For years I've been telling my team that exhibits don't create new customers – sales reps do. I never expected that I'd have to put that maxim to the test when I found myself standing in an empty booth with nothing to display.

I work for a professional sales firm, which means we sell products for our clients but aren't directly employed by them. We represent makers of all kinds of metal and plastic parts that wind up in everything from heart monitors to hammers. A few years ago, I led a team of two other reps to Detroit for the Society of Automotive Engineers show to market products made from metal injection molding.

The three of us showed up at the venue at around noon the day before the show to set up our 10-by-10 and prep for the two-day affair. But our pallet of exhibitry was nowhere to be found. I immediately contacted our carrier and found out that the shipment wouldn't arrive until after the first day of the show. Yikes!

We were going to have to endure an entire day of marketing products from the void of an empty booth. Not ideal. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that the best product in any exhibit is the team doing the selling. We still had that. Now we just needed a little creativity.

I've always believed that an exhibit might provide a title, but it doesn't tell the story. Realizing we had a unique opportunity to inject a dash of humor and still collect a bevy of high-quality leads, I simply decided to change the booth's "headline."

I quickly found a photo online of a well-known carrier with one of its trucks in a ditch. We printed the image on a poster with the phrase "Please Pardon Our Appearance" and placed it on an empty table we acquired. Then I stood back and admired our booth with satisfaction.

The next morning, attendees started rolling in. Most folks just breeze right by an empty booth. After all, what is there to see? But we went spearfishing – that is, we engaged as many passersby as possible by asking, "Would you like to see what we don't have?"

Any opening question must grab attention, and this one stopped people dead in their tracks. They studied our nonexhibit, keyed in on the poster, and asked what the heck happened. We regaled them with our story about how our exhibitry was enduring an unlucky delay. Plenty of attendees launched into their own shipping horror stories. Their empathetic responses gave us plenty of time to smoothly pivot into our qualifying questions and dive into deeper conversations with key prospects.

We ended up having a fantastic day of gathering leads and promoting our products. The show floor closed, and our wayward freight arrived about five minutes later. With a twinge of regret, I took down the apologetic poster and put up the usual exhibit for the next day. Looking back, though, our trio did about as well without a booth as we did with one. The whole fiasco proved what I always believed to be true: I would rather have an entire exhibit go AWOL than lose one well-trained salesperson.