The last 60 days have been challenging for everyone and every business, worldwide. But while we have all been in the same boat, the path you choose to chart to shore could give you a competitive advantage. While all signs are pointing towards states reopening soon, as soon as they do business doors will follow suite. When this happens, you need to have your sales team ready to get out on the road and visit your local and regional clients.
We have shared many ideas over the last 6 weeks on how to stay in front of customers, how to step up your home office game, and what you should do to welcome back your employees. Now we would like to share some ideas on how to recoup sales, and possibly win over a few new customers while you’re at it.
On Site Client Presentations
One of the quickest and easiest things you can do to get in front of your customer is to visit them at their office. Call ahead and preschedule your appointment and invite in any other key decision makers who might want to see your presentation.
Just like in days past, traveling salespeople always had a professional presentation in the truck of their car, ready at a moment’s notice. You can accomplish this with a very compact banner stand or a lightweight portable display to set the stage for your demonstration. Both ideas are ideal for any size roadshow, or any size audience.
Small Hotel Meetings
If you need to call on multiple customers in one specific area another idea would be to reserve a meeting room at a local hotel and invite customers in at appointed times, to keep the size of your gatherings small.
Treat this small hotel meeting like your very own trade show. Set up a larger presentation and bring in more product samples or colleagues, if needed. Take this opportunity to engage with your customers, share new products or ideas you have been working on, and recoup some of the sales you lost out on the last couple of months. At the very least, if you beat your competition to it, you could gain some new fans along the way.
Smaller Regional Networking Events
Another great idea to offset any loss from your bigger show being canceled or postponed is to seek opportunities at smaller regional or chamber events. We all want to get back to business, so what better way than exhibiting at a smaller regional event. They will not replace the bigger industry shows, which will come back to life soon enough.
Work with your exhibit partner, or contact us, to modify your larger display by extracting some components out of it to create a smaller exhibit or rent a smaller portable or modular display for the short term.
Small will be the new big for a while.
Face-to-Face marketing comes in many shapes and sizes. I encourage you to be your own marketing champion and include some of these smaller ideas into your plan for the short or long term.
We are all ready for a friendly meeting and to get back to business. It is up to you to find the right opportunity to get out in front of your customers again, and we are here to help.