For success at a fair, people who work at the stand and represent your company play a very important role. The entire staff must be well informed and prepared, at best they should have passed a training on communication and environmental nuances, have naturally good communication skills and definitely good stress tolerance. Differences between competing products may be non-existent, but the buyer prefers a product presented by a seller who feels more reliable and pleasant.

• products and services;
• prices, procurement conditions and possible discounts;
• competitors and competing products and services;
• target groups of your product and competitors’ products;
• the expected visitor structure of the fair;
• the more important clients and interest groups;
• visitors and their goals;
• the procedure of filling the visitor contact sheet;
• work procedure and discipline at the stand;
• the importance of the fair for the company and sector ;
• everything related to an online expo centre;
• the company’s goals in taking part of the fair;
• their own personal goals and work tasks;
• the limits of their authority.

Since the other party in a conversation is not immediately visible to the client, correct language and polite style must be used; this also creates the opportunity to hand the partner over to a colleague for service when necessary. In more complicated cases, we recommend to move from text-based interaction to platforms which allow video calls, such as Skype, Viber, Hangout or Facebook. If possible, we recommend using the images of the company’s representatives’ faces in the design and conversation window of the stand.

Roles:

• the representative of the company, who creates the image and trust and who responds to clients’ inquiries and questions in the fair environment. The representative of the company answers simple questions and services clients who have no specific questions in a fast and standard manner;
• consultant, who has professional competence and is reliable. When interacting with a potential client, you should analyse their needs and desires before recommending anything, to find the best solution and terms and discuss those with them. At the fair, the consultant has the opportunity to demonstrate their professional competence, thereby creating trust;
• negotiator or deal closer, who will take the toughest clients to the decision. The process is often long and takes multiple interactions outside of the fair environment. The role of the negotiator is to help the client decide not by pressuring, but by winning their trust. Avoid acting hasty, which makes the client suspicious and cautious. It is recommended to approach by showing direct or indirect benefits gained by the client by the provided product or service.

• be active when making contact, use the technical opportunities of the environment and start a “cold” interaction yourself;
• ask the visitor questions when making contact to ensure that they are part of the target group;
• determine the needs and desires of the client by asking leading questions;
• present the product or service following the client’s needs;
• fill in the contact sheet with each interaction and ask for permission for follow-up contact (see chapter “Contact page”);
• agree on future activities. Voice or video call if necessary and meeting up if possible;
• finish the conversation in a reasonable time so that you’d have time to interact with the next client

Even though a visitor is open to new information and interaction when arriving at the fair, withdrawn attitudes still happen, commonly caused by:

• fear of language barrier;
• fear of having to buy;
• fear of psychological pressure;
• negative experience when interacting with sellers;
• he company’s stand or representative does not generate trust;
• overload of information and attractiveness;
• lack of time.

• ignoring a visitor;
• responding to a visitor’s questions slowly or incompetently;
• using aggressive means of sale before earning the client’s trust;
• complaining about weaknesses of the fair to the visitors;
• criticizing competitors.