The Home and Garden Show was held at the David Lawrence Convention Center over the past week. There are many things that vendors are selling there, that can be purchased and taken home by the customer on the spot such as garden decorations, wine, dog leashes, moonshine, home decorating items such as lamps, hoses, door mats and much, much more. In addition, there are many things that must be ordered and then delivered or installed, such as whole storage barns, hot tubs, siding, roofing, patios, sunrooms and so much more. It’s a great place to witness and experience all types and styles of salesmen and selling techniques.
There are salesmen speaking to people as they walk by, asking them a question to get them into their booths. There are people doing demonstrations of their products, such as putting dirt or water onto a door mat, and demonstrating just how great their fake chamois cloth cleans and picks up dirt and water. The people demonstrating always have a special show deal to entice the customer to purchase more or close the sale. These salesmen are using direct sales techniques and are selling the product directly to the customer face to face, using a sales pitch, lots of fast talking and some pressure tactics, much like the old car salesman I talked about in my other blog. If they sense the customer is almost ready to purchase the product, they will throw out another offer or deal, to try to close the sale before the customer walks away.
The other main aspect of the show besides, direct sales of products there, are lead generation. Having a booth at a specialized show is advantageous to the seller because their target market is who is coming to the show, so their percentage of sales success should be higher. Most of the product booths at the Home and Garden Show need to be ordered, delivered or installed at a later time. These salesmen are trying to get leads, so they can follow up with the potential customers at a later date. If they are lucky, they may be able to set up an an actual appointment at the customer’s house to discuss the product and give a quote. Vendors selling roofing, siding, sunrooms, flooring and like products would be taking this approach. They would be attempting to collect customer lead information and set up appointments in the future. This is better than cold calling, because the customer gave them their contact information and they are in the target market because they attended the show. Again, this should lead to a higher sales success rate.
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Mason
I like how you used a real world example to demonstrate examples of techniques that salesman use to try to draw people in. Standing at a booth and trying to start a conversation with people just walking by can be tough because you do not know whether or not they are interested. The booth is at a good place because the market they are trying to reach are the people at the show.
It’s interesting to see how in a home and garden show, the sales pitches and techniques are faster than if you were to sit down with someone in a sales call. The customers are only there for a short time so the salesmen are desperate to close as many sales as possible before they walk away. I also liked how you mentioned that these shows can be a good place for leads, where many of the products need to be bought and installed later. Great post!