The trade show manager and marketing personnel have put together a great exhibit. The booth looks fantastic and delivers the company message. You have the pre-show meeting where you tell all the reps what is expected and then when the doors open… the reps stand around and talk to one another, play with their phones or laptops, and wait for someone to amble into the booth. (Sound familiar?) 

Worse, they only want to talk to “real buyers” and only buyers of “their particular product” or “their sales area.” The result? A low ROI, a frustrated trade show manager and marketing director, and questions as to whether trade shows are really worth the money.

Firstly, trade shows are worth the money, because any time you can get a group of potential buyers or persuaders together, relationships are made or strengthened and sales can be made. (You can’t create the same “feeling” from a webinar or teleconference – but that’s for another article.) 

Secondly, you suffer from a low ROI – not to mentioned frustrated marketing managers, trade show managers, and event managers – because your sales force may know how to sell in the field, but few know how to sell on the trade show floor. 

What follows sounds simple, yet few reps actually do it. So, regardless of your level of trade show experience, here are just a few things on which sales reps need to focus at a trade show:

1) Stop looking for low hanging fruit. By low hanging fruit, I mean waiting for attendees to come to you. Get out of your booth and step into the aisles. Hold some info or DVD/CDs in your hand and engage attendees, as they walk down the aisles. You can say, “If you’re interested in (a brief sentence of what your product does), we can help you out.” Or you can say, “Are you interested in (insert above sentence)?” Engage the attendee. Smile and be friendly. 

When someone does walk in the booth, halt your conversation with your fellow rep about where to go to dinner and talk to the attendee. Introduce yourself and ask them, “What can I help you with?” Which leads me to…

2) It’s a team approach. If an attendee is not from your region or is interested in another product you don’t cover, take the attendee to the rep who can benefit from the conversation with that attendee. Sales reps aren’t necessarily “team players.” Companies love to talk about “teamwork” and then honor the individuals who have made more sales than others with prizes, cash, etc.

That’s why “teamwork” must be stressed at the pre-show meeting. Reps can help each other do more business at the show, which aids everyone. If a fellow rep won’t reciprocate, then you can stop sharing the leads with that rep. But more likely than not, your fellow rep will return the favor, if not there, at sometime in the future.

3) Get your mind off the close. Reps are focused, rightly so, on closing deals. However, at trade shows you have to relax and distance yourself from the close and work more on the “relationships” aspect, as well as educating potential customers. Why? Basic psychology: Right now, people are nervous and anxious and they can sense the same from other people. People will always gravitate to someone who is calm and relaxed, especially if they themselves are not. If you are relaxed and focused on relationships and educating the attendee, the attendee will respond with calmness and be more open to your ideas and suggestions.

Bottom line: Trade shows are the undisputed king of relationship building and the on-site, real-time education of large number of customers. As mentioned, webinars and teleconferencing are fine and have their place, but real face time and hands-on demos still and always will beat a flat screen and a dark conference room.

By being proactive at a show, you expand your opportunities. Expanding your opportunities will increase your productivity. You increase the amount of leads in your pipeline and help to generate a higher ROI from the show not only for you, but also for the whole company. In turn, this gives your marketing team the help they need to continue to help you.

These 3 tips for selling at a trade show will help trade show managers and event managers get their sales reps focused on being more proactive and more productive on the show floor, which increases ROI and justifies the marketing expense.  To see how I am able to help you create a “buzz” about your booth, bring in quality leads and increase your ROI, watch the video below:

I was recently talking to a prospective client about using my services as a trade show magician to help them attract more attention to their exhibit.

According to the marketing manager – who was for using me – there were others at the company who thought that buying a new trade show booth would be a better way to attract more attention to their booth.

My response is what would make anyone think that attendees remember what your trade show booth looked like the past year? Remember, it may have been a year since attendees last saw your trade show exhibit. Of course, you want to have a great looking exhibit, but attendees won’t remember what your booth looked like at the last show nor will they stop at your booth based on the new look of your booth.

For example: I have worked with smaller companies that were in a 10 x 10 booth and we had consistently higher traffic and generated more interest in their product than the massive 40 x 40 and 40 x 60 booths that surrounded us. Additionally, I know that one of the larger trade show booths spent a considerable amount of money on obtaining a new booth and it still sat empty, which meant lackluster results and a lot of explaining by the marketing team when they got back to the office as to why the ROI was so low.

A new trade show booth makes the people who work at the company feel proud – and that’s fine. However, it won’t make a difference to the attendees. A trade show is about getting attendees to stop and take notice of what your company has to offer. It’s about attracting them with something unique and/or entertaining. Unless you have a new product or service that everyone at the show is going to flock to, you need to utilize something else to gain maximum attention and build a draw to your trade show exhibit.

As a trade show magician my job is to attract attention, deliver information and help generate a higher ROI via an increased quality lead count. As stated, a new booth may look great, but how effective is it to really stopping traffic and getting your message out – not to mention helping you generate quality leads? 

If you look at the cost vs results, the cost for a new trade show booth is high and the results may be far less than you desire or need to provide to show a solid ROI from the show. In these tough economic times, the money may be more wisely spent on a solid booth attraction, pre-show mailers, enhanced giveaways, and post-show follow up.

Having an effective trade show booth is critical to success at a trade show. You want a higher quality lead count and great interaction between reps and attendees. The 3 areas that can help you create a more effective trade show booth are: proper signage and display, a great draw and attentive reps.

Step 1) Proper Signage and Trade Show Display: After 30 years working in trade shows, it’s amazing to me how many companies don’t utilize proper signage in their trade show booths. I’ve been at some shows where you could barely find the name of the company or the messaging is so complex that attendees have no idea what the company is offering.

Even if the trade show display or booth design company suggests a cleaner look, sometimes these suggestions are overridden by the client who just wants a “few more messages.” Trade show booths with too much messaging only force attendees to ask, “Now, what do you guys do?”

Follow the 3 C’s – keep your messaging clean, clear, and concise. Don’t overload the booth with tons of sales & marketing messages. Focus on 3 - 5 main points and push those properly via your trade show display and signage.

On your signage, focus on the benefits of what you have to offer and not your recent awards. You can mention your awards, but remember, attendees don’t really care what “your company” has won; they only care “what you can do for them.”

Step 2) Great Draw: It helps to have a draw that will effectively attract attendees to your trade show exhibit. The draw should bring excitement and energy to your booth, while getting your sales & marketing message out at the same time. Additionally, your draw should be sophisticated enough to be able to pre-screen attendees so that you not only have a higher quality lead count but that, if you have demos, your reps are only giving demos to qualified attendees and not just attendees who want giveaways.

There are a few draws that will inform, entertain, and pre-qualify attendees such as a trade show magician. Your draw should reinforce your main messages, while still being entertaining and involving the attendees. Make sure that the messaging that the draw uses are the same ones that you have on your signage. That way, you double the impact of your messaging and provide ample leads for your reps.

Step 3) Attentive Reps: Make sure that your reps are ready to give demos and talk to the prospects that your draw brings into your trade show exhibit. I can’t tell you how many times I have had a huge number of prospects waiting to talk to reps after my presentation and the reps have “gone to lunch” or are talking to other reps, fiddling with their computers, etc.

A pre-show meeting should highlight the need for not only going over the “do’s and don’ts,” but also what is expected from the reps to make the sure the show is successful and profitable for your company.  

These 3 steps can help you to not only have a more effective trade show booth and bring back to the office a higher quality lead count, but also provide your reps with more solid leads to follow-up on via their quality demos and attendee interaction.