A trade show is a great opportunity to network, build connections, and make sales. Although you cannot expect to close a multi-million dollar deal on the trade show floor, you can expect to meet people who could potentially make those deals possible. What you need to do is know how to connect with people and make them get interested in you. 

You should pique their interest so much that they would be thrilled to give you their card or call you. If you are confused about how to achieve that, read on to find out the best tips regarding generating leads. 

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In order to be able to generate leads at any expo you first need to have an understanding of what the theme of the expo is. While some expos have a general theme like ‘technology’ others tend to be much more specific like ‘innovations in surgical instruments.’ If you are a company that manufactures many things, you need to study the demands of the expo and tailor your booth and the rest of the campaign to what is expected. 

You cannot generate many leads with a brute-force approach, you need to have a clear plan and specific goals. In order to generate the list of goals, you will need to do some research prior to the show. See if you can get your hands on a list of exhibitors and attendees, and then narrow down the ones that would be most interested in working with you. This will give you the specific goal of trying to generate a lead with those specific people. Similarly, you can have a goal for the number of leads you expect to generate. 

You might have the right attitude but fail to generate leads because you don’t know what to say. You should know your pitch by heart but shouldn’t start narrating it as soon as you see a potential lead. First, greet them in 30 seconds and then try to determine if they are even qualified to be a potential lead or will they just be a waste of time. Do this by asking qualifying questions about what they do and what kind of products they are interested in. Dismiss anyone who doesn’t qualify and give a 2-4 minute demo to those who do. In the end, greet them and fill the lead detail form. Following this process, you can easily generate 5 to 6 leads an hour. 

When attendees come to your booth to find out about the products and services, the first thing they experience is the attitude of your greeter. If they come to the booth and meet a snarky and bored person, they will not be interested in having a conversation, let alone making a purchase. Lead generation is about connecting with people and unfriendly greeters simply will not do. Smiles are a great marketing tactic as people feel better when they see someone smile and are more likely to listen to them. 

On the trade show floor, there are often hundreds of booths and the number of leads you generate depends on the number of people that actually visit your booth. You have to find innovative ways to attract people to your booth. Most potential leads already have the iPhones and iPads other people might be offering as a giveaway or contest. So you should focus on creating offers related to your own products. Create an attractive booth and put a big banner or hanging on it explaining your offer. You can go to aplusexpo.com in order to get a customized booth and high quality printed banners. 

If you end up having a crowd at your booth, you might be unable to communicate with each of them effectively. In such a situation, a presentation will help you make the most of the audience. Your presentation should not be more than 10 minutes and it should not be like a boring lecture. The presenter should be lively and entertaining and he should interact with the people. If you are at a very crowded expo, it is a good idea to repeat the presentation every hour so you can tell people when the next one will be. By the end of the presentation, many people will be interested in your product, just make them fill lead forms and follow up with them later. 

Generating many leads at an expo is about knowing what to say and how to say it. Positive tone, polite body language, concise demonstrations, and being a good listener leads to prospects being more interested in you. It is important to only spend your time on people who can turn into actual leads. There will be many people who are not interested in your field of work, or are not potential collaborators, dismiss them quickly because time is money. Make sure you have an eye-catching booth so leads come to you.