New: SlidePal turns your survey results into board-ready presentations, in minutes.New: SlidePal. Board-ready presentations in minutes. See SlidePal →
Is your sales approach fit for purpose?
In a world where exhibitor and sponsor loyalty has never been more important, the most prominent sales approach in the trade show industry is showing its limits. Here is a way to think about where your organisation sits, and where it might need to be.
The most prominent way trade shows sell
There is a broad spectrum in how event organisers sell, and even within a single organiser the approach can vary sharply between teams. But one approach is prominent enough that it shapes how the whole trade show channel is perceived by exhibitors, regardless of those doing it differently.
Very few shows launch any other way. At launch there is no track record to sell, so the conversation has to start with vision, strategy and the competence of the team behind the show. The salesperson has to understand what success would look like for that exhibitor, because there is nothing else to point at.
That conversation tends to fade. By the third or fourth cycle, once rebook momentum takes over, it is often replaced by something faster and more scarcity-led. That happens for understandable reasons. The question is what it costs.
What happens between the sale and the show
The most useful test of whether an approach is transactional is not how the deal gets done. It is what happens next.
An exhibitor signs, pays a deposit, and then waits. The show might be eight months away, or a year. In a transactional model, very little happens in that period. Some forms to fill in, an invoice, and then quiet until the doors open.
When the transaction ends, the process ends. There is a big void between that transaction and the actual value we deliver to the client.
That silence produces a misleading signal. When exhibitor sentiment at one large organiser was examined properly, a meaningful group of exhibitors were rebooking while not being happy. They came back because they felt they had to. Retention looked healthy. The relationship was not.
Why this matters more than it used to
Three forces are converging, and together they change the cost of getting this wrong.
Costs are rising
Exhibiting is more expensive across the board. Space, stand build, flights, hotels, catering, freight. The return on investment calculation in an exhibitor's mind is moving the wrong way, so spend gets scrutinised harder every cycle.
Competition is intensifying
Capital is flooding into events. New shows are launching, established ones are being acquired and invested in, and corporates are doubling down on their own flagship events. Exhibitors have more choice than they have ever had.
Caring at scale is now possible
The systems now exist to understand and serve hundreds of accounts individually, faster and at lower cost than before. What used to be a resourcing constraint is becoming a choice.
Really want to care? Now's the time. And you can. Because if you don't, those converging forces will push others to do so.
The sales approach shapes exhibitor performance.
Exhibitors are B2B buyers, and the wider B2B evidence points one way. Gartner found that sellers who help customers make sense of their options close far more high-quality, low-regret deals than sellers who mostly pitch or pile on information. For a show, a low-regret purchase is an exhibitor who performs and comes back.
Sellers closing high-quality, low-regret deals
Source: Gartner, 2019 (sense-making figure from Gartner's press release of 29 July 2019; telling and giving figures as reported by DestinationCRM, October 2019).
What happens when exhibitors exhibit well
The case for changing the sales approach is not sentimental. It is commercial.
Exhibitors who buy the right thing perform better, and exhibitors who perform better are worth more to the show.
Five ways of selling, not two
Most conversations about this treat it as a binary: transactional or consultative. It is more useful to think of it as a spectrum of dominant sales behaviours, where each stage does more than the one before it.
Select a stage to see what each one looks like in practice.
Fully Transactional
Focused on filling space, with minimal discovery.
- No reference to the show's vision or strategy
- Product and inventory-led
- Minimal focus on customer need
- Space-led sell
- Little or no post-sale engagement
Needs-Aware
We ask enough questions to understand what you need before recommending inventory.
- Understands basic objectives
- Recommends relevant options from available inventory
- Focuses on stated needs
- Asks the right questions
- Some post-sale support
Solution-Led
We actively match and shape the package around your objectives and target audience.
- Positions the package against the show's audience strategy
- Understands objectives and target audience
- Tailors and combines solutions
- Provides recommendations with clear rationale
- Addresses potential challenges
Partnership-Led
We co-create the right solution and stay involved after the sale to help you execute and improve your outcomes.
- Shares the show's forward strategy with you
- Co-creates and agrees the solution
- Ongoing support through planning and execution
- Proactive advice and insights
- Measures and reviews outcomes
Fully Consultative
A strategic partner, with a deep understanding of your business and goals.
- Deep understanding of your business and the show's vision and strategy
- Fully customised solutions
- Proactive advice and insights
- Ongoing dialogue
- Measures impact and continuously optimises
Does selling consultatively mean slowing down?
There is a real constraint behind the transactional approach. Floor plan urgency is not imaginary. Some organisers can see it in their own data: once a sales conversation runs past around 45 days, the probability of closing drops sharply. If that is your reality, a longer conversation looks like a risk.
The counter-argument is that consultative selling does not have to be slower. It has to be better prepared.
Don't let the AI reach out to clients directly. Let it be your coach for each client. Then being bespoke at scale is invisible to the customer, and it doesn't slow you down.
Research that used to happen one account at a time can now be run across an entire client list, matching each exhibitor to what your show offers. This is not about automated outreach, which exhibitors already receive far too much of. It is about arriving at the conversation already understanding what that exhibitor is trying to achieve.
A consultative conversation also does not have to land in one transaction. Once interest and trust are established, the booth can be the beginning rather than the whole deal, with sponsorship and other opportunities following in the weeks afterwards. Understanding the business properly can accelerate the process rather than slow it.
This is not an argument against scarcity
Scarcity is a credible and effective sales tool, and it belongs at every point on this spectrum. If you are selling a fully customised package at the consultative end, there is a finite number of those packages available, and that scarcity becomes a genuine part of the value.
The question is not whether to use urgency. It is whether urgency is doing all the work. A sell built on scarcity alone gets the contract signed. It does not tell you whether the exhibitor bought the right thing, and it does not tell you whether they will want to come back.
At the far end of scarcity sits exclusivity, and that is a genuine value driver. A customised package is exclusive by design, because there is a finite number of them.
So the consultative end of the spectrum is not the end where urgency disappears. It is the end where urgency is attached to something worth having.
Three routes, and most organisations need a combination
There is more than one way to move along the spectrum. They are not mutually exclusive, and the right mix depends on your scale and your starting point.
Add a customer success function
A team sitting between sales, operations and the show, owning the relationship through the gap. At one large organiser this started with churn analysis and a full customer journey map, which showed that salespeople were being asked to do either too much or too little. The team was hired deliberately from outside the events industry. Satisfaction scores moved, retention followed, and the business sustained double-digit organic growth. One under-discussed effect: customers became more tolerant when things went wrong, because they could see the effort being made.
Improve the sales approach
Equip the sales team to sell consultatively from the first conversation, so there is less to repair later. This means understanding objectives before recommending inventory, and having something beyond space to recommend. It also means rethinking how salespeople are targeted and incentivised.
Split the sales team
Separate account management, rebooking and upselling from new business acquisition, and tranche clients accordingly. At scale this is close to a no-brainer. It also recognises something important: not every exhibitor wants a consultative conversation. A smaller repeat exhibitor may simply want to book quickly and move on.
Improving the sales approach and adding customer success are not competing options. The opportunity sits in the combination.
The full conversation
Mark Brewster and Dr Barış Onay discussed all of this live, including audience questions on splitting sales teams and using AI to research accounts at scale.
.png?length=1920)
Where does your sales organisation sit today, and where does it need to be?
That is the question worth asking, and the answer is rarely the same for every team, every show or every account. If you want to work through it with someone who spends their time inside these conversations, we are happy to talk.