Trade Show - Money Waster or Productive Sales Tool?
Trade shows are a necessary evil, right? For some, perhaps they are more evil than necessary! Let's face it, there are serious benefits to having access to your customers and competition in the same place at the same time. If you are honest with your review of your sales process and you are concerned with sales ROI, the questions are:
1. Who is selling to the customers/prospects that aren't at the show?
2. Will you have time to nuture the new business opportunities that you got from the tradeshow?
3. Are the new business opportunities that you got from the show real, strong sales leads that can truly lead to new sales for you?
Sometimes, in an effort to show efficiency in the sales process, we hang on to prospects and sales opportunities that would be discarded if we had something stronger to replace it. Tradeshows are not great for every business. Understand what impact the the tradeshow is going to have on your sales process and do everything that you can to guarantee that outcome. If you expect the show to generate new sales opportunities for you and your business is not the type that swipes a credit card for new orders, you might think twice about your expectations.
New sales opportunties are the lifeblood of any sales organization. Tradeshows offer an organization the opportunity to have new sales opportunities come to them, as opposed to having to go out and get them - an attractive proposition for sales people. For product companies, this type of sales environment can be very effective; a concentrated venue in which to demonstrate features and benefits of the product. For companies specializing in customized products or services, the sales environment at a trade show might be too general and, as a result, not effective for feeding prospect pipeline or sales pipeline effectively. Once prospect pipeline from a trade show turns into new sales, sales ROI can be calculated and options for cost effectively increasing prospect pipeline and sales pipeline can be weighed.
