AS A PROSPECTING PLATFORM, TRADE SHOWS CAN BE A FANTASTIC FORUM FOR GENERATING DEMAND, BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS WITH YOUR PROSPECTS AND FILLING YOUR SALES FUNNEL
In Aerospace & Defense industry, trade shows are regular, places of innovation and reunite the whole industry in a same area. 2018 main European airshows were AIX Hamburg, ILA Berlin and finally the Farnborough international Airshow. Even if it is nice to be there for your image, it must be effective and have a value for your business. As a small or medium sized company, to attend has a cost so question is how to develop successfully your business during such event?
Be Prepared, this is the main point. All the success you’ll have during the show comes from this step. You must contact people to obtain qualified meetings that are valuable for you and for the person you’ll meet. Preparation also means logistics. Despite that they are very interesting Trade show are tiring so take a close hotel. To leave stress at home, leave the hotel early in the morning to be on time for your first meeting of the day.
Be curious, first thing to know, you’re not going to sell products at a trade show. Once you established your target and did your road map you can begin. Keep in mind that most valuable thing you can collect is information. So, do not hesitate to ask open questions about new project or current issues with suppliers to see if your capabilities could be considered.
Be flexible, trade shows are always very busy place, meetings last longer than expected or are rescheduled! So, you will be late to your meeting and people you have meeting with will be late too. Be able to adjust your agenda and to reschedule meetings to not forget them. And in any case if you cannot fix a date at the show you’ll always can have a phone call with peoples or meeting them in their facilities. As Thierry of Sales Director always says: « It’s harder to obtain a meeting than reschedule it ».
Takes notes… and establishes next steps. During a trade show, you will discuss many topics with many people and accumulate every day, an amount of information too heavy to remember. So, to not forget crucial information take notes and write minutes of meeting for discussing it later with your team. Include in it the next steps that you established face to face during the meetings, plan the actions to perform and who will be in charge!
Don’t forget the after-show process! After you come back from the show you’ll have to properly share with your team information you collected and then coordinate the next steps. Send a message to people you met to thanks them for their time at the show and gives them next steps and delays to keep moving from each side.
Since 2007, Surfeo is the perfect sales extension in Europe for worldwide manufacturers, suppliers, designers of innovative solution for aerospace & defense industry.
alex.roman@surfeo.eu Office: +33 (1) 55 17 14 68 www.surfeo.eu