Employers are often trying to understand their Return on Investment when they send employees to shows. Are your employees actively working on their ROI at the show? What is the payback?
We have all seen the show calculators provided by trade shows that employees should fill out to justify going to the event. Sometimes the results are obvious when a supplier or solution is found for an existing problem in an organization.
What about the other times when no obvious solution or answer was found at the show? Are you training your employees to maximize their ROI while at the convention, or event?
Here are a few ideas:
Be a mentor at the show. Have your new or less seasoned employees shadow you as you engage new contacts and people.
Have your more seasoned employees keep a list of every “person” they talked to at the show. You want people engaging at the show, not just walking up and down the aisles.
Many people have a natural aversion to talking to others at shows. Why? Maybe its because everyone there is selling something. When our company goes to shows we try to develop what might be thought of as counterintuitive instincts. We try to talk to as many people as possible while also pursuing quality conversations.
When you do this, you find that many times you may benefit in ways not associated with the product in the booth. Maybe you don’t have a need for a product but as you learn more you realize you know a company that does have that need. And sometimes… people who didn’t know about you or your companies’ product realize they might need to talk to you because you can help them or one of their industry peers solve their problem!