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Have I got your Attention?
Posted by Colin Wilson
In May 08
I’m still travelling and it seems rushing from one place to the next, but I did find time to attend a trade fair yesterday. I did not count them, but there must have been close to 200 exhibitors of all various shapes, colours and sizes… a hot bed of marketing, positioning and hopefully selling.
Trade fairs are the place to be seen, time to show your fellow trade colleagues and of course competitors just how well you are doing. If you are not there then questions will be asked… are they going under?… can’t afford it anymore?… etc, etc. If you do attend then same will be said if you happen to reduce the size of your stand. It’s a bit like doing the lottery… never stick to the same set of numbers, because if you do then you need to do the lottery for life in the fear that once you stop your numbers will turn up… so, can’t take the risk… in it for life! Trade fairs are similar… once a regular exhibitor, it’s difficult for your reputation if you stop.
However, when you are actually there it’s all about how many people you can attract to your stand… you need a hive of activity. People need to see that others are interested. As a visitor you don’t want to walk on to an empty stand… even worse, you don’t want to walk by an empty stand in case you are pounced on by an enthusiastic sales rep… actually those are not so bad, it’s the bored ones who pounce that cause the problems. So, as a visitor, trade fair technique is to look far enough ahead along the aisles to see the empty stands and avoid them… can’t be of much interest as nobody is there… and to avoid the ‘pounce’ don’t make eye contact with the rep, better still don’t even look in the vague direction of the stand.
While I was at this trade fair yesterday I came across a new technique for keeping people on the stand. You start a conversation with the rep, although in this case it was a director of the company, and I was interested in his products… I was a potential customer… he did not have to resort to the ‘pounce’, I went to him. Half way during the discussion his mobile phone went off… and he answered it… obviously I was too boring, or maybe not important enough, what ever it was that made him answer he obviously thought it was the right thing to do. As he was speaking on his mobile he gestured to one of his colleagues to come over to continue to help me… and after I had brought the latest help up to date he was then pulled into the telephone conversation! I’m not sure if I’m missing something here, but I was definately second fiddle to a phone call.
Having moved on… I went to another stand… same thing happened again… what was I doing wrong… or are these reps now targeted on the minimum number of times the mobile rings before it is answered? I moved on again.
On the next stand there were two reps and both on their mobiles; perhaps they have to multi-task… look after their customers as well as the people coming on to the stand. Perhaps they are only at the fair to be seen, to show the competition they are doing well. Perhaps by not giving full attention to the visitors they hope they will hang around longer and so the stand look busier than it really is… or perhaps they are just rude and don’t know how to pay attention to their potential customers.
What this new phenomenon of customer care is all about I’m not sure, but I have found a way of combating it. I tapped the rep on the shoulder and asked for his business card. I waitd for him to finish his call and then rang him there and then… he answered before speaking to anyone else… “hello”, I said, “do I have your attention?”
3 Comments
Colin, it’s clear what you did wrong: You went in person to their tradeshow booth instead of phoning them!
I had a similar situation at a retail store recently. My sales rep kept getting interrupted by calls on his mobile phone. He answered the calls and didn’t even apologize for it.
To all sales professionals: Just because you have a phone in your pocket doesn’t mean you have to answer it!
It’s funny, how people pay thousands of dollars to exhibit at a trade show in order to find new customers; but then spend all of their time talking to existing customers on cell phones and complain about how they can not here anything in this crowded room! Worse yet is when they do it when a potential new client is standing right in front of them. Phones have voice mail people don’t. Ignoring me is the best possible way to ensure that I not only avoid doing business with you now, but that I share that experience with others.
One other thought about trade shows, Colin (I realize this is adjacent to the main point of your blog entry, but what the heck). When I was sales managing a company, I did a study and found out that we had more traffic on our booth when the booth didn’t have a representative than when it did. So our strategy became this: (1) leave the trade show booth until a prospect comes in and starts looking around; (2) enter the booth and approach the prospect to engage him in conversation. Worked like a charm!