Trade Show Selling: On-the-Floor Insights from The Business Show Australia

We saw a lot of staff standing in groups chatting to each other, or sitting behind their table scrolling. It sounds small, but it completely changes the energy of the stand. People walk straight past.

And the footwear… let’s just say a full day on the stand will expose any shoe that isn’t built for it. And then of course, once you’re seated, you stop engaging.

Do you actually care about the conversations?

One thing that really stood out at the expo was the difference in energy across the floor.
Not “good or bad,” just… different.

You could tell when someone felt genuinely invested in the conversations they were having. They leaned in, asked good questions, and treated every interaction like it mattered.

It made us think about how important clarity is before you ever set foot on the stand.

If you’re sending your team to represent you:
Have you given them a clear purpose for the day?
Do they know what a “yes,” a “maybe,” or a “not for us” looks like?
Do they know how to qualify quickly so they don’t miss better opportunities walking past?

The extremes: too much info or not enough

We saw one stand with a single pull-up banner. Great people, but no one knew what they actually did.

Then there were others with so much content that you couldn’t read anything unless you stopped for five minutes. Most people won’t.

And then there were the interactive stands. They were fun and busy, but we know from experience that high traffic can equal a lot of the wrong leads if there’s no filtering.

The moment that surprised us

We would have genuinely been the right audience for a handful of the businesses around us… yet only one exhibitor actually approached us with the intention of starting a sales conversation.

We saw plenty of people walking the aisles and looking at stands, but very few exhibitors had a plan to proactively engage, especially with other exhibitors.

Even something simple, a quick hello, how’s the show going?, a relevant offer, or an intentional opener could have sparked some great conversations.

It’s a good reminder that at events like this, the people beside you can be just as valuable as the people walking past.

Relying on EDMs to convert your leads

We also spoke to a few exhibitors who were leaving most of their follow up to an email list.

Nothing wrong with EDMs, they’re fantastic, but they’re not a substitute for moving the conversation forward while you’ve actually got someone qualified standing right in front of you.

If someone has shown interest, the plan should be clear:
What’s the next step?
How do we progress this while the intent is high?
What does a “qualified conversation” look like for us?

Because leaving warm opportunities to an inbox is a quick way to lose them.

Exhibiting is not cheap, and it’s definitely not passive.
If you’re going to invest, set your team up with direction.
What good looks like. What a qualified conversation sounds like. What happens next. That’s where the ROI really is.