WILL SOMEONE PLEASE CLOSE ME?!?!?!

I’m here at Salesforce.

I’m here at Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce walking the trade show floor and noticing for the first time (since it’s been a while since I’ve been to a trade show) how ineffective most sales reps are who work the booths.  I’m here not only for networking and business development purposes but I’m also evaluating different learning platforms to use for a new offering I’m putting together. Long story short, I’m an active buyer looking to evaluate and make a decision in the very short term and I’m not trying to hide it.

As I walk the trade show floor and talk to different sales reps manning the booths it seems to me their goal isn’t to find new sales opportunities but more to see how many people they can scan into their system, register for their drawing or show a demo to.  I walk up, tell them what I’m looking for and make it clear that I’m actively evaluating solutions.  Then they “get all excited like Jo-Jo the idiot circus boy with a pretty new pet” and jump right into their pitch. They bring me over to show me a non-specific demo of their solution without tailoring it to what I’m looking for and then they hand me a brochure.  I purposely drop a bunch of ‘buying signs’ through the process and then wait for a minute after they’re done to see if they are going to close me….nothing.  Seriously?

Ask me when I want to schedule a follow up meeting. Ask for my feedback on what I thought about their solution compared to what else I’ve seen. Ask me when I’m going to make the decision and what my decision process is.  Ask me anything!!!  CLOSE ME!!  For some reason do we forget what the actual purpose of a trade show is when we get there?  This isn’t a marketing event ladies and gentlemen, this is a sales event.  Leads are hot when you are talking to them, they are not hot two weeks later after marketing puts together a list of all the cards and you get a task to make a phone call.  ABC!!!

If you attend trade shows or even talk to someone on the street or at an event that seems to be interested in your solution, don’t just take their card and tell them they will follow up later. Everyone has their smart phone on them.  Ask them to pull out their calendar and schedule a time to talk.  You don’t need to be obnoxious about it or rude or pushy.  If they are genuinely interested in the follow up they will have no problem doing it.  If they’ve just been wasting your time and trying to be nice they will avoid it.  Either way, at least you’ll get something from the experience besides the headache of “touching base” and “following up” for the next 6 weeks.

Let’s see if anyone closes me today on the floor.

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