This article is Part 4 of a series. Click here for Part 1.
Whenever you invest in a booth – whether you’re sponsoring an event or you’re at a trade show – the trick is getting attendees to actually stop and talk to you. All too often, you stand in your booth watching attendees file slowly by, their glazed eyes barely noticing that your neighbor’s booth has ended and yours has begun.
One sure way of breaking away from the herd and getting LOTS of attention to your booth is to secure a speaking slot, in addition to your booth space.
Debbie Delgado is a business coach who has become an expert at this particular technique. I caught up with Debbie at Suzanne Evans’ 2013 Be the Change event, and she shared with me some of her best strategies for how to maximize the coveted one-two punch of a booth together with a speaking slot.
Debbie is no stranger to event sponsorship at this point. In fact, it’s her #1 lead generation strategy. Because Debbie is really powerful as a speaker, she never does sponsorships anymore that don’t allow her to speak.
But even when a promoter offers her a speaking sponsorship, she doesn’t always say yes. Debbie uses a questionnaire before she will consider a sponsorship. Her assistant sends it to every potential promoter, to make sure their event is a good fit for her business and her goals.
One of the big criteria on Debbie’s questionnaire is that she won’t even consider a sponsorship unless people paid to get into the event. She wants to know that the attendees are committed to the event, and that they aren’t just there for the free donuts!
Other important criteria include the number of attendees, as well as the number of sponsors and speakers. While Debbie didn’t have a specific formula for how many attendees she needs, it stands to reason that if you’re selling a high-end item, you don’t need that many people, you just need them to be really qualified.
One final secret to Debbie’s success is this: if you manage to land a speaking spot, make sure you swing for the fence! If people love what you have to say during your session, word will spread and you’ll get waves of traffic throughout the event.
In Debbie’s case at Be the Change, the speaking slot she invested in was a break-out session. This meant that only a sub-set of the attendees heard her speak. However, the people that did hear her were blown away! So not only did she get a big wave of visitors to her booth shortly after her presentation, word spread.
In fact, when the promoter asked attendees to share some of their biggest aha’s from the event so far, FOUR people said – in front of the whole audience of almost 1000 people – that their big aha’s were during Debbie’s breakout session! So what do you suppose happened next? You got it – a second, HUGE wave of people came to visit Debbie’s booth to see what this magical coach had to offer them.
Listen to the audio below to hear some of Debbie’s magical words of wisdom, and how you can apply them to your next speaking sponsorship.
Click here for the next interview in the series, with Adele Michal.
To learn a lot more about how to utilize speaking opportunities to get leads and grow your business, buy a copy of “The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Sleaze-Free Selling” on Amazon today.