Expo morning was exciting - unlike the day before when I was craving time with my husband! Having had a nice evening with him, I was ready to take on my New Hometown - time to tackle my future business. (For those of you with no business lined up - find yourself a local expo. You can turn your entire business around with the same principles I am sharing with you today. It is NEVER too late to make your business a success!)
Hubby and I went for coffee, and sitting in the bright sunshine of New Hometown I felt blessed and a bit nervous. My last expo had been four months earlier, and I had secured 13 bookings from the 200 in attendance. I knew this expo would have limited attendance (I was expecting perhaps 50) but I was counting on my new networking idea to bring in extra bookings as well. Time would tell.
Right away, I faced challenges. Like lots of stairs. First in the parking garage, then at the hotel. My little carry-on weighed about 50 lbs! Then there's the nerves as you are setting up, and you don't know a soul in the room! The questions of do you know such-and-such advisor, who does really well in sales here (really? Then why doesn't she come up in an advisor search?? And speaking of the advisor locator, excuse me while I go change my info with lia sophia!!! lol!!!) It's like being under a microscope! Thankfully, my mother had taught me at the age of seventeen that a smile goes a very long way. So I smiled. I got my jewelry set up, and chatted with a few vendors. One vendor arrived late, having gotten her times mixed up, so I helped her set up.
The first customer at my table loved the jewelry, and loved the idea of booking a show. This is despite the fact that I stumbled through my presentation, and surely overdid it! Feeling immensely better, my presentation got smoother each time. By the end of the day, I had EIGHT bookings from just 25 customers.
I think the key here was I had a planned presentation. I knew what I wanted to say to the expo attendee, and I had a promo item on hand that broke the ice (they bridal bubbles caused tremendous fits of giggles! I would hand the customer a bottle and tell them I didn't want them to blow their budget-they would then figure out I'd handed them a bottle of bubbles and the smile would break out on their face!) I would tell them EXACTLY what I was offering (If you book a show today you will receive THIS item today to take home and THIS item the night of your show). I also assured them that if the date we set didn't work, they could change the date - but no one walked away with a catalog and hostess packet unless I had a date. Finally, I had a smile on my face the entire time. Sometimes I think that smile has more power than we think!
No comments:
Post a Comment