My client was wearing his angry face. Image by Andre Hunter on Unsplash
I don’t think I was ever in such an untidy workspace.
Regardless, as I sat down, taking in the scene, my client, a Sales Director for an injection moulding company, launched into a stern reprimand.
I was the Show Director of a trade show his business had recently participated in, and he wasn’t happy.
That was putting it mildly.
His contended that the leads gathered were of low quality, and therefore, he had wasted valuable marketing money.
His views were more than a bit surprising because the event in question had recorded its highest ever attendance and a record rebooking.
But, there’s always the exception.
Before I had a chance to answer, question or counter in any way, his phone rang (a desk phone, not a mobile).
Interestingly, we could both hear the phone, we just couldn’t see it.
My client started lifting the papers and files scattered over the desk, but he still couldn’t find the phone.
His face went red; I started to feel a little embarrassed for him and thought I should help the search.
He started opening the drawers of his desk, and I came around to his side to help.
Then he found his phone in the bottom right-hand drawer. It was under another pile of paper.
As I was about to pull away, I saw a pile of lead forms with our show name on them (pre-digital days).
They were underneath the phone at the bottom of the drawer and were neatly bundled together with an elastic band.
I noticed that there were quite a lot of these forms.
As my client was now fully engaged and because he had laid into me so hard, I took those lead forms out of the drawer.
His face, as I sat opposite flicking through those forms, was a picture.
Once again he was red in the face but now for a very different reason
The leads were excellent. They included top names and job titles from the industries we said the show would attract.
For some unknown reason, he had let them lay unfollowed up for two-three weeks.
It appeared that he hadn’t even looked at them since the show.
We had a very different sort of conversation when he finished his call.
Suffice to say, the company re-booked for the next event.
This incident did happen, and it puzzled me for a long time after.
How could there have been such a mix-up in the client’s thinking?
There might have been many reasons, from overwork and stress to poor sales management.
Happily, knowing who has visited your stand today is no mystery thanks to digital lead collection.
All the details are neatly laid out for you.
However, if you think that list should be longer or stronger, we can help you improve things next time.
And, we can also help you turn more of your stand leads into sales.
The moral of this showbiz tale? Never sit on exhibition sales leads, get to mining them instead.