Modern Strategies for Trade Show Results

quality time with them, we may miss other opportunities. So what are some strategies that you can employ in trade shows to make sure you get the best results? For starters, what we want to do is want to make sure we're focused on specific objectives and goals. If there are attendees who we know we want to connect with, before the event even happens, we want to meet with while we're there, we want to reach out to those

people in advance. Now, we can't just say, Hey, I'm going to be the show, I want to show you our stuff, because then we sound like someone who's just a stereotypical salesperson. And when that happens, what happens is that prospect thinks, oh, I don't need to spend time with them just so they can try and sell me something. So your first outreach should be something along the lines of here's some trends that we've been seeing

lately in our industry. And I'd love to talk to you about those and see if you're facing those, you might be facing different ones, something along those lines, you get someone to say, wow, they have their finger on the pulse of trends in our industry, they might be helpful, then at that point, once you engage in that level of conversation, it's a matter of look, let's connect here and I want to learn more about what it is you're doing. I don't even know if we have anything that

would be helpful for you. But we work with a lot of people in this industry. And I'm happy to talk about different trends, different initiatives that we're seeing, to see if those line up with yours. We might not do anything together for years, which has the added benefit of being true because you may in fact, not do anything with them for years, because at this point, you don't know enough about their situation, to know

if you can help. Now, what about at the tradeshow? Well, for a lot of organizations, the goal is how do I capture as many business cards as many contacts as possible. And I don't think that's a great strategy. Because if people are not a good fit for what you do, then you're just collecting names of people who you're going to be breeding with information that isn't relevant to them. If you want to get top results for your team, take a look at the Same Side Selling Academy. Just visit same side

selling.com to learn more. So when someone comes up to your booth, there's a couple things you want to do first, in terms of booth design, you want to focus your design and messaging around the problems that you solve, instead of describing what it is that you do. research I've done across over 10,000 executives says that the first thing people care about is what problem might you be solving for them? Why is that problem worth solving, and then what's the likely outcome or result if they

actually implemented whatever it is you're offering. So describe the kinds of problems that you solve. And ideally, you want to pick the top two or three things most likely to resonate with the attendees at that event. And here's a little trick, if you're showing up at an event, and you don't know the three biggest problems that you're solving for people, you probably should not

be going to that event. In fact, you want to make sure you're showing up in a place where most of the people there are a significant portion of them have the kind of problems you're good at solving, or at least you know, that's where those people go to hang out. What that allows you to do is if your messaging on your on your booth is centered around, what kind of problems? Are you good at solving them? When someone comes up to your booth? The first question you can ask is, oh,

what inspired you to stop by today? And usually, they will say, Oh, that second bullet on that backdrop, really caught my attention, you just say really why that one. And now we're talking about what they're looking for, not what it is that you're selling. As soon as you start showing a demo, showing some sort of capabilities, you look and act like a stereotypical salesperson. And think about what happens when you walk into a store. And the salesperson says May I help you?

You probably like the rest of us say no thanks. Just looking because we've been trained to believe that we don't want to be sold to we don't want someone else trying to sell us something. And so it gets that knee jerk reaction that says, Look, get away from me, which is a totally reasonable reaction I have. So instead, we want to make sure that we're focusing on their issues. Now, some people will say, wow, this person is

really interested. I'm going to focus my time on them. But I often ask is, so you spent a half hour with that person, right? Oh, yeah, they were really interested. Okay. How was their level of interest? And how good of a fit are they compared to the three people who were behind them? Who lost patience, lost interest, and went on to the next booth? And the answer is we have no idea because we didn't talk to those other

people. So the idea is to have a specific game plan at a trade show that says look, my goal is kind of a kid Catch and release program like fishing, I want to attract the interest of my ideal client, I want to find out what's important to them. And is

it important for them to try and solve. And then once I gauge that interest, I either want to set up a specific time, when it's not the typical show hours to meet with them and in depth, or I want to schedule the time I take out my phone or something like that and say, Hey, why don't we schedule a time for the second day after you return from this event. And we can talk about in greater detail to see whether or not we can help. I don't want to monopolize your time, I'm sure you want to see a

lot of other people here. And I'd be happy to talk to you next week to see whether or not we might be able to help. What that does is it allows you to pique their interest and you don't seem desperate. Instead, what people do is they spend all this time with that individual and they they totally overlook the

people behind them who might be even a better fit. The idea is to come out of the show, saying, here are the subset of people who had a genuine interest who impressed upon us that that problem was costing them enough to make it worth finding a solution. And we've already scheduled a time next week for us to follow up with them and find out whether or not we can help. See, the idea is that we want to come away with a list of

people who have interest in what we do. And we're still not quite sure where the fit is, rather than have 1/10 A number of people who we think are interested, but we may have missed some of the better opportunities. So as you're looking at trade shows, just to recap where we're at. First, make sure that your messaging on the trade show is focused on the problems that you solve, not what it is that you're selling.

Then, if there are people who you know, are attending the show you want to meet with, reach out to them in advance, talk about the trends you're seeing in the industry, not just you want to show them a demo. In fact, we want to avoid demos in these trade shows wherever possible, because once you're doing that you look and act like a stereotypical salesperson. Once they come to the booth, we ask questions like What inspired you to stop by today? And they'll usually talk down about

something they saw. That's a problem. You say? Why that one, now they're talking about their problem, then we want to gauge how important that problem is for them and set up a follow up time to take a deeper dive. If you follow that approach, you'll get a much higher conversion rate than you might otherwise and you're not going to come across like that pushy

salesperson. If there are topics you'd like me to address, just drop me a note to Ian at Ian altman.com Of course visit same side selling.com And I will see you next time on the Same Side Selling podcast so long