Speaker 1: I just got back from attending the SASTA annual conference and while I was there, I spent a lot of time in the expo area, checking out trade booths. With a few exceptions, I was mostly shocked at the behavior or lack thereof of the salespeople working the trade show booths. Events are really expensive. They cost a lot of money to sponsor, to fly the team down, to pay for the hotel, to decorate the booth, to give out swag. What's more, as a sales rep, if you're in an event for a week, that means you're not in the office doing your day-to-day sales activities, so you need to make sure you're making the most of that time, so it's more productive than if you had to just stayed at home. Whether it's your first time attending and exhibiting at an event, or maybe you've been to a dozen, I'm hoping this video can give you a few best practices to survive your trade show. First off, the trade show doesn't start when the trade show starts. Preparation is everything. Try not to arrive on the day of the event, as naturally, getting on a plane tires you out. You need to be in a good mood and energetic if you're going to want to succeed at a trade show. The other thing you want to do when you're at the event is be focused entirely on the event itself. What you should do is block off your calendar ahead of time, that way you won't have to step away from the event on the note of blocking time and meetings. If you can, and you know who's going to be attending the event, try and reach out to them ahead of time and book a meeting with them at the trade show. This means you can have meetings lined up before you even step foot on the expo floor. Try and book some lunch with some of your prospects, plus it means you get to use the company card for good food. A lot of these expos have after parties and social events hosted by third parties. Try pre-register for these events beforehand so that way you've got a full social calendar and you know what your schedule is going to be and you're not scrambling when you get there to try and figure out what your plans are going to be that evening. Okay, the day has come, you're about to leave for the event, you're packing your bags, what exactly should you bring? Well, the most important thing you can take to any trade show is a comfy pair of shoes. You are going to be standing, you are going to be walking a lot. Make sure you pack some smart looking but very comfortable shoes to take with you. Bring pants, ideally jeans or chinos to look smart, and then a couple of shirts so you can dress up. That said, if you're working a booth, then ideally you want to be wearing your company branded t-shirt or jacket. That way for anyone walking past the booth, it's going to be really clear that you work there and you can help answer their questions. Make sure your backpack is nice, light, and comfortable because that's ideally what you're going to bring to the event each day. Okay, it is time to leave, about to hop on the plane and fly to wherever this conference might be taking place. When you arrive, go to your hotel, check in, get comfortable with your surroundings, maybe you might even meet a few of your team for a bit of social activities. You may never have even met them before, so it's nice to get to know those people in person. The day of the event has arrived and now it's time to really get going. The attendees are about to pour in and you're about to work your first ever trade show booth. What's really important is presentation. You're going to want to make sure that you're stood up with good posture, stood up. That's really important to not feel the need to go sit down and go on your laptop or your phone. You really need to look approachable and like that you're ready to have a conversation at any moment. It also helps to have a few people at your booth so you already look busy. It's intimidating looking at an empty booth and knowing that that salesperson or the person who's on the booth is going to probably want to have a conversation with you. Either bring in a few of your team or even a few friendlies, acquaintances that you know to come by your booth and make it look busy and that will naturally attract more people. Now you're at your booth, you're looking good, you're feeling good, you're smiling, you're confident, you're stood up straight. Now you've got to get people into the booth. There are a few strategies that your marketing team are probably going to do to help you with this. Swag is a big one. Free giveaways, pens, notepads, t-shirts, all kinds of creative stuff these marketing teams come up for. Now that's going to bring people in but it's not going to make them stay. Typically they'll grab stuff and just walk away. So that's one way to get people in. The next one is your booth is often going to be on a walkway between maybe a couple of talks or a workshop or two. Don't be afraid to start making eye contact and making conversation with the people who are walking directly past your booth. The best people I know at Expos are always on the ball with this. They're looking at people, trying to catch eye contact, they're noticing the people who may be even taking a look at their booth. So when you see someone walking past, make eye contact with them. A lot of Expos have rules that say you can't sell in the galley but that doesn't mean that you can't call out from your booth and maybe start a conversation with someone who's going to stop and then step towards you to have a conversation. I'm always looking for eye contact. If someone walks by and I make eye contact with them, that's my open door to start maybe having a conversation with them. I like to be a little bit cheeky. If someone's wearing something nice, I'll say, hey, you look great today. What's going on? The compliment goes a long way and we'll often get them to come in and be like, oh, thank you. What do you do? Another thing that attracts people to a booth is if your company is presenting a talk or a workshop. Often these things end and the presenter from your company will tell people to go check out your booth afterwards. This is crazy. It's a huge influx of people. What you need to do in those cases, just try and talk to everyone. Try and have as many conversations as you can. Be on the lookout for anyone who's kind of shyly checking out your booth or maybe even your swag. These people are waiting for an invitation to come in and be confident, but they're just not sure of themselves. A simple conversation like, hey, how are you doing today? What are you up to? What do you do? And it shouldn't be high pressure on the person you're talking to. Now it's time to actually have those conversations. As with everything in sales, don't be tempted to hit people in the face with a pitch. If someone asks, hey, what do you do? I don't immediately begin presenting my solution because I don't know enough information. Oftentimes I'll ask them a question in return. Ah, nice to meet you and thanks for asking. Someone may ask, does your organization have an outbound sales team? Yeah, we do. I'm actually the sales leader of that team. I don't suppose you would happen to know anyone who's trying to improve the quantity and quality of the meetings that their sales development team are booking. Simple as that. Describe the problem you solve rather than trying to show them a demo at the event, which never ends well. A big thing you can do to stand out when you're talking to people at a booth is remember their name. So it can be really easy to forget their name and then you have to glance down. It's really obvious. Watch this. See that? They notice when you've done that and it actually is a little bit rude in some ways because you didn't take the time to remember their name. Be sure to ask them questions about their company. Even if they're not the right person for you, it's worth still being really intrigued in them. A lot of sales reps happen to look at a name and title on a badge and that will decide how much attention they give that prospect. A lot of prospects actually lie on their badge so that sales reps will leave them alone. What's more, when was the last time you closed a deal by just talking to one person? Almost anyone you speak with can be an ally in trying to get your product in their company. Okay, you've spoken to a prospect. You think they might be interested. Now it's time to close them off. A lot of reps at this stage grab the prospect's details. They might even scan their badge and they say, okay, I'll send you some more information next week. The issue with this is that prospect has probably had 10 of the conversations with 10 of the sales reps who are going to send them info next week. Their inbox is going to be hell. Instead do this. If you feel as though someone's interested, ask for the meeting and then actually book it with them right there and then. Everyone knows their email address off the top of their head. What you can do is open up your calendar and you say, does this time work for you? Then you can actually send that calendar invite to that prospect. Boom, just like that. They're not going to forget that you've got that. That meeting is much more likely to happen and you're actually going to get a response. Another thing you can do, whether it's a business card or an email, is you can ask someone for their number. Once you have their number, immediately pull out your phone and add it in there. So go 90291 and add their number in there. Create a new contact and then what you're going to do is this, it's really cheeky. Send them a text saying, hey, it's Will Aitken from SalesBeat. Now's your time to take notes before you forget it. Do not trust your mind. There is too much going on. You need to remember this information. Jump to the side, find a quiet place where you can jot down some notes in a notebook that you can revert back to when you have to update your CRM later today. I also find it's really helpful to connect with people right after I've met them on LinkedIn. Send them a connection request with a note saying, hey, we just spoke at the SASTA conference. It was at this booth. You're going to be much more likely to get them to accept during the event rather than afterwards when every other sales rep is going to try and connect with them on LinkedIn as well. I've seen it be done. You can close a deal at a conference if it's a hot lead. I've seen people sit down with a prospect, show them their solution and say, do you have anything like this? The prospector says, no, but we need it. And you know what the rep did? They said, great. Should we look over a contract right now? They then closed the deal at their booth. This is possible, especially if you have a slightly smaller, more transactional product. You'll be surprised how much you can get away with when you're in person with a prospect. I told you earlier about those parties. Now these are going to be a good fun for you and your team. And it's nice to have that bonding and rapport. But don't think that the closing and the selling is done just yet because these parties are often heavily attended by the exact people that you want to speak to. So always be on the lookout, always be on your best behavior and try and find people to talk to at these events. Sure, it's great to get to know your team, but it's also awesome to make new contacts. You could be meeting your future boss or a future prospect. So shake hands, meet people, smile, listen, ask them questions. I won't name any names, but when I was at Sasta, I went to a party hosted by the email writing company, Lavender. And at that party, a sales rep from one company met a decision maker from another company in the bathroom and he booked the meeting. Okay, so you've nailed the trade show, you're doing the parties, you're networking, you're shaking hands, you're meeting people, you're booking meetings. Here are some general tips to make sure that you stick by as well. Number one, those comfy shoes are going to be a lifesaver, but make sure you lie down and go to bed early. Getting good night's sleep will mean that you were actually able to perform your best the following day when you have to go back on the expo floor. Make sure you have a great breakfast, make sure you grab something for lunch, you have a really solid dinner as well. It's really important to keep your energy levels up when you're going to be standing all day talking to people, make sure you look after yourself. Drinking water at these events, having a water bottle that's always full next to you, it's going to just mean that you have a better time. Try and make friends with the other sponsors, but there are going to be sponsors who are going to be having conversations just like the ones that you have, and they can often refer you people that they've spoken to, or they can even point people in the direction of your booth if they know you and they're friendly with you. I sound a little bit like my dad right now, the last thing I'm going to warn you about is do not sleep with your boss, don't sleep with your coworkers, don't sleep with your clients, just avoid that whole shenanigans. It's not a good look, you do not want that reputation. Okay, that's all the doom and gloom stuff. One last tip, make sure you have a good time. It's going to come through in the conversations. The stories that come from the event will be better if you're having fun, so always make sure that you're having fun when you're talking to customers, when you're at the event, when you're on the expo floor, when you're attending talks, when you're at the drinks afterwards, always make sure you're having a good time. It's an awesome opportunity to travel for business if you make the most of it. And that is how you survive a trade show as a salesperson.