Author name: Mollie Ring

High-quality conversations at trade shows and in-person events are like buried treasure. It’s rare that you stumble upon them. It is worth every investment of time and resources to evolve a map to ensure that you find them. First, let’s define high-quality. High-quality conversations deliver value—whether in potential customers, partnerships or referrals. They represent the unique and unparalleled benefit to trade shows and in-person events in that by nature they deliver greater returns than other marketing strategies. As your event selection improves the pool of possible people to meet improves. They also require work. Devising an annual trade show strategy plan (which includes careful show selection and marketing practices) serves as a map. The next step is to uncover the best route. For more on how to build an annual trade show strategy plan, check out our Special Report: How to Maximize ROI with a Trade Show Strategy Plan, or reach out to us today. Key steps to seeking out high-quality conversations Trade shows are finite opportunities. Just like fruit at the market, they are perishable opportunities. You’ll never get this same mix of people with the same mix of needs in one room again. Taking the steps to ensure that your time and resources are used efficiently to maximize ROI is critical. Here’s what we recommend: 1. Stay focused  Know your targets before walking into an event. Having specific targets in mind—companies or people, industries or types of professionals, helps to ensure that you are making the most of the time and resources you have committed to being there. Know who you want to meet by name or discipline. 2. Be prepared While some events use nametags, the vast majority do not. We recommend doing your pre-event homework by researching attendee lists. If you’ve participated in this event in the past, take the time to review your database for insights. We also recommend scheduling meet-ups with your highest priority targets before the event. Once you have those meetings in place, fill the rest of your schedule with key opportunities (e.g. speaking and networking events) where you anticipate similar personas will be in attendance. 3. Leverage all available resources With 75+ years of trade show and in-person event experience, we’ve learned that one of the least utilized resources are the hosts themselves. Not only are hosts well aware of attendee demographics, but they also have a vested interest in your satisfaction and success at the event. Whether you contact your hosts ahead of time or as soon as you arrive, it’s helpful to inform them of whom you’re aiming to meet at the event (whether it’s by industry, geography, or name) and request introductions. Having a trusted third-party help you facilitate introductions can help to immediately break the ice and build rapport with target prospects and partners. Don’t be afraid to leave the booth. Devising a divide and conquer staffing approach will help to ensure that you are maximizing all your available resources so that everyone on your event team is fully leveraged. Unlocking the greatest value You’ve managed to find the treasure, which is great! Now how do you make sure you’ve got the right set of keys to unlock it? The key to unlocking high-value conversations at trade shows and in-person events is having a list of good, thoughtful questions. While a scripted self-introduction is important, it’s not what you say but what you learn that drives strong connections. For more on the value of good conversation skills and specific questions to ask potential prospects and partners, check out this post. The beauty of using an inquiry-based approach is that it puts you in a position of power to determine whether someone is truly a resource or prospect. By uncovering someone’s top three priorities, you will easily be able to identify whether or not they are a good partner or prospect, as opposed to relying on their own self-assessment and potentially misinformed impression of your services. Treasure abounds at trade shows and in-person events. It’s why we’ve chosen to make them the focus of our work. But showing up is only half the battle. Taking the steps to uncover and unlock these rewards requires planning and preparation. Fortunately, help is out there. For more on this topic of strategic engagement at trade shows, check out our recent webinar: How to Start Conversations and Identify Opportunities at Events. To check out all of MEET’s webinar content on how to successfully scale your company in the U.S. market, subscribe to our YouTube Channel. About MEET (meetroi.com) helps international B2B growth companies soft-land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward.  Contact Bill Kenney for a no-obligation conversation: bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.

At MEET, we focus on helping B2B growth companies soft-land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. By using time-tested strategies to identify prospects, select shows, align marketing techniques and measure outcomes, MEET works to de-risk the scaling process by ensuring a steady stream of high-quality prospects for our clients. Why do we focus on trade shows? For B2B companies, most marketing dollars are spent with the hopes of someday getting face-to-face with target prospects. When optimized, trade shows deliver the most efficient way of achieving this goal. They provide the venue and the audience for these transactions. They also provide a number of other unique opportunities to improve your position in the market and connect with key stakeholders. For companies looking to scale to the U.S. market, trade shows represent a vital opportunity to meet target customers, test value propositions and offers. The beauty of this approach for scaling firms is that they can begin before investing major resources in infrastructure and staffing in the new market. Trade shows are also exhausting and represent a huge commitment of time and resources, which is why we recommend taking every step possible to guarantee your ROI. Even steps that may seem a bit less tangible. Mindset matters Psychologists have spent years studying the impact of one’s self-beliefs on their success or failure, and have proven that mindset does, in fact, play a significant role in determining achievement. At MEET, we believe that taking the steps to get in the right mindset before and during an event helps to ensure that every other investment in that opportunity is fully leveraged. And having participated in close to 5,000 events in our collective 75 years of experience, we’re pretty familiar with what it takes to achieve that trade show mindset. Here are the steps we recommend to help get you in the mindset for success. Take a pause Whether you’re coming off of a busy morning, a crazy travel schedule or a full day in the office, take a moment to refocus and re-energize before walking through those doors. We all have different rituals for shifting gears. Here’s what works for us: Find a quiet spot where you can be alone. This might be your car, a park bench, or a nearby café. Use this time to remind yourself why you’re attending the event and what your explicit goals are. Make sure to remove other activities and responsibilities that may be a distraction or inhibit you from reaching those goals. For example, if your goal is to find resources for your company and existing customers, put aside your sales pitch. Similar to fishing (where using the wrong bait will scare away the fish you’re aiming to catch) a misapplied sales pitch can easily scare away target contacts. Take steps to ensure that your strategy matches your audience and your goals, and remove all other barriers. Channel your role models We all have someone we admire for his or her networking skills. Having a clear picture of a person whose skills you’d like to emulate in a networking situation is a great way to gain and maintain focus throughout an event. Whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert, events can be taxing, particularly those that last for several days. We all have behaviors that we revert to when we’re tired or feeling overwhelmed. Looking at technology, sitting down, or socializing with friends should all be avoided. Having a role model in mind can help you in those moments. Instead of reverting to these behaviors, think about how your role model would behave in the booth or while engaging with trade show participants. Whether it’s encouraging people out of the aisle to have a conversation, or simply not sitting down, it’s helpful to have specific qualities in mind that you’re aiming to replicate during an event. There’s a lot that goes into maximizing ROI from a trade show event. If pre, during and post-event strategy weren’t enough, there are the steps you must take to ensure that your mindset (and the way it causes you to behave) is aligned with the success you worked so hard to achieve. That said, there is no comparison to the connections, relationships, and targeted exposure gained from trade shows and in-person events. So get on your game face. It’s worth it. For more on this topic of strategic engagement at trade shows, check out our recent webinar: How to Start Conversations and Identify Opportunities at Events. To check out all of MEET’s webinar content on how to successfully scale your company in the U.S. market, subscribe to our YouTube Channel.   About MEET (meetroi.com) helps international B2B growth companies soft-land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward.  Contact Bill Kenney for a no obligation conversation: bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.  

When sales leaders are asked where they get their referrals, close to 100% will answer from past or existing customers. When asked why they attend trade shows and in-person events, these same individuals will say that they expect to build new relationships that will drive referrals. What is the best way to secure a strong referral pipeline? How can trade shows and in-person events bolster these efforts? At MEET, we support our clients in all aspects of trade show strategy, from prospect identification to marketing and messaging, to building a cadre of resources that build credibility with future and existing customers. We’ve found that one of the most effective ways to drive referrals is to focus your attention on building a strong bullpen of customer resources. Securing a strong network of resources and activating on these relationships to support the full scope of needs your customers face sends the message you are fully committed to finding new and better ways to serve them. In other words, strengthening the bullpen equals more runs scored. How is this done? The value of trade shows The first step to building your resource bullpen is to understand the primary purpose of attending trade shows. At MEET, our goal in working with B2B companies is to ensure that trade show investments are targeted toward high-quality prospects. What do we mean by high quality? In contrast to high volume, high quality is determined by the degree to which a prospect meets three criteria: they possess a NEED, the RESOURCES to fulfill that need, and URGENCY for a solution. For simplicity, we refer to them as NEED, MONEY, NOW. Understanding the unique value of trade shows compared with social networking events comes down to distinguishing quality from quantity. A well-designed trade show strategy identifies assumptions around who these high-quality prospects are and where to find them and sets concrete goals for the number you are aiming to meet. Putting a number on your goal will not only help to measure the utility of a particular event, but it will also help your team in setting their own performance targets.  For more tips on how and why to set measurable targets for your trade show team, check out this post. Building your network at trade shows Executing on your trade show strategy requires close attention to staffing. At MEET, this is something we refer to as the divide and conquer approach. It’s critical that every member of your trade show team has a clear mission, measurable goals, and feels prepared to execute on these responsibilities. That means that your booth team (a.k.a. transaction professionals) is focused on separating prospects from the general audience and inviting them to enroll in your marketing funnel with a strong call to action. Meanwhile, your sales team is working the trade show floor, nurturing relationships with existing customers, and prospects, gaining exposure to new industry knowledge and resources, and forging new partnerships. Questions on how to implement a divide and conquer approach? Contact us today. Similar to that memory game you played as a kid, going to events is very much about making matches on a crowded game board. Beyond identifying new customers, trade shows are an exceptional way to strengthen that referral pipeline by improving your value as a networking partner. Finding ways to help your clients become stronger advocates for you is always a good investment. Own your self-introduction Finally, ensure your team is well scripted. Whether they’re in the booth performing transactions or walking the floor securing intel and resources, it’s important that every member of your trade show team is well-trained in how to deliver your call to action and goal for being in attendance. Part and parcel to a good introduction is also knowing your audience. That means having a clear picture of who you are aiming to meet by researching the attendee list and arriving at the event with a clear understanding of the needs you are aiming to fill from your existing customer base. A well-scripted self-introduction makes it easier to build initial connection and credibility, which in turn will help to foster more valuable relationships. Trade shows are no minor investment. Taking the steps to maximize ROI however, can deliver exponential results, particularly when it comes to building that referral pipeline. For more on this topic of strategic engagement at trade shows, check out our recent webinar: How to Start Conversations and Identify Opportunities at Events. To check out all of MEET’s webinar content on how to successfully scale your company in the U.S. market, subscribe to our YouTube Channel. About MEET (meetroi.com) helps international B2B growth companies soft-land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward.  Contact Bill Kenney for a no-obligation conversation: bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.

We’ve all been the target of market research. Whether it’s a prompt requesting you to remain on the line for a brief survey, a feedback card you receive upon exiting an airplane, or that pop-up web survey you just can’t seem to minimize. How do companies decide on a market research strategy for their company? What steps do CEOs take to maximize ROI? For answers to our questions, we spoke with Michael Vigeant, CEO of Greatblue Research. We interviewed Michael in a webinar on June 25th, 2019 titled What You Don’t Know Can Kill Your Business: Nailing Market Research for U.S. Market Entry. As someone who has been in the industry for close to 25 years, we asked Michael for some perspective on how market research strategies have evolved over time. How have market research techniques changed over the last 25 years? “Twenty years ago there was really two methodologies for quantitative market research: phone surveys and mail surveys. On the qualitative side, there were in-person interviews. That was really it.” All that was changed with the introduction of digital tools. “It gave us some big and much needed cost reductions for the industry to be able to go out and capture information. It also allowed us to do it much faster.” What are the primary considerations when selecting a market research strategy? “There are really three variables that come into play when making the decision about which market research methodology to use. It’s helpful to think of them as a three-legged stool,” shared Michael. The first leg is the audience that you’re targeting with your research. For example, are they CEOs or end-user consumers? Your target audience will immediately determine the language you are going to use and the most effective way to reach them. The second that Michael described is, based on that audience, which methodology will be the most effective for reaching them and be most effective at soliciting the type of information you’re looking for. The third variable has to do with your sample size, which will be determined by the relative reliability of the data. “Speaking to eight CEOs can be much more valuable than speaking to 800 end-user consumers or vice-versa,” depending on the data you’re looking for. Which market research methodologies do firms have to choose from? Michael provided this full scope list of market research methodologies, along with some insights into when certain strategies can be most effective: 1. Email and digital-based surveys Most used to capture feedback from end-user consumers. 2. Phone surveys Still very popular despite the fact that it is harder to capture folks by phone. 3. Mail surveys Recommended for consumers located in hard-to-reach areas with poor reception or Internet access 4. Focus groups Offer the unique opportunity to witness first-hand an audience’s reaction to a visual or prompt. Also allow for follow-up when you’re aiming to dive deeper into a particular area. 5. Home-use testing Used by many overseas manufacturers that are scaling to the U.S. market and want to be able to see how their products or technologies are being used and experienced. Determining the best market research plan for your firm depends on your goals. Just as important is determining which questions to ask. How to maximize ROI “Historically, we’ve seen folks think they need to ask as many questions as they can while they have a captive audience.” This, as Michael suggests, is not the most strategic approach. “In reality, you should be building your market research questions around the precise answers you need to address your most urgent business problem—for example, a specific market need, or how you are going to increase sales in a particular sector, etc.” Get the answers you need to help you make your most pressing business decisions, and move on. When you are strategic with your methodology and audience-selection and take time to select questions that will help you address your most pressing problems, “you compress the time that you engage with your audience and they’ll be more likely to communicate with you in the future.” We’ve all been the target of market research—but the field has evolved. Surveys have gotten shorter and more to the point. “Did we do did well in this specific area?” “How could we improve?” In the long run, this level of precision helps to maximize ROI while keeping consumers happy. In other words, it’s a win-win. For more insights from Michael Vigeant, CEO of Greatblue Research, check out our entire interview here. To check out all of MEET’s webinar content on how to successfully scale your company in the U.S. market and maximize ROI through trade shows and in-person events, subscribe to our YouTube Channel. About MEET (meetroi.com) helps international B2B growth companies soft land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward.  Contact Bill Kenney for a no obligation conversation: bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.

While every company chooses to measure success differently depending on their scope of service and product features, certain KPIs unite all successful companies. For firms scaling to the U.S. on a tight budget and timeline, keeping close tabs on metrics of success can make a world of difference. What are these common KPIs that all scaling firms should be tracking? For the best answers we could find, we checked in with Michael Vigeant, CEO of Greatblue Research. We interviewed Michael in a webinar on June 25th, 2019 titled What You Don’t Know Can Kill Your Business: Nailing Market Research for U.S. Market Entry. How should companies begin to determine which KPIs to measure? Michael was the first to raise the issue of shared KPIs that every successful business has achieved. “Successful companies understand their audience and they’ve taken steps to make sure they’re servicing them well—through competitive pricing, superior service, and/or simply making it easy to do business with them.” “When you start to think about how to determine KPIs, whether you’re a scaling firm or one that has been established in the U.S. for a long time, it’s helpful to understand those characteristics that made your business successful in the first place.” For example, Michael pinpointed satisfied and engaged internal and external customers as a key determinant of success that should be measured and tracked closely. Six KPIs critical for measuring success Michael recommended six KPIs that scaling companies should use to measure success, in relative order of importance. Number of attempts or contacts to solve a problem
. The fewer times it takes to reach a customer and convince them you are capable of solving their problem, the better. Customer and employee satisfaction. 
This boils down to how well you treat your employees. High satisfaction rates among employees and strongly correlates to strong satisfaction amongst customers. Cost of products and services in terms of value. This can be as simple as asking the question: “Do you feel like you are getting value for the price?” At the end of the day, your goal is to determine whether your customer feels that every service you offer is worth the investment—no matter the price point. For more on the importance of value to the U.S. market and general expectations, check out this post. The speed and reliability of your service. 
High levels of competition and innovation in the U.S. market have made speed of service and reliability increasingly important. Role as a community partner. 
Customers want to understand that you’re a good community partner and corporate citizen and that you’re committed to minimizing your impact on the environment. They also want to see that you’re engaged in the local community and that you’re giving back, whether philanthropically, through volunteering, or by sponsoring events. Awareness versus perception
. These are actually two KPIs grouped together to measure their correlation. They reflect how much people know about your product or service in relation to how they evaluate it. If your company is able to offer the right solution to a customer’s problem but they aren’t aware of you, that’s a lost opportunity. Understanding how much your customers know and how they relate that knowledge to feelings about the quality of your offering are two important variables. What kind of approach delivers the best KPI results? For Michael, the best results come from companies that are authentic, open and honest about how they conduct business. “If I know who I’m serving, whether it’s a B2B or B2C scenario, and I know what they expect of me, I can have an honest conversation with them about the value we deliver and our unique solution.” These qualities (honesty, authenticity, and openness) go a long way according to Michael. They also cut down on the time and the energy it takes from having an initial conversation to closing a deal in that they accelerate the speed of trust. And for scaling businesses on a tight timeline in a foreign market, accelerating the speed of trust is vital. By the way, if you haven’t read it, The Speed of Trust is an amazing book. Every human should read it. For access to our entire interview Michael Vigeant, CEO of Greatblue Research, check out this link. To check out all of MEET’s webinar content on how to successfully scale your company in the U.S. market through trade shows and in-person events, subscribe to our YouTube Channel. About MEET (meetroi.com) helps international B2B growth companies soft land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward.  Contact Bill Kenney for a no obligation conversation: bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.