If you do it right, prospecting at home shows is like shooting fish in a barrel. There is no place in the sales and marketing “funnel” where consumers are more obviously predisposed to become qualified leads and, probably, your clients.
But you can also waste a lot of time and resources if you don’t approach the home-show opportunity and environment effectively. When you’re building your ShelfGenie franchise, you’re working with time and resources that you can’t afford to squander.
Shows are an excellent way to meet potential clients, identify new partners for your ShelfGenie franchise like installers and designers, network, meet referral partners, troubleshoot and establish industry positioning. They’re an effective marketing vehicle that consistently attract large, qualified audiences of people who are ready to buy. More importantly, they’re eager to learn about the latest solutions and services for their homes.
Helping You Find the Right Clients and More of Them
Maybe even more valuable is that consumers go to home shows with a particular household project in mind. For many of them, reorganizing their kitchen space is precisely that project. If they come across your ShelfGenie franchise at the show, you’d be hard-pressed to find a client who’s more ready to become a sale!
Another big advantage of home shows is that you can get in front of a lot of prospects in a short amount of time. With the right exhibit and informed enthusiasm on the part of you and your ShelfGenie personnel, you can create crucial first impressions that will pay off in all sorts of ways down the road. Here are some ways to optimize your ShelfGenie presence at the next home show:
Prepare in Advance
Leave ample time to set up your display, and make sure the ShelfGenie brand is shown off to maximum effect. Also, of course, check thoroughly so that the display is in good working order.
Be Clear About Your Goals
Your goal isn’t necessarily to sell solutions in your booth. That’s because each ShelfGenie project is customized. However, you do want to sell the value of ShelfGenie’s free in-home consultation. Use this opportunity to book appointments with the motivated clients standing in front of you.
Highlight the Brand
“ShelfGenie, ShelfGenie, ShelfGenie,” say it loud and proud! Clients should always know about who you are, the solutions you offer, and what you’re all about. Create highly visible and effective signage for your booth.
Staff Adequately
Few things frustrate today’s consumer more than waiting — for anything. If you’re gearing up to attract them to your ShelfGenie display at a home show, make sure you have the right level of staffing to handle the traffic.
Train Your Crew
Make sure your people know what they’re selling! Be sure to give everyone the training they need to be experts about the ShelfGenie brand, solutions, systems, process. With the right knowledge, enthusiasm, and energy, you’ll have a high-powered sales force at your fingertips that you can trust!
Have the Right Materials
You should have plenty of marketing materials available. That includes business cards, brochures and information that conveys your role as a ShelfGenie franchise in the local community.
Incentivize Your Visitors
Create a “show special” that offers some sort of promotional consideration to attendees. Reward visitors for booking an appointment while they’re visiting your booth.
Utilize Our Lead Intake Tool
The last thing you want to do is let a qualified lead, notched at the show, slip through the cracks the moment you take down your booth. To avoid that, and optimize the process of converting solid leads into clients, utilize ShelfGenie’s Lead Intake Tool. It adds leads and appointments and syncs them to our WishPortal. This ensures that the Designer calendar is syncing with the appointments being booked. That way you avoid overlap that annoys clients who are fired up to get the ShelfGenie process going. The Lead Intake Tool also ensures that any leads captured during the show are followed up on by our Business Support Center.
