How To Work a Trade Show To Maximize Profits
A new member of my Inner Circle is attending her first trade show as a sales rep with a new company.
She came from customer support, so this is an entirely new world for her…and her company did not prepare her.
Here’s how to work a trade show.
1) Reach out to all of your best customers letting them know you’ll be at the show. Set coffee/breakfast/lunch/dinner meetings with them. Set appointments to have them swing by the booth. Tell your VPs so they can schmooze with your best clients and show them they are appreciated.
2) Reach out to all of your best prospects letting them know you’ll be at the show. Set coffee/breakfast/lunch/dinner meetings with them. Set appointments to have them swing by the booth. Tell your VPs so they can schmooze with your best prospects and show them they are appreciated for considering you.
3) Dress comfortably, which means wear good shoes. If your feet hurt, you’re gonna hurt, and when you are hurting, you’re not at your best.
4) Eat right, which may mean bringing your own food, i.e., protein bars, protein powders you mix in your room, have Uber Eats deliver fruit to your hotel, skip the pizzas, french fries, junk food, and candy at the booth. Skip the sodas and skip the alcohol.
5) Get to bed. When you are traveling you get out of your normal routine, so give yourself time to rest and recover.
6) Exercise. Go for a walk. Walk the stairs in the hotel. Go for a run. Do pushups, situps, and burpees in your hotel room. Stretch. If they have a decent gym in the hotel, get to it early. The nicer ones fill up and the crappy ones are usually crowded as well.
7) When you’re at the booth, put your phone and laptop away and network. Stand in front of the booth. Engage with attendees. That means looking attendees in the eye, smiling, and saying their name, which is usually quite visible on their badges.
8) Have an opening script. You’re boring as hell if you just say, “Hi. How are you? How are you enjoying the show? Seen anything interesting? Where are you from? What do you do?” Ugh. Shoot me.
9) Have a relevant giveaway with your opening script. I told my Inner Circle member to hand a pen to passersby and say, “Hi Joe, you’re going to need this.” When confused Joe takes it he’ll stop and say, “Ahhh…what? What for?” She’ll reply with, “To lock in the great deals we are offering at the show this week.” It’s an icebreaker. See how he responds and go from there.
10) Handoff prospects that aren’t in your territory. If you work CA and a prospect from TX shows up, greet them professionally and say, “You’re from Texas? Amy covers Texas. Let me introduce you.” Then get back to the walkway and hand out more pens.
11) Pre-build a drip sequence to ensure you follow up with every visitor. Ideally, it is multi-media, multi-step, which means SMS, phone, email, and even direct mail. Enter them immediately into your system. Send a text maybe 30 minutes later that says “Thanks for stopping by.” Send an email maybe an hour later with great info. Assign yourself a task to give them a call when you’re back at your desk. Then schedule another several touches to develop them into a customer. (I’ve helped thousands of sales professionals in 29 countries build these, so let me know if you need help.)
That’s how you work a trade show to maximize your profits.
