NOLA?

This year the the AAHOA Convention took place in New Orleans, LA.

It’s one of the biggest hotel conventions in the US, and the business I’m interning at invited me to go and exhibit with them.

I had tons of people praying for my safety on the overall trip, as well as for a successful trip.

If that was you—thank you!

Happy to say I was safe and the trip was a success!

→ I did think our plane was going to crash while descending into Austin, TX with how turbulent it was. But alas, we all survived.

Here’s what you can learn from this trip:

Takeaways

• Getting in front of your prospects in-person is the most valuable thing you can get when you’re running a business.

• Personal connections made will strengthen the lead quality over any email or cold call you can make.

• Talking with current and previous customers is extremely impactful to know what they actually think of your business.

• Previous customers can be brought back in to your business, don’t give up on them or write them off.

• Use your conversations to:

  • fix current issues and pain points your customers are experiencing.

  • strategize on your future marketing, messaging, and sales.

• The more strangers you talk to, the better you’ll get at speaking about your business and what you do.

  • You get real time A/B testing with your speaking.

  • Look for what hooks people in immediately.

• Having multiple people at your booth is helpful so that the prospects can interact with more of your business.

  • Having a hook/lure to pull passing people in and then passing off to your team works great. (I was the hook in NOLA)

• Utilize tools provided by the convention to capture leads. We used an app that scanned badges, and got lots of great folks to connect with after the trip.

Lastly, I’d say the most important thing is to remember that you are dealing with humans.

Kindness, genuine connections, and conversations will far outweigh any sort of “selling” or convincing you feel the need to do.

You don’t need to sell them right there on the floor, but instead focus on drawing them in and creating an interest to continue the conversation after the event.

This being specific to B2B SaaS.

If they don’t like you in person, they’re not going to like you online which is where the rest of their relationship with you will be.

My realization

Because I have the hospitality background and have been to conventions before, I thoroughly enjoyed exhibiting at the event.

I make a pretty lousy in-office cold calling SDR, but when it comes to events and in-person opportunities?

That’s where I can use my strengths to their full potential.

I’d probably need 1-2 more events before I became more solid with this business/their offerings for customers, but I already learned a ton.

→ I’m most excited about the insights I learned about the event’s prospects that our marketing and sales team can use for their future strategy.

Operations and strategy is where I believe I’m really meant to be in a business if it’s not my own.

Lastly, the trip definitely showed me that in my future businesses it’s completely worth exhibiting at a convention if my intended audience and prospects are attending.

It’s a huge upfront cost to exhibit at these, but the lasting effect of new connections, leads, and ultimate customers is extremely valuable.

Hope you are able to learn from this experience for what you’re working on.

If you have any questions or want to learn more, definitely reach out!

Would love to connect.

Michael