Trade Show attendance and performance are up is yours?

According to Red Bank, NJ-based Exhibit Surveys Inc., the exhibition industry saw meaningful upticks in 2012, which is a welcome change considering the statistical stagnation experienced in 2011, when the industry held steady but failed to demonstrate any noticeable growth. Each year, the exhibit- and event-research firm polls attendees from more than 30 U.S. trade shows to determine the effectiveness of exhibit marketing and identify industry benchmarks. The company's 2012 Trade Show Trends report includes valuable information about exhibit performance, show-floor traffic, and attendees – their buying power, purchase plans, and attendance habits. The survey determined that 84 percent of trade show attendees have the power to recommend, specify, and/or make final purchasing decisions. Perhaps more importantly, 49 percent came to 2012 shows with real purchasing intent. While those statistics represent just 3- and 2-percent increases respectively, they compare favorably to long-term industry averages, meaning we may have finally returned to some semblance of business as usual. In fact, 2012's all-show average for Net Buying Influence tied the 10-year high not seen since 2006. So the question is how do you get these people to stop and visit YOU? Do you target or just set up your booth and "Show up and Throw up"? Come on gang you are better than that. Put some pre-show planning into it. Who are the best "buyer" "influencers" in your space that could potentially be attending this show? Invite them. Don't wait for the roster to show up and then do something. Mail to them, email them a promotion but they have to stop by. Make the booth fun, or else if they think they know who you are why would they show up? Most recently one of our clients, Lycored, ran a promotion with a custom cornhole contest and the winner got tickets to the Superbowl. Okay yes, was it a nice sized investment on their part. Let us look at the results, and what happened.

Here is an image of the game that people got a chance to play, which we produced the game. Then for showing up you received a promotional football.

No big shakes either. But because of the nature of the promotion our client had John Elway stop by their booth and play cornhole. Yes, the John Elway whose team is in the Superbowl. Talk about great PR, and we have the video link to show you. But we must create excitement in our booths, if we want to make an impact and attract the right people. So when you are getting ready to put together a trade show booth, or a pre-show promotion just give us a call and we will drive the non "trick or treaters to your booth"




So here is John Elway himself stopping by my clients boot to play our custom designed Cornhole game.  The point is make your booth memorable, and we can help.

Thanks for reading.

Derek

Incentives they work, are you using them?

Many of you are in postitions of sales for your company, and in most cases in a leadership role. Whether you are a branch manager in charge of a sales team, or the president or the CEO of a company. So you are not directly on the firing lines, but look at the macro ways to motivate your teams to dig deeper and bring in that extra revenue. Sales people are a competitive bunch, they are aggressive and that is why they have chosen the profession of selling, and as a leader you want to channel that energy and maximize it to reach your revenue goals and objectives. How can you do that? INCENTIVES!

Take these cards for examples these are a great way to have some fun with your sales team. Each time somebody achieves a sales objective they get one of the cool cards, they scratch them off and win great prizes. Or you can introduce a points based program similar to an American Express Membership Rewards. Where points accumulate over time for each new account, each new sales, revenue etc.

These points are then redeemed for great prizes from jewelry to stereo equipment and much more. Some may say "WHAT ABOUT CASH?" Isn't cash king? Cash satisfies basic needs which does not motivate behavior. Cash is the currency of compensation and pricing. Use cash and it becomes part of an individual’s compensation package or a customer’s pricing program. Invariably, if you offer a cash incentive to any audience, internal or external, it becomes a benchmark against which future compensation and pricing issues get measured, leading to a condition known as “program addiction.” Because cash quickly gets mingled with other compensation or expenses (in the case of customer cash expenses) Major Oil Company Study Summary Non-cash outperformed cash by 46% Non-cash: 37% increase in product mix ROI Cash: -20% Every $1 invested = an $0.80 return Non-cash: +31% Every $1 invested = a $1.31 return Thank you for reading our blog Derek Miller 609 807 8856

New Account Sales- How to get your salespeople that first appointment faster!

You want your sales people to earn a boat load of cash right? Ever heard the expression you can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough OTHER people get what they want? Well it is true. You have a great product, and/or service that fills your prospects needs, and either saves them money or helps them make money. Once they use the product they will thank you for a long time, right? What is the hardest part of sales for most sales people? Is it qualifying? Is it closing? No generally speaking it the fact that we don't have enough clients in our sales pipeline. If your sales people had more prospects in their sales funnel, then more activity yields more results. Let us take it one step further. That really hard part is getting that first appointment with the decision maker. Let us say you want to target "C level" people for your product or service. How are you going to get Mr. Joe Decisionmaker to want to take your phone call. After all he gets bombarded daily, and Joe's administrative assistant screens all the calls anyways. You've got an idea you will ask for an email right - Wrong spamming ol Joe won't work, through the spam filter and the 300 email he receives daily. Okay so you will send a letter with a catalog right? Well, that will find its rightful place in the round file. With a catalog or a flyer, your just lumped yourself in as an order taker. Well that bring us to the way you can DIFFERENTIATE YOURSELF, and get that valuable first appointment. It is using a dimensional mail piece.

Well here is an example. This piece we designed and mailed on behalf of one of our clients. It is a custom designed box, with brand messaging on the inside. In addition we have a "sound button" that when you press it says "Wow, that is a great idea". The reasoning is that it is a good idea to use my client for your needs. Secondly when the sale team calls the prospects up, they simply say Mr. Decisionmaker, my name is Zach and I sent you the awesome "Great Idea" button and then proceed to make an appointment. This does a few things: The screener probably will not screen the mail on this package they have no idea what it is. Secondly if they do, it reinforces to them, who you are, and they will be certain to give the item to their boss. Lastly when you call, you don't have to worry about Mr. Decisionmaker making to correlation between you, and who you are and what company you are with. They will always remember the "Great Idea" button you sent. It does not have to be the great idea button, enclosed you will find some more examples.

These are from Pilot services. Twice a year they send out over 1000 prospect mailer to potential clients. This helps to reinforce their brand and their messaging to their prospects. It makes it so much easier to secure an appointment when you do fun things like this for your prospects. You put a smile on their face and they will open their hearts minds and wallets to you and your company. If you implement this into your company's business development program you will certainly have a lot of happy folks there thanking you!

Thank you for reading. As always give us a shout with any questions or a free consultation about how we can help you!