A while back, I spoke at a conference that had over 12,000 attendees, as well as a trade show with 368+ booths. This trade show was like no other I’ve ever attended. It was enormous and reminiscent of a circus, with many booths containing games, videos, giveaways, drawings and other interactive features designed to draw visitors. In fact, many people visited the booths just for the giveaways and games. However, if they wanted to participate in the drawings, they had to allow the vendor to scan their badge and capture their contact information for lead follow-up. Sounds fair, right?
At lunch one day, an attendee sat down and said, “You won’t believe what just happened to me!” She had visited a booth where the representative asked snidely, “Are you interested in our services, or are you just here for the freebie!?” She was shocked! She told him she wasn’t quite ready for their services yet, but may be interested in the future. But at lunch she told us she probably wouldn’t use them because her experience with him had been so nasty and embarrassing.
OW! What happened there? The attendee had never heard of this company before, yet her first and only experience with them was such an OW that it defeated their whole purpose for being there, which should have been to establish relationships and set the stage for future follow-up… not sell attendees on their services right at that moment! Come on – did he really think he was going to make a sale at a circus?
This man’s company paid a lot of money to be at that trade show, but his inflexibility once he was surprised by a situation that was different than he expected it to be, combined with his inability to readjust his expectations accordingly, actually destroyed opportunities to connect rather than creating them.
So, don’t close off your options. Remember that situations are rarely what we expect them to be, and if you can’t change your situation, change your expectations in order to capitalize on new or unexpected opportunities as they arise and keep you from closing down your options.
