Using a bit of showmanship to exhibit your lab to current and potential customers, R&D partners, and employees; coworkers from other locations; the media; and the general public has many advantages. The key to successful showmanship is to stress your lab’s ability to solve problems. Current and future customers and potential co development partners will be impressed by your capabilities and will be more likely to award your company business or to work with you on co development projects. Potential employees will be more likely to accept the job offers you extend to them. The media will be more inclined to trust your lab employees, using them as sources for stories and giving your lab favorable publicity. If your lab is an academic laboratory, you will be more likely to attract undergraduate science students and science graduates to your institution.
The most effective strategies for showing off your lab depend on the people to whom you want to show it. However, all your visitors must see tidy laboratories with equipment in good condition. They must see appropriate safety equipment installed and staff members wearing their personal safety gear, particularly safety glasses. Lab visitors must also be issued the appropriate safety gear, especially safety glasses, when in your laboratories.
There should be a designated host for each laboratory your guests visit. Each host should prepare a list of points they want to make and the laboratory manager should approve these. Hosts should explain how equipment is used on a day-to-day basis. In doing so, hosts should remember that some of the guests may not be chemists. If this is the case, they should briefly explain the use of every piece of lab equipment they discuss. They also should define each technical term the first time they use it. When discussing a piece of research, they should explain what is interesting about it, and particularly what will be relevant to each set of visitors.
A schedule should be set for the laboratory tour, with times allotted for each lab to be showcased. Be generous in your time allotments as visitors’ questions can substantially lengthen a laboratory visit. If it can be done safely, have experiments or demonstrations running when the guests visit each laboratory.
Visitors – customers and prospective customers
When current and potential customers come to visit your laboratory, be sure your invitation includes decision makers who can steer business your way. Often these will not be researchers, but business managers or purchasing agents who may bring along plant operating personnel or researchers as consultants. Design the visitors’ schedule to show and persuade guests that your laboratory has developed outstanding products and processes relevant to their business. Finally, you should emphasize the high quality of your lab’s customer service and how your staff can help your visitors solve operating problems in their production facilities.
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