The 3 People You Meet at Trade Shows

Recently I attended a trade show in the healthcare industry to learn more about what competitors and other related companies were selling/demoing at the event, and how they were showing up (booths, etc).

After years of being in marketing, I've organized and executed more trade shows than I remember - it's a blur of cities, carpet orders and convention centers! If you've been to a trade show, you've already noticed that in general booth staffers struggle with getting into and out of conversations. The always awkward, "how's the show going" is a favorite standby, but fortunately there is a better strategy...

If you are staffing a booth, engage attendees in conversation by asking "What brings you by the booth today?"

With this easy opener, visitors will self-identify why they are in your booth. Depending on the response, they will generally fit into one of three categories.

1- Tire Kicker- These are the folks who have attended with a spouse, are looking for free giveaways for the kids and are just generally killing time. They are window-shopping and your booth is the store.

2- Information Gatherer- These people have come to the show for a purpose: to gather as much information about a given topic as they can. They might be involved in the buying process, or they might just be gathering information to take back to the office and share with an extended team.

3- Decision Maker- These are the contacts who actually make the purchasing decisions, and who may be looking for a product to solve an issue that they currently or will have. These are definitely contacts that you want to spend quality time with!

As far as closing out conversations, here are a few ideas:

• Did we share the information you were looking for?
• Did we get your questions answered?
• Or, if someone is really burning through your time, you may just want to give them a giveaway and say "Thanks so much for stopping by today, hope you enjoy the rest of the show!"

If you are working with an executive that gets cornered by a well-meaning visitor, help them out. Come up with a subtle signal they can give, and when you see it find a way to interject with "Sally, hate to interrupt but you're needed over here." It will get them off the hook and interacting with others again.

Hopefully these tips will be helpful- and remember, if you don't ask what brings people to your booth, you may end up sharing your entire demo with a competitor without knowing!