Coaches: how to attract and qualify prospects at a speaking gig booth?

Check out my answer to a similar question: https://clarity.fm/questions/1212/trade-show-experts-what-are-some-good-practices-in-pulling-in-some-people-to I am a business owner and have extensive personal experience at tradeshows. Let's set up a call if you'd like to discuss specifics that might make sense for you and your budget.

Hmmm... Is this a free or low-cost conference? I ask because attendees typically don't like paying good money for a conference and then being pitched on one's own services. If it's low cost and it's made known in advance there will be special offers, etc, then I guess that's okay. I've never seen an affiliate share in that respect. But I have seen coaches speaking either for free or a low fee in exchange for the ability to pitch.

The route I'd take is to start researching conferences that you'd like to speak at. Find out where and when they occur. Look for a "call for proposals" — lots of conferences ask speakers to submit talk ideas. Find out who runs them. See if you have any mutual friends. If not, see if you can find a way to be helpful to them (without asking for anything in return). Building good will has paid me back many, MANY times over as a speaker. Look for local meetups. Maybe organize your own. Start to get experience as a speaker and build a reputation. It starts slow, but things ramp up quickly once momentum picks up. I used this approach to build my own speaking career. I'd be happy to share my strategy and story with you if you're interested. Good luck!

Look into pitchmen. Joel Bauer started as a pitchman, in which he used his magic act to get attention for his client's booth. He understands that the unexpected and entertainment are big factors of attention. Giveaways...hey, it's possible to give away a lot of things and not get anything in return. Build a feedback loop into whatever you give away: if it's a contest, make sure they have to log into your site to see if they won, for instance. Or call you. Then you get another chance to communicate with them. Match the giveaway to the theme and audience. Giving an iphone 7 away to a crowd at a power generation show isn't a great fit and isn't memorable. I've heard an example of co-opting other people's booths. This is interesting because you expand your distribution channel at little cost. The idea is you ask if you can put your brochure on their countertop, and in exchange you'll by their crew lunch. Of course this works best when your products are complimentary and not in competition. Imagine if you got 4 or 5 of these to work with you. "Everywhere" the attendees go, there's your brochure. You must be legit. But the key thing is: make sure you get the conversation AFTER the show is over. Collect business cards; screen a little for fit; book the next conversation. Don't try to do everything at the show. Yes, it's possible to set up big deals right there; however, you probably won't and your objective should be to get awareness of you and your brand into your target market's (distributor's) head.

GREAT QUESTION! I loved doing trade shows and with our strategies we would get 10% of all the people who attended to sign up at our stand which is unprecedented. We did this WITHOUT any need to give leaflets to people who would just walk past and forget all about you. I have taught this strategy to other exhibitors and am happy to walk you through this in a call so that I can customize it to your business more than I could here because you've not given enough information about the event for me to give a fuller answer. Also if you are at an exhibition it's worth realizing that there are MORE ways to be profitable including strategies to sell to others (NOT JUST the attendees) even before the event date you can line things up so that if the exhibition doesn't hit the numbers that they sold you on - you won't end up losing out. Really excited to learn more about your business and help you have a great customer acquisition event there at the event. Depending on your stand size and ancillary budget there are other ways to make the event more profitable too. If you want to speak then just click "Talk to Marsha" below. I can make some time this week to help you.