Sure, booth sales objectives are the same today as they were 20 years ago. Identify prospect. Pitch prospect. Sign prospect. Repeat. But that’s pretty much where the similarities end. Vertical shows, regional shows, proprietary shows, event marketing, the Internet, the economic downturn and more sophisticated exhibitors have changed all of that.

“It’s changed so much that it’s almost prehistoric when I look back on it now,” says Michael Currier, Vice President of Exposition Sales for the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). So where does this leave you? Hopefully, your selling style has evolved with the industry. You’ve moved from telemarketing to field sales. Your three-ring binder and Rolodex have been replaced by a customer relationship management (CRM) system. And you understand your prospects’ businesses almost as well as they do. Today’s sales require a balanced mix of old-school knowhow and cutting-edge sales skills. To make sure you’re keeping up, EXPO checked in with some savvy sellers to get their perspectives.

A NEW TIMELINE. One big difference between then and now? Immediacy. “You still do the same thing,” Currier says. “You sell, you do the show, you start again on the next show. But today everything is much more immediate and you can get going a lot faster.” Currier remembers when there was a time lag from one sales cycle to the next. “In the old days, you waited a couple of months, you got a prospectus together, a floorplan and then you mailed it out to everybody. Then you would wait for phone calls to come in before you started calling everybody. That’s totally gone.” In recent years, Currier’s team has started sending out information for the next show six weeks prior to the upcoming event.

PRINT IS DEAD. The Internet has not only sped up the marketing process, it’s made extinct some of the tools that used to be central to booth sales. “We don’t even print a prospectus anymore,” Currier says. “It’s probably been at least five years since we stopped mailing prospectuses. We might do one now and put it up on the site.” The same goes for direct mail. While NAHB still uses direct mail for certain postcardstyle mailings, big bulky mailings are a thing of the past.

TECH SAVVY. It’s undeniable; those succeeding in effective, efficient booth sales are now the ones who understand how new technologies can help shoulder some of the burden. Joe Rosone, Vice President and Group Publisher for Access Intelligence, mentions EXPOCAD and tools from a2z as some industry standards. For database management, he’s also been impressed with Salesforce (www.salesforce.com). “It allows you to communicate easily and more freely in terms of challenges faced in the market and potential sources for revenue,” he says. “It’s very helpful in terms of tracking revenue, tracking potential revenue, identifying objections and determining how to overcome those objections. That was something that wasn’t available to us in the past.”

WEAR DIFFERENT HATS. Today’s successful salesperson should be able to speak the language of exhibits, sponsorships and e-media, and be able to transition flawlessly. “It’s no longer the smile-and-dial business that it once was,” Rosone says. “I really believe that in order to succeed in today’s environment, you need to be well-versed in exhibit sales, sponsorship sales, plus e-media and digital sales that pertain to your conferences. I look for a sales professional who’s creative and doesn’t get stuck in one or the other bucket. That really separates the old-school and the new-age sales.”

SELL DEEPER. The focus of booth sales has shifted from understanding the needs of one contact to understanding the needs of an entire (and often complex) organization. “It goes beyond selling to one individual or one title in the organization,” Rosone says. “You have to bring the project managers into the meetings, and talking to business development is incredibly important. Those are the ones benefitting from the event. If we limit ourselves to one title, we’re not doing our job effectively. We need to go deeper into the organizations to really understand the needs of sales. They’re the ones walking out with contacts and they’re the ones who can help you in positioning your event as well.”

SEPARATED SALES. Trade shows tied to publications have seen particularly large changes in the past 20 years. “When I was in print sales, our trade show was sold much differently than it is now,” Rosone says. “You had to advertise in the publication and you’d receive a free 10-by-10 booth at the show. We sold that way for a number of years. Then you had to be in the magazine to buy a booth. Then we moved away from magazine people selling booths and set up our own trade show division.” Why the change? “What we saw was a tremendous opportunity to obviously generate more revenue, grow the event, give those sales specialists the opportunity to work their contacts and really drive revenue on both sides of the fence rather than just the magazine,” Rosone says.

MARRYING SALES STRATEGIES. While e-mail and e-marketing strategies have forever changed the booth sales process, those who are only comfortable behind a keyboard can learn valuable relationship-building tips from veterans who are used to maintaining sales relationships face-to-face and on the phone. “These days a lot of people rely on the Internet for everything,” Currier says. “They tend to forget that you can’t build a relationship through e-mail. There’s no better selling than face-to-face or to pick up the phone and call someone to build a relationship with them. Send an e-mail, sure, but also pick up the phone to call them.”

FOCUS ON NEW PROSPECTS. Currier notes that while his show still has some exhibiting mainstays, the number of bellwether companies has decreased over the past few years, requiring a renewed focus on finding new business. “Trying to find new business is a little tough,” Currier says. “This past year, we used outside companies to track down leads for us. These outside firms are helping to develop new prospects to do business.”

NO MORE DIALING FOR DOLLARS. “It used to be 40 calls a day, 60 calls a day, hitting as many prospects as possible and pretty much playing the numbers game,” Rosone says. “Now it’s much more relationship-based. It’s not selling concrete, it’s selling value, and that value usually needs to be sold face-to-face. The relationship needs to be maintained throughout the year, not just in a six-month sales cycle.”

THE NEW MODEL
Feeling left behind? Shift into the “new sales” mentality by re-examining your model. “The model has been, and still is, for the most part, a transactional reactive-type model,” says Jefferson Davis, President of Competitive Edge, a trade show consultancy. “Often organizers only really start selling when they get down to the last 15 to 20 percent of space.”

Davis says that the more successful shows have moved from this reactive model to a consultative, proactive, value-relationship model, in which sales executives are viewing themselves less as a conduit in a transaction and more as a business developer.

How can your show make the transition? Davis offers a few tips:

Make multiple account points. It’s no longer enough to talk to the lead contact. You must also spend time creating contacts with directors and even vice presidents, ideally.

Break it down.Take your exhibitor database and break it into three subgroups. The first group is the “most valuable” (the anchors, the market leaders). If you lose them, there will be a ripple effect. The objective with this group is to deepen the relationship. The next group to identify is the “most growables.” In the average show, the booths in this class are 200 square feet or less. The third group is the “attrition-prone,” which is the group high turnover is coming from.

Tailor your strategies. Once you’ve broken down your database into subgroups, create marketing strategies tailored to each one. For the attrition-prone, for example, it would be helpful to have a program that acknowledges first-timers and guides them both operationally and strategically, and manages their expectations.