AllBusiness.com
Strategies to Sell More at Trade Shows

Strategies to Sell More at Trade Shows

SalesLegacy

Trade shows are great places to sell. You can sell more at trade shows if you plan your sales strategy before the trade show begins.

Have a sales objective for the trade show

You are wrong if you say that your sales objective is to introduce yourself to prospects. Your prospects are coming to the trade show to buy. A sales objective for a trade show has to be one in which you move your sales process forward and do it quickly. A good sales objective for your tradeshow is to quickly qualify those visitors who come to your booth. A better one would be to contact visitors before the trade show and leave a compelling voicemail that drives them to come to your booth. Another great objective would be to set up some appointments to meet with people in your booth during the trade show.

Trade Show BadgeQualify visitors quickly at the trade show

Your job is to quickly qualify the visitors who come to your booth. Be sure to have two pockets in your pants or jacket in which you can put the business cards you receive. One pocket is for high value prospects. The other pocket is for lower probability prospects. Be ready to ask a couple of questions to quickly qualify them so you know which pocket to put the card. Your job is to know what qualifies a prospect to be someone who is likely to buy your products or services now. What criteria do they need to have now to buy your products? Your criteria could be number of employees, budget, or a particular business situation like a growing company.

Follow up within 24 hours of the trade show

Contact all of your booth visitors within 24 hours. It’s not enough simply to follow up. You have to follow up differently depending on the type of prospect you identified. For your highly likely to buy prospects, your objective should be to get a meeting. That meeting could be either on the telephone or face-to-face. For your lower probability to buy prospects, your objective should be to put them in your sales pipeline to be contacted on a regular basis. Consider that maybe the time now isn’t right for them to purchase from you. Perhaps they might be ready in the future. You want to be top of mind when they’re ready to buy.

Trade shows are a lot of hard work. Your selling should start before you get to the trade show. Once you've expended all that effort you want to make sure your efforts produce results.

Profile: Maura Schreier-Fleming

Maura Schreier-Fleming is president of Best@Selling, a sales training and sales consulting company. She works with business and sales professionals to increase sales and earn larger profits. She is the author of Real-World Selling for Out-of-this-World Results and Monday Morning Sales Tips. Maura focuses on sales strategies and tactics that lead to better sales results. Maura is a sales expert for WomenSalesPros. She is part of their group of top sales experts who inspire, educate, and develop salespeople and sales teams.She speaks internationally on influence, selling skills, and strategic selling at trade association and sales meetings, demonstrating how her principles can be applied to get results. She successfully worked for over 20 years in the male-dominated oil industry with two major corporations, beginning at Mobil Oil and ending at Chevron Corp. She was Mobil Oil’s first female lubrication engineer in the U.S. and was one of Chevron’s top five salespeople in the U.S. having sold over $9 million annually. Maura writes several columns to share her sales philosophies. She's been quoted in the New York Times, Selling Power, and Entrepreneur.