Lessons Learned at Charm School: Speaking with Prospective Customers

What You Should Know about Speaking with Prospective Customers on the Show Floor

• Your staff should appear comfortable and confident and be knowledgeable about your product or service
• Listen attentively
• When possible, take notes and write those notes on a preformatted lead form
• Follow the Golden Rule and treat others as you would like to be treated

You have designed the perfect trade show booth, everything is set up and ready to go, you have assembled your staff, and the first prospective customers are approaching your trade show exhibit. Now what? Your staff must be trained to be assertive, yet not overbearing when engaging the customer. Some managers even hire professional trade show trainers to prepare for the big day. Here are a few common sense tips to think about before you interact with a prospective client.

Your Staff

Your staff should appear comfortable and confident. Think of them as goodwill ambassadors for the company. It is a no-no to be seen chewing gum, eating or drinking, or talking on a cell phone. Your staff has to appear focused on the matter at hand, even during the occasional lull in activity.

Your staff should not congregate in groups while working in the booth since it may appear to customers as a social conversation. Position them throughout the exhibit. This will help put the customer at ease.

Interacting with the Prospective Customer

This tip is obvious but critical: Listen attentively. Never talk over a customer in your enthusiasm to recite your pitch. Nothing will turn off a customer faster than the feeling that they are not being heard. You have a product or service to sell but until you know what the customer needs, you don’t know how your product fits their specific requirements. Good salespeople know that successful selling is primarily about asking the right questions and listening.

When delivering your pitch, keep it brief, no more than thirty seconds to a minute and maintain eye-contact the entire time. As you converse, look for body language cues. If a person looks bored, don’t hold them hostage; consider handing them off to another staffer. On the other hand if the person is enthusiastic, you should guide them to the person in your booth assigned to answer their questions or take down their information. Too often, eager, positive customers are dismissed in order to talk to the next person in line.

When possible, take notes and write those notes on a preformatted lead form or on an electronic lead generation slip. Customers appreciate your desire to capture their information. Write your name on the form. Details matter and within a day or two, often within hours, you will forget about specific conversations. At a successful show, you may speak to several hundred prospects. No one can be expected to recall every conversation. After the show, these details make the difference between an efficient and productive follow up conversation with the prospective client and starting from scratch.

Don’t make assumptions based on their appearance. Unfortunately, we all do this and it never fails that a client dismissed as “not worth the time and trouble” becomes a major client for a competitor.

The Golden Rule

The most important piece of advice is to follow the Golden Rule and treat others as you would like to be treated. Engaging the customer can be a delicate business. Karen Paxton writing in Computer & Software News notes that “A trade show booth’s staff typically has only eight seconds to attract the customer’s attention.” Your staff must be vigilant in pursuit of each lead. Every person who browses a brochure or grabs a giveaway must be engaged, and treated as if they were the CEO of a company. After all they just might be!

For more infomation about trade show or events marketing, give us a call or send us an email. We welcome the opportunity to assist you with your next event.