Don't Sell in the Booth

I spend a good amount of time helping companies with trade show lead collection and trade show lead follow up. When I'm onsite, I sometimes ask a booth rep, "How was that lead?" and the answer is usually something like, "pretty good, she was interested in the XXX Widget." If you ask that rep, "Was she the decision maker, or does she have budget," they typically have no idea, because they never asked. Most booth reps view each attendee as a "Buyer", so why would the need to qualify them?

Most companies staff their booths with sales people. The inherent problem with this is that sales people sell, that is what they do, and unless you can sell your product on the show floor, you need more than selling, you also need listening. A typical sales person loves to talk about their product(s). Your typical attendee wants to listen and find out about your product. The only problem is, after the trade show, you want a list of qualified leads, not a list of names and addresses.



If you don't train your sales people to collect this information, then after the show, you are going to be looking at a list of names, and have no idea who your sales people should call first. Unless you want your sales people to have to re-qualify each lead after the show, then you should think about developing a simple lead form and make sure the reps ask these questions while they talk about the product. Lastly, make sure that they record the qualifying information on the trade show lead capture device, or you'll be the proud owner of a list of unqualified trade show leads.