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5 Conversation Starters You Can Use at Your Next Exhibition A handy guide to making the most out of your exhibition

Breaking the Ice Have you ever had trouble breaking the ice with visitors when exhibiting With so much going on at a trade show it can be tricky to get people to stop at your stand to see what your business is all about Murmuring a simple Hello how are you or Can I help you today as visitors pass by usually won t cut it In this guide take a look at these pre planned conversation starters that you can use to encourage visitors to stop and talk to you Each one is an open ended question designed to make the visitor converse with you rather than avoid eye contact hence shutting you down

What brings you to the show today It s a simple question but one that is effective It s not easy to give a bland no or yes to and it would be pretty rude just to ignore you The beauty of this question is that you ll be able to find out what the visitor is looking for at the show therefore giving you a way to quickly qualify them as a possible lead or not If they could benefit from your products or services you can then explain what your company does or move them on their way if you can t help them What do you do Asking trade show visitors about their job role can not only get them talking but also help you to identify them as a potential lead You ll also get an idea as to whether or not they are a vital decision maker in their organisation

How are you finding the show so far what seminars have you attended This question allows you to sound out what the visitor is interested in and also gives you an idea of what challenges they may face that your business could potentially help address What do you know about our company The visitor may know absolutely nothing about your business in which case you can give them an overview and ask follow up questions based on their needs Should the visitor already know about your offering you can use this as a way of collecting feedback and opinions about your product or service as well as possibly upselling to them if they have purchased from you before

The visitor may know absolutely nothing about your business

Where have you travelled from today what was the traffic like getting here A personal question can often make a person feel like they can connect with you This one is innocent enough and might give you some useful insights if you sell products or services locally regionally or nationally

Following up your opener Once you ve delivered the hook and conversation is starting to flow your next step is to try to turn leads into sales You could perhaps ask visitors if they d like to see a demo of your product or sit down to discuss their requirements further When the visitor exits your stand make sure you ve captured their details so you can follow up back at the office Suggest they take away a business card or some literature that they can look at again later

And finally Utilise your stand well Open ended questions can work well to help you break the ice with trade show visitors Don t forget though to bring freebies and other elements of your stand into play to encourage interaction For example enter visitors into your prize draw if you re running one or ask them to take part in a short survey that you can analyse the results of after the show Giveaways serve a purpose they are an attention grabber so use them to your advantage