by Tim Hughes | @Timothy_Hughes | LinkedIn
The world is changing, we all know there is a movement to social and digital, one area that seems to be stuck in an analogue world is conferences and exhibitions.
Why do people go to conferences and exhibitions? They go because they are seeking information, they wanted workable solutions to take back to the office. While we can argue whether they get that or not. We do know they avoid the exhibition floor.
You know, that room with all the stands in, all those sales people in their shinny suits or even nowadays, salespeople in Polo shirts to try and make the sales people, not look like sales people. But we all know they are there, we know if we walk onto a stand, they will pitch to us, take our email down and then spam us and call us forever or unless we buy.
Conference companies try their best, because after all it’s the exhibition that pays for the conference. At my last company, we ran a lot of conferences as the cost to us, was neutral, in fact we made a profit, paid for by the exhibitors.
In all cases the conference attendees avoid the exhibition because nobody gets up in the morning and says “the first thing I want to do at todays’ conference is talk to a manipulative salesperson”.
But let’s stop for a second. Isn’t there this thing called the internet? If I want to know about one of these exhibitors can I not look them up on the web? Can I not look the staff up on social media and see if they are the people, the experts, that can help me?
As Keenan says in his need book “Gap Selling”.
“If you “tell” your prospects what you do, what your product does, and why you matter, you are wasting your time. And in today’s world, prospects don’t like having their time wasted.”
That is after all an exhibition. People are actually pissed off the fact that you are there.
Keenan goes on ..
“Telling people what you do is pre-internet. It was a time when prospects and customers expected us to tell them who we were, what we’d done, and how great we are. It was part of the game. There was literally no other way for prospects to learn who we were and what made us different. Telling was what we did.”
Keenan explains that telling people what we do is what the internet is for.
“The days of wasting time in meetings and sales calls telling people what we do are over”.
Interesting Keenan also gives the answer to marketing and selling today.
“Selling and Marketing is about getting people ready for change, and to do that customers have to trust you” He goes onto say “nobody gives a shit about you, your company or your product”.
So how do you build trust with clients, build relationships with clients so they are ready for the change they will need to support internally? Simple. Social Media.
Stop paying for exhibitions that don’t move the needle and invest in something that will get you leads and meetings, competitive advantage and win deals.
Of course we would say this, we are biased ….. but nice to see that one of the tops sales people in the world, Keenan, agrees too.
People who read this article also read these:
https://dlaignite.com/why-advertising-is-lazy-marketing/
https://dlaignite.com/social-selling-has-been-around-for-some-time-why-have-some-companies-not-yet-embraced-it/
https://dlaignite.com/linkedin-pods-are-they-worth-the-effort/
