Page 34 - EXHIBITION BOOK - BOOK 1 Before!_Neat

4. Close: 1-minute Lead card complete? Agree on the next step and go on to the next lead!

Companies often overlook the fact that they are taking chances with exhibitions if their sales or exhibition
team are not fully trained and this really is an opportunity missed as you only have one chance to make a
first impression and this is it. Consider how much you are really investing in your show...I dont mean the
cost with the organiser as this is on average only 1/3 of what you will spend overall. Its a big
investment...For the cost of 2-3 sq metres of space you could have your team well trained and get more
and better leads that convert into real business. Exhibitions offer a different type of sales opportunity and
the worst thing you can have is a visitor walking away from your stand with a bad experience.

Exhibition training comes in many forms but covers such things as….

• How to get visitors to your stand
• Engaging visitors while they are on your stand
• Getting the right information from visitors
• How to sell at Exhibitions
• Qualifying real buyers and not time wasters
• Getting the buyer to the next stage
• Follow up strategies for post show
• Database building
• Making sure your visitor doesn’t need to go to your competitors stand!

Many companies do all the right things when it comes to exhibiting and have a great stand, lots of
feeebies, multi marketing campaigns and great shiny new products but give little thought to the one thing
that sells your product…YOUR PEOPLE!

If you have all the wonderful aspects of exhibiting right but your people aren’t up to the job, then yiu are
going to get some sales and leads but not as many as you can. A lot of people say to me “but sure why do I
need training….and it’s too expensive.” Well let me give you an example…I had a client at a show a few
years ago who spend north of €20k with me and close to €75k overall and in talking to his staff it was really
obvious that they were telesales people drafted in from the office to work the stand…they had no idea
how to sell in an exhibition environment and in watching them from afar I could see them let visitors walk
on and off the stand whilst they just sat there in fear not knowing what to do. I don’t say this to shame
them but rather the responsibility was with the directors to ensure that every nugget of a lead was chased
up….it didn’t happen, and the company never exhibited again. If your going to spend thousands of your
hard-earned money exhibiting…be sure the people who are helping you are fully trained in how to do so.
You should be spending at least 10% of your overall budget having and training the right people. This is not
a cost.it’s an investment because without it you will get less leads…. less business and very possibly give
your visitors a bad impression of your business.

This is not a book about my company but if you do want help or advice with this please get in touch…We
specialise in this.

Talk to an Exhibition Training Company to ensure you maximize your return from exhibiting...