7 steps of a sales meeting at a trade show

We know that participating in a trade fair or exhibit is an incredible opportunity to grow a business, strengthen brand image, and most importantly, acquire new clients.

While the main sales techniques are known to all merchants, it’s crucial not to overlook an essential factor for ensuring your success at trade shows: the contextual factor of the sales meeting.

Indeed, the impact of the environment is significant: you will be in direct competition with your competitors. Additionally, prospects are bombarded with images and information and are extremely solicited during a short period. Their attention will be reduced, and their objections fueled by omnipresent competition.

However, trade show visitors are highly qualified prospects: they already show interest in your field, which greatly eases the approach phase.

You must adapt traditional sales techniques to the realities of trade shows, at every step. Brief your sales teams on the specifics of this environment and have a solid marketing strategy.

To support a sales meeting, effective material supports are needed: have well-designed and packaged services, offer packages, and offers that set you apart from your competitors.

Carefully follow these 7 steps to conclude a sales meeting at a trade show.

Step 1: Preparation and Contact

Success in a sales meeting requires excellent preparation. This is true for traditional sales and even more so in a trade show context where all relational aspects are heightened.

You will have the opportunity to directly converse with potential clients. Exploit every opportunity brilliantly, and be prepared, thoroughly prepared. Leave nothing to chance.

Before the show, prepare the sales meetings

Sales decisions at a show are accelerated for prospects, and any misstep by a seller can lead to a sales failure. Preparation is crucial. To properly prepare your team, adopt the following approach:

• Have different customized strategies for each prospect profile
• Prepare sets or packages of your services in advance
• Perfectly master your product expertise
• Target the prospects you wish to convert
• Anticipate all sales objections: carefully prepare the argumentation phase.

Attract visitors to your booth

You may have the best sales team and sharpest sales pitches, but if no one visits your booth, all this preparation will have been in vain. Remember that you’re not alone on your market, and your competitors will do everything to be visible and attract visitors.

Here are some tips to attract the most visitors to your stand:

• Stand marketing: Capture attention with a booth that stands out. The design of your stand and your visuals will play a significant role in enhancing your brand’s visibility.
• New products and exceptional offers: Trade shows are places where all the year’s innovations are showcased. Show that you’re at the forefront in your field. Offering novelties and special deals or discounts is an effective technique to attract visitors.
• A welcoming attitude: It goes without saying, yet, some do not always have the desired attitude. Brief your staff: their attitude will play a significant role in engaging the client.

For more on the subject, read our article How to Attract More Visitors to Your Booth?

Step 2: Identifying Needs and Customer Discovery

Creating a good first impression is essential for initiating an effective sales meeting. You need to break the ice with diplomacy and provoke the trade show visitor’s interest:

• Remember that these visitors are extremely solicited
• Avoid aggressive commercial approaches
• Opt for a natural approach
• Introduce yourself simply
• Inform the potential client

Once you have captured the visitor’s attention, and if they show genuine interest in your products or services, you enter the phase of listening and identifying their needs.

Contextual Factor: Optimizing Listening in a Trade Show Environment

A sales meeting at a trade show is influenced by numerous contextual factors. The potential client won’t be in the same frame of mind as in the comfort of a conference room or restaurant. Trade shows are noisy, with omnipresent images and solicitations.

It’s the same for the salesperson, who, instead of having one or two appointments a day, has to chain together meetings while maintaining a smile and dynamism.

Yet, during the meeting, one must implement active listening. Actively listening means gathering a maximum amount of information, being receptive and focused on the needs and requests of the interlocutor. Focus on the words, body language, linguistic and verbal clues and adapt your speech accordingly.

Follow the 80/20 rule. Let them speak 80% of the time while confirming you are listening through non-verbal communication (like nods), and speak 20% of the time.

Principles of active listening:

• Question your interlocutors: Pose structured questions to foster their thinking and openness. Be yourself oriented towards the other and positive.
• Rephrase needs: Clearly understand the interlocutor’s needs and restate their expectations using their words. Verify that you have understood their request.
• Summarize the needs: Use the synthesis to present the real needs of the prospect and initiate the discussion on the necessity for them to address these with your products or services.

Once the needs are clearly identified, propose a service that directly addresses them.

Step 3: Offering Services, the Argumentation Phase

Then comes the step of presenting services or argumentation. Once the client’s needs are identified, you must adjust your proposals to match their expectations.

Offer several options to your interlocutor: understanding a client’s wishes doesn’t mean presenting only one product. Offering different packages, for example, gives the client the feeling of making an informed choice.

During trade shows, a company’s goal isn’t necessarily direct sales. Trade shows are a great platform to showcase products, conduct audits, display services, etc.

Effective Communication and Presentation Materials

Support the sales team’s discourse with demonstration materials. The argument will be stronger with physical elements for support.

Equip your booth with:

• Informative brochures
• Interactive tablets
• Pamphlets
• Displays for new products
• Presentation banners

This will allow your sellers to develop their ideas with tangible visuals, and rushed prospects to leave with quality information.

Product or Service Knowledge

Your sales team must have comprehensive knowledge of the services or products offered. Buyers place a great deal of importance on the expertise of their interlocutors and will expect that all their inquiries be resolved before making a purchase decision.

Your team members should be able to answer everything:

• They should be convinced of the product to speak about it with enthusiasm and easily find good arguments
• Thorough product or service knowledge allows to respond quickly to objections or client worries
• Comprehensive product knowledge lets you turn these features into client benefits

Customize the Argument: Matching Client Needs to Offered Services

If the previous step was well conducted, you have all the keys to adapt your argument based on the person in front of you:

• Rephrase the needs expressed by the prospect tactfully.
• It’s important to confirm at each step the prospect’s expectations
• This step shouldn’t be a monologue or simple presentation: involve your interlocutor by inviting them to express their desires and confirm their needs.

Do the proposals match the expectations? If so, the client will show interest and want to know more about the product or service before committing.

We then enter the objection phase.

Step 4: Handling and Resolving Objections

Experienced as an obstacle by many sellers at trade shows, objections are actually a natural reaction from the prospect. They show the client’s interest in the product.

As sellers, we do not want to deceive prospects and sell at all costs but rather establish trust and propose a response tailored to their expectations. A healthy relationship is built on an informed choice.

Responding to Objections: Which Techniques to Adopt?

Sellers should not take objections as attacks; it’s not the right behavior to adopt.

We re-emphasize the importance of preparing the meeting. If a sales meeting is well-prepared, the main objections have already been raised beforehand, so there is a response for each of them. It’s important to stay positive.

Identify objections and address them.

Here are common examples of objections raised during a sales meeting:

• Price too high
• Skepticism about product or service effectiveness
• Fear of a past bad experience
• Too specific offer for immediate needs
• Ignorance of real needs
• Perceived risk
• Fear of leaving the current supplier

Refute each objection with empathy and precision: clarify misunderstood points, update needs, reassure about real versus perceived risk, demonstrate the final return on investment compared to price objections, etc.

Use objections as a jumping-off point to demonstrate that your services match the prospect’s needs. Do not fear them; they will arise in the conversation regardless; it’s natural in a buying process. Simply be well-prepared.

Distinguishing Objections from Negotiation Requests

Once again, the contextual factor plays a significant role here: trade show visitors have dozens of interviews per day and can immediately compare your offer with that of your direct competitors. They need lots of information to make their choice.

Learn to distinguish between:

• Questions
• Negotiation requests

Once all objections have been raised and refuted, we enter the next step: negotiation.

Step 5: Commercial Negotiation

At a trade show, several booths offer the same services or products. It is therefore very easy for prospects to compare companies. The context favors them; they have significant negotiation levers, it only takes a few steps to see if the grass is greener elsewhere.

Do not fall into this trap. Be certain of the accuracy of the proposed price lists. Sellers will have no choice but to offer some advantages to prospects: immediate discounts are part of the advantages visitors get when visiting a show, but don’t fall into overbidding and comply with all requests. Never lower your price without compensation.

The important thing isn’t to criticize competitors or mention how we differ from our neighbors but rather to highlight the added value of our offer and demonstrate why it directly meets the client’s needs.

The Price Presentation: A Crucial Step

You must know how to present the price and defend it before considering compromises.

A price is determined by several factors, and if your employees are convinced by the product, that price must also be fair.

Sellers use different techniques when presenting the price to a prospect:

• The fraction: Propose payment agreements, break down the price to facilitate purchase
• Addition: Add up all the benefits offered to justify the price
• Division: Reduce the price to its smallest unit (x per day, per click, per use…)

• Subtraction: Demonstrate the losses over time if the client doesn’t purchase the product or service soon (e.g., a competitor gains market share because they opted for a similar product, so they should acquire the product to catch up to the competition)
• Multiplication: Strengthen the impact of advantages by multiplying them over time (with a monthly payment, you save so much per month)

If, at this stage, the prospect still has price-related objections, negotiation should start.

Concessions and Compromises: The Art of Commercial Negotiation

A good negotiation implies that both parties are satisfied with the outcome. It’s neither a verbal joust nor a rooster fight. The goal isn’t to go against the client’s will or values or to lower your price without compensation.

Remember that trade shows are unique contexts for sales meetings: if the prospects are extremely qualified (they paid to enter the show out of interest in your domain), competition is omnipresent and savvy buyers will not forget to use this lever during negotiation.

You enter into a process of exchanges and compensations.

Here are some tips for navigating this crucial stage and successfully heading towards closing the sale:

• Allow yourself some leeway. Imagine parallel parking with a car: it’s easier when the space between cars is wider.
• Use the win-win concept
• Don’t be impressed and recognize manipulation attempts. In B2B, you aren’t the only ones who have taken sales courses. Your interlocutors are savvy and might be more experienced than you in negotiation.
• No seller concession without buyer compensation.
• Analyze the ideal purchase price and recommended sale price and align your interests towards a median price.
• Be ready to walk away if the demands are unrealistic or if the conditions do not yield benefits.

Step 6: The Closing Phase

This step seems obvious, yet many sellers miss the ideal moment: too soon, and you risk rushing the client; too late, and negotiations drag on needlessly even though the buyer’s decision is made.

Be attentive to your interlocutor’s discourse and signals. Know how to recognize when negotiation is leading to an agreement.

Signs of an Imminent Agreement

If all steps of the sales meeting have borne fruit, the developed argument convinced the potential client. They are close to conversion.

Don’t hesitate to conclude a sale as soon as the following signals are present:

• Objections have been refuted
• An agreement has been reached on the price
• A trust relationship is established
• The client relaxes and no longer has many questions
• They ask for details regarding certain service aspects

Concrete Closing Techniques During a Trade Show

It’s up to you to guide the prospect towards the concrete closure of the sale. Let’s not forget that trade show visitors are prospects looking for services or products. They expect agreements to be made during the show and know they can enjoy unique and exceptional opportunities.

Your primary argument for closing a sale at a trade show: “Take advantage of my offer; it’s exceptional and only for the show’s duration.”

Your team must be prepared for the usual closing techniques of a sales meeting:

• The balance technique: Inventory the negotiation and propose the materialization of the agreement.
• The false alternative technique: Propose signing electronically or on paper. Both alternatives lead to signing but give the client a choice.
• Projection: The deal is done, project into the immediate future with technical details: Who should I ask for account access? My team will start on it by Monday.

The most important thing is to listen to the prospect’s signals to determine the opportune moment and to be the initiator of this closure. A prospect won’t take this initiative for you.

Step 7: The Departure Post-Meeting

Just because the client has signed doesn’t mean the work is done. Much like first impressions, the last impression is very important: comfort the client in their choice and reassure them.

The Prospect’s Departure During a Trade Fair

A trade fair is full of competitors; make sure that your new client is completely satisfied with the sale outcome and that they don’t shop elsewhere.

Reassure the Client

Upon parting, you must implement the 4R technique:

• Reassure
• Thank
• Escort
• Review

The goal of trade fairs is to establish long-term relationships. Think about client loyalty from the first sale.

Don’t forget to adapt traditional sales techniques to the specificities of trade shows. Be prepared, train your sales teams, and stand out with an exceptional booth to make your participation in the event a success and close your sales meetings!