Pick a sales training buzzword and it may have touched you. Maybe managers said you should go to a course to get your inner feelings in tune with your Palm schedule in tune with work-life balance, and everything in tune with your life strategy. Life was great. For about a week.

Then, products changed or were recalled. Lawsuits mounted. Customer expectations in today's financial and ethical marketplace demanded more of you and your company. In too short a time, your corporate financials were being restated while your 401K melted and your stock portfolio slunk away, embarrassed by its original exuberance. Half your department or division or the whole company disappeared. Life was great once.

If you're in sales or marketing, you know what you did every day. That was the daily drill. You can't do it any more. And, you certainly can't do it at a trade show.

Here are four ways to understand your own - and your company's - sales style at a trade show. Maybe you're still hot. Probably not.

THE GOOD OL' BOY NETWORK ... This is the way it used to be and in some industries, it still is. Women may have broken some of the glass in the ceiling, minorities may be a tad more than token, and you may believe age doesn't matter. Wrong. It's attitude, networking and politics. It's still who knows who.

If you're in certain industries - usually the ones at the beginning of the industrial food chain or international money making - you may think your job is safe because of trust and GOB networking. Yet, because of international tensions, economic disasters, lousy mergers, and technology which produces a 24-hour business day, those handshakes you felt so comfortable with before, now may get you handcuffs or a brush off.

TRADE SHOW - Don't rest on laurels or assume the GOB will protect you or guarantee your deals. Self preservation may be more important, pricing may be more critical, and the pecking order may have changed without making the papers. What to do? Gather critical information before you go to the show, don't be na