Your trade show booth and swag choices go a long way to attracting a crowd. Those components bring people in. However, what happens once they’re at your booth affects your return on investment for the show. Your team is your conversion vehicle. Without a good solid team manning your trade show booth, you won’t make a sale. That’s why you need to make sure you have the right people in place. If not, you’re wasting your marketing dollars.
Key Things to Look for in Your Trade Show Team to Help Conversions
Generally, it’s the marketing and sales team who man the booth but it doesn’t have to be. Whomever you choose should fit the following characteristics if you want conversions and sales in a trade show environment. This team is critical, so make sure you choose them for the right reasons.
I knew a marketing manager once who had the budget to bring four people to a trade show. One of the people he selected was his graphic designer because “she designed the booth” and he wanted her to see her work come to life. He spent a quarter of his allocated headcount on someone who brought no conversion skills all so she could see a finished product. Really, a picture or video could’ve accomplished the same thing and he could’ve brought someone who more clearly fit the business needs of that position. Afterward, he lamented that they didn’t get the sales he had envisioned for the show. That’s probably because he was technically down a person as the designer was there to only admire her handiwork.
Don’t make the same mistake. You simply can’t afford to.
You want a team made up of individuals who:
Love Your Company
Exuberance is infectious. A good attitude and excitement about your company and where it’s headed can entice people to do business with you much more than a memorized list of benefits. Look for people who are excited about your company to represent it at a trade show.
Know the Ropes
One of my biggest pet peeves in customer service is when someone tells me, “I don’t know. I just started.” While that may be true, it’s irrelevant to the customer’s needs. Instead, I would rather hear, “I’m not sure. I haven’t come across that scenario before. Let me find out for you.” In both cases, the employee is admitting they don’t know the answer. But in the latter example, they simply sound more helpful and not making excuses.
If you’re sending someone to a trade show, make sure you educate them on the common questions they’ll receive. Ensure they understand the next level of resources they can turn to if they don’t know the answer. Never allow them to cite their lack of experience as a reason not to help a potential customer. Focus on answers, not excuses.
Come from Different Departments
Salespeople sell but they don’t always know the details that customer service people do. They may be aware of the benefits and features of your product or service but may not know the intricacies or workarounds that some of your employees in other departments do. Don’t feel like you need to only take salespeople. There is value to using complementary roles like one technical person, one conversion-focused person (aka sales), one marketer, a support person, etc. Figure out what roles you need to take someone through the buying cycle and make sure they’re represented in your team.
The exhibit team doesn’t even have to come just from your company. Some companies choose to bring successful clients or customers to help conversions by allowing them to share their experiences with the company. Some companies will call up a client in the host city and ask them to stop by for an hour or so.
If you go this route, make sure you thank them profusely and take them out to dinner. Reserve this request for your top clients only, your most loyal and most engaged.
Have Been Trained
It’s essential not to leave your team without any trade show training. Even if you’re bringing long-time salespeople who sell in their sleep, it’s important that they know how you want to be represented at the trade show. There are a lot of high-level concepts like what sales approach to use as well as smaller things like is eating or drinking allowed in the booth. Some companies frown upon that and you want to be clear to everyone if you do.
What will the trade show team wear? How uniform do you expect everyone to be? Do you want everyone dressed in military-style requirements down to the length of a hem or do you have a color you want them to wear and you don’t care whether it’s on the lower half of the body or the upper? Make sure you decide this long before the actual event. You want your team to appear cohesive in whatever standards that means to your company.
For some teams, role-playing is a way to make people feel more at ease in what they’ll be doing at the trade show. If you do this, ensure that you ask the types of questions and have the kinds of interaction that will likely happen at the show. Don’t feel around and make a comedy out of it. Give live critiques as they go on what they’re doing well and how you might handle something differently. Let the team critique from within too to measure how they are learning and understanding the training you’ve provided.
Understand Company and Trade Show Goals
Your company has business goals and a mission. It should also have goals for your trade show. Make sure everyone in attendance understands what those are and how they’re being tracked. Team members may even be charged with specific goals. Make sure everyone attending your trade show knows what they are and has a plan to get there.
Understand How to Qualify Leads
Every person in your trade show booth needs to understand who your ideal customer is. Otherwise, they may spend all morning talking to someone, assuming the person is interested, only to find out they’re just waiting for their next session and like the beverages you’re offering.
Yes, you want your team to be friendly but you never want them missing out on selling to well-qualified customers because they’re talking to someone else all morning. Time and team resources are too limited for that.
While this should be part of the booth training, if it isn’t, make it a point to go over with everyone exactly who they should be looking for. Don’t discourage them from being friendly but do direct them to qualify leads pretty quickly. This is critical to mention and educate on if you’re taking non-salespeople to your trade show.
Know They Are Always On
At a trade show, there is a type of role you play as you are representing the company 24/7. This should mean a few things for employees:
- no public drunkenness and being a spectacle even when show hours are over. You never know who will remember your employee’s affiliation with your company and that’ not the type of impression you want to make.
- no complaining aloud or on social media. Don’t ever complain about the host city, another vendor, the planner, or anything about the trade show or what it’s affiliated with. While employees may think they should be able to have their own opinions, at the trade show, they quickly become your opinions.
- How they act, look, and conduct themselves is reflective on the employer. Be specific about what you want to allow and what you don’t both online and off. This includes how they treat waitstaff and set up people at the venue.
Finally, make sure your employees know the responsibility and honor it is to be asked to represent you at a trade show. Yes, the hours are long but it’s not something everyone is chosen to do. It can be a wonderful turning point in a career as your team bonds together outside of the office but there are unfortunate occasions when it proves to shorten a career as well.
Want to learn more about trade show scheduling? Read our trade show planning guide.
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