Recently I had the opportunity to plan and work the Harrisburg Fire Expo with Jim, a client whose fire equipment company had exhibited at the show for years.  At prior shows, Jim and his sales team would chat up lots of folks, and hand out hundreds of business cards and brochures at their flashy booth.  Then they’d head back to the office and wait for the phone to ring. 

Jim and his reps needed be more proactive in their approach to get a return on their show investment. Here are some of the tactics we used to make exhibiting pay off in sales leads:

Focus the sales reps’ efforts.  There’s a lot of socializing that goes on at tradeshows as attendees catch up with friends and acquaintances in the industry.  Train your sales reps beforehand to focus during booth hours on developing and qualifying leads. You will really increase their focus if you offer them incentives. Jim, for example, offered his reps a cash incentive for each sales call appointment they set and a lesser amount for each lead card they completed for a qualified prospect.

Have a process for qualifying leads. When the booth gets busy, sales reps don’t have much time for taking detailed notes on their conversations with booth visitors. I developed an easy-to-use customized lead card for Jim’s sales reps, to which they could staple the prospect’s business card, note a few other pertinent details and quickly check off boxes to indicate their product interests and purchasing plans.

There was also space to indicate what follow up was needed. When booth traffic lightened, the company’s sales assistant entered these leads in the sales database on the laptop we brought to the show. 

Practice your opening line.  During peak hours, Jim’s booth always got very crowded, but not every visitor was a good prospect. Some were just there to collect giveaways. The reps needed to focus their time on visitors who intended to buy, not just those who were stopping by casually. At pre-show training, I asked each of the sales reps to think about what their opening line would be so that they could begin to qualify visitors immediately. The reps decided to use “What do you do with XYZ company?” and “What prompted you to stop by?” to screen booth visitors.

Offer prospects real incentives.  All the pens, magnets, notepads and other trinkets Jim gave away at the show never increased his company’s sales.  I encouraged Jim to give away fewer freebies and use those funds to offer significant discounts to qualified prospects for booking their first order at the show.  We also offered discounts to qualified leads in a letter we sent out after the show.

Plan lead follow up.   Jim used his sales database to assign each lead to a sales rep for follow up after the show. The reps received further incentives as, over time, they turned those leads into business.  Jim also had the sales reps report on their progress with the leads at the monthly sales meetings so that he could track sales attributable to the show.

The Marketing Advantage appears monthly in Union County Voice Magazine.

Ms. Kasprzak, principal of Advantage Marketing & Associates, is a certified management consultant who specializes in helping B2B clients connect with their customers to achieve greater sales revenues. She can be reached at LKasprzak@advantage-marketing.com or 908.233.6265.

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