• Depending on your exhibition objectives, you might need different team members on the stand rather than just sales people.
• If you are launching a new product, you might need technical people available to explain the finer points.
• If you have a large stand you may want ‘meeters and greeters’ to qualify visitors and pass them to the right sales or technical people?

• Where possible ask for volunteers - people who want to do this. If you are a large organisation ask also your support and administration staff.

• Make sure your team knows your exhibition objectives and brief them thoroughly on the exhibition, clients and so forth. Also let them know what your marketing approach is going to be.
• Let them know how much it is costing and why you are investing this amount of money.
• Decide on what you regard as acceptable behaviour at the exhibition and during the intervening hours and make sure this is clearly communicated to everyone who will be there.
• If you have a large stand decide on the job functions of everyone in the team, and make sure the team members know what is expected of them. If you have a small stand, you will probably be only two or three people, and everyone will need to do all of these functions.
• Decide on one person who is responsible for the stand. If you have a team rota, allocate one person from each rota to be responsible. That person should have a copy of the Exhibition Manual and will be in charge of anything that needs to be done to the stand. The Stand Manager will be in charge of allocating tidying duties and keeping contract staff up to date with any changes in objectives.

• Make sure your team know how to ‘qualify’ a visitor to the stand. You will be looking to find out:

• • If a visitor has a want, need or desire for your products or services. If not, try and keep the conversation short.
  • Financial information. If you know what the visitor has to spend, then you can choose which products will best serve his needs and budget.
  • Are you talking to a decision maker? If they are not in a position to make a decision don’t dismiss them, but see if you can find out who to contact is at their organisation. Nevertheless, your visitor may well be a useful ‘insider’ who you can encourage to make your pitch for you.
• Remember some people can actually read upside-down so your notes are not that private unless you write them in unbreakable Aramaic code.
• Make sure your ‘sales team’ have their diaries with them so that they can schedule future visits on the spot.
• Make your position clear regarding:
  • Drinking alcohol, eating or smoking during exhibition hours.
  • Reading other than organisation literature.
  • Chatting with other stand personnel if there are visitors on the stand.
  • Leaving the stand without telling anyone first.
• Ignoring a prospect.
• Being overly aggressive.

• Enjoying the evening to the detriment of the next day

• Attract team - these are your most outgoing people and they will be chatting to the passers-by and encouraging them onto the stand.
• Information team - these people have the job of providing more information about what your organisation does and further qualifying the prospect - when are they looking to buy, what are their objectives etc. Think about maybe using a checklist on the lead form.
• If you will have a lot of traffic, think also about a third layer. The Finaliser team’s job is to free up the Information team to meet the next prospect, get contact information for the prospect and ideally get an appointment in the diary for someone to visit them after the show. Finally, their job is to ensure that the visitor leaves the stand feeling very well cared for.
• Try to keep the handovers friendly - don’t make your visitors feel like a prize in pass-the-parcel!

• Depending on your product, and the density of visitors to your stand, your best closers should be in either the Information or Finaliser teams.

Whether your goal is brand building or sales making, make sure that everyone on the team knows how to respond to initial contact by visitors to your stand. Here are phrases to eliminate - and some to adopt.

Don’t say:
I don’t know the answer to that question.

Instead say:
Hmmm, good question let me see what I can find out for you

Don’t say:
We don’t do that.

Instead say:
Let me see how we can help

Don’t say:
Our policy is

Instead say:
In most instances we can — tell me more about your needs and situation

Don’t say:
No!

Instead say:
We may not be able to, but I will be happy to find out for you, and if we are unable to help you I know someone else who can

Don’t say:
You have to call…

Instead say:
We recommend, or we suggest you…

• Don’t assume that your sales team will be equally competent selling at an exhibition. It is quite a different set of skills.
• Don’t begin by talking about your organisation. Instead, ask them about their own organisation, or make a general comment to draw the visitor into conversation.
• Don’t start a well-practiced pitch too soon. A lot of visitors come with the anticipation that they will be sold to, and have an aversion to it. If your pitch is too rehearsed, it will show and they will run away.
• Practice active listening and keep your presentations succinct.

• Don’t ignore visitors to the stand even if everyone is tied up. If you see someone who looks as they are interested in the stand, excuse yourself from your current visitor for a moment, greet the new prospect, and ensure that they are looked after by the next possible team member. Ask for their mobile number if they want to come back and see you when you are free.

• Think about holding short stand meetings at the beginning and the end of each day.
• In the morning, re-establish your objectives, remind everyone of anything that may have happened overnight, pass on any new information from back in the office that may have been faxed or phoned through. Compare notes, report sales to energise the team. Keep it light and positive. This is not the time to discuss any problems or faults. Keep that to one-to-one conversations.
• In the evening, the team can review qualified leads, complete any blanks in the lead forms, and a salesperson can immediately be assigned to the prospective client, with follow-up actions and deadlines noted.
• If anything needs to be obtained from back at the office, this can be faxed through.
• If there are any problems these should be discussed.
• Are the staffing rotas working? Do you need more people at some times of the day, and less at others?
• Note any changes to be made in your organisation’s exhibition folder. You will forget by the end of the exhibition unless you make a note.

• If you can have your briefing meetings in a private area, do, otherwise try to schedule them before or after your neighbours have left the hall.

Here is a question for you - ‘how much time and money have you invested in this exhibition to impress your clients and to gain new clients?’. It is a sobering fact that as many as 80% of exhibiting companies never follow-up the leads they spend so much money to collect.

The business cards you collect are your assets - it is what you have to show for your efforts and investment. Even before you start the exhibition you should have planned exactly what you are going to do with these business cards when you return to your office.

• Some businesses may already have a database system in place (though you will be surprised at the number who don’t).
• If you don’t have a system in place you can easily set one up on a spreadsheet or a database such as Access. If you don’t have time or expertise to do this outsource it to a virtual PA who will do this for you. It is not expensive.
• Make sure you consider how you want the system to work.
• Consider filing cards by what people do, their services or their interests.
• You can always ask for 2/3 cards from your contact if that helps you.
• Decide in advance on the criteria that will best determine the strength of the lead - this will depend on your exhibition objectives that you set at the beginning.
• Remember to mark the lead forms hot, warm and cool according to these criteria.

• Keep it simple.
• Design your lead forms so that they are easily and intuitively filled in. Ask the stand team to design the forms.
• Allow a space for both a business card to be attached and also for contact name and address details to be written in for visitors who don’t have their
• Think about the information you want to learn or know about.
• Have sections to note how much your visitor has to spend, how soon they are looking to buy, whether they are in a particular target group for you (you might be looking to break into a new market place - someone in that marketplace but who has a small budget may rank higher than a bigger spender in an existing market).
• Where possible use ‘multiple choice’ boxes that can be ticked by the stand team members.
• Do you want to know when you had the most traffic? Make a note of the day and time on the lead form to help with staffing ratios for next time.
• Don’t forget - keep it simple.

• Make sure the stand team is fully briefed on where the lead forms are going to be stored during the day.
• Make sure that at the end of each day the lead forms are collated and completed correctly. Do not wait until you return to the office, you may forget.
• Keep completed lead forms in one binder so that they can be stored off site each day for safekeeping. Designate one team member to be in charge of the lead form binder each evening.

• It is a good idea to have a separate section in the binder for each category from hot, warm to cool, as they will need different levels of follow up.

• Follow-ups are simple if you have established a strong rapport when you first meet the person. It is possible that it won’t be the same person who does the follow-up, however the initial contact should have left a very good impression of your organisation.
• Make sure that at the exhibition you say what you are going to do with your visitor’s business card. For example, we will put your details onto our database, send you literature, call to make an appointment etc.
• Make sure you specify a timeframe for your follow-up e.g. over the next 2/3 weeks

• Agree what method you will use to make contact e.g.. email, telephone, letter, fax.

• Do exactly what you said you were going to do.
• Make sure you have your consultant / secretary / virtual assistant type in the lead form details straight away. This should be your first priority when you return to the office - not the post, or the other phone calls, but getting your investment onto a database.
• If you have a team, make sure that part of the debriefing includes comments about leads and responsibility. Make sure this is also included in future debriefs as well.
• If you have the staff available, think about assigning a lead follow-up manager back in the office. Choose someone who is not attending the exhibition, so he or she can begin the follow-up process immediately. Have the top leads faxed back to the office each night by the team member in charge of the lead binder.

• Do check with your legal advisor whether you need to consider the Data Protection Act with regards to the leads you will be keeping on file after the exhibition.

Exhibitions are a brilliant forum to create networking opportunities for yourself and your organisation. Be aware that opportunities will come in varying forms and guises. Consider in advance what you would like to network for:

• To enhance your career prospects.
• To enhance your profile within your organisation and industry.
• To establish relationships with potential business alliances.
• To gather information and intelligence.

• To gather competitors’ updates.

There are plenty of places where you can network, but be careful you don’t create a nuisance of yourself or leave your colleagues alone on the stand for too long. Consider networking in and around:

• The stand with your colleagues.
• Walk around the exhibition and talk with your competitors.
• When taking time out for a break, chat with people at the café and restaurants.
• Take your contacts to quieter areas for a chat and catch up.
• There are plenty of seminars and fringe events throughout the exhibition. You may have to pay to go to the seminars, but you will be surrounded by very senior industry professionals.
• Walk around the exhibition looking for synergistic service providers who you might be able to form alliances with.

• Networking for your clients and visitors is a very powerful service.