Booth Salesmanship 101
A bridal show provides the unique opportunity to meet large volumes of potential customers face-to-face. The sales people in your booth are the single most important ingredient to get bookings at the show!
- If you are your own best sales person — be at the show! If you’re not, send someone who is. First impressions are the lasting ones. If you know you’re best talents are behind the scenes, hire staff that can best represent you and can relate to the brides.
- Make sure your staff maintains an open, inviting and friendly manner. Sitting behind your table, eating in your booth, talking on the cell phone, or being overly aggressive are total turn-offs for brides. Rotate your staff so mid-way through the day you have fresh, energetic personalities. Brides coming towards the end of the day don’t understand you’re tired and exhausted. They expect the same attention that you gave during the 1st hour of the day.
- Be polite to everyone! Remember that the grooms, families and friends who accompany brides to the show have a lot of influence on wedding decisions. Especially moms! When talking to the bride, make eye contact with her guests too and engage everyone in the conversation.
- Be prepared to set-up appointments and book business at the show! Have your availability dates on hand. Don’t be timid about asking for a deposit at the show to secure her date. This can be done tactfully without coming across as pushy. It doesn’t hurt to simply ask and leave with bookings in your pocket.
- Sales people need to stay alert and ready during even slow times, don’t get into conversations with other vendors or staff and miss the bride who wants to talk to you!
- Review your show literature design. Most brides wait until after the show to select vendors for follow-up visits. Thus, they rely heavily on the literature they collect. Literature that clearly outlines what makes your product or service different from the competition is essential for getting a phone call after the show. Make sure your literature reflects your image. High end products should have high-end literature. Keep your message consistent from your ads, to your website, to your booth design. Brides want to see prices on your literature. If you don’t feel comfortable doing that, consider indicating “prices or packages starting at $XX”. Lastly, be sure your literature has a call-to-action on it. It gives the bride a reason to keep it and use it. Maybe it’s a promotion that expires, an open house date, or simply colorful, unique photos that she may want to refer to and show her friends/family.
- Follow-up After the Show.Why collect all those leads and not do something with them? If you want to increase your bottom line after the show, follow-up with phone calls and direct mail. Make your letters personalized, remind them that you met them at the show and your are ready to help them with their wedding.
Remember the ultimate success of your exhibiting in a bridal show relies entirely on you, follow these tips and you will be steps ahead of your competition
Spending time to educate your sales staff ahead of time can increase your closing ratio before you even follow-up with the leads.
