As a key element of our sales and marketing efforts for many of our clients, we frequently attend trade shows and events on their behalf as either attendees or as exhibitors.
A common occurrence at many tradeshows and events is that many people will attend and walk the floor, but not speak to or try and book meetings with potential prospects or clients. This is a major lost opportunity.
Regardless of whether you have a booth on the floor or not, tradeshows can be an excellent source of leads, a solid way to scope out the competitive landscape and an interesting way to seek out new partners. This blog post will focus on trade show sales tips and the ways you can maximize your B2B sales results at tradeshows and events.
Here are 7 trade show sales tips.
1. Review Exhibitor/Speaker Lists
Prior to attending the event or tradeshow, look at past exhibitor and speaker lists and review the current speaker/session list to identify potential targets and get a feeling for the nature of the attendees. In addition to this, take the time to discuss what makes a good customer. For example, we have a client that specializes in work truck leasing and rentals that is geared towards the Ontario marketplace. Going after a firm with operations in the Yukon makes for a waste of valuable time.
2. Understand Your Goals
Understanding what the goals are for the event or tradeshow, such as qualifying opportunities or looking for channel partners, will help you make the most of your limited floor time.
3. Set Targets
Setting targets for measurable activities such as the number of leads generated, meetings booked or business cards collected will help to make to make success tangible and will help immensely. Ensure all the leads and contacts you collect are tracked in your company CRM.
4. Prepare
Ensure all event attendees are equipped with a list of excellent probing questions, have your elevator pitch down, and understand how your value proposition could apply to potential attendees. If working at a booth, always ask probing questions prior to engaging them with your value proposition. Identify the prospect’s business pain will help you target your value prop more effectively.
5. Break Up The Room
Segmenting the room or floor into sections and setting time and lead goals for each section will help you budget your time effectively. If you are attending with someone else, agree to divide and conquer.
6. Follow-Up Right Away
Follow up on all of your generated leads right away post event to stay top of mind. Don’t let great leads go cold. At a minimum, connect with new contacts via LinkedIn immediately following the event.
7. Be Considerate
Remember that if you are walking around the floor or at the booth, your goals may not align with those of the other exhibitors or attendees at the trade show. For example, they may be looking for customers, not partners. If you know your objectives aren’t aligned or complementary, don’t waste the other person’s time.
8. Have Fun
Take the time to meet new people, learn about new companies and search for new opportunities with an open-mind and think about how you can help others achieve their goals too.
If you require help with your tradeshow strategy or are looking to learn a few more trade show sales tips, please don’t hesitate to contact us. I am always happy to see if we can help you drive your revenues faster. For more sales insights, sign up for our monthly newsletter.
