Biz2Credit: Trade shows/ conferences are expensive and time consuming – what can you do to maximize my ROI?

Scott:

1. Work your butt off! When you are on the floor, be animated and engaged to everyone that walks by. If you have help in the booth, walk around and get people to come to your booth.

2. Install a magnet (shoe shine person, raffle drawing, juggler, magician, models, card trickster, joke (clean) teller, etc.) in your booth.

3. Make sure that you give people a compelling reason to talk to you at these venues. In other words, position yourself ahead of time as the resident expert in your field and make people come to you like a moth to the light!

4. Position yourself as a speaker at these venues.

5. Volunteer to serve on the organizing committee. This will position you as a person in-charge and people will turn to you for information.

6. Don’t come home without at least a gazillion business cards for follow-up!

Biz2Credit: What are the right questions to ask when interviewing someone for a business development and marketing position?

Scott:

• What have they done with other businesses to make them successful?

• Why aren’t they still with those companies?

• What is their track record?

• What system(s) and approaches would they use to secure business for your firm?

• Why do they want to develop business and market your company?

• How extensive is their knowledge about your products and services?

• If they are an independent contractor, how many hours per week will they work on business development and marketing for your firm?

• What is their anticipated timeline to secure business for your company?

• Why should you engage their services?

• How do they balance business ethics with the ability to quickly secure business?

• How many times have they failed in previous business development and marketing assignments?

• How many in-person potential customer appointments do they plan to see per week?

Biz2Credit: What sort of things can you do to extract more business from existing clients?

Scott:

• Ask them for more!

• Show them the benefit (cost savings, efficiency, etc.) of why they should give your more business.

• Give them an incentive to do more with you.

• Over deliver on service!

• Get to know them personally, and be genuinely interested in their personal and professional life.

• Attempt to help their business with referrals, potential business opportunities and networking prospects.

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About Scott Gingold

Scott Gingold is the Founder and chief counselor of Confidential Counselor. Scott has over 3 decades of successfully assisting small businesses quickly achieve their revenue goals.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 1:33 am and is filed under Marketing Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or ask a question.