Linda Musgrove
Linda Musgrove is an award-winning trade show industry expert with extensive experience educating exhibitors to increase their ROI. Her marketing career started as a graphic designer and she still uses those skills today when helping clients with their exhibits. Linda understands why many exhibitors struggle with this commonly unfamiliar marketing medium and often fail to achieve the results they had hoped for. Having gone through this herself early in her marketing career and then helping partner companies to improve trade show results, inspired Linda to create the Miami-based TradeShow Teacher, Inc which offers a variety of trade show training seminars, webinars, workshops, and workbooks for exhibitors.
Linda’s marketing education started with vocational commercial art programs at high school when she participated in a variety of competitive marketing and advertising contests. Due to her school’s affiliation with local marketing and advertising companies, several of her submissions ended up being implemented into client campaigns which earned her several awards and a marketing-based college scholarship.
Linda’s need to advance more rapidly in the marketing profession was triggered by giving birth to her son while she was only 16. She quickly learned how to manage her time around caring for an infant while planning a future and finishing high school. According to Linda, “My son’s birth gave me a more efficient logistics training than anything I could ever have learned in a formal logistics background.” Linda continued to attend school during her pregnancy, graduated with honors, and subsequently attended art schools in New York and Miami.
While working in the marketing department at a former employer, Linda was asked to attend Comdex, which in those days was the largest show in the high-tech industry. The show encompassed the entire Las Vegas Convention Center and several surrounding hotel convention facilities. Linda told me that, “As I navigated the scores of halls and rows, I felt invigorated and excited by the buzz of the exhibit hall. The creativity of the booths impressed me. This artificial world of lights, sounds, and creativity was such a captivating experience for me and I instantly felt a desire to be part of it, and be part of shaping and building it.”
Linda was soon named Trade Show Manager by her employer which proved to be a huge stepping stone in her career since it not only allowed her to experience firsthand all the things that one can do wrong as well as do right, and allowed her to graduate from experimenting to consistently delivering impressive results with detailed planned accuracy.
When I asked Linda how she balances her personal and professional responsibilities, she explained that, “Balancing these two worlds is challenging at times, but I have a great support team of family and friends. Everyone pitches in as needed; my husband, son, daughter, parents, and a network of other moms that I have built who always lend a hand to each other as needed. This remarkable support system has provided me with the ability to work countless hours at times, deliver projects on time, and travel as needed. I am grateful for their help and support.”
Most of us who enter a profession have mentors. When I asked Linda about her mentors, she mentioned three: “The first one would be a former boss at a company that I worked for. The company already had a full-time graphic designer which was the job I originally applied for. So I was offered a position as a general member of the marketing team. My boss told me that he appreciated my enthusiasm and obvious desire to learn. So the job offer came with the condition that he would spend time teaching and mentoring me to produce a wide variety of projects in unfamiliar marketing areas for me. Although I missed designing, I was excited about this new opportunity.
When it became apparent that I had the ability to effectively plan the company’s trade shows, public relations, and corporate events, he arranged for some advanced professional training. Those areas of responsibility became my new job description. Having such a phenomenal opportunity offered to me has made me eternally grateful to him for all of the growth, support, and opportunities provided. He dramatically impacted my life and changed the path of my career.
My second mentor was my dad. Although he was more of a passive or silent mentor, unaware that I was watching his actions as I grew up, he had a significant impact on all aspects of my life. What I learned was to be an entrepreneur in a field that you are passionate about, provide top-quality work on projects, consistently deliver them on-time or early - every time, and always deliver more than what the client expects. These priceless business lessons learned from my dad are now applied to my business on a daily basis.
My mom was also more of a silent mentor who taught me valuable life lessons through her actions, which I have not only applied to my life, but my business as well. She showed me that every problem has a solution if you look long enough to find it; and never to give up. No task is too big to take on. She led me to be a strong, powerful woman, work hard, assert myself, and find opportunities to advance when possible. Watching my mom accomplish so many achievements has been inspiring to watch and learn from.”
As I have had the opportunity of talking to many of our association’s members about how they advanced in their profession, some of them believe that it has often been harder for women to advance in this profession. So I asked Linda whether it has been a hindrance or a benefit to be female in the Trade Show and Exhibit industries. Linda replied, “Since I started my career in the high-tech industry, which almost by definition is one of the most progressive industries imaginable, gender was never an issue while I was learning my profession. So I was used to being judged solely on my performance. Having clear strategies and plans of action confirmed through results, I experienced no problems working with more traditional industries. If you show yourself to be strong and confident in your capabilities, people accept that regardless of gender.
What I feel has been the biggest business benefit, as well as a competitive advantage, is my attitude towards having an open mind when working with all sorts of clients. Taking the time to learn about their personal likes and style, then adapting to their surroundings.
If clients are conservative, I dress and act accordingly; if we are socializing, the locations selected and conversational tone would also be conservative. Then again, if they are a little wild and want to go dance on tables, I dance on tables. Knowing to understand those details and building relationships that extend beyond existing projects has been the biggest benefit for me in client satisfaction levels, as well as having them add further training, consulting services, and referring new business contacts to me.”
Society has come a long way since allowing women to vote. Although there is still room for improvement, I do not feel that the trade show business has any more challenges in this area than any other industry.”
Linda has been a member of TSEA since July, 2008 and serves as a member of our Education Committee. She is a frequent speaker at a variety of Trade Shows offering sessions such as Booth Staff Training, Networking Skills, How to Obtain Qualified Leads, How to Follow Up with Leads to Increase Post Show Sales, Post Show Reporting Strategies to Measure ROI, and Enable Exhibit Events Planning. She often is asked to write articles for various publications and writes the monthly TradeShow Teacher column for Exhibit City News. She was very excited to accept an offer from by The Idiots Guide division of Penguin Publishing to write “The Complete Idiots Guide to Trade Shows”.