Say less and stand out more from the crowd
Planning to attend a trade show or two in the coming seasons? Shows and conferences can be good for business and employee morale. Keep in mind attendance is expensive only when you don’t accomplish your mission. And if part of your agenda includes meeting new prospects and looking for new business, here are six tips to help you bring it home safely. It doesn’t matter much if you’re an attendee or an exhibitor—the message is the same.
Table stakes have no sizzle
One of the benefits of a show is that it brings lots of players in the industry together, in close proximity, for a short period of time. We’re shoulder to shoulder with our competition. When this happens—and it doesn’t matter which industry you think of—we all start looking and sounding the same. Here’s how it goes.
After you have attracted and engaged someone new at the show, you try to establish yourself as a credible and potential source for their business. You tell them how capable and dependable you are by weaving a very true story that highlights things like years in business, your list of satisfied customers, your wonderful employees, your equipment list as well as all the operational standards you subscribe to.
But there’s a fundamental problem with this approach. Short of a few details, how different do you think your story is from your competitors? What impression have you left in the prospects mind? Here’s my guess on how you did, 1) your story sounded familiar 2) they got what they expected and heard what they thought you’d say and 3) your prospect wondered what you knew (or cared) about them? You really didn’t stand out at all. You probably proved to them that you are more equal to your competition than you’re different. They perceive most of that stuff to be table stakes and believe you wouldn’t be in business if you didn’t share that story with many of your competitors.
If you want to be remembered Tuesday morning when you follow up with prospects, you have to create sizzle—it’s the best way to leave a first impression. Here’s what the Bastard recommends you plan for, before your next trade show:
Get everybody on the same page about your business and the products and solutions your business provides, however,
- Save your story till later, after you have established a relationship.
- Ask more questions of them. Express genuine interest in their story (instead).
- Select a few prime suspects (prospects) before the show to seek out at the show.
- Do some research on this list to understand what they do, what their objectives might be and what they expect of suppliers or partners? But perhaps most importantly, try to understand the challenges they currently face.
- With that information you will have gathered a list of great questions that will stimulate more engagement, more credibility.
- The same type of questions will also prepare you to talk expertly to those you were not expecting to meet.
Once again, the prize will go to those most prepared and equipped with thought-provoking questions.
To grow in an ever more crowded environment and weakened economy, you must look for opportunity—trade shows are a great place to practice. The NAI Coating Show (North American Industrial Coating Show) is coming up soon; see my previous post for a free HIT Solutions pass, and a link for more information.
Send me your comments or questions. See you at the show.