictions, particularly for vendors who use food to attract visitors to their booths.

“(Food) has to be individual-sized servings and it has to be individually wrapped,” Lochner said.

That rule will mean a different draw for Kirkpatrick, Phillips & Miller, CPAs, PC, which was known for offering fresh-baked cookies at its booth during previous chamber Expo events.

Vickie Hicks, KPM marketing coordinator, said not being able to bake cookies at the Springfield Expo Center wasn’t seen as a negative factor. Instead, the firm is looking forward to bringing out some new things at the event.

“We are unrolling a new logo and a new brand at the event, so that’s actually our launch week of our whole new look,” Hicks said. “I think the cookie thing will go away in the sense that we’ve got new presentation materials, we’ve got a new display, a new logo. We’ve got a whole new look to the firm.”

KPM employees will be on hand at the show, sporting new name tags and offering new business cards, she added.

The firm also will have a new giveaway item this year.

“Our new brand is Accounting for Growth, so we got little tape measures, instead of cookies … so it wasn’t a big deal to phase those out,” Hicks said.

At the 2003 expo, Hicks was new on board at KPM, and was still learning about the firm at the time of the event. But this year, she and the staff are ready to hit the expo and do some serious networking.

“Our market is going to be tied 50-50 (between) the people who are coming to the expo and also the exhibitors that are going to be there,” she said.

For the upcoming expo, Hicks said, the firm has a better plan in place in terms of what employees should say when they visit vendor booths, and what they should say when people stop by the KPM booth.

“We’ll have a unified, integrated approach,” she said.

KPM employees are encouraged to attend the expo, Hicks said, but not all of them have to work the company’s booth.

Advance preparation

The chamber and some of the expo’s sponsors (which include Springfield Business Journal) offered a marketing seminar Aug. 10 for interested vendors. The seminar provided vendors tips for getting the most from the expo. Among the advice given, Lochner said, vendors should, “have a booth that is attractive and will draw people, and then, once they get those people there, talk to them and find out what their needs are and if their business would help them out,” Lochner said.

While vendors can make sales at the expo, it may be that the networking opportunity is the most valuable return.

“A lot of people say that at the expo they don’t necessarily get sales out of it, but then, it’s the contacts they’ve made that actually help them out,” Lochner said.

For attendees, Lochner said, reviewing the program and mapping out which vendors they want to learn about is helpful for getting the most out of the event.

She added that attendees are likely to get the most from visiting the expo if they’ll take the time to read the program and map out the booths they want to visit.

“Make a point to stop and meet and talk with the person at that booth,” she said.

Getting in

At the door, tickets to attend the Expo are $5, Lochner said, but free tickets can be obtained beforehand from participating vendors.

A luncheon event, the Regional Business-to-Business Connection, will be held noon-1:30 p.m. at the expo. Separate tickets, available for $20 each, are required for the luncheon.

Lochner said that Business-to-Business Connection is a monthly chamber event; the regional focus is offered in conjunction with area chambers of commerce and other member entities of the Ozarks Regional Economic Partnership.

During the Regional Business to-Business Connection, six small-business owners or managers are seated at each table, and are given the opportunity to advertise, sell or network with other small businesses. Each participant has three minutes during the luncheon to promote their products, services, or businesses to other diners.

A complete list of vendors, and information about reserving booth space, is

available online at www.springfieldcham ber.com/expo.