Carnival Barker, The Shrinking Violet or the Professional Show & Event marketer?
Which are you?
There are 3 different types of people you’ll see working the booths and tables at shows and events. The first is what I call the Carnival Barker. He or she is loud, obnoxious and drawing attention to themselves, but they’re driving away as many people as they draw in; and of those they do draw in come with their sales-resistance guard up.
The Shrinking Violet is the person who sits in the booth and waits for someone to approach and ask questions. They’re the polar opposite of the Carnival Barker. Their comfort zone of engaging people is only for prospects coming to them, the ‘low hanging fruit”.
Then there’s the Professional Show & Event marketer; my people, the people I train. They’re skilled at finding the happy medium between the Carnival Barker and the Shrinking Violet. They know how to engage people without driving them away and they know how to turn a casual conversation into a lead… a very valuable lead. Unlike the hard core sales person, the type of people usually manning a booth who are very deliberate about qualifying the prospect and telegraphing that a sales conversation will ensue, the professional is a stealth qualifier and skilled at the unique art of lead generation. The Carnival Barker drives people away and the Shrinking Violet misses out on the people who never stop because they don’t know they may have a need or want for what you offer.
In this article I’ll share a few of my trade-secret show and event tools for approaching and engaging people.
If you’re not doing shows or events you should consider adding it to your lead generation mix.
If you have canvassing as part of your marketing, you can easily add this to your mix because the same people knocking on doors are well trained to canvass in this environment.
There are always shows and events going on that you can lead generate out of. For example, for the home improvement industry the home show season generally runs from January through March. These are prime environments for the canvasser because rather than a canvasser having to walk the neighborhoods with limited daylight hours in the winter, prospects pass them by in droves. Plus, the climate is much more manageable at a show or event. It’s also a diversion for canvassers from the same old same old from knocking on doors. Many of the canvassers I introduce to marketing at shows and events get ramped up because of the increased lead opportunity. It’s also an environment where they can accelerate their skills by practicing their presentations.
Think about community and/or county fairs, festivals, etc.; non-industry events where your prospects would be attending. Here’s one resource for finding festivals, www.Festival.org. Start a search and you’ll find a lot more opportunities.
Shows and events is a great role to move your marketers into during slow or off seasons, but also another vehicle for generating leads and staying consistent with your outbound marketing. A residual benefit is the branding you acquire from being involved in trade and/or community events.
My Ultimate 3-step Show & Event Process
- Get people to stop and talk with you
- Quickly identify and qualify them
- Make an irresistible offer
These are easy to learn and replicate the results. You’ll have the consistency in the performance and lead generating results from working the events.
Before I get into this I want to make an admission. When I first worked shows and events I became the Carnival Barker because I didn’t have a system. I thought being loud and aggressive was a strategy. I always had to pump myself up to do it and I hated every minute of it. On the flip side I’m just like the prospects. When I’m in a shopping mall and I see the ‘pitch-people’ at the kiosk carts peddling their gizmos and gadgets I cross over the walkway to avoid them approaching me. It was uncomfortable for me and the people I’d engage at a show or event.
I was good at canvassing and that came easy because I had a system that worked so I set out to create a system for this too. I created it out of fear, trial and error and wanting to feel good about being of service to people rather than grabbing them, wrestling them to the ground and twisting their arm … figuratively.
- Get Them to Stop
a. There’s nothing that matters more than getting a passing prospect to stop and engage me in conversation.
2. Qualifying Questions
a. I have to find out if they actually qualify and have an interest in my product or service. Keep in mind this has nothing to do with if they are planning on doing or obtaining your services.
3. Make an Offer
a. If I’m successful stopping and engaging the prospect, and I find out they qualify as a prospect with me in this briefly-lived relationship, then I earned the right to make an offer. If they don’t qualify then this offer would be incomplete (for both of us) and both parties have nothing of value for them to take away from it.
The show, event and its environment are insignificant. The only criteria is an event where people are passing by you. You could be at a big convention center event, a Costco Warehouse store or a county fair. Don’t get hung up on the environment or type of event, my approach works regardless of the venue.
My approach in this article is not for the people who willingly stop by your booth. People who engage you of their own accord are people who’ve probably already been thinking about your product or service. They are ‘low-hanging fruit’ prospects. My approach is for the passers-by, the people who aren’t going to stop because they don’t feel there will be value in them engaging you. At every event you’re going to have both of these people. Anybody can get the ‘low hanging fruit’. The majority of good qualified prospects will not stop. It usually has nothing to do with their interest. Many times they’re just distracted and don’t notice your booth or displays.
Step 1: Get Them to Stop
How do you get the person to stop? You know who they are. They may be with someone and engaged in conversation with the other person, they may be looking at their phone or their attention may be someplace else and as they walk toward your booth you know their attention isn’t drawn to you or your table. So how do you get them to stop?
The traditional methods people use, that don’t work, are the “Hey, how ya’ doing?” Then ask “have you ever heard about the company or the product (handing them a sample or flier).” Or ask the show or event attendee “are you having any problems with (inserting their product or service)?” No one knows and no one cares. These are ineffective ways to get people to stop. These are ‘instinct’ methods people do because they think they’re being forward, but not too aggressive. The problem is these approaches wouldn’t work on you if the roles were reversed so why would anyone ever think they’d work on someone else?
A good tool to help you get people to stop is to have something to give away. Premiums are good. The more unique and obscure the gift is the better it is. You don’t need a gift, but you can. There are situations where you’ll be prohibited from giving gifts. I have 2 methods and scripts depending on the environment of the show, but with both I have a survey question once I have them engaged.
Both ‘gift’ methods are wrapped with setting up my survey question, which employs reciprocity. It also gives you flexibility depending on the situation and environment. Both approaches get people to stop and then you assume their participation in the second step, the qualifying question.
For the situations where you don’t have, or can’t employ a gift give away, you still use the survey approach to catch their attention. That’s Step 1: Get them to Stop.
You have 10-seconds or less to get their attention and get them to stop. You can’t be a sales person in the first 10-seconds. Sales people are taught to sell and in these situations you’re not in a sales situation you’re in a prospecting position. You have to earn the right to ask qualifying questions.
Step 2: Qualifying Questions
Your qualifying questions should not be more than 2 or 3 questions. Anything more is a sales pitch.
I demonstrate several examples of qualifying questions on the live Silver call in how to move the prospect from stopping to becoming a qualified person for you.
How many people can you see pass by you at a show or event? Imagine being able to stop 3 times, 5 times, 10 times more people who you can engage and ask a quick qualifying question. How many more leads can you take away from the event?
If a person doesn’t qualify, move onto the next. Shows and events, like canvassing, is a numbers game. When you have a system you increase the number of people you can engage and the number of leads you capture will increase exponentially. As your leads increase so too do the number of sales conversations you can have. Increase your sales conversations and you increase the conversion numbers; and you increase the return on investment for attending the show in the first place. The difference between event success and failure is 3 simple steps.
The final step in my system is the offer.
Step 3: Make an Offer
What can you offer at a show and event? Traditionally it’s the same as when canvassing, to offer a free estimate. This old school approach pushes people into an appointment. For many they’re not ready, they don’t think they can afford it, it’s too premature or they pass the decision off to a spouse.
Change the offer and you change the game. I offer every qualified prospect an information guide. This has been the game changer! It eliminates the objections and stalls, especially the big 3;
- the time isn’t right,
- we don’t have the money or
- my spouse makes those decisions.
People generally don’t object to receiving the guide. You’ll always get the ‘now’ buyers, but this gets you the ‘later’ buyers; the exchange of their lead contact information for the guide. Make no mistake I will make a second offer, after I have their contact information, for an appointment. The info guide offer first, before the traditional free estimate offer increases the number of leads you capture. Get the lead and then go after the appointment. That’s the flow and strategy.
Adopting a proven system increases results and consistency on those results. It’s an oversimplification, but the method is to stick to the system and deliver it the same to every person every time and you will increase your results. Too many people psych themselves out of results when they worry about producing results. The system works so well you need only to deliver it. The marketer who focuses on delivering the presentation to every prospect will have the highest number of leads and appointments at the end of the event.
That’s my 3-step system. In conclusion there are 2 things I want to clarify. First, I work with a ton of marketers and the biggest part of getting them prepared is getting their mindset correct. It’s a simple system, but it’s so powerful for the marketer to gain confidence with the system and in themselves.
The second point is about the info guide. Don’t underestimate the power of this guide. Most people I speak to about the guide do 1 of 2 things; they either take it upon themselves to have a guide created or they ask, “What needs to be in the guide?” The second approach is the correct approach to take. Most make the mistake thinking the guide is nothing more than a brochure. That’s entirely the wrong approach to take if you’re going to be successful with this type of offer.
It’s very important that your information guide’s message match your face to face marketing. The last thing an info guide should be is a brochure. No brochure has ever sold a product or service. The only thing that sells is a great info guide that enhances your company and differentiates you from every other choice in your category. It elevates the prospect in the buying process; it must effectively prepare them for your sales conversation.
It’s not publicized and I’ve only been making it available to my private clients, until now. If you want to discover more about the show and event system I’ve shared here or the specifics about the information guide you use as the offer. Contact me at cthompson@canvassking.com or call my office at (216) 558-1337. Both my Show and Event 3-step system and the contents of the information guide are formulaic. You can get out of ‘strong-arming’ prospects into appointments and create a more natural, more enjoyable experience for the prospect, your marketer and you. You will easily double and triple your results from shows and events.
Committed to your canvassing success,
Chris Thompson – The Canvass King