How to Plan, Execute, and Follow Up at Tradeshows
- Grant Parker
- Mar 21, 2024
- 7 min read
Updated: Mar 25, 2024
Trade shows are one of my favorite things. They are a fantastic way to build your brand, find leads—and they’re fun! Unfortunately I have known a lot of sales teams and founders who show up to the shows, don’t really have a great plan, don’t really know what they’re doing there, and get home after the show and wonder “What was the ROI on that show? Was that a good use of my time?”
After running dozens and dozens of trade shows in my career—with hundred thousand dollar budget and with literally zero budget—I think there’s a really great formula to follow to prepare for, execute, and follow up on every trade show so we get the most out of it.
Make A Plan!
The number one thing that we need to remember about tradeshows is: they are expensive! We’re spending a ton of money on these leads. So it’s just simply not acceptable to spend all that money and not get anything out of it. It’s not acceptable to go to a tradeshow with no plan and “wing it”. We have to be good stewards of the money that we’ve got. We have to squeeze every ounce of juice out of the leads we get. Therefore, we need to follow a formula prepared ahead of time, execute correctly, and follow up diligently.
That’s what this workbook is designed to do. This is a way to prepare for every single show that you’re going to. It asks a couple of really basic questions, and helps us prepare and build out a calendar. Ultimately, it gives us a plan to follow so that we do get the most out of the leads that we just paid to acquire.
Pre-Show Planning
The first step is analyzing the show itself. We need to understand the show’s target audience, meaning who is going to be there, and why will they come? To do this, we can look for the previous attendee list, or the speakers listed online, even the prospectus on the website. All of this will give us a really good sense of whether the right leads we’re trying to reach will be likely to attend.
Define the Desired Outcome
Once we’ve decided a show is indeed the right fit for us, we really need to ask ourselves honestly: WHY?
Why should we go to this show? What is the Desired Outcome from spending time there? There’s a bunch of different reasons one might go to a show, but I like to choose one major goal that will define success for us. Everything else can be secondary. We spent a lot of money to be at this show, so every minute we’re there needs to be spent driving forward our desired outcome. If we’re not driving forward that desired outcome, then we’re wasting time.
Common desired outcomes may be:
Lead Gen | Pitch practice | Brand awareness |
Facetime | Learning | competitive intel |
Networking | Fun (team) | Market research |
So we nail down our Desired Outcome for the show, and then we put that into a sentence. “I’m going to the show to build a pipeline of new leads.” “I’m going to the show to move five existing clients down the sales funnel.” When this is clear, every minute at that show, our number one priority is driving that Desired Outcome. Only once we’ve achieved that can we go have fun at the happy hours.
Build The Lead List
With a clear Desired Outcome, we start to build our lead list. This means our strategy for time spent on the floor. What competitors are going to be there? Do I want to see them? Do I want to visit them secretly or blatantly? Which of my clients are going to be there that I can set up meetings with, or that I can try and make introductions to other people that might be helpful to them. And who are my friends that are going? Can I ask them to make introductions for me? Can I make introductions for them? Knowing these things ahead of time is really going to help us prioritize our time and make a good plan for the show.
On top of that, we list out all of the attendees: maybe from a marketing list distributed by the show, or maybe just from the list on the website. Prioritize them a few ways: easiest to close, blue-chip logo, highly aligned with our current product. We assign each team member going to the show a batch of these leads. Everyone should go into the show with a concrete list of people they are responsible for connecting with, and 100% of their focus while at the show is making these connections. This is known as a “leading indicator”—something we are in complete control of. We can’t control whether the person is interested, but we can control whether we asked them or not. Ultimately this KPI will determine how well we performed.
Calculating ROI
The math for calculating ROI is very, very easy. Back-of-the-napkin math says that for 100 leads, I know 60 will convert into meetings, and 30 of those meetings will turn into proposals, and 10 of those proposals will get to the LOI stage. Finally, of those LOIs, five will closed won. This is a standard calculus that anybody can do to figure out what the required close ratio is.
100 leads = | 60 meetings = | 30 proposals = | 10 LOIs = | 5 deals |
4 weeks | 4 weeks | 2 weeks | 3 weeks = | 13 weeks |
1 deal = | $20,000 | * 5 deals = | $100,000 |
Based on an average deal value of $20,000, this simple math suggests that for a $13,000 investment in the show, we could see a return of $100,000. No brainer.
Data Collection
We cannot skip prepping our data collection. The entire purpose of the show is to gather leads. The data needs to be captured fast and in real time. So before we go to the show, we need to have our CRM ready, and make sure everyone on the team knows how to use it. That way we can meet someone, put their name into the system, and have it logged for our follow up. If we let names slip through the cracks, it costs us money—and that’s bad.
Execution
We’ve done our initial work. We feel really good about going to this tradeshow. It’s time to execute. So this can be broken down into a couple of different phases before the show.
Kick Off Meeting
Several weeks before the show, we get everybody together in a room and we have a Kick Off. We state the desired outcome. We make sure that it is super clear, and everyone is aligned. We assign everybody roles: who is responsible for what? Who is supposed to be talking to whom? What is each person’s KPI‘s? How are they getting tracked? Everybody knows exactly what they’re doing, and there are no questions going into the show. This makes sure everyone’s time at the show is spent actually driving results, not fumbling around. When we get to the follow up phase, we can hold people accountable. A clear KPI lets the sales manager judge whether each team member did a good job.
Setting Meetings Ahead Of Time
Now we are ready to set up our prospect meetings. This is probably one of the simpler things to do. We know who the targets are. Maybe the show has an app that we can use to message people. But we still need to decide what we are offering these people. Working backwards from the desired outcome of the show, we distill a very clear ask. “Come onto a call with me so I can show you a demo.” “Sign up for our free trial.”
We can also script out (and rehearse!!) the elevator pitch we use to get someone’s attention. This is basic marketing and sales, and there should be a really clear ask, or an offer, or some kind of good news that we have to present to these people. Weeks ahead of the show we want to know exactly what that is so that we can hammer it out and everyone can memorize it. The goal is to be able to get it off our tongue as soon as we meet a prospect, and not fumble through it (too much).
Plan The Follow Up
Similarly, we want to go ahead and plan out our follow up. One week, two weeks, six weeks, eight weeks after the show. What are we saying? Who are we saying to? When are we saying that to them, and who is saying it? We need to go ahead and write out our scripts for outbound calls, as well as emails that will go out—even the cadence of those emails. If we leave that until after the show, we’re now behind the eight ball, having lost a huge opportunity to get the most out of this show. So do this work ahead of time.
If we’ve done all the prep work, the show takes care of itself. We know what we’re saying, everybody’s out there having fun, we know exactly who they’re supposed to be going after; the show is a cakewalk.
Post Show Follow Up
Our post-show work is the most important part. We can’t spend all that money gathering leads, then fail to follow up diligently. This is the real work of a sales person, though it’s not glamorous. That’s why it’s so helpful to have a plan to follow ahead of time, KPIs, and built-in accountability to make sure it’s happening.
Post Mortem
The first thing we want to do is make sure that we post mortem the show. Everybody that was at the show gets back together, and first and foremost assesses whether each hit their KPIs. Each person is accountable to their KPI. We also need to figure out what we learned, and how that will change the course of our business moving forward. We discuss new information gathered through conversations had, as well as new data points that emerged—anything that affects the business going forward. We must have a clear plan on how we will use that data, by incorporating it into our product roadmaps or larger strategy. Do not underestimate the learnings from each show.
Then the follow up. Below are the metrics that need to be reported on every single week in the sales meeting. Each individual who was assigned KPIs for the show should report on their progress.
Sales meeting reporting | |
# leads | |
# net new | |
# converted | |
Phase in the cadence |
Whoever’s running the Sales team needs to ask about this show every single week. Reporting regularly on these metrics is how we build accountability into the team, and get the most out of the leads we gathered. Nothing falls through the cracks. We also built a call and email cadence to push on these leads until the desired outcome is achieved. At the end of the day, Sales is nothing more than following through on a plan.
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