As a kid, I was pretty shy. In junior high school, it was an ongoing goal of mine to NOT stand out in the crowd but to blend in. Which made it pretty odd that one day while clothes shopping with my mom I saw this awesome pair of red pants. Bright red. Fire engine red. You could see them a mile away. These were designed to make one stand out in a crowd. Up to this point, my wardrobe mostly consisted of blue jeans and athletic shorts, with maybe a pair or two of dress pants for Sunday School.

I told mom I wanted them. I thought there were some of the coolest pants I’d ever seen and had to have them.

Junior high school is a nutty time of life, exceeded only by high school in some ways. Crazy mid-adolescence, cheerleader crushes, chaperoned dances, the whole thing.

I had new red pants to wear and I wanted to do it! But when I wore them, I didn’t think they were the coolest pair of pants I’d ever seen. In fact, I imagined everyone staring at me. I felt so self-conscious I couldn’t handle it. If I ever wore those cool red pants again, I don’t remember it.

I suppose I could draw some parallels between red pants and tradeshow marketing but you could probably do it better. I just figured the story was worth sharing. You should know what you’re getting into before putting on red pants.

Lesson learned: I still dress pretty conservatively today except for the half-dozen tie-dye shirts I have, but hey, I like tie-dye!

Someday remind me to tell you about the platform shoes I owned in the 9^th grade.

March 2, 2017

Cold Calling Blues

When it comes to sales, you are in charge. Nothing happens in a business until a sale happens. Without the sale, nobody in the company is asked to build or provide anything to a client. Nobody is able to send out an invoice or bill. No money comes in, no bills get paid, no employees get paid. So until a sale happens, whether it’s on the street, in the store, online or at a tradeshow, nothing happens.

This was one of the first lessons I got when I moved away from talking into a microphone for a living to selling tradeshow exhibits. It puts a lot of pressure on ya! But it also opens doors to growth that you might not often recognize, or otherwise have in your life.

As a company owner at TradeshowGuy Exhibits, I’m responsible for many things – one of them is to bring in business: to make a sale. And frankly, it’s a competitive marketplace. There are a lot of good tradeshow companies, designers and fabricators out there. So, like any other company, we’ve tried any number of things: advertising in local and national publications, Google Adwords, sending out regular newsletters, soliciting referrals from current clients, blogging and other types of inbound marketing, social media outreach, walking the floor at tradeshows, gathering information on exhibitors to follow up later…and cold calling.

But, you say…Isn’t cold calling a good way to bug people? To interrupt them? To intrude upon their busy day? After all, in this online world, if people want to find what you’re selling, shouldn’t they be able to do it online? Certainly, but since being online in a crowded world isn’t perfect, businesses need to be able to reach potential buyers directly.

And that means cold calling.

Frankly, I’ve never been a big fan of cold calling for a number of reasons, but as my Sandler Sales trainer keeps telling me, “You don’t have to like it you just have to do it.” And with better tools and more effective questions, it becomes easier. And, as with any other selling method, it can bring in business.

In the past 30 days of cold calling I’ve uncovered several leads for potential projects. I’ve even found half a dozen people that told me “you should have called a couple of weeks ago!” as they just made a deal for a project.

Which tells me a number of things:

Businesses are buying
Every business is in a different situation and you might be exactly what they’re looking for
If you use cold calling as part of your selling strategy, as in any part of your strategy, you’ll continue to uncover leads

So to bring this around full circle and relate it to tradeshow marketing, it’s worth doing. Your audience – your potential clients – are all in different situations. Some may have just purchased exactly what you’re offering. Others may not need your services for another year or more. But some will be in the perfect sweet spot where their needs match up with your product, service and capabilities.

Get the free report “7 Questions You’ll Never Ask Your Exhibit House”

March 2017

The Day I Wore Red Pants

Cold Calling Blues