Waste Not, Want Not

Make sure you know how you're going to – and who is going to – process your leads before the show starts, said Francis Friedman, president of Time & Place Strategies. Smaller companies usually have higher-level executives involved in their tradeshow exhibits, but the larger the company, the lower the level of executive. That can lead to difficulty in coordinating lead processing across organizational lines, so get an executive involved who can cross those lines for you.

Coordinate before the show with the handoff person – that is, the person who will receive the leads after the show. Know what information he or she will need so you know what information to gather. (For instance, what are prospects' usual sales volumes and how soon do they plan to buy?) It's also important to know their selling cycles. In the fashion industry, the cycle is immediate; in some technical industries, it could take several years to work through the research and development, manufacturing and marketing phases.

Use staffers who are enthusiastic and know what qualifying questions to ask. Make sure that those staffers who are naturally outgoing are also naturally inclined to ask the right questions, or train them to do so.

Recognize that tradeshow selling means the salespeople are also on display, which is quite different from the routine sales call, Friedman noted. At a tradeshow, the attendee is in charge – and a traditional salesperson can find that unsettling. The salespeople who do the best in the booth are the inside sales reps because they are used to getting battered by questions and qualifying prospects quickly, and they like the chance for the face-to-face encounters that they get in the booth.

Have an overnight e-mail setup in place at the show to connect immediately with prospects. That can be outsourced, if necessary, and if you're not going to follow up right away with leads, do so within a day or two of the show's end at the latest. The majority of exhibitors never send promotional literature to leads, or don't for a month or two following the show. This is an opportunity to maintain contact.

Send leads back to the office every day so information can be sent to prospects immediately, advised Lynne Parry, tradeshow manager for Apple Rubber Products. Get information to the follow-up person right away and do what has been promised very quickly. "We ask the prospect when they will be back in the office, so we can find out how soon we can start working with them," Parry said.

Get good information and notes on your leads. When follow-ups are done, ask prospects again about their needs, because they may not remember what they talked about at the show. Good information to be gathered includes timing, budget, who is responsible for the project at the prospective company, and what needs to be done.

Rate the leads on a scale you and your staff agree to, since no one wants to spend time following up on something that isn't worthwhile, letting a hot lead go cold while wasting time on tire-kickers, Parry said.

Get buy-in from the person who will do the post-show follow-up. Have him or her at the show to talk personally with prospects. "We bring a project engineer, and if he promises something to a prospect, it will happen," Parry said. If nothing else, at least have the staffers who take the leads initial them so they can be contacted for additional information if needed. If good leads are supplied for follow-up, the sales team is more willing to do that follow-up.

Keep records of all of your prospects and customers so that when leads come in you have a history of what has happened in the past and can quickly evaluate what needs to be done.

Finally, check the prospective company's credit. No one wants to get an order only to find out that the customer can't pay.