PodFest 2024: Lessons and Success Stories from the Expo Hall

Larry Roberts [00:00:08]:

What is happening, everybody? I'm Larry Roberts.

Sara Lohse [00:00:11]:

And I'm Sara Lohse, and this is Branded your comprehensive guide to creative branding.

Larry Roberts [00:00:15]:

And on this episode of the podcast, we're gonna be talking about Yay. We just got back from the podcast, and, man, it was a wild, Wild ride.

Sara Lohse [00:00:31]:

I I'm still I'm still recovering. I haven't slept. I I need a coma.

Larry Roberts [00:00:37]:

I actually was sitting at my desk last night, Watching the new He Man cartoon on Netflix because it's amazing, and I was only on episode 2, and Had my little legs propped up on my desk, had my little whoopie wrapped around me. I was all cozy and warm and had my headphones on and just he made it, and I was toast. That's how tired I I I think it was, like, 8, 8:30, something like like that, and I was just g o n e, gone.

Sara Lohse [00:01:05]:

Like, conferences are a lot. And this time, it was even more so. Because usually, every time we go to Podfest or most conferences, we speak. So we have to there's one day that we have to be really on and be all prepared, all of that. But this time, we spoke and sponsored. So for the 1st time at Podfest, we had a booth, and you're just constantly on your feet, constantly moving. I probably burned, like, 4,000 calories a day just at the booth. It was so just so exhausting.

Larry Roberts [00:01:41]:

Yeah. Maybe I need to step on the scale, see where, where I'm logging in at. That'd be kinda cool if I dropped a few l b's. That'd be awesome. But you're right, man. It was just it was organized chaos, And some of it was really just pure chaos, but Yes. Because the booth was amazing. Mhmm.

Larry Roberts [00:01:57]:

I had a great time with our booth. You did a tremendous job coming up with the idea to design it as a photo booth with this amazing inflatable flashing lights backdrop that was just Super cool and got everybody's attention. And, you know, I think one of the things too is, man, that that expo hall was just slammed.

Sara Lohse [00:02:16]:

Yeah. It was constantly packed, and we had, like, lines of people wanting to take photos. And It was really cool to see how much it resonated with people though, because we were really excited about our idea, and we it was like Layers and layers of puns. We talked about this on a previous episode, but we are we are building brands that stick, and our logo is a bunch of stickers. So we have you Come into our photo booth, take a photo of yourself, and it gets printed out as a sticker. And our sticker logo is on it and everything. And people, like, they got it, which was really cool. They I would say, like, like, yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:02:55]:

You get a sticker, and they're like, oh, Because it's like your logo is a sticker. Oh, like, I see, like, brands that stick. That's so clever. So they really got it. And Considering, like, we talk about branding and we're, like, claiming to be these branding experts, having people actually see, like, oh, no. They're legit. Like, they get it.

Larry Roberts [00:03:14]:

Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:03:14]:

Like, that was really, like, I guess, like, confirming of, I mean, what we know, but now, like, they got it.

Larry Roberts [00:03:20]:

Now we do, and now we know we know. So now we're good to know. But no. It it was. It was super cool to see that. And every time you told somebody what our booth was and how it worked, I don't think there was a single person that that that didn't go, oh my gosh. That's oh oh, are you kidding me? It's a sticker? Oh my that is amazing. They were just really, really blown away by the concept, and everybody had a ton of fun.

Larry Roberts [00:03:44]:

We had those inflatable instruments and inflatable microphones, which Those were a big hit since it's a podcast conference. It just balloons everywhere. You name it. It was a fun and festive environment. And, I mean, they didn't give out awards for the best boost, but

Sara Lohse [00:04:01]:

I'm ordering 1 for us on Amazon.

Larry Roberts [00:04:02]:

I think we should. 1 present. We should definitely order ourselves Yeah. The number one booth at Podfest for 2024. I mean, I don't know that there was even another competitor, and I'm being serious now. There was one of the booth that was kind of engaging and interactive, and that was the Mopod guys.

Sara Lohse [00:04:20]:

Always.

Larry Roberts [00:04:21]:

But, I mean, they they are leaders in the conference industry, And actually, they helped inspire us take our conference game to the next level, and I mean now they cheated. They they they cheated big time. They were over there. They'd had a They had a whole beach theme set up. They had a light brown rug that looked like sand, and they had beach chairs. They had a igloo, ice chest sitting there. Ice chest was full of beer, and I think on day 2, I happen to walk over there, and they're passing out shots of an $1800 bottle of Japanese bourbon. I'm like, guys.

Larry Roberts [00:04:58]:

How can some

Sara Lohse [00:04:59]:

how can bourbon cost that much?

Larry Roberts [00:05:01]:

It must have been aged dramatically. I don't know.

Sara Lohse [00:05:05]:

Back to our last episode, but, no, that's not worth it.

Larry Roberts [00:05:10]:

Well, you gotta you gotta keep in mind that those guys, they party like rock stars. I know. So, I I guess it's worth it to them, but, aside from the cheaters that were passing out booze, I

Sara Lohse [00:05:22]:

think Love you guys.

Larry Roberts [00:05:23]:

Yeah. We we do love you guys because you guys are Larry helpful and and, enjoy working with you and seeing you all the time. But but, yeah, I think other than those guys, we we definitely had the top notch booth at the spot.

Sara Lohse [00:05:34]:

I think it's interesting how many people just don't take advantage of the opportunity of an expo hall booth. And it's exact like, it was exactly what when we were talking about our idea and planning it out, Everyone did exactly what we said we didn't wanna do. Yeah. It was just tables with stuff that had their logos on it and, Like, T shirts, which everyone loves a free T shirt. Yeah. But, like, we have plenty of them.

Larry Roberts [00:06:07]:

Yeah. I mean, what do you when are you giving away gardening Roberts? You know? Or or

Sara Lohse [00:06:10]:

Yeah. Like, it's my pajamas t shirt.

Larry Roberts [00:06:12]:

You you it's a shirt that nobody cares about. They don't think twice about it. Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:06:17]:

I'm not, like, I'm not wearing that in public. I'm wearing it to bed.

Larry Roberts [00:06:19]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:06:20]:

If you just take a few extra minutes, like, really put thought into it and Make something that's on brand and that's original and especially something that is interactive. Like, that's what we found to be the most key element was that it's interactive. And, yes, we printed out their photos as stickers, but we also they get the photos. It gets emailed to them. That's part of the lead generation funnel is that we get their email address in exchange for their photo, but the even the photo in their email has our logo on it. And now all over social media is our logo. The we've gotten so much user generated content from this booth because people like to post photos of themselves. Mhmm.

Sara Lohse [00:07:01]:

And a lot of times, you take a lot of photos at these events, but you don't take photos of yourself. Like, you're just taking photos of other people. So when you actually get this picture, that's super fun. You got to approve it before you send it to yourself, so you know you like the photo.

Larry Roberts [00:07:15]:

You're happy

Sara Lohse [00:07:16]:

with it. Yeah. So they're all over. People are posting them to their own social media. They're posting them to the Podfest groups. Whatever it is, Everywhere I look, I see our logo.

Larry Roberts [00:07:26]:

Yeah. You can't beat that. Like I said, it's I I think a lot of it too, it's just the color. You know? It was bright. It was vibrant. There was different colored lights that we had flashing. We had strobe lights, but we had everything going on. And if you're looking at some of the booths that are around us and some of the traditional booths that you See at these things you know, if you think about the pipe and drape, that's the framework of a booth, and the curtains that literally separate the booths, 99% of the time, it's just black curtains.

Sara Lohse [00:07:53]:

Mhmm.

Larry Roberts [00:07:54]:

And then somebody's taking their logo and draping it across that black curtain. They have a black table cloth. There's zero color. There's zero interest. It's just the product. No disrespect to the gentleman that was next to us. He had a very technical booth, but he had nobody getting eyes on his booth. Well, 1, because we were stealing all the attention.

Larry Roberts [00:08:13]:

Sorry about that. Not sorry about that. But at the same time, He didn't go above and beyond to get any attention or any eyes on his booth. Had a really cool product. You know, he had a portable recorder and actually a whole series Portable, podcast recorders, which I

Sara Lohse [00:08:27]:

that was?

Larry Roberts [00:08:28]:

Yeah. He's look. You were next to him for three and a half days, and you go, oh, is that what that was? That's exactly what it was. I I I stepped around the corner to see what he had going. But

Sara Lohse [00:08:40]:

I lent him a tripod.

Larry Roberts [00:08:41]:

You did what?

Sara Lohse [00:08:42]:

I lent him a tripod. That was about it.

Larry Roberts [00:08:45]:

Super cordial of you there. So But, I mean, that that's kinda where it's at, and and I think that's the the lesson that we learned walking away from this was that you have to do that that one thing, whatever that thing is, to stand out. You have to be engaging. You have to throw some color at people. You have to get their attention, and you have to have somebody at your booth all the time. And And if it wasn't for the 2 ladies that helped us at our booth, we never would have been able to pull it off.

Sara Lohse [00:09:12]:

Shout out to Ryan and Amanda. They are Absolutely amazing, and we no. We we would not have been able to do without them.

Larry Roberts [00:09:22]:

Not a chance, and they were amazing representatives, not of our booth, but of our brand. Super cordial, super friendly, super helpful. Just they were super engaged. I'm using super a lot, but they Super job. I'm super impressed, and I'm super thankful. And, hopefully, someday, we'll have the opportunity to work with them again because It was just a super experience overall.

Sara Lohse [00:09:44]:

New brand tagline is building super brands that stick.

Larry Roberts [00:09:47]:

Super Branded. What? Super brand. Yeah. So

Sara Lohse [00:09:52]:

No. But it really it it it was great, and I think it was interesting because It was the 1st time we really debuted this brand at Podfest, and Podfest is an environment that We, I say we, but it's really you, like, already are known. So that was really interesting too to kind of come in like we have our own brands. People recognize my brand, like favorite daughter, because I debuted it last Podfest.

Larry Roberts [00:10:21]:

Right.

Sara Lohse [00:10:21]:

That was when I like, my public launch was Podfest, And you're the mayor of Podfest, so everybody knows you, but it was cool to have people recognize the new brand and then put the pieces together of, like, oh, this is you guys.

Larry Roberts [00:10:35]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:10:36]:

And yeah.

Larry Roberts [00:10:37]:

And and it resonated. You know? I saw that it resonated. And, You know, it's funny because we see the evolution. You and I have been working together now for, I don't know, a little over a year, and I'm not sure that people really saw what When the heck was going on with those 2? You know? But once they saw what we were doing and they saw how legit the booth was and they saw how legit Our approach to branding and everything was they're like, oh my gosh. And it was almost like an instant acceptance and instant respect that we gained from within our own community, and that was that was really I don't know. It was reassuring and reaffirming, and it just felt really good overall.

Sara Lohse [00:11:16]:

Yeah. And having this booth also kind of lit a fire under us to start taking ourselves more seriously too. Like, We had our podcast website, listen to Branded, of course, for the show, but we had been using, like, the branded brand for, Like, as a company, and we didn't have a website. So getting ready to go into Podfest, we, like, launched a new website. Everyone go check it out, work with Branded. But, like, we launched a new website. We launched social social media handles, and we migrated our podcast off of PodPage and onto our WordPress. Press.

Sara Lohse [00:11:54]:

And we just, like, really started to take what we were doing more seriously because we would take and favorite daughter very seriously and Branded was just kind of, a label that we were using, that was kind of just a culmination of our 2 Branded. But I love that being put into that position and having to really go all in on branded

Larry Roberts [00:12:17]:

Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:12:18]:

It Expedited that process. So now, like, it's we showed that what we do is legit, to our audience, but it also kind of showed to us that it is as well. So that I think that was a really good thing for us.

Larry Roberts [00:12:34]:

Yeah. Like I said, it was just kind of a solidifying moment that, that demonstrated that we are here, and we're here to play, and we're here to play to win. And Everybody recognized that, and it was just super cool to experience that. And I think it just drove home the lessons that we know what episode is this. 34, 35 of the 38. Yes. 38. Wow.

Larry Roberts [00:12:55]:

I

Sara Lohse [00:12:56]:

think it's 38. 37 to 38.

Larry Roberts [00:12:58]:

I like to dial those numbers back a little bit. Yeah. I'm somewhere in the neighborhood of whatever episode number this is as well. But, you know, it it's it just reinforces that all of the advice and All the input we've given on the podcast, these last 30 5 ish episodes works. We proved it, And we walked away with a tremendous number of potential clients, potential relationships. We made new friendships. We reinforced our brand strength. We reinforced our personal brands, and I I just can't I I can't say enough about it because it was just really, Really cool to see all of that come together in the way that it did.

Sara Lohse [00:13:39]:

Yeah. I think any like, for anyone listening, if you're going to be doing something like this, if you're gonna sponsor a conference, you really have to remember that it's not About you, it's about your brand, and do everything that you can to pull that brand to the forefront. You're, Yes. You're sponsoring, and that gives gets you the attention, but what are you gonna do with that attention? How are you gonna capitalize on it? And I've helped other people out at their booths in the past, and they didn't have any ways to capture email addresses. They didn't have the proper signage for people to really understand what they were doing. And I guess I kind of was able to learn from mistakes I'd seen and make sure that we had everything in place. So we walked away with, like we we had just created our email list, and we have 300 people already on it because of everything we put in place to capture those email addresses. Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:14:35]:

Yeah. That's true. Yeah. We said this on the last episode, but it's not enough to give them your contact information and give them a business card. You need to get there so that you're in control because

Larry Roberts [00:14:46]:

Oh my god.

Sara Lohse [00:14:46]:

You can't

Larry Roberts [00:14:47]:

Sorry. You triggered me.

Sara Lohse [00:14:49]:

Oh my god.

Larry Roberts [00:14:51]:

You said business cards, man. You know, we did the We did the giveaway for a podcast audit, and we had a business card bucket per se. I don't know if it was a bucket, but, what do we use? Something to capture cards.

Sara Lohse [00:15:03]:

It was a container.

Larry Roberts [00:15:05]:

Container. Yeah. Sounds sounds better than

Sara Lohse [00:15:07]:

a book. Be a fishbowl, but I it's it's what I had.

Larry Roberts [00:15:10]:

Sounds better than a bucket. I'll tell you that. Going through those business cards, man, we need to do

Sara Lohse [00:15:15]:

an entire

Larry Roberts [00:15:16]:

we need to do an entire episode on business cards, Sara.

Sara Lohse [00:15:18]:

Seriously.

Larry Roberts [00:15:19]:

Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:15:19]:

Y'all step your game up. I'm sorry. We we talked about our business cards and how seriously we take them and the effort that we put in, the money that we spend, but some of the business cards we were given We're so terrible.

Larry Roberts [00:15:34]:

I don't even I some of them, I don't understand the purpose. I'm I I you know? And we were going through the business cards because, of course, You give us your business card. Well, now we have your email address and Yeah. Like, we

Sara Lohse [00:15:44]:

need the point.

Larry Roberts [00:15:45]:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we do

Sara Lohse [00:15:47]:

Nothing is actually free, guys.

Larry Roberts [00:15:49]:

No. No. But now we get to email you from time to time. Yeah. But the thing is, man, I was going through these cards, and some of them Okay. I don't have the best eyesight and Full disclosure, these are bifocals. Okay. These are transition lenses, so, you know, I should be able to see up close.

Larry Roberts [00:16:10]:

And I'm sitting here looking at his card, and I'm experiencing physical pain

Sara Lohse [00:16:16]:

Yeah.

Larry Roberts [00:16:17]:

Trying to read this 0.2 font that is on this business card.

Sara Lohse [00:16:22]:

Seriously. When y'all are designing your business cards, Set up what if it's Canva, whatever it is, set up the, like, your design canvas to be, Like, the to scale? Because it will tell you then what font size you're actually using.

Larry Roberts [00:16:39]:

Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:16:39]:

And if it's, like, 4, maybe Up it a little bit. I would say don't go Lohse, like, 8, and even that's kinda small.

Larry Roberts [00:16:48]:

I mean, the whole purpose of a business card is what? To exchange contact information.

Sara Lohse [00:16:53]:

If we can't read it

Larry Roberts [00:16:54]:

read it, there's no contact. I mean, if I didn't really want these email addresses, like really want them, I would've looked at that and went, nope. And

Sara Lohse [00:17:02]:

Some of them didn't have email addresses.

Larry Roberts [00:17:04]:

Some didn't even have email addresses. No. They didn't have email address. What am I supposed to do with that? I I don't know. It just had a name and even not even, like, a person's name, like, their brand name.

Sara Lohse [00:17:14]:

Yeah.

Larry Roberts [00:17:15]:

Turn it over, and there's nothing on the back. There may be a QR code that says scan this, but why am I going to scan it? I don't know who you are, And if I'm not attached to or, feel a need to inquire about your product or service, I'm definitely not gonna take the time to send it out in the QR code. Man, it's there's just a a lot to learn there.

Sara Lohse [00:17:36]:

Yeah. So, I mean, the people whose didn't whose cars didn't have email addresses, I'm sure I could have, like, Scanned a code, gone to their website, and found an email. But if you give me a card that doesn't have an email, I don't take that as permission to email you, so I don't do that. Right. And so then, like, I don't like, that kinda sucks for us because then we're losing out on that contact. But then it also it's like, How many people have you given this to as, like, a, hey. Reach out to me, and they can't? Yeah. Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:18:01]:

So, like, it's it's not good.

Larry Roberts [00:18:04]:

No. We maybe we need to, like I said, do an entire episode and break down the different Yep. Within this card.

Sara Lohse [00:18:10]:

Yeah. I mean, I posted recently, like, All the mistakes I made with my business card in the past and, like, how I fixed it and everything. If y'all aren't following us on social, we do have social handles now, so stick with Branded everywhere. Go go follow us. So many calls to action in this episode.

Larry Roberts [00:18:25]:

I know. Go to our new website.

Sara Lohse [00:18:28]:

Go to our website. Go to our social. Do all the all the things that we tell people not to do. Yeah. So we're talking.

Larry Roberts [00:18:34]:

We have a book for sale, and I got a book for sale too, and we all have all this good stuff.

Sara Lohse [00:18:40]:

For the person who stole our workbook off our table, Venmo us.

Larry Roberts [00:18:43]:

Yes. Congrats. Congrats to the person with the sticky fingers. That gets a bit of a problem, on a couple of different fronts there at Podfest, we got our books stolen right off of our table right Yep. Under our noses, you know, because it was so chaotic. You could just pick it up and walk off, and you're probably not gonna be.

Sara Lohse [00:18:58]:

My my PayPal email address is [email protected]. Send us that $25.

Larry Roberts [00:19:04]:

Yes, please. That'd be great.

Sara Lohse [00:19:07]:

But, seriously, some like, back to the business cards, they some of them didn't have email addresses, but the part that just, like, hurt my soul the most Where some people spelled their their email addresses wrong.

Larry Roberts [00:19:18]:

Yeah. Dot con. Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:19:20]:

I had I had a dot con. I had, m a m instead of m a n. I had someone including www in their email address. That's no. That's your URL. That's not your email. Like

Larry Roberts [00:19:34]:

I was like, hold on, man. Now you're getting a little boujee. You can still put the triple dub at the front of your URL, but if they they did that on their email

Sara Lohse [00:19:41]:

address. Email.

Larry Roberts [00:19:42]:

That's That's pretty funny.

Sara Lohse [00:19:44]:

I had dot o g instead of dot org. Oh. And I'm like, I know that like, there's a lot of different dots at this point. There's a million. You can put dot anything.

Larry Roberts [00:19:52]:

Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:19:52]:

So I I actually did go to their website to see if it was correct. It wasn't. Yeah. Yeah. No.

Larry Roberts [00:19:58]:

Not like a dot o g. You know what I'm saying?

Sara Lohse [00:20:02]:

I'm still a lowercase g.

Larry Roberts [00:20:05]:

But now I'm a big g. Anyways, now That was kind of a highlight too, man. The nineties Larry, that Saturday night was, was off the hook. You and I maintained our consistent branding because, what, We were freaking what do you call them? Twinsies?

Sara Lohse [00:20:22]:

Twinsies.

Larry Roberts [00:20:23]:

Alright. I call them twinkies, but you call them twin

Sara Lohse [00:20:25]:

That's a different thing.

Larry Roberts [00:20:27]:

No. It's not a different thing. That's twink. A

Sara Lohse [00:20:28]:

different thing.

Larry Roberts [00:20:29]:

That's a different thing.

Sara Lohse [00:20:30]:

It's it's we it's not us. But, no, we

Larry Roberts [00:20:33]:

had it was a nineties theme party. We showed up In our, like, Saved by the Bell

Sara Lohse [00:20:38]:

print hoodies and shirts, and my shoes lit up all week. And Oh, that's true. Never oh my god. I've never gotten so many compliments on a pair of shoes.

Larry Roberts [00:20:47]:

I know.

Sara Lohse [00:20:48]:

Everyone's like, where did you get those? I'm like, Amazon. Where do you get everything? Like, just look how do you find them? Like, look up light up shoes.

Larry Roberts [00:20:57]:

Yeah. Dude.

Sara Lohse [00:20:58]:

I did not do much research.

Larry Roberts [00:21:01]:

But still, you you have that creative thought process which makes all the difference in the world because, you know, I remember back in the day, people go like, well, I I when I was trying to write code when I still worked at corporate, they go, just just Google it and get the answer to, you know, what you need to write. I'm like, I don't even know what to Google. It's a how am I supposed to Google something, and I don't even know what question to ask. But you you know what what to look for. You know what products to find. You know, From a creative perspective, what to see what's out there, and I think a lot of people still struggle there a little bit.

Sara Lohse [00:21:30]:

Yeah. No. But I was getting so many compliments on my light up shoes, and Be it. Like, it's Cinderella is proof that a good pair of shoes can change your life, and I think I I think we've proven that again.

Larry Roberts [00:21:44]:

I think so. I think so. So well, yeah, I I think we just proved that if you're consistent in your branding and you're creative and you create An engaging

Sara Lohse [00:21:54]:

And do spell check.

Larry Roberts [00:21:56]:

Welcome space, and you do spell check, and you use fonts that are big enough, And you have light up shoes, and if you have a nineties party dressed like you're safe from the bell, then you'll end up having a very, very successful conference Regardless of what that conference is.

Sara Lohse [00:22:11]:

We've also proven that we're getting really bad at ending episodes.

Larry Roberts [00:22:14]:

Oh, is that where we're at? We're at the end.

Sara Lohse [00:22:16]:

I don't know. Were you I don't know if you attended the end of my session. I think you left early, but I ended. So

Larry Roberts [00:22:23]:

pulled away.

Sara Lohse [00:22:24]:

Yeah. I because I spoke at

Larry Roberts [00:22:27]:

because I

Sara Lohse [00:22:27]:

I spoke at Podfest. I ended my episodes literally saying I my episode. Ended my presentation literally saying, I don't know how to end presentations.

Larry Roberts [00:22:35]:

I I did see that. Yes. I was there for that. I sure did. And I don't know how to end presentations, but that's it.

Sara Lohse [00:22:41]:

Yep. I'm like, when peep people don't believe me when I say I just blackout when I do public speaking. Like, no sane person would have said that.

Larry Roberts [00:22:50]:

And then the the MC comes in. She goes, okay. Well, that's good.

Sara Lohse [00:22:53]:

I guess it's over.

Larry Roberts [00:22:54]:

This is over, but we still have time for questions if anybody has any questions.

Sara Lohse [00:22:58]:

I knew it was, like, shorter than I usually have, so I kinda, like, rushed through it, and it took 20 minutes. I had, like, 30. So

Larry Roberts [00:23:05]:

Yeah. You did Great, man. Obviously, some people reached out, so they followed up on that. That was great. But, yeah, I I got pulled away for a little bit because, again, your stage was right there by our booth, which was amazing. That was awesome. Yeah. Yeah, man.

Larry Roberts [00:23:20]:

So much to learn from conferences, so much to learn as far as getting that that attention at these conferences. But stick with Brandon, and, we'll we'll help you out, Teach you every step of the way. So And with that, if you can't support you in this episode, do us a favor. Hit the Alright, bud. So we can continue to bring you these amazing insights from all of our podcast conferences and other conferences and All of our adventures. Stick with us. Get we'll go places. So hit that subscribe button.

Larry Roberts [00:23:52]:

Go together. With that, I'm Larry Roberts.

Sara Lohse [00:23:55]:

I'm Sara Lohse. I don't know how to end episodes.