Five unconventional approaches to selling more than you ever dreamed possible at trade shows

In the trade show world, it's a jungle out there. Show visitors are pickier than ever. Exhibitors are using increasingly aggressive -- and expensive -- methods to bring visitors into their exhibits. Multi-national giants seem destined to outdo one another with complex, elaborate and expensive exhibits. With increasing trade show production expenses and soaring travel expenses and airfare costs, the show budget doesn't go nearly far enough.

How can the exhibitor with a limited budget compete successfully in the face of seemingly unstoppable competition? The successful ones use unconventional approaches to trade show marketing:

The secret: Become a trade show guerilla
With warfare, the battle is won with unconventional approaches to fighting. Winners break with traditional thinking and conventional wisdom, and win.

In trade show selling, sales guerrillas use unconventional approaches to break with conventional wisdom and taking home the business.

The secret to guerrilla trade show selling is using your resources to maximum effect. Guerrillas wisely use time, energy and imagination, instead of brute force, such as a huge exhibit and lots of booth staff. So even small, under-funded exhibitors can compete with large, well-funded booths, and win.

Aggressive marketers view trade shows as critical to their marketing mix. They know that at a trade show, they can drum-up more business faster and for less money than from virtually any other activity.

They know the secret to creating a giant surge of orders is simply to do a trade show right. They know the fastest way to penetrate a new market is to attend an association trade show, do a great job and pick up market share.

They know that buyers are looking for fresh, new ideas. They know that any time a competitor gets locked into one way of marketing, they can often break that market wide open by doing the opposite of their competition.

For example, sales guerrillas spend more time planning for after-show follow-up than planning the customer appreciation party. The reason? They know that their competition will spend more money on the show bash than on follow-up.

Secret tactic 1: Promote your stand before the Show
Guerrillas start by attracting the right prospect to visit their booth. Many exhibitors attract non-buyers with desirable giveaways, beautiful models and incredible drawings. Because most people will stop, you'll greatly dilute the quality of your leads. This means you'll have to weed out the non-buyers to find real business -- an expensive, frustrating job.

So dump the "trash and trinkets" budget into a strong pre-show promotion, and make the people you can do business with come to you. Remember that guerrillas make sure buyers seek out their exhibit.

Secret tactic 2: Let buyers identify themselves
Unless your exhibit is a destination -- where visitors actively seek out your booth -- people will typically walk by your exhibit once and only once. If they don't have a reason to stop or can't get any attention from the booth staff, they won't come back.

The goal for your exhibit is to attract only those who can do business with you.

Everyone else please keep walking. Do this by making sure your exhibit "speaks" to buyers, the signs are clear and attract the attention of people you can serve. The words on your exhibit should pass the " headline test. " If your sign was a headline in a newspaper, would a buyer pick up the paper and read the story?

Likewise, your graphics must pass the " photo caption" test. If your picture were on the cover of a magazine, would buyers pick up the magazine and read the caption underneath? If your signs and graphics can't pass these two tests, they aren't effective, and they are costing you in confused show visitors.

Secret tactic 3: Lead management
Manage leads during the show. Most sales managers get the leads after the show is over and dump them. This is because the leads aren't of good quality, aren't complete or are names of people who wanted the "freebie" given away at the booth.

Here's how to make sure your leads are hot: Every 15 minutes, review the most recent leads for completeness of information, correct coding and quality. If you detect that a booth staffer isn't getting the information needed or is overvaluing the quality of the lead (marking it hot when it's not), pull them aside, and do a quick review of what's necessary using the faulty lead as the example.

Don't code leads hot, medium, cold, or A, B and C. What does that mean? What it means to you probably means something different to the staffer who took the information. Instead code them on the likely amount of business potential. Is this a major account, minor account, growing account? Then, based on the answers to your probing questions, sub-code on the amount of effort required to close the business. Now you know whom to first go after: The big accounts that require little effort to close.

Secret tactic 4: Time management
Only spend time with people who can buy. The secret to getting all the business possible from your show is to spend time with people whom you can serve.

Here's how: When talking with visitors, seek to disqualify. Actively look for a reason to end your discussion, and move the visitor on. The instant you find the "show stopper," a reason that you can't or won't do business with them, say, "Based on what you've told me, I don't think we can serve you. What should we do next?"

They'll tell you whether it's putting them on your mailing list or just moving on to the next exhibit. Do this, and you'll automatically spend the right amount of time with your visitors.

Secret tactic 5: Rapid follow-up
Most sales staff spend the week after the show playing catch-up from the week of the show. This means many of those contacts made at the show aren't served.

If you really want to maximize the investments you've made in your tradeshow program, think about contracting with a skilled lead qualification service provider. Select an expert company that has the resource to make quick and immediate contact with the leads you generated. This temporary help will ensure that your sales team spends their time following through with pre-qualified prospects not semi-warm suspects.