Structuring Your Tradeshow Sales Conversation: The Three Insight Paths

Do you want to improve the power of your communications on the trade show floor? This post is about how to build some of the basic principals of a good TED Talk into your sales communications – everything from your graphics to the conversations you have on the show floor. To do this, you just have to make sure you have first worked to understand what Tamsen Webster of TEDxCambridge* calls the three insight paths. These are:

• What’s the problem/opportunity your product or service is addressing described using a real and interesting story-based example – not a bunch of technical bullets (e.g., “Once there was this manager who had a problem…”)
• The answer to the question, “Does your product or service solve the problem and how? Again using a real, story-based example.
• Then the data that allows people to believe your promises. This should include whatever works best which could be your management team’s credentials, your record of success, your talent pool, facilities, patents, resources and more.

Once you have it, share it in your communications in the order shown, making sure that the focus is on showing your company’s passion and the possibilities created by your products, more so than on a dry list of technical specs. In the end, the goal is to plant a powerful and inspiring vision of what the prospect’s future could be like when they finally say “yes.” Learning to communicate this way may be a challenge for some companies, but you’ll find it’s usually readily doable and can really pay off.

*Adapted from a presentation given at FutureM 2015 by Tamsen Webster, Executive Producer TEDxCambridge.