Quallifying Trade Show Leads

I atended a tradeshow this past week. Several sales software clients were showcasing products and I spent time visiting their booths. I like to watch the interaction between prospects and sales people when I can. I learn alot. This was no different. The booths I visited were busy and I watched several sales people meet and greet booth visitors. It is fascinating to watch how prospects react to different sales approaches. I will classify the sales people as eager beaver, the know it all and the seasoned pro.

The eager beaver, filled to the brim with enthusiasm, attacks the booth visitor with a broad smile and a "thanks for visiting message." He is energetic and informative. Perhaps too energetic for the more laconic but matches up well with higher strung visitors. His ptich is full of uninteresting platitudes of his company and the basic features of his product offerings. His view is through his eyes only and the prospect is a mear spectator to the show.

The know it all just kills me. He will ask the booth visitor a basic question, thought to be deep and insightful by our know it all, yet is supercilious and often a time waster to the prospect. After the prospects polited reply the know it all knows it all and the prospect is graced with this level of knowlledge. After the prospect is beat down and the know it all takes a breath it is over. The prospect moves on to green pastures and to better salespeople like the seasoned pro.

The seasoned pro is calm, he is not in a hurry. He greets the prospect and observes, usually by saying "thanks for coming and if I can help you please look me up, I wiill be right over here." As the prospect looks over the booth content the seasoned pro plots his approach. He sees an opening and asks "Sir, is it possible this solution will save your business time and cost?" or "Sir , will this super duper packager make your line run faster?" or "Sir, would accurate client information across your company grow sales?"

The question deisgn is clever. The questions are focused on discovering payback if the solutio n is deployed. The seasoned pro places the prospect in the solution.