At a large show, it’s easy to get lost in the crowd and lose opportunities. It’s hard to get prospects to engage. No matter your approach a large percentage of prospects will not engage; however, if you sit and wait for them to engage you, you’ll be sitting a large part of the time. The idea behind the greeters and consultants approach outlined below is to simply and quickly attempt to engage prospects in conversation about their needs, wants, or desires for your products or services. To accomplish this, you must approach them. The initial approach should be courteous, polite, quick, laid-back, and confident, and then followed with questions to open up the conversation.

This system has two positions, a greeter and consultant. The greeter approaches and engages the prospect, and the consultant answers questions and sest a follow-up.

Greeter

“Hello, I know one thing for sure; everybody will need (your product or service) sometime. We’re giving away ________ to someone. You might as well sign up.” (All said with matter-of-fact lowered inflection)

Hand the prospect a checklist, one-pager, or brochure of the products and services you offer.

“When you win what would you be most interested in?”

Ask open-ended follow-up questions like:

How would you use it?
What has worked for you in the past?
What concerns or problems have you had?

When the prospect asks questions about the product or service turn the prospect over to the “consultant” “Let’s ask our consultant.”

Why Use Greeters and Consultants?

If the show is busy, you’ll miss opportunities to attract prospects to sign up if you’re tied up with one.
The consultant should be an expert from your operation with more information and knowledge.

If it’s not busy, and you know the answer, have at it, but if it’s busy even if you know the answer, consider how many opportunities you miss by spending time with one prospect. If the consultants are all with prospects, you may need to answer questions, but again keep in mind missed opportunities.

Consultant

The consultant should dig in, answer questions, offer advice, and set a time to follow up with the prospect

Dig in

Ask follow up questions that elicit an informative answer such as, what, when, where, why, and how.

Offer advice

Think attraction not promotion, what will help the prospect? It’s okay to offer DIY advice, or suggestions about something you’re not suited to do. Advise the prospect. When you offer valuable information, it makes you more attractive to work with.

Set the Stage for Follow up

It could be as simple as “I’ll have our consultant in your area contact you. What’s the best way to get a hold of you?” This could include open-ended questions for example, “What should we do next?”

The Key to the System

The key to this greeter and consultant system is capturing more prospects. The greeter’s job is to connect with as many prospects as possible while the consultant’s task is to convert prospects to leads.

If you enjoyed this post you might also like, 10 Ways to Improve Your Trade Show Results.

Photo by EU Science & Innovation on Foter.com / CC BY-ND