HOW NOT TO SELL IN A BOOTH

The 5 most common mistakes made by vendors at booths

Selling at a trade show is different from other sales scenarios and we realize this when we visit a trade show and look at the staff at the different booths.

1. A very common mistake is to bombard with information to everyone who passes by the booth, no matter who they talk to, if they are interested in your product or not, if they need it or not, if someone passes by your booth you have to let them know. What is the purpose of this? Does anyone believe that this is how you are going to sell more? How? It really is something that makes no sense at all at a trade show.

2. Not knowing how to filter the attendees to whom we dedicate our time and wasting the limited time we have with people who are not our target.
We must know how to filter and quickly find out if the person who has stopped at our booth is a potential customer or not (or if we have the possibility of doing business with that person), and if we find out that he/she is not, politely say goodbye and thank him/her for visiting our booth. We should not waste the opportunity to serve a potential customer with someone who is not going to report anything to us, we want to maximize our participation in the fair and make it profitable and effective.

3. Incorrect positioning of personnel, either because it interrupts access to the stand, because it intimidates and causes people to pass by, or because they are not at their post. If we are not seen to be available we lose the opportunity to serve the visitor.

4. Not taking care of non-verbal language and not knowing how to behave. Although it may seem obvious, sitting, talking or playing with the cell phone, talking to colleagues, eating, drinking, chewing gum, or showing a sense of boredom or tiredness are behaviors and attitudes that clearly convey the message that we do not want to attend to any visitor.

5. Do not close conversations. It is vital to close conversations with the target audience. The closing assures us the next step to generate the business we are looking for. No potential contact should be let go without closing the conversation. You should both know what the next step is, a call in the next few days, a visit, the sending of an offer, a rate, etc.

The next time you visit a trade show observe the booth staff and you will realize that these are very common mistakes that give a rather negative image of the companies. It is rare to see stands where the staff is doing its job properly, so there is a huge advantage for those who participate in a fair with a well-trained team.