8 Tips On How To Find Prospects at Events

How to Find Prospects

As a sales person, you will often be tasked with attending events in the hopes of attracting prospects and bringing in new leads. In order to make the most of your time an effort, I've drafted 7 tips you can use at your next event on how to find prospects.

There are several key things you need to be doing, including the following:

1. Do Some Research and Understand Who Will be Exhibiting at the Event

Often times, the exhibitors are the service providers or suppliers to those who the event is geared towards; makes sense right? As an example, at a recent mining event I attended the main exhibitors were engineering services suppliers, and government agencies. Not specifically the mining companies. For our client, this was okay, these firms have a definite need for the services we were offering; so a good fit.

2. Set Goals

Do not go into an event without any goals, otherwise what is the point of being there? Your goals should be quantitative as well as qualitative. As an example:

  • I will stop by 75 booths and learn what they do
  • I will identify 10 qualified leads for my company including the best person in the prospect organization to speak with and will aim to schedule a follow up conversation with that individual
  • I will watch two presentations on topics relevant to my industry and seek out 2 people to network with after each presentation

3. Focus Your Attention and Don’t Burn Time

Too often people will wander into an event, go watch a speaker present on a topic that is not relevant to them, go grab a coffee and relax in the corner, respond to five emails and calls etc. Listen, you have paid good money to be there, don’t waste your time with work or activities that won’t help you achieve your goals.

4. Make it a Game or a Competition

Honestly, what sales person doesn’t like a little competition. Over the last number of years, whether going by myself our with colleagues to events, I/we would often set up goals of prospects to find, cards to get and whoever had the most success would be rewarded with drinks or food at the end.

5. Don’t be Afraid to Talk to People and Inquire as to What They do

Sometimes you simply don’t know if they could be a prospect or not until you have a 1-2 minute conversation with them. This also gives you an opportunity to refine your own 30 second elevator pitch.

Remember though that the people manning the booth probably have different goals than you, like meeting prospects themselves, so be conscientious of how much of their time you take up. Be short, sweet and to the point. In addition, the person at the booth may not be the correct contact for you, so don’t be afraid to ask who in the organization you would need to follow up with.

6. Remember, This is not Easy Work, it is Work That Needs to be Done and is Part of Your Job

Simply goes with the territory. Make it fun, make it a learning experience. I always have gotten a rush out of meeting new people, understanding their business, seeing if I could help in any way. In the end of the day, and this is a bit philosophical, but what is really interesting about the world we live in, is the variety of individuals in it. Take some time, and I mean targeted time in this case, to meet a few of them.

7. Follow up on Leads After the Show

The downfall I have found of most companies and people that attend events is their inability to do the “follow-ups”. Whether you are spending a few hundred dollars or thousands, in order to maximize your return, you HAVE TO DO THIS. At a recent event I was at, I came across an opportunity for a client that could represent an annual revenue stream of $420,000 – there is no way I would not follow up on this.

8. Get a copy of the attendees if possible

If you can score this list, whether it be big or small, make some effort to go through it and add those relevant contacts to your prospect database. They could be targeted with a specific event follow up email / mailer or something like that. Don’t let good potential leads get away.

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8 Tips On How To Find Prospects at Events