Your Exhibit Booth Design is perfect. You hired the best of the best designers in custom exhibit design and everything is set up and ready to go. Now you see the first prospective customers approaching your booth. What now?

Is your staff trained and ready to accurately and effectively represent your brand? Do they have the customer service skill and salesmanship required to make a lasting impression on trade show visitors? You can have the best, most interactive exhibit design on the trade show floor, but without experienced and charismatic representatives showing off your product, your efforts will be lost.

How to Interact with a Prospective Customer

1. Listen attentively: As a representative of your company showing your product at a trade show, you may be excited to share your knowledge and hook a lead. Don’t let your enthusiasm get the better of you. Never talk over a customer in order to recite your pitch. Nothing will send a trade show visitor running in the other direction faster than an overeager salesman. Your perspective customer also wants to be heard. You may have a great product or service, but until you know exactly what your customer needs, you won’t know how your product meets their requirements.
2. Keep it brief: Your pitch should last no longer than 30 seconds to one minute.
3. Pay attention to body language: This means your body language and theirs. First, be sure to maintain eye-contact. As you engage in conversation, look for body language cues. For instance, if the visitor looks bored, do not talk her ear off. If she looks enthusiastic, guide her to the staffer at your booth assigned to collect prospective customers’ information.

 
There are, on average, 2.2 trade show visitors per 100 square feet of exhibit space, and the average trade show visitor each spends 9.5 hours viewing exhibits. To catch and keep their attention, not only does your booth need to be engaging, your staff must be as well. You can put thousands of dollars into your trade show exhibit (in fact, a study shows that events like trade shows are the second largest area of growth in media spending by businesses), but if your staff are not adequately prepared to engage potential consumers, those funds will go to waste.

If you have any additional tips or questions regarding trade show customer etiquette, exhibit booth design, or trade show exhibit rentals, please post in the comments section below.