Lead Qualification & Data Capture, Asking the Right Questions | Exhibitor training 22 of 36

You will get many visitors to your stand. Some will come with the sole aim of selling to you. How do you separate the window shoppers from solid prospects? It's about asking the right questions, so remember:

'SLICK: Solutions-focused, Listening, Investigating, Closing, Key next steps.'

Solutions-Focused, Not Selling

You are there to help, not sell. Focus on how your offering or solution can help organisations. Why would they need it? When would they need it? How will it help them? By understanding this, you can develop your key questions to help identify the visitors that will benefit from your solution.

Listening, Not Hearing

Listen out for clues when asking about their industry, their business, their challenges. If you spend time actively listening, you will save time by filtering out visitors that don't fit your customer profile.

Investigating – Using Open Questions

Examples of open questions may include: What are you looking to achieve from visiting today? How can we help you? What does your organisation do? What is your role? Where are you based? The objective is to make the visitor feel welcome and comfortable and show that you are interested in learning more about them. In this way, you will be able to quickly determine if they could be a useful prospect. Remember, you have paid for the stand; if a visitor comes to you and starts selling, gently stop them and ask them a direct question in a pleasant way. How can we help you? What is it you are looking for from us today? If the conversation shifts into a 2-way dialogue of mutual benefit, then continue with the qualification process. Otherwise, close the conversation quickly and politely, thanking them for visiting. You could ask them to enter the prize draw or take some free merchandise, or possibly point them in the direction of an exhibitor who could benefit from their services. Wish them a great day at the expo.

Closing Questions

As you get closer to the end of the qualification process, you will need to use a series of closing questions to understand timescales and their precise needs, and to obtain the name of the key decision maker.

Key Next Steps

Finally, agree the key next steps. Will you be calling them? If so let them know and gain their permission to make contact. Agreeing to meet warm / hot prospects face to face after the expo is better than just promising to send information across.

Summary

Lead qualification and data capture are the most important part of the follow-up process. Using the acronym SLICK will help you better qualify the lead and help you avoid wasting precious time with visitors that only come to sell.

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Next: Collecting Accurate Data

In our next video, we will be completing the third letter of SELFLESS: L - Lead Qualification and Data Capture. We'll explain why and how to collect accurate data.

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