One way to avoid this problem altogether is to buy your own lead collection software system that you can use at all of your shows. However, these systems are expensive and require an equal amount of effort to maintain and setup at each event. So if you don't have the man power and money to manage one of these systems, or the budget to hire someone to do it for you, then you are left with the only other option: the rental trade show lead retrieval system.
The good news is that you can create an effective follow up system with some preparation and a bit of effort. Using the custom qualifying option available at most of the shows to allow the onsite reps to categorize each lead with a few simple quesitons, you can leave the show a list of qualified leads. The next step is to assign one of your staff to follow through with the sales lead distribution to the reps and to determine which leads the sales reps should look at and which are not worth their time. You will find that this will greatly increase your trade show ROI.
Of course if you don't have time to think about this because your staff is already short handed, you can hire a vendor like Event Technologies (shameless plug) to manage this process for you for a fraction of what you are spending to exhibit. If you have the man power, please read our White Paper on how to get a handle on this process. In addition, continue reading through the blog for other ideas that will improve your trade show sales efforts.
