Follow up. Suggest to clients that they designate someone on staff (or hire a contractor) to compile the leads from a show, track Web site hits or send out packets of information. Adams tells the story of a company that spent $250,000 going to a show. Then the holidays came, and no one wanted the job of organizing the lead information, so they didn’t — resulting in a quarter million dollars that would’ve been better put to use in an interest-bearing account than squandered at a show.

Make adjustments. The worst thing a business can do is go to all the trouble of figuring out their ROI, then stuff the report in a drawer. They might learn something’s not working, but that’s OK — it’s better to know than to keep doing the same old thing. “Don’t have an ego about it — take from that and learn from it, admit if you make a mistake, and just don’t make it again,” says Linda Musgrove, the TradeShow Teacher and

author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Trade Shows. You may want to have a roster of consultants you trust that you can recommend to customers if they’re missing the mark or just want more help defining the metrics.

By serving as a resource for your clients and helping them figure out what’s working and what’s not, you can increase the value of your products and services, heightening the chances that they’ll come back to you for their display needs. ROI is more than a buzzword — and when used correctly, it can help you grow a business into one that’s buzzed about.