Armand and I just left Dreamforce this week, so this topic is particularly timely.
Most sellers think conferences are one of the best ways to meet prospects.
But most sellers would've been better off staying home with how they run events.
They enter the conference with 0 meetings booked.
They aimlessly wander the conference floor or man the booth, hoping a prospect says hi.
Next thing you know, you've lost a week of prospecting and you're playing catch-up.
(and trying to digest the one-too-many free happy hour corn dog appetizers and beer)
If you're going to go to a conference, I mandated that my reps do 3 things:
- Enter with 10 meetings
- Run 20 Minute "Pre-Discovery Calls"
- Leave with 10 meetings (aka: Floorhunting)
Otherwise, you can stay home and I'll send someone who's going to rip apart that conference floor in your place.
Let's break it down.
(PS: This is Nick Cegelski, your preferred 30MPC host -- I'm stealing Armand's thunder on the 30MPC newsletter this week because I'm the one who sells our sponsorships!)
1: Enter with 10 meetings
The money is made before the event happens at all.
Your goal should be to have 10 pre-set meetings with your key accounts because it's a nightmare trying to find someone (and time on their calendar) when they've already got a full events schedule.
First, find out who's going to be there:
- Look at the sponsor, speaker, and booth exhibitor lists to get a sense of the types of companies that will be at the event. At Dreamforce, we go after the sponsors/exhibitor list (because we sell to sales tech companies). But if we sold sales tech, we'd be looking at the speaker list (mostly sales leaders).
- Get access to an early attendee list if your company is sponsoring or has a booth at the event. This isn't always accessible, but if you can get it from the event organizer (try nagging), it's huge.
- (Most Important) Ask your customers, partners, and prospects!!! This is the most important one of them all. If it's a big conference, before you even decide to go, ask the accounts in your territory if they're gonna be at the event.
Second, use this prospecting template to send to your key accounts:
Hey Jane, noticed you all just launched that parallel dialer and it's been creating a ton of buzz with other sellers I've talked to.
I'm going to be at Dreamforce next week, will you be there as well?
Figured you'd be there given the recent launch and thought we could grab a quick coffee to put a face to the name once I'm out there.
Let me know! We can link up during the 1-2pm event break on Weds or Thurs.
If you've been struggling to break into the account, there's something about "linking up while you're already there" that sounds easier than taking another Zoom meeting.
2: Run 20 Minute Pre-Discovery Calls
Most reps screw up and fall into 1 of 2 extreme camps when taking conference meetings:
- They do BS small talk for 30 minutes and get nothing done
- They put on the pressure pitch for 30 minutes and sales-ify the interaction
These are not the same as traditional discovery calls.
They did not agree to a problem statement on a cold email or cold call.
So we like to run pre-discovery, which is more like priority-based discovery:
- Set the non-salesy agenda: We set our PPO agenda and make it clear that the goal of the call isn't to deliver a massive pitch, but get a sense of what you're focused on in the marketing org to get a sense of where we might be helpful.
- Enter with a point-of-view on their business: When we're selling sponsorships, we often come in with a POV on what's important to their marketing organization by looking at their recent product launches (ie: a new parallel dialer) or their loudest brand campaigns (ie: trying to be known for more than just email tools).
- Get 2-3 priorities (by asking them to correct you): I'll usually say something like "based on what I've learned from your team / what I've seen you all talking about recently, it seems like X, Y, and Z are important. But sometimes our POV can be completely wrong, so what are the 2-3 biggest priorities you're focused on as you're running marketing at Gong."
- Soft float 2-3 stories: From there, we'll often "soft-float" 2-3 examples of how we've helped other customers solve those problems. The goal is to give them stories to latch onto and see if there's a light bulb moment for them.
- End 10 minutes early with an ask to dive deeper: 2-3 priorities? 2-3 stories? A light bulb or glimmer of interest? Get out. Ask for an introduction to their team (if they're an executive) or schedule time with them for the week after the conference. Give them the gift of 10 minutes back and they will thank you.
3: Leave with 10 meetings (aka: Floorhunting)
Have a lull in your meetings? Time to eat the free chips and salsa!!!
(Please don't do that to yourself)
Your goal is to find 10 more meetings at the highest traffic events. The way we do that is as follows:
- Find the highest traffic happy hours. Same deal as in section 1 -- look at how many sponsors are there, ask your prospects, and check out the speaker lineup. You'll usually get a sense of the "biggest" happy hours by volume.
- Enter with a Floorhunting list: Taking the same approach, write down every prospect who you think will be at the happy hour and include links to their LinkedIn profiles in your spreadsheet so you can recognize their faces.
- Walk around and name-tag screen. Don't blindly approach every stranger. It sounds weird, but we literally peek at someone's nametag and look them up on LinkedIn before approaching them to make sure they're actually a prospect.
- Enter with a point of view (again!): This is why it's really important to either know which accounts you're looking for or do the name-tag screen. Take 10 seconds to look at their website or LinkedIn and enter with a POV on their business.
- Win conversations by being interested, not interesting: We're lightyears ahead of every other seller when we show up with a POV about their product launch and genuinely ask about the challenges of marketing it in such a noisy salestech world.
- Leave the conversation when it's at a high note: The quality of your questions will show your industry expertise... and they'll ask what you do. Give a brief overview, share 1-2 stories, look for the light bulb. Then, end the interaction early and ask for permission to continue the conversation after the event.
Final Tip
When you're at these happy hour events, I challenge you to not eat or drink garbage at the events.
Bring your lunch, find the local salad spots, and grab a seltzer with lime at the bar. You're there to work, not to party.
Treat yourself AFTER you've closed your first deal from the event!
***
That's a wrap folks! PS: If you want the Floorhunting template that we use to keep track of all of our prospects at an event, you can get that right here (it's free):
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