Because of the nature of my business, I tend to spend a lot of time sat on my backside in front of a computer screen. That’s a bad thing from a health point of view, of course, but it’s not always good for my sanity, either. I like to get out of my seat and actually meet real people as often as I can.

I had a good chance to do this last Saturday. Mike Pywell of Businessclub365.com was running a trade show stand in Derby. I offered to help. The show itself was aimed at people starting a business or thinking about doing so – exactly the core market that Mike is aiming at for BC365.

We had a great time and signed up a whole bunch of people for memberships of the site. It wasn’t what you would call a tough sell, as BC365 is a fantastic resource and membership is free.

I also took the opportunity to look around at what was going on. A trade show audience is pretty much captive: they’re there because they want to see the kind of product or service you’re offering. Even so, there’s a lot of competition. What can you do to maximise the attention you get? Three things, I reckon:

1. Offer instant gratification. If you can’t sell your product there and then, while your prospect’s buying temperature is pumped up, at least have something to give them. We did well because we were offering something useful – instant membership of the site. Other exhibitors were offering free stuff, like pens and books. Branded freebies always go down well, and their benefits speak for themselves. The stalls that didn’t have anything direct to offer didn’t get so much attention. Blimey, even the Revenue was making itself popular by offering tons of freebies (though the HMRC people on the stand didn’t seem to know whether or not their branded pens and CD cleaners were taxable as benefits in kind – come on guys, stay on top of the game).

2. Give the punters something to look at. Most stands were only staffed by a couple of people. Visitors don’t want to hang around in a queue waiting to speak to you if you’re busy with someone else, and they’ll soon clear off if there’s nothing else to do. If they have something to look at, they’ll hang around. For us, Mike got hold of a huge flat screen TV to display the website. We also blew up a load of the cartoons from the site and stuck them to the walls.

3. Be pro-active. This is the key. I think we did well (and we were described as the best exhibitor by several visitors) because we actually got out and talked to people. Sitting behind the desk on your stall waiting for punters to pitch up may save energy, but it doesn’t make many sales. We spent the whole day in front of our stand giving out brochures and stopping people to talk to them. On each approach we made a point of not launching right into a sales spiel. We knew the visitors all had dreams of running a business, so we started every interaction by asking them what they hoped to achieve. This opened people up so we could move on to talking about what BC365 could do for them.

All that may be pretty basic stuff, but not everyone does it. If you’ve got a tradeshow coming up and you’d like to talk about copywriting for promotional literature or any other aspect of one-on-one and trade show sales and marketing, give me a call on +44 (0) 7774 267322. Advice is free!