You can learn a lot of stuff working the Exhibition Hall of a large trade show and conference.
That’s why hanging out with Booking Protect last week was pretty eye opening and helped remind me of some very valuable sales and marketing ideas.
Here are a few of them:
- Selling is about creating value: If your message isn’t getting across, that’s on you not the consumer. To make sales, you have to show the potential customer that you have value that will help them advance their business. Just having a cool product or a cool idea isn’t enough, you have to show the value from the start.
- Just showing up is cool, but you have to really work: I noticed a lot of exhibitors just hanging out, waiting for people to come talk with them. That’s not really going to work. Even if the exhibition hall is set up to encourage people to get into the room with you, you can’t just sit around and hope that people are going to come and talk. You have to work at it and encourage people to stop and chat. Showing is cool, but that’s only part of the show.
- Knowing what you hope to achieve can help your sales process: We all have a sales cycle. Some of them are more planned out and structured than others. Knowing what each step in the sales cycle looks like can accelerate your sales and help you know whether you are moving in the right direction or not.
- Even people that you don’t consider prime prospects can provide you valuable feedback: One of the lessons I relearned over the past few days is that there is value in having conversations with people, even if you don’t think they are great prospects. You want to spend as much time with qualified prospects as possible, but being willing to talk with people you do get a lot of constructive information and you should be open to those conversations.
- Know how you want to follow up: Maybe the most important thing you can do after you finish up a conference is understand how to follow up. Too many people just follow up with a blanket email blast. That’s likely unsuccessful, but if you have a dedicated plan for following up…you can customize your follow up and targeted according to constructive conversations during the show.
Here are just a few lessons relearned over the last few days.
What ideas have you relearned?