PRE TRADE SHOW SALES TRAINING
1. Announce the mission and numerical goals for the show worked out before. (Total for the show, and each day and person.)2. Hand out sheet on basic selling hints for the show. Give people a quiet moment to read.
3. Remind everyone about the essential benefits of your service or product. Sounds like this is not required, but it is. Your people now may try to communicate too much on the average contact.
Advise team members about key seminars so they can tailor sales presentations to key topics.
4. Explain the desire to meet new people as well as old customers.
5. Advise staff of the psychological problems that must be overcome to do well at booth selling:
A. The reality that rejection can feel more personal but is not.
B. The need to create new zones of personal comfort within the team.
C. The subtle retail expectations of the audience. Use behavior you would expect at a quality retail store. (But not "Can I help you.")
6. The pre-qualification minute.
A. Ask people what they’d like to know about a prospect before launching into a sales discussion.
B. Ask which are the two or three most important. Get agreement.
C. Then ask people to rephrase these into open-ended questions and use them as conversation starters.
7. The selling dialogue.
A. Explain how to be polite and disengage for those who do not qualify on the first questions. (Be honest. Nice meeting you, but...)
B. For those who do seem likely candidates, advise team members to use more of the questions just worked out in the selling dialogue, but not used in the first minute. Learn more about the prospect while selling. An information exchange is the goal.
8. The "closing" sequence.
A. You are not necessarily looking for a signed order; but instead a true indication that the prospect wants to talk more after the show.
B. Ask team members to create, right now, "closed end" questions that can be used. ("Should we be talking about this back in your office?")
C. Tell people to look for this buying interest within five minutes.
9. Remind people of the goals announced. Wish everyone luck.
A qualified Sales Lead is one you’d really like to follow up.