The key thing people get wrong about exhibitions is that they assume that the first contact, the initial dialogue, the opportunity is sufficient and that everything else will take care of itself and that is simply not the case. One must follow up. In fact, when I am presenting to live audiences I would normally say, I have Seven rules of exhibiting and the first five of them are "follow up". Something like 85% of exhibition leads never get followed up. That's a huge amount of opportunity. A huge amount of potential business is being wasted. The second issue about following up is that you can't simply do it once. Once is not enough. It takes on average seven contacts to turn a new lead into a piece of business and most businesses give up after about three attempts. You have to make sure you have seven contacts with your potential client. So follow up is actually more important than any other part of the process. And there are some fantastic stories in the Exhibition Industry about huge companies leaving shows lauding their success and how well they have done and doing nothing with the leads which then emerge in a box when the stand is unpacked for the next show. The follow up of those leads, the ability to continue a dialogue with the people you have met on the stand are key to Exhibition Success.
