For the self-employed, trade shows and conventions are a
golden opportunity to gain exposure for your service or
product offering. Unfortunately many hopeful entrepreneurs
take on their first show with no idea of how to get the
most new business for their trade-show dollars.
Trade show participation is typically one of the more
costly marketing strategies, so it pays to have a solid
plan for success before you set up your trade show booth.
For maximum revenue impact, your trade show strategy should
include these four elements:
1. Have your sales skills prepared and polished
Before you get anywhere near the trade show, know your
sales process inside and out. You will only have a few
short moments with each prospect, so you have to make that
valuable time count. Here are some sales skills to count
on:
* Be prepared with qualifying questions so you don’t
waste valuable time with those who have no need for your
product or service. Ask questions that will uncover your
potential buyer’s needs.
* Listen carefully for buyer “hot buttons” that
will reveal your prospect’s buying motivation. If
you address their specific needs (instead of offering a
canned presentation), they will be much more likely to buy
from you.
* Anticipate objections, and be prepared with answers that
will increase the buyer’s confidence. This will
allow you to transform passive interest into qualified
“hot” sales leads.
2. Have a prospect-gathering strategy
Lead generation for future sales is the number one goal of
trade show participation. Most people do not intend to
make purchasing decisions at trade shows. While many
attend in order to gather product information, the majority
of trade show attendees come for entertainment
purposes—it’s just a nice way to get out of the
office on a Friday afternoon. Simply put, without some way
to gather information on prospect leads, your time and
money are wasted.
There are several means for gathering prospect leads:
* Collect and make notes on business cards for
business-to-business trade shows
* Have them sign up for your insider-information newsletter
* Set appointments for prospect follow up with in-office or
in-home visits
Be sure that your information-gathering tool collects all
the information you need. You don’t want to find out
at the last minute that your contact card should have had a
line for “cell phone.”
When the show is over you will need to distinguish
“hot” and “warm” leads from the
mildly interested. This will help you set your follow up
priority list and generate new business quickly.
3. Be proactive to initiate conversation
Once your booth is finally set up and the crowd begins to
arrive, you must be ready to take the lead in starting up
conversations with visitors. If you sit back and wait for
people to ask about your product, you will be ignored.
It doesn’t take an extrovert to be a great
conversation starter if you follow these few tips:
* Stand, rather than sit, so that you’ll be at eye
level with your audience
* Seek out initial eye contact
* Be approachable with an inviting smile
* Don’t have a table between you and the crowd
* Be prepared with open ended questions that lead to
conversation
4. Have a lead follow up strategy
Once the show is over, don’t sit too long on those
precious leads. Have a follow up strategy in place to
contact them before they forget all about you and your
offering. For best results, contact all your leads within
the first two weeks of the show.
Your follow up strategy will most likely involve a phone
call to the prospect. This is where so many good
intentions fail. Let’s face it, making phone calls
feels an awful lot like telemarketing, and you didn’t
start up your business so that you could be a telemarketer.
Right?
Making the first call is the most difficult, but if you
remember a few important distinctions, it will be a lot
easier to get through your list of calls:
* You are calling people who gave you their contact
information; therefore you are not making unsolicited phone
calls.
* Since these people have already met you, you are not a
stranger to them.
* You are calling people who have already shown interest in
your product.
Contacting leads after the show requires your greatest
selling skills. Much depends on how well you established
rapport during your initial visit at the trade show. Did
you leave them with something to remember you by or were
you just another face in a long row of displays? In your
post-show follow up you’ll need to take them from
“Yeah, that looks like a cool product,” to
“When can you deliver that, and do you take Visa or
Master Card?”
As with all small business owners, your marketing budget
has its limits; you want to make sure that your trade shows
are paying off by generating new business. For the highest
return on your trade show investment, prepare a solid
strategy before you go. You’ll see a boost in sales
that will have impact the whole year through.
----------------------------------------------------
Deborah Walker, Small Business Coach helps entrepreneurs
build their bottom line with sales strategies and expert
advice. Her revenue growth expertise can help keep your
business in the black. Learn how Deborah can help your
business at:
http://www.RevenueQueen.com
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