January 2012

When our long awaited hand puppets and plush toys of Diglot the Dragon arrived January 2012, we thought to ourselves what is the best way we can launch them onto the market to accompany our bilingual children's books....

Then we thought to ourselves, Ah Diglot is a Dragon, who could possibly like a dragon more than the wonderful people of Wales? So we packaged him up with our recently released Welsh / English ABC Picture book and Bilingual story book "Matthew and the Wellington Boots" and took him with us to the Wales Spring Fair 2012. 

We had a fantastic welcome by both buyers and other exhibitors alike with everyone remarking on how bright and colourful Diglot was, he even got accused of being a 'poser' after stealing all the limelight and attention of the photographers and press when he and our bilingual book 'Cymraeg English ABC' won the "Best New Product" Award. 

We received lots of fantastic advice and tips from the organisers from the Wales Craft Council and the other exhibitors at the show and thought we would share some of them here with you for the benefit of any other small and growing businesses that are looking to exhibit at Trade fairs and move into the trade market in the future. 

Ten Top Tips for Exhibiting at a Trade Show

1. Get organised in advance and print out some forms to fill in details about buyers who visit your stand. They wont all be carrying business cards and it can be really hard to read your handwriting on scraps of paper when you get home. Even if you can just get their name, their shop name, and their town name, you can get the rest on a simple google search when you get home! Thank you Sarah Bunton of Siocled Chocolates for this great tip. Feel free to download our 'Buyers I Met' template here to use for yourself.

2. Enter any and all competitions and take advantage of any free press offered by the show organisers. Get your artwork and business description to the organisers early so that you can take advantage of being listed on the show website, and if you have a new product then enter it in a New Product Competition, you don't know until you get there who you are up against and you never know, like us you could WIN!

3. Label Your Trade Prices Clearly. It is the fine art of a good salesman to know when to talk to a prospective buyer and when to let them browse for themselves. You can make things easier for yourself by providing clear trade prices and recommended retail prices on all your items so that customers can browse and think things through themselves. Let them come to you for the questions that can lead to a buying opportunity, and remember always turn a negative into a positive. E.g. if they ask you "how many do I need to buy" (i.e. what is your minimum order) reply with "how many would you like to take".

4. Image is Everything. Plan your stand in advance. Even if it is the smallest stand available you can make an impact by planning the layout of your stand, adding extra colourful touches, getting the right packaging and the right artwork. Layout it out in your office or at home with all your product and think about how you can best say what you do from a distance. Roller Banners are a cost effective medium to grab attention, they don't have to be professionally designed but they do need to be colourful and attention grabbing so don't use them to tell your life story! Visit other tradeshows and look at other exhibitors stands and try to get some ideas from them. You can get a lot of furniture and peripheries cheaper by buying it second hand from the likes of Gumtree and Ebay than hiring it from the venue.

5. Network and Refer. Find out about your co-exhibitors and what  they do and you can refer customers from your stand to theirs and vice versa. Don't be pushy with your buyers but if you can help out the other exhibitors by providing a hook about their products to someone who visits your stand then they will do the same for you and everyone can benefit. If you develop a really good relationship with another exhibitor offer to take some of their business cards with you to give to any new customers you meet in the future. Thanks to Robin and Eira at Eryri Welsh Gifts for this great tip and offering to do it for us!

6. Talk to the other exhibitors about how they do things and who their suppliers are. You can save a lot of money by learning from other people's mistakes, from where to get your artwork printed, to who supplies their packaging and what discounts they give to trade customers. Ask the questions and see what you can learn, you never know they may even become your customer, sales agent or supplier! A HUGE thank you to Paul at Pendragon Wales at this point for helping us to make the Diglot Hand Puppets a reality.

7. Follow up! Look up the details of the people you met and send them a letter after the show thanking them for taking the time to talk to you and reminding them of anything of interest that you discussed with them. Go the extra mile and pay for a stamp and send it in the post rather than email, remember this is all about building relationships and developing trust. A lot of the benefits of a trade show come in the 12 months following the show. Thank you to Thomas at S Gregory & Co for this great tip.

8. If you don't ask you don't get! Talk to the other exhibitors at the show and to the show organisers and arrange where possible to either get the full list of visitors to the show or to swap details with other exhibitors about buyers that visited their stands. Thank you to Tina of Celtic Herbal for this great tip.

9. Find out about other shows. Ask the other exhibitors about what shows / exhibitions they go to, and which ones work best for them. You are likely to get a much more honest opinion from another exhibitor than from the salesman trying to sell you space at their event. 

10. Write a Press Release or Blog about your visit to the show you never know who might read it and find it useful. Thanks to Sami at Freyaluna for giving us the inspired idea of a photo gallery of Diglot and his trip to wales.

Thank you to all the wonderful buyers and exhibitors we met this week and of course to Philomena and the Wales Craft Council for organising such a great show, we will be sure to be back next year!

The Baby Show at the NEC May 2011 was Diglot Books' first foray into retail exhibitions. So what did we think?

Firstly from the perspective of visitors the show seemed to be quite well laid out and the hall aisles were nice and wide for pushchairs and prams, so even though our stand was opposite the Baby Show photo competition and the stage there were rarely any bottlenecks. The steep entrance price of £20 and car parking fee of £8 didn't seem to have put off the determined shoppers and opening time each day seemed to result in a mad rush for the creche and the furniture and pram stands who were advertising significant show discounts. A warning to all Dad's out their looking to visit the show, from what we observed your sole responsibility is going to be carrying bags and providing the wallet. Whilst it is always a common sight to see fathers weighed with bags whether it be the park, the shopping center or the airport, the baby show seems to be the training ground for all new fathers and they didn't look like they were enjoying their new role in life!!

There were lots of independent retailers like Diglot Books and every one seemed to have dragged at least their mother along to help man the stall if not their entire family, but I like to think that this meant that we were all much more genuinely able to help and advise visitors and were definitely more cheerful than some of the larger stands around the hall. We picked up lots of great tips from our fellow exhibitors who were all extremely helpful and supportive of us newbies, and it was great to be able to swap stories and advice on everything from how to break down a stand, to where to get leaflets printed and how to run a competition. A particular warm thanks to Bras4Mums, Morrck, Naturally Cool Kids, Eric & Rufus, and The Miracle Box.

As to our bilingual books and flash cards, and what our customers thought, the show was a great success. We had lots of fantastic feedback from everyone we spoke to and were able to advise lots of new parents about the best ways to go about teaching their children a second language whether they were fluent in another language themselves or not. We were particularly encouraged by the number of young parents who were excited by the idea of giving their children a head start in languages before starting school. All of the parents we spoke to loved the idea of introducing a teddy bear that can only speak the second language so that their child would start talking to the teddy bear when they weren't around in the new language. Don't worry parents we will have a soft toy version of Diglot out before Christmas for exactly this purpose!

Our brand new author Esmee Carre stopped by the stand to see her book Matthew and The Wellington Boots for the first time and to take away a few copies for all her relatives back home in Guernsey. Apparently all her professors at the University of Winchester; where she is studying to be a primary school teacher, are deeply impressed and rather amusingly apparently a few have rather green eyes having been trying to get published themselves for some time! We look forward to hearing Esmee's reports of how she used both the Matthew book and the ABC Francais English book in her teaching practicals this year.

So what did we learn that we can pass on to future exhibitors at shows like the Baby Show.

1. Firstly plan the layout of your stand at home, what works best where, and where can you store your valuables, your lunch and some spare stock discreetly so that you don't have to run back the to stock room every five minutes.
2. Don't just assume that everything the show organiser tries to sell you is compulsory, try to check with other exhibitors in advance as most of it isn't!
3. Practice likely questions customers might ask you and your answers, customers seemed to expect answers instantly and were put off by any sort of pause in your response. 
4. Get lots and lots and even more leaflets printed. Make them distinctive and high quality so that people want to read them.
5. Ask other exhibitors in the quiet periods what their top tips are, you will be surprised at how inventive some of them are, and everyone is always immensely friendly and helpful.
6. Check ahead of the last day with the organisers, the security people and other exhibitors about the breakdown process. Then work out the best way for you to get away quickly without getting stuck in a traffic queue for hours waiting to be able to re-load your car or van
7. Get some sweets or balloons to attract the toddlers to your stand
8. Smile, Smile, Smile
9. If you can, take lots of short breaks to keep up your energy
10. Get a smart uniform so that your staff stand out, and brand it, so that even when they are walking around on their breaks they are still advertising for you
11. Keep lots of bottles of water on the stand, and a lip salve in your pocket as your mouth and your lips will get very dry from all the talking
12. Wear flat comfortable shoes, and perfect a little shuffle so that you keep your feet moving without looking like you have ants in your pants!
13. Find out what the Press' badge looks like in advance and prime your staff so that if any visit your stand or walk nearby you are are ready
14. Get a credit card terminal. They really are worth it, everyone seems to run out of cash quite quickly
15. If the show is not near where you live, shop around for a hotel, there are likely to be lots in the area that aren't at an extortionate price. We stayed in a perfectly adequate innkeepers lodge in nearby Coleshill for about half the price of the hotels near the NEC.
16. Get a really good trolley, preferable a flat bed truck trolley like the ones sold in Screw-fix to help carrying your stock in and out of the show at setup and breakdown
17. Shop around on eBay for your stand furniture and even banners, we made some fantastic savings this way
18. Keep some business cards on the stand in case the press stop buy
19. Make use of the press office and media provided by the show organisers. Check to see if they can provide you with free access to things like the stage, celebrity bags, speakers corners etc. IF YOU DON'T ASK YOU DON'T GET!! Send them press releases in advance of the show that they can use to help promote the show, and provide some press releases and sample products for the press room during the show.

We hope that our insights and exhibiting top tips will help future companies new to exhbiting with planning their show and making it as successful as possible.

Matthew and the Wellington Boots

A New Dual Language Story Book from Diglot Books

Bilingual children’s book experts Diglot Books have launched their first illustrated dual language story book Matthew and the Wellington Boots, introducing three year old Matthew and his best friend Diglot the dragon to young readers. The story has been written by Guernsey based, Esmee Carré (aged 20) who is training to be a teacher, and illustrated by children’s illustrator Paul Wrangles.

Matthew and the Wellington Boots is part of a series of dual language books especially written for children who are just beginning to read. The parallel text, amusing storyline and beautiful illustrations introduce children to another language in an enjoyable and original way.

The story is the result of a competition run by Diglot Books which called for budding authors to submit a sample of a short story aimed at 3-5 year olds to demonstrate their style of writing. Esmee, the winning author was then asked to write a story around the title Matthew and the Wellington Boots. Esmee says “I was thrilled I was given the title I wrote down several ideas related to wellington boots and then every time an idea popped into my head I would quickly scribble it down, the margins of my lecture notes are filled! Once I had several ideas I sat down and wrote (and re-wrote) several drafts before deciding on one idea. Overall it took me several weeks.

“I absolutely loved writing Matthew and the Wellington Boots and have become attached to Matthew and Diglot already! When writing the book I always kept in mind the children that I could associate with Matthew and that way he is filled with different characteristics I have seen in different children.”

Illustrator Paul says “The character of the bilingual dragon and encapsulating the fun that comes across in the storyline was what made doing these illustrations particularly enjoyable. I try to find the right moments in the story where I can press pause and create a scene.”

“After becoming happy with a scene, I draw it out using a fine-nibbed pen. The drawings are then scanned into the computer and a graphics programme, together with tablet and stylus are used to add layers and colour.”

Diglot Books co-founder Alison O’Dornan says Esmee’s entry really stood out as the colourful and descriptive language she used evoked fantastic images for the reader. “It was a beautiful rhyming story about a little boy called Tiny Bill that just impressed us all,” said Alison.

The publication of Matthew and the Wellington Boots adds to the expanding portfolio of books and other learning aids developed by Diglot Books. To find out more visit Diglot Books on stand M53 or visit www.diglotbooks.com

ENDS

For More Information Contact

Alison O’Dornan

+44 (0)1494 853 933

Diglot Books Keep It Simple And Fun

- Because Two Languages Are Better Than One! -

For first time Baby Show exhibitors, Diglot Books the message is clear “Two languages are better than one but keep it simple and fun when introducing your children to a second language.” To support parents, Diglot Books have created a unique series of ABC dual language books and flash cards that will be launched at the Baby Show.

Diglot Books are the brain child of friends Alison O’Dornan and Wilma van Riel, stemming from Wilma’s desire for her young daughter to learn the native languages of both her parents (English and Dutch). Mother and daughter found that it was very confusing to see a picture of a duck representing the letter "D" when the Dutch word "eend" begins with "E." And so "ABC Nederlands - English" was born

What makes Diglot’s ABC bilingual alphabet picture books unique is the way in which each letter is represented by a real life picture of an object that starts with the same letter in both languages. This allows children to quickly associate the sound with the shape of the letter eliminating the confusion between the languages. Each picture is accompanied by a simple descriptive sentence in both languages to increase vocabulary and interactivity.

Alison says “The best age for a child to learn a foreign language is during infancy when the brain is wired for learning new sounds and anything new is both fun and exciting. Whilst it obviously helps if the parent is able to speak the second language themselves, it is not vital, and both parent and child can learn together.”

“Young children grasp a new language as easily as their first language; they learn to think in the new language without the need for translation. Initially, children do not even distinguish between the two languages but simply learn that an object has two different sounds associated with it. With Diglot Books children can learn through imitating, listening, seeing and practicing.”

Diglot Books are expanding their product range and support tools for monolingual parents as well, and provide audio files to aid pronunciation for all their products. New products include a unique series of flash cards, a fun, tried and tested way for children to learn key words in two languages.

The cards are based around a specific topic (shopping) which makes learning easier as the words are in context. The cards are jumbo size, durable and easy to handle, depicting engaging clear photographs with one side just showing the picture, and the other showing the picture plus the word in both languages. This aids versatility and subliminal absorption. On top of this, there are four extra cards of games and activities and two extra cards of useful phrases

Following hot on the heels of the ABC books and flash cards will be the publication of an illustrated story book Matthew and the Wellington Boots. The book is part of a series of dual language books especially written for children who are just beginning to read.

ENDS

For More Information Contact

Alison O’Dornan

+44 (0)1494 853 933