EMT #63 with Alison French - Turning Trade Show Conversations into Sales Opportunities

Trade shows have always been one of the most powerful channels for building pipeline—but success doesn't happen by chance.

In this episode of Event Marketer's Toolbox, Chris Dunn and Dana Esposito welcome back returning guest Alison French, founder of Lead to Opportunity (LTO) and creator of ShowScout, for a practical conversation about sales activation, accountability, and how exhibitors can generate more revenue before, during, and after an event.

Since her first appearance on the show, Alison has refined her approach from simply helping companies capture leads to helping them activate their sales teams around the right prospects. The discussion explores why booth traffic alone isn't enough, how marketing and sales can work together more effectively, and why the companies seeing the strongest event ROI are the ones with a clear strategy long before the exhibit hall opens.

Great Events Start Before the Show Floor Opens

One of Alison's biggest messages is that successful events begin well before attendees arrive. Companies should identify their ideal prospects, prepare outreach campaigns, align messaging, and build a plan for connecting with the right people—not simply hope the right attendees walk into the booth.

Sales Activation Is More Than Lead Capture

The industry has plenty of badge scanners and lead capture tools. The bigger challenge is making sure sales teams know exactly who they should meet and helping them take action throughout the event.

Alison explains how sales activation creates accountability before, during, and after the show so exhibitors focus on meaningful conversations instead of collecting names.

Marketing and Sales Must Work Together

Marketing often owns event strategy, while sales owns follow-up—but true event success happens when both teams share goals.

The conversation explores how marketers can provide better visibility into projected revenue, pipeline growth, and sales activity while helping leadership understand the long-term value of trade show investments.

Relationships Matter More Than Booth Traffic

Trade shows aren't just about generating leads—they're about building relationships that often develop over months or even years.

Alison encourages exhibitors to reconnect with existing contacts, use LinkedIn strategically, and continue nurturing conversations long after the event ends because today's conversation may become tomorrow's customer.

Measure What Really Matters

Rather than judging success solely by badge scans or booth traffic, Alison recommends measuring:

• Target account engagement
• Meetings completed
• Opportunity creation
• Projected revenue
• Sales activity after the show
• Long-term pipeline contribution

These metrics tell a much more complete story when leadership asks whether an event delivered ROI.

Trade show success isn't determined by booth size, giveaways, or even foot traffic. It's determined by preparation, alignment, and consistent follow-through.

Throughout this conversation, Alison reminds us that event marketing and sales are most effective when they operate as one team—sharing goals, measuring meaningful outcomes, and staying focused on building relationships that create long-term business opportunities.

Whether you're preparing for your first trade show or managing a global event portfolio, this episode offers practical ideas you can begin implementing immediately to improve sales activation and demonstrate stronger event ROI.

👉🏼 Join us for more insightful discussions like this by tuning into 'Event Marketer's Toolbox,' where industry leaders share the tools, tactics, and trends driving success in the event world.

This Show is sponsored by Blue Hive 

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Transcript

Chris Dunn: Hey, everybody. How's it going? This is Chris Dunn. I am with Blue Hive Exhibits, and we are on the Event Marketer's Toolbox. Got some friends with us here. Uh, it's actually one of our first returning guests, so pretty excited about that. But, uh, everybody knows Dana Esposito, one of our wonderful co-hosts. So, hey, Dana.

Chris Dunn: How's it going? Tell everybody a little bit about yourself. 

Dana Esposito: Things are good. Uh, my name's Dana. I've been in the industry about 30 years. Uh, foundation of exhibit designer. Um, I also help with corporate strategy, and I'm a client advocate. Um, and I'm very excited that we're here with Allison today. Um, I met Allison back at Exhibitor Live.

Dana Esposito: So, Allison, um, can you give a little intro to our- 

Alison French: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, my name is Allison. I am the founder of a company called LTO, which stands for Lead to Opportunity, but I'm also a fractional CMO for B2B startups. So where Lead to Opportunity came from is I recognized when I became a founder and I had to get involved in [00:01:00] founder-led sales that marketing is really good at delivering leads, but there's this disconnect between is it a lead that actually can become an opportunity?

Alison French: Hence, Lead to Opportunity is what I realized is really my happy place. I am a marketer who's been focused on revenue my entire career. I got started in e-commerce, and so I think I just find nothing more fun than helping businesses grow revenue, and I found in the past three to four years that trade shows and conferences is really one of the best performing channels for B2B organizations who are looking to scale pipeline 

Chris Dunn: Boom.

Chris Dunn: Excellent. There you go. Great. This is gonna be a, a super hands-on type of, uh, episode. Episode number 63. Uh, Allison, you were, uh, a guest of ours a year ago, uh, and, and, uh, I'm happy to say that here, we're still here. Yes. Great. Um, we, we kinda pivoted to a little bit of a different model here in 2026. We're going every other week, which gives us a little bit more of an opportunity to bring in kind of the best of the best with regards to our, our guests, and we can promote, and we can follow through.[00:02:00] 

Chris Dunn: Uh, something that we'll be talking a little bit about, uh, similar to trade shows. Um, and, uh, a- again, super excited to have you here. So this is a recorded, uh, episode and, uh, all three of us are gonna do our best to be in the comments. So if you're listening in and checking in with us, uh, when this airs live on Thursday at, uh, at noon time Eastern, um, we're gonna be there in the comments.

Chris Dunn: So you'll see our happy, smiling faces, and also we'll be jumping in and chatting up with everybody. Um, and I'm sure there's gonna be some great questions, uh, because Allison has truly, um, done a lot of homework here and put some really cool stuff together. Um, so to get us started, I just wanna kind of circle back.

Chris Dunn: Um, I, I said this a little tongue in cheek earlier. I, I said, "Allison, is it, is it really true that, uh, that Event Marketer's Toolbox, you know, launched your new company?" Thinking that I was being kind of, you know, funny. Um, but, but in, in a way, like you had kind of the semblance of where this was going. But tell us a little bit about kind of, um, [00:03:00] what you, what you were learning at that point and how you refined it, and how you've actually built this business and started this platform or- Yeah

Chris Dunn: built this platform to help, uh, sales and marketing w- as it relates to events. 

Alison French: Yeah, absolutely. Um, so where I got started is I've, like I said, been a fractional CMO for quite a while and been really focused on helping revenue teams scale pipeline. And about a year ago, I think I was just in my first prototype, so I was really thinking about, how do I solve the problem of- Helping salespeople be more productive at shows, how to like...

Alison French: And there was, I was still piecing everything together. And so in the past year, what I've realized is lead capture is covered in the industry. There's so many great lead capture tools, whether it's badge scanning or tools like Popple. Um, I mean, there is amazing platforms out there to really help you capture the vet traffic at your booth.

Alison French: But where I felt like there was a disconnect, and this was really from my work with clients in the fractional space, was [00:04:00] how do you get the right people to show up at your booth? And so that's really been the pivot over time. And so now I say that I'm really focused on sales activation and accountability, meaning I want to help your sales team go to the shows with the right targets.

Alison French: I want them to know who in attendance is going to match your ICP of the right companies that you want to sell to. Are there the right contacts you want to sell to? And then helping your sales team take action. So before the show, are they sending outreach to these companies? Are they sending outreach to these contacts?

Alison French: Who from the outreach is engaging? So are you getting appointments set? Are you driving to the right calendars? Are you navigating- Mm-hmm ... sales appointments versus booth calendars? Things like that. And then when you're on the show floor, how do you help them take action? Because I think we've all been there, and it's, there's a lot going on.

Alison French: You're at the booth. It's easy to forget about those 50 contacts that you're supposed to be meeting with when you're getting hit up by swag hunters. And so how do we just stay focused on, this is who I'm here to meet with, this is who I'm here to see. These are ultimately the people that are gonna move the revenue needle forward.[00:05:00] 

Alison French: And then at the end of the show, really have that accountability loop that leadership needs to talk about, here are the contacts we said we were gonna meet. Who did we actually meet? And what were the outcomes of those conversations? Because quite often you might not connect with someone during the show, but you have this beautiful period after a show to say, "Hey, so sorry we couldn't connect," and you use that as your opener to get that sales conversation to happen.

Alison French: And really focused on keeping everyone on the same page. So marketing has their part, sales has their part, and how do you pull it all together at the end of the show? And I love to work in HubSpot. Our platform is synced with HubSpot, so you can give everyone like this perfect package with a bow that says like, "Here's who we set out to meet.

Alison French: Here's who was badge scanned at the show." And actually turn it into a really big revenue report for the organization that carries on show to show to show. 

Chris Dunn: That, that's, that's absolute, uh, music to my ears as, uh- ... as a guy who's in marketing but sales as well. Yeah. 

Dana Esposito: Yeah. Um- Any ins- even from the exhibit [00:06:00] design part of that, you know, we want the exhibit, um, to, you know, be this great three-dimensional, uh, environment that's represent- representative of the brand, right?

Dana Esposito: And all the message and what they're not just trying to specifically say, but say to that specific audience. So to hear that, you know, there's someone like you out there who's also offering to help clients make that environment that much more impactful and they're starting, you know, before the show, and then during the show, and then after the show, I love that because we're always trying to make sure the client's dollars are spent very wisely.

Dana Esposito: We're very protective. Yep. And so what you're doing is basically ensuring that as well from, from, from the before, during, after as well. 

Alison French: Yeah. Absolutely, and I think it's such an interesting part too because- The businesses that do the best are the ones that are out to solve a problem. And if you are there solving a problem, you will get the right decision-makers coming to the booth.

Alison French: And where I find companies miss it is if they're not using the booth to [00:07:00] effectively communicate the problem they solve, there just becomes this huge disconnect. And I do a lot in healthcare, and so we're targeting a lot of clinicians. And so that's where it's really important that you're really- Mm-hmm

Alison French: conveying the problem we solve and making it that interactive. I mean, we had a successful event with a client where we were able to draw, um, surgeons into the booth to engage, which most people are like, "No surgeon's gonna ever pay attention to you." But like, you can with the right cohesive strategy. So we had both sides of the house working together to make sure that as all of our pre-show outreach was aligned with what was happening in the booth so that we're getting that kind of consistent experience, and ultimately treating the surgeons as humans.

Alison French: Like, they're still humans- Mm-hmm ... we are there to solve a problem. And so it was really great. I mean, it's a dream state to be able to pull through and not just say, "This is the same booth at every show." Like, I have- Mm-hmm ... the same pop-up at every show. It's like, well, but every audience is different, and every audience has a slightly variation on the problem.

Dana Esposito: Mm-hmm. 

Chris Dunn: Yeah. Yep. You know, um, [00:08:00] you as a, as an entre- a marketer turned entrepreneur, I, I, I find it really interesting. I, I, I recall from our first conversation when we met and we had you on last year, you were like all about just like, "I'm, I'm here to solve problems." That's where you- Yeah ... 

Alison French: kind 

Chris Dunn: of get your juice, and you just love- Absolutely

Chris Dunn: kind of diving in and rolling up your sleeves and figuring out how to solve that. Um, so I love the, I love the fact that your, your marketing brain knows kind of where you need to go and, and how you need to get there, but then your entrepreneurial brain kind of kicked in and said, "Well, how can, how can I create a solution that takes away this pain point for so many clients?"

Chris Dunn: Yeah. Um, Dana and I, right before this call, right before this episode, we were literally on a call, and here is my notes from the call and it said, "Lead gen is king. You know, how do I, how do we help- How do we help move the needle on this? Yeah. This CEO is an ROI driven guy. Absolutely. Uh, he wants to understand how he's gonna get, you know, attain that ROI.

Chris Dunn: So- 

Dana Esposito: I love 

Chris Dunn: that ... so [00:09:00] there's, there's different, there's different reasons to go to trade shows. There's actually way more than you might think, but I'd say we can put that one at the top of the list for more clients than not. Um, you know, they're there to ba- this is, events are moving the needle when it comes to filling pipeline and creating sales opportunities, especially- Yep

Chris Dunn: these days. People are really leaning in hard. Um, and it's a, it can be a huge spend, but we gotta show them a path to basically make that money back and show them, yes, it's a big spend, however, here's what you're gonna get back from it. And, you know, talk to me about other channels that are out there that can literally put millions of dollars in a pipe- Yeah

Chris Dunn: um, you know, over the course of a day or two, you know- Yeah ... with proper permitting. 

Alison French: Yeah. Had a client- 'Cause there's, 

Chris Dunn: there's not a lot of things. 

Alison French: Yeah. Had a client at AI Four last year, and I mean, it was an integrated strategy. We had eight senior sellers, including the founders. Um, but we did I think 4.6 million in pipeline in 72 hours.

Alison French: But there was a completely strategic approach. I mean, their CMO is as good as it gets. [00:10:00] She was- Yeah ... laser focused, and she was really the orchestrator pulling together all aspects and recognizing I have to get ROI. And so if I don't have a lens on the sales activation side, and who are we targeting? And in that situation, it was a total gotcha of, oh yeah, you're a sponsor, we're gonna give you the list.

Alison French: Don't you worry about it. And then the week before the show when the list shows up, the list is companies and job title at that company. And she's just like, "How am I supposed to work with this?" And you go back and you check the contract, and technically the contract kind of alludes to that, but her perspective was, this isn't actionable.

Alison French: Like, this list is not actionable. And so that's for me where it got real fun 'cause you, like you said, I love problem solving and marketing is my happy place. And so- 

Chris Dunn: Yeah ... 

Alison French: that's when it got really fun within the platform in trying to figure out how can we push the platform past just, hey, you have a list.

Alison French: You might need some data augmented or whatever, into like, cool, they gave you basically nothing, but your [00:11:00] job is sort of on the line. I mean, it is, but it isn't. But like, if you as a marketer- Right ... aren't consistently producing results, like we all know, um, CMOs are one of the most turnover roles that exist.

Alison French: So it's like h- it just got me into a different lens of like, I adored her, and I was like, "I'm gonna figure out how to make this work for you, so let's go." And that's where I think the platform really grew, was the ability to take practically nothing that the show gave her and turn it into- Mm-hmm ... an actionable list that they were able to use for appointment setting ahead of the show.

Alison French: And that was just- Nice ... that was so cool to see that come together. 

Dana Esposito: That's awesome. 

Chris Dunn: Yeah. You know, coming into, into this conversation, I was thinking, well, this is in my wheelhouse, right? This is, this is, um, this is kind of a sales conversation, but it's not. It's a, it's a big picture conversation, and Dana reminded us of that earlier.

Chris Dunn: But at the end of the day, here at Blue Hive, for us to be successful, our clients need to be successful in trade show floor. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And we can design a really kickass booth and do a beautiful job, and we can, you know, crush it on the labor hours and all that stuff, but at the end of the day, they come back from that show and it did not [00:12:00] work out well, and they don't get the ROI.

Chris Dunn: And they, you know, when they, when the CMO goes back to the CEO or the CFO next year and says, "I need $500,000," and they're like, "Great, what's it, what's it for, and, and how did we do last year?" And they show them the books on it- Mm-hmm If, if those numbers aren't pointing in the right direction, they're, they're less likely to get that, you know, that spend again, that's for sure.

Chris Dunn: Absolutely. So, um, you know, it's, it's, it, it is a, it, it's a absolutely necessary cog in the machine, uh, of how this whole, you know, event, using events as a pipeline generation piece, uh, has to work. 

Alison French: Yeah. I had such a fun time presenting at Exhibitor Live, 'cause that was kind of the theme of our event was- Mm

Alison French: okay, marketers, we're all here 'cause we know we have to be at, you know, we know we're doing these events, but what do you do when you can't, you don't own sales? And like, you don't own follow-up and, but ROI is on your shoulders. Mm-hmm. And so it was really talking into like how as a marketer we can have measures of success that [00:13:00] are like, what would projected revenue be, or how can we look at these leads and look at our conversion funnel and do estimates as marketers to show what we believe the projected ROI is at the close of show.

Alison French: Because that alone is such a powerful number to tell leaders and CEOs, like, "This is what we're forecasting." And then I'll be completely honest, I'm a marketer, so part of me is like a defensive positioning to be like, "I don't own, like, the sales process. Like, I don't own closing a deal, so I cannot tie my value to my ability, your ability to close a deal."

Alison French: So I'm always trying to be creative and think about ways that I can show, I almost call it like forensic revenue. Like, how can I laser focus, point people in the direction of, okay, like, you obviously had a killer booth and you were drawing people in, but it wasn't the right people. Or- 

Chris Dunn: Mm-hmm ... 

Alison French: you got a ton of great qualified leads, but guess what?

Alison French: Your sales team has only had two actions on them in six months. Like, that's a problem. The reason you're not closing deals is because your sales team isn't showing the activity that needs to happen. And so when I [00:14:00] look at the revenue lens, that's the really fun part for conversations with, um, like the call you just mentioned, is I can get so laser focused with the data to be able to tell people like, "Here's where you have a problem.

Alison French: It's actually not the show. The show was amazing. Your salesperson doesn't know how to close the deal. Like, have you thought about getting him some coaching to help him out a little bit?" 

Dana Esposito: Mm-hmm. I appreciate so much that you're having these conversations with clients, um, and really getting them to think like, yes, numbers of leads is, is important.

Dana Esposito: Mm-hmm. It's a great starting point, but who are those leads, right? Yep. Were they, were they good leads? Were they worth it? Were they the right people to attract, or not the right people to attract? And if they are the right people to attract, that's great, doing a lot of things right, but now what? What happens to them- Yep

Dana Esposito: afterwards, right? 

Alison French: Yep. And what the sales process is. And like intent and purchase is one that comes up to me so often with clients is they might match your ICP perfectly, but if they're not looking to buy, like that could be a two-year sales cycle- And so when you're talking ROI from a show, you need to [00:15:00] be able to communicate that to leadership to say like- Yeah.

Alison French: Yeah ... "Hey, we've got the right people, but this is gonna be a much longer sales process, but we know if we stay in front of them for two years..." And so that's where kind of the engine that I'm trying to create for organizations is, is like we're gonna stay in front of people in a soft, consistent, natural way so that when the time is right, we're there and they're ready to take action.

Dana Esposito: Then that also having those set expectations is, is proper because s- even for us and for Blue Hive, when we're, um, you know, meeting new potential clients, the same, it's a very similar thing. It's a very long burn before someone is either able or ready to change their exhibit provider. Yeah. Um, so it's kind of like to your point, you need to let people know that you're there and then stay in contact with them- Mm-hmm

Dana Esposito: without being a pest, but, you know, but st- also start to build that relationship. 'Cause like to your point, some of your clients, it's two years before- Mm-hmm ... they're ready. Um, and s- that's, so you, you need to go into that knowing that is a, the expectation as part of your [00:16:00] measurement, and also what's the tr- strategy behind building that long burn.

Alison French: Yeah. 

Dana Esposito: Um, being how to make sure someone still knows that you're there and that you are a trustworthy, solid partner for them, that you're a good fit. And on the flip side of that, to know when, when you're not a good fit. There's, there's as much importance knowing when you're not a good fit- Yeah ... for a client as well because you don't wanna- Well-

Dana Esposito: waste their time or your time. You, the last thing you wanna do is get a client and then f- fail, you know. Um, so there's, it's, it's just such a worthy exercise to do ahead of time, uh, for so many different data points later. Yeah. 

Alison French: And one of the things that has come up for me the most in the past year, which is why I just, I've, I'm a HubSpot user myself, and so what's partially why I leaned more into HubSpot for companies- is the data has to live in your CRM, and I think that's one of the things that trips up shows the most.

Alison French: The badge scan data will come in a CSV file. It may or may not get imported properly, if at all, [00:17:00] into the CRM. And then the company as a ... And I think this is where my founder lens comes, but, like, as a company, the company is the one making the investment to get the salesperson there. The company needs to own the data and have a clear view of where the data is, how it goes, because there's turnover, so you don't want your salesperson that you just sent six months ago, it's living on their computer in their inbox.

Alison French: You don't have access to what happened, and then all of a sudden the company made this beautiful investment. They have the good leads, but it's a two-year cycle. The company has to own it. The company has to know where the data sits. They have to know what shade of show the data's from. They have to know where it is in the marketing nurturing process.

Alison French: They need to know what salesperson is assigned to keep that lead going, because that's the part that I see a huge disconnect in, is, like, the data hygiene that comes out of shows just doesn't happen. So that's the big thing I've tried to do with our platform, is really make it as easy as possible to have everything be HubSpot first.

Alison French: Let's go CRM first, and then [00:18:00] equip the team with the information they need and have that perfect feedback loop so that way at the end of the day, like, our big wrap-up report is, "Okay, great. Here's your report. Here's the fields we're using. Here's the data," and it's, like, stamped locked in HubSpot. And so that way it's not living and dying in Google Sheets or spreadsheets.

Dana Esposito: Mm-hmm. 

Chris Dunn: Perfect. Perfect. You know, when you came by the booth, uh, at Exhibitor Live, so two things. First of all, I, I just kind of as an aside is we still find... So we've been going to Exhibitor Live pretty much every year, um, for the last 12 or 15 years or so, and we get people coming in, you know, who are popping up who are seemingly, you know, out of nowhere, but they're like, "I met you, you know, at Exhibitor Live 2017, 20- you know, 2019," whatever it was.

Chris Dunn: Like, another thing that can be said about this overall process is realizing that it can be a long s- uh, you know, circle or a s- sorry, sales cycle. Mm-hmm. And the ability to kind of have, [00:19:00] um, have faith in the process and say, "You know what? Maybe we're not closing a ton of these, uh, of these opportunities in that 12-month period between now and the- when the next show goes, but if we stay in this game long enough, and we know that our, that our strategy is sound.

Chris Dunn: We're not just throwing money against, you know, against the wall to see what happens. But we know that the sales cycle can be two or three years or whatever. Um, and, and trust that process and trust that what we're doing from a nurturing campaign is keeping those people, uh, active and our name top of, you know, top of mind so that, you know, 'Hey, we're headed to this show.'

Chris Dunn: And we're gonna get some opportunities right off the bat at this particular show, but we're also planting seeds for three, five, seven years down the road, right? Because we're, we're trying to build up that, that pipeline as a long sustainable process." 

Alison French: Well, and here's an interesting one, and I did this for myself going to Exhibitor Live.

Alison French: But you're also building relate- relationships at events with a human, and so we all tend to work within the same space. So like I have always been a [00:20:00] marketer who uses trade shows as a channel. So at my current role I might have inherited a provider, and I can't really make a change. But I move over to a new company, and part of the strategy I'm bringing into that new company is events work really well, and I get to go pick my own provider this time.

Alison French: That's where like the money comes from too is recognizing it's not just chasing an account, but you're building relationships with people. And one of the things I did going into Exhibitor Live was cross-referencing who's in attendance and who am I already connected with on LinkedIn. Mm-hmm. Because when you start scrolling through those apps and there's just so many people, I think that's actually what made me like remind me to like reach out to you was just, just like, oh yeah, okay.

Alison French: Of the however many thousands of people, I had like 50 people I was already connected with. And it'd be so much easier just to pop into LinkedIn and send them a note and be like, "Okay, here's who you already know. So before you go and start a bunch of outreach to new people, why don't you just focus on meeting with people you've already connected with in person?"

Alison French: And I don't think that many people put that effort into it. And so as you're thinking about long sales [00:21:00] cycles, it's recognizing too, if you can stay connected with these people and use signals like, okay, they were at the last show- I should reach out to them, or I talked to their company last year, that person's not there, who can I reach out to?

Alison French: And use that as a name drop. But that is just a lot of work. It takes a seller days of prep work and effort, and I think a lot of people just don't have the knowledge of what to do to put that effort in, and so it just doesn't happen, which is one of the reasons we created the platform and we're hoping to solve 

Chris Dunn: Right.

Chris Dunn: You know, um, we, we've always spoken in a gener- general sense of when we're talking to our exhibitors we're like, "Listen, you know, we can build you a beautiful booth, but if there's not the pre-show effort, and the on-floor effort, and the post-show effort, then it's, it's not probably not gonna be successful."

Chris Dunn: But we've never really kind of pulled back the, you know, peeled back the onion and said, "Well, here are the specific things that you exactly need to do." Yeah. Right? We- that's not been our area of expertise. But as we're trying to get our arms around the big [00:22:00] picture problem and the challenges that our customers are having, we realize that exactly what you do really has a great, you know, fit with all of these folks.

Chris Dunn: So if I could ask you to, you know, and we talked about this in the green room, is like let's not make this a commercial for your company- Yeah ... but we can... Like, take us through the process of how, um, of how, like exactly what does your service do? Yep. Um, when does it get started? Who... Like, what is that outreach process?

Chris Dunn: And then if you could just kind of build it forward, you know, from the pre-show, to the on-show, to the post-show. What does all that look like such that if folks are out there wondering, you know, what those parts and pieces are- Yep ... that need to be put in place, um, at least they've got a little bit of a framework of how to do it- Yeah

Chris Dunn: whether they engage you or not. 

Alison French: Yeah. Absolutely. Um, so I think answering some of your earlier questions was originally I think a year ago I did set out to be completely SaaS, like plug and play, don't wanna talk to people. And then I had a [00:23:00] great gentleman who was a SaaS vendor in a mastermind group remind me that people just want the fish.

Alison French: They want to eat a beautiful dinner, they don't want to learn how to fish. And so I have, will say I have pivoted to tech-enabled services because, and this was confirmed at Exhibitor Live, like trade show marketers are stretched thin. They do not need to be handed another platform and another login to be like, "Hey, learn how to do this," because you already have 20 other things on your plate.

Alison French: So we're tech-enabled services. So ShowScout is the platform I've created that helps, it helps run the engine. It's what connects the show data to your CRM, it helps us keep track of everything, it helps us equip the team with something in the palm of their hands to keep track of everything. But we are the ones running the engine because we recognize everyone is stretched really, really thin.

Alison French: And so it starts by going to what show you're going to, and the first question I ask people is, "How is the show helping you connect with the audience?" Um, is there, is there a list that they're providing? Some shows yes, some shows no. Is there a networking app? Is there a [00:24:00] sponsor list? Is there a speaker list?

Alison French: There's so many different points of data a show could give that could be valuable to an exhibitor. We start there. We can go back and look at social signals from previous years and all these other things. But the reality is, I actually encourage clients to be very selective in the shows they're going to, to make sure they know how they're gonna connect with the audience they're targeting.

Alison French: So you start there. You know who you're targeting, 

Chris Dunn: and- About, about how far ahead of that event are you... Like, in an ideal world, you say, "Reach out to me 90 days ahead of the show, and then we can get it all done." Yeah. Versus, you know, "Oh, it's in two weeks. Can you still help?" 

Alison French: Yeah, so that's... What I, what I'm finding is most shows aren't giving access to data much more than a week ahead of time.

Alison French: So you have to be able to move really, really, really quickly, and I think that's what gets people in trouble, is they're like, they're just scrambling to get out the door, so they don't have time to invest in this. So what I encourage people to do is to at least engage and have a plan going into that, because you can have all of your [00:25:00] outreach built out in HubSpot.

Alison French: You can have all the pre-work done, templates approved, messaging approved, sender accounts connected, and then all you're doing is getting the data. And once you get the data, you can go ahead and deploy everything. So the getting of the data part is what our platform does. So I would say we're to a point now, I've been able to turn things around in 12 hours.

Alison French: Um, I don't wanna do that every time, so prefer not to do that. But sometimes- Right ... you just have, like sometimes that's just what the show makes available, and you're trying your best, because I have a soft spot for startups, and so I always try to figure out how can we best serve you so that you can be successful.

Alison French: Um, I would say in general, from the time we get access to the data, we can turn it around in 24 hours. Um, that's the benefit of what I've been creating over the past year, is just- Using the tools to create a platform rather than a one-off, I need to go through this 100 step checklist in order to get the data to people.

Alison French: Yeah. So that's where I'd start. When it comes to the outreach, if you can start earlier, start [00:26:00] earlier. If you can cross-reference your CRM and see who's there, go for it. I just find that it's really tricky. It really is a last-minute play no matter which way you look at it. And so I would say 30 to 45 days before, make sure your messaging and your templates and kind of your cadence, how many touches you're gonna be doing.

Alison French: We're gonna do two pre-show touches. What channels do we wanna do? Do we wanna do LinkedIn? Do we wanna do email? Do we wanna do the show apps? Have that all figured out, have that all approved, everybody aligned, so that way when the data's ready, you can launch. And so what we help our customers do is once we go to launch, we are looking at triggers like is it an Outlook email or is it a Gmail email?

Alison French: 'Cause if it's Outlook, you're probably gonna hit spam no matter what. Outlook's just a really hard platform to get into right now. So it's like, okay, if it is Outlook, maybe we're gonna go straight to LinkedIn for that customer, or we're gonna go straight to the show app for that customer because we know we're not gonna waste a touch point on LinkedIn.

Alison French: And so we're kind of behind the scenes wizzy waking where we think the best channel is for those people. But ultimately, [00:27:00] we have rated the, um, likelihood of the customer and the fit of the customer because there's a level of how many people you can touch. So it's like you wanna go after your priority ones.

Alison French: So who are your priority ones? We wanna make sure we're touching them in all channels. Then you've got them to say they're interested. Here's the other hurdle we've been trying to solve is, okay, great, they messaged on LinkedIn saying, "Yeah, great, I'm interested." Well, I would like to know what person working a show floor can easily take that interest and put it into a time slot on the calendar that you can connect to, because that's really hard because depending on your org, you might have a window to be at the booth, you might have other things going on.

Alison French: And so we're really helping behind the scenes move that interest into a next step. Or sometimes the reply is kind of in between and you don't know, is it a yes, is it a no? Like, they didn't tell me to pound sand, but they didn't say, "Yes, I'll come by your booth and meet you." Somewhere in the middle. Right?

Alison French: Like, we can help nurture that along and try... [00:28:00] Because what I'm finding, a lot of the clients I'm working with are C-suite, kind of seed to series A companies, so they're still doing a lot of founder-led sales. They do not have the bandwidth to be in the weeds, and so our goal is to take all of it off their plate- We're gonna help move you through, and then we're gonna provide those kind of, I call them accountability pulses during a show, where we're saying, you know, maybe it's halfway through the day or it's the end of day one, "Okay, here's who we set out to meet, counts, contacts.

Alison French: Here's who we actually have meet. You have a 10% coverage rate for the entire show." Because when you have, say, some BDRs in attendance and they're working the show, as leadership, you should know how they're tracking as a show goes on, because are they showing up hungover and not doing the work and you only had a 1% coverage rate at the end of day one?

Alison French: Like, you have a problem that needs to be solved going into day two. It gives you that feedback to have a leadership conversation. It could talk to a mentorship conversation about how they need to help. But most importantly, I always as marketers say, use the data to open a friendly conversation with curiosity.

Alison French: "Hey, I noticed your coverage [00:29:00] rate was low today. How can I help? Do you need me to help put out a last-minute email? Do you need me to provide cell phone data? Are you having trouble meeting them on the floor?" Like, and you use it as a moment of curiosity rather than blame, and that seems to be the most effective path forward because then they're like...

Alison French: In transparency, usually it's 'cause they're just not doing anything, but at least it makes everybody on the same page, and you end up getting the outcomes you're looking for 

Chris Dunn: Gotcha. So that's interesting. I didn't realize that, um, there would be a component there to help a company kind of manage the team itself as opposed to it's not just a tool for the salespeople on site to be setting appointments and identifying those, those folks who are, you know, in that kind of target rich environment that, uh, that everybody's looking for.

Chris Dunn: If I could quote a little bit of Top Gun, 'cause I know you're San Diego and your husband's in the 

Alison French: military. Yes. My, well, my husband's a fighter, yeah, my husband's a fighter pilot, so it's well 

Chris Dunn: welcomed in our house. Yeah. Well then, target rich environment is, uh, extremely apropos. Yeah. [00:30:00] Um, yeah, that's, that's, that's super cool.

Chris Dunn: Okay. So, so now we're, now we're actually on the show floor, right? Yeah. So what are the, what are those kind of pieces of the puzzle that you're solving in addition to helping, uh, the CEO kind of see what kind of coverage rate he's getting from his, his, uh, you know, people manning the booth? What else is going on there?

Alison French: Yeah. So I think that's where the sales activation lens comes in. So different than like a booth activation, it's much more about like, as a seller, like how do I help the seller connect with their audience? And so we can do things like monitoring is an account speaking on stage, or is the CEO of account you're targeting speaking on stage?

Alison French: Because that usually presents an opportunity if you go listen to presentation, invitation to connect, reference the presentation, you'll get a much higher connection rate. Like, there's a little nuance things that I'm coaching people through, but really using the platform and the data to provide those signals.

Alison French: So it's who's opening, who's engaging, who's clicking, who is replying to the show app [00:31:00] messaging, um, anything we can do like that. And then, like I said, if there's say priority ones that they're not able to connect with, then we are h- we offer a service, basically give you a sales assistant who is going to be helping you figure out the best ways to do it.

Alison French: Like, "Do you want me to deploy an SMS campaign? Do you want me to send a last-minute email?" And really guiding them along to make sure that the behind the scenes part that nobody can do when they're on the show floor is happening. And so from the platform perspective, every seller will get access to an app, um, that allows them to keep track of their priority contacts.

Alison French: So here's who I hope to meet, because if anyone's ever tried to look at HubSpot from a show floor, it is painful. 'Cause you're gonna see your tens of thousands of contacts and it's really hard to stay tracked. So we basically just give you a little view of these are who you're supposed to focus on. Have you met them?

Alison French: Have you not met them? What's their quality score like? And it allows you to be very strategic on the show floor. Um, and so that's the biggest part that I hope to offer people is just keep you laser focused on here's who you're supposed to be meeting and [00:32:00] did you actually meet them? Mm-hmm. And then that helps the seller, that helps leadership, that keeps everybody on the same page.

Alison French: You can capture notes, you know? Yes, we can take a picture of a badge, that's someone that you just met there. All those other functionalities. But really our goal is to help hold people accountable of, we went into the show saying these people were a good fit. Let's make sure we have conversations.

Chris Dunn: Awesome. Okay. So that is the on-floor piece. So we talked about pre-show, now on-floor. All right, here's the most important piece that... Or they're all equally important, but here's the one that I think people fumble more often than not, is the post-show follow through. How, how does, how, how do you kind of lean into the accountability on that?

Chris Dunn: How does your kind of solution help, uh, post-show, you know, the post-show selling process? What do, what do you guys do there? 

Alison French: I think the gift of being integrated with HubSpot is we put it all into the CRM. So the reporting- Okay ... everything, you know, we have everything in and wrapped up, bow of wrap- Mm ... often in a pretty little [00:33:00] bow by end of the day of show close.

Alison French: So all of your data's in there. You know who your priority accounts are. You know who you've met. You know who you haven't met. And so it makes those actions so much easier. So in my dream state, sequences would be built out for a client before the show, and we would know priority, what we're saying to priority people, what we're saying to people we didn't meet, and then all the data comes in and it's triggered automatically, and so nobody's worrying about it.

Alison French: And so the priority ones that a CLR might wanna have a one-to-one conversation, that's gonna be a manual task with a suggested template that is assigned to them in HubSpot that they're gonna come back to their desk or even in the computer flying home, they're gonna see it, and they just can quickly take action.

Alison French: Because I think the hardest part coming back from a show is like You're talked out, you're tired, you've been traveling, and you're like, "What do I need to do?" So if we can just make it as quickly as possible and teach everyone- Mm-hmm ... to just check them spot tasks, the suggested messages are there for your key accounts.

Alison French: But then we've taken everything kind of like party two, three, four on, and we've done [00:34:00] automations to just keep it moving forward. I think that's the dream state from a follow-up perspective. But then the part that I adore kind of from a revenue perspective is really coming in and showing the whole view of the activity for the show.

Alison French: Okay, there was 10,000 people. We targeted 300 companies and 1,000 contacts. Here's how many took action. Here's how many net new people came up to us at the booth that we weren't expecting. Mm-hmm. Here's the cross between the badge scanner and the people we are targeting. So these people came to the booth, but that seller didn't talk to them, but they had talked to someone else at the booth.

Alison French: And so you're providing this holistic view, and then it's like, okay, these people engaged and seemed interested, but nobody actually met them, so let's make sure we're prioritizing our outreach. Mm-hmm. And then you carry that one level higher, and you do this wrap up report for all shows. And so you're like, "Okay, well, over the past three months we've been to four shows.

Alison French: You have 100 people who've expressed an interest that you haven't actually met with. So that new seller you just hired, there is their target list to get started with." And you're really looking at [00:35:00] it as a lens of shows creating pipeline and momentum overlaid with who is actually my ICP, who has purchase intent, who is engaging behind the scenes and showing those signals of like were they...

Alison French: 'Cause using tools like Buyer Intent and HubSpot, you can see who's coming to your website. So can you take that RR B2B and say, "Okay, well, you just had someone from one of your key accounts come to the website. Well, guess what? You only sent an email to one person, so that was probably the person that just came to your account.

Alison French: So seller, go call them." There's just so much behind the scenes stuff that it's hard for any one person to think it through, so that's where the platform becomes so valuable, is we can just let people know- Mm ... "Hey, you need to take action. Don't worry about like scrolling behind the scenes. We'll just tell you when you need to take action."

Chris Dunn: That sounds like exactly the type of service that I need. My little system 

Alison French: at 

Chris Dunn: that conference. 

Alison French: I think every seller, I think every seller needs it, right? Like- Yeah ... 'cause there's such a technical component to it, and like- 

Chris Dunn: Yeah 

Alison French: Yeah. So there's just a beautiful way to help [00:36:00] sellers do what they do best, which is close business and, like, build relationships.

Alison French: Mm-hmm. And then just, like, let's get the marketing growth hacking stuff off their plate. 

Chris Dunn: That sounds great. So Dana, as, as it, as, um, take off your, uh, leadership hat. Put on your, um, if it's possible, put on your exhibit designer hat, or maybe you leave them both on. Um, it's not often that we have a conversation with our clientele and that we lean this heavy into, like, tell us how the sales process goes down, right?

Chris Dunn: We're talking about, like, what are, what, what are the goals for the show floor? Like, uh, the on-floor activation, and are, are there meetings and so forth? It's not that often that we really dive in this deep with, you know, kinda tell us exactly what the salespeople are gonna be doing. But I feel like that's a great thing for you to understand and for you to know, right?

Chris Dunn: Whether it's carving out, you know, a space on the floor that's specific to, like, we're gonna put the soft seating over here, and this is where these meetings are gonna happen, or here's our semi-private conference [00:37:00] space. Um, what do you... Like, as you're listening to all of this, what are you thinking about from a designer's perspective?

Dana Esposito: So from a designer's perspective, we would love to know, um- That basically clients have thought, put a lot of thought and strategy into who they're t- who they're trying to talk to at the c- show. Um- Mm-hmm ... are there any very specific people that they're seeking to connect with? Um, like I, I have spoken to clients and asked them, "How will you know the show was successful?"

Dana Esposito: And they'll say, "Number of leads." And I love number of leads, but if, if I, if I'm talking to the wrong person, then, then it's kind of like I'm, I'm yelling in an empty room, right? No one, no one- I connected with no one. So, you know, if I want to, I want a client to have had the conversation internally that, that, that I can then have with them about who specifically, like different shows have different audiences.

Dana Esposito: Like if you have med device, maybe one show you're talking to doctors, maybe [00:38:00] another show you're talking to nurses. I want a client to already have recognized that. And if they haven't thought of it yet, great. Let's have that conversation before we start designing the booths and any interactives that we're doing in the booth.

Dana Esposito: Now, if I can also know that a client has had some sort of, um, outreach strategy to like, to Alice's point of like, you know, p- before the show, during the show, after the show, that as the designer of the structure and helping with the interactives that maybe pull them into the space, collect information, data from them, uh, maybe you're measuring some sort of metrics.

Dana Esposito: Anything that I know the client's doing in conjunction with that event, if I know what it is, I can try to help amplify it in the booth. Because the structure is really just a three-dimensional, um, like version of the brand. It's really just creating an, a carving out really an area for you to connect with your clients and potential clients.

Dana Esposito: S- but any message that you have that you're already reaching out to the specific [00:39:00] audience that I can know about, then I'm able to amplify it, right? Yeah. Because if you think of people attending a show, they are going to- their brain is gonna be fried. They have just met a ton of people. They've seen a ton of exhibits.

Dana Esposito: Um, so when they get to your exhibit, what do you wanna make sure they heard and learned about you and your company? And that message has to be really small. Sometimes clients will like want them to know this, and I want them to know... Yes, yes. The longer they get to know you, they're gonna learn all those things.

Dana Esposito: But there's only one thing that they're able to retain after this barrage of information on the show. You know, when they walk away and have already been in a couple of the booths after your booth- What's the one thing they're still gonna remember? Like, I wanna know that. Yeah. Because whatever Alice and her team is doing in conjunction with my client's marketing team, I wanna be able to amplify it.

Dana Esposito: Because if I can't amplify it, then I may actually be hurting it, because what if I'm now [00:40:00] introducing other messages? Mm. Then that's additional stuff. I don't want too much stuff, 'cause a human brain can only really absorb so much, especially at a show. So I wanna bang them over the head with what's that one thing.

Alison French: Yeah. I always tell my clients, even if I'm not involved in the strategy, 'cause I mean, I can get involved with, like, the revenue strategy going in, but often I'm just really helping them with the data side and the activation side. But I always say, "What is the one action you want them to do?" 

Dana Esposito: Yeah. 

Alison French: Like, what's, like, literally one action?

Alison French: Are we, are we trying to get them on a demo? Are we getting them a demo in the booth? Are we scheduling a demo for home? Is... 'Cause typically I'm working within SaaS. Yeah. And that's it. It's so laser focused. Like, what do we need to do to motivate that person as a human- Yeah ... to complete that action? And that ties in perfectly to what you're saying.

Alison French: If your booth and your messaging isn't aligned, and then if the organization doesn't have a clear visibility to this is the action we want them to take, and you have one booth worker just, like, scanning a badge, and you have one person trying to do a demo- Yeah ... in the booth and one person scheduling [00:41:00] home, like, your metrics at the end of the show are gonna be a mess.

Alison French: Mm. So if everyone knows that one action we're driving for and that one thing we want them to walk away with, like, that alone would transform everybody's performance from an ROI perspective. 

Dana Esposito: Agreed. Yeah.

Chris Dunn: Um, I just wanna remind everybody that, uh, go ahead and drop comments in and, uh, we're gonna do our best to kind of participate in this, so hopefully this is a good onver- ongoing conversation. Um, what Allison is sharing with us right now is really both, uh, eye-opening and, you know, actionable, and I, I think nothing here is rocket science.

Chris Dunn: Like, in a, in a perfect world we're all, you know, if we're marketers and we've done this event game in the past, these are all things that we're hopefully addressing, but the reality of getting your arms around it and doing all of those things at, at an efficiency that Allison's talking about, that's, like, totally next level.

Chris Dunn: So I'm super excited about, um- 

Alison French: Yeah, 

Chris Dunn: I think that- About seeing where this goes ... 

Alison French: started in the beginning, I think when right at [00:42:00] the end of COVID, like that era when events were coming back and doing this for people- Mm-hmm ... I mean, it was like a week or two of trying to pull all this together over time, and now we're to a point, like I said, like 24-hour turnaround.

Alison French: I mean, the messaging- Yeah ... approvals is honestly the hardest part but the rest of it can happen really quickly and really, like, efficiently, and most importantly, like, we're not making mistakes. 'Cause I think there's a lot of learning and data and platforms and connecting and all the things, and it's real- when you're busy and you're tired from working a show, it's really easy for things to go wrong.

Alison French: So the efficiencies of just knowing that it's being done, it's being done well, and it's, I like to think of it as, like, the insurance policy. It's like, you want ROI from a show? Mm-hmm. Like, we are your insurance policy. 

Chris Dunn: No, that's a great way to look at it. You spent a whole bunch of money, let's make sure we, you know, do all the things that's are necessary- Yeah

Chris Dunn: to kind of make sure that we make the most of it. Um, I wanted to kind of i- in my head, and hopefully other people are thinking big picture out there, in my head I'm picturing like one event. But talk to us about what does, what does it look like to kind of stack a bunch of events together- Yeah ... and to utilize your service?

Chris Dunn: What type of [00:43:00] efficiencies and, and, um, benefits do we see? You, you obviously are working with people who have different, uh, multiple shows per year, show program, show schedule. Using, using you guys, your service and your, your tech service, uh, show after show after show, what types of things are you seeing, uh, play out in doing that?

Chris Dunn: Yeah. The 

Alison French: one, the one that's been really great to watch is both from C-suite of Possible Systems and C-suite of major banking institutions. Okay. The overlap from show to show to show. And so if you go to one show and you're targeting people and you get your pretty report at the end of the day- 

Chris Dunn: Mm-hmm ... 

Alison French: and then you do nothing with them, then what?

Alison French: But what's been great is really treating it as like a monthly growth engine. And so we can come in and say, "Okay, if you're doing a show every month or you're doing it every other month, like, how can we help keep this activation going?" Because not all organizations have enablement or nurturing in place, and so what can we do to keep the pipeline going?

Alison French: And then my favorite part is when you're heading to these multiple events, is really [00:44:00] flagging to the sellers, "Here are people we talked to at previous shows. Here is a previous conversation," so you can pick up, because not everybody is going to the same show, like the seller from a seller perspective.

Alison French: Mm-hmm. And so quite often they're just laser focused on, "Here's who my contact or account is." But if one of your peer's contact or account is at that show, you should at least be reaching out or connecting or doing something to bridge that gap. And that's where I think all of a sudden it becomes like authentic relationship building instead of selling, is that you're able to use these little nuggets of information to keep the conversations moving.

Alison French: And then from a leadership perspective, you start to see the cumulative impacts. And Chris, you had mentioned like someone will come back that you met in 2017. Well, then you can even talk about, because HubSpot, love it or hate it, they look at it as contacts and they look at it as companies. And so if you have a- Mm-hmm

Alison French: contact that you've talked to previously that has moved on to a new company, you can actually keep track of that and use that as measures of success to see where these conversations- Mm-hmm ... were started. [00:45:00] Um, and then really making sure that leadership, when they're looking at their revenue reporting on a monthly or quarterly basis, they're really looking at event channel and not just direct conversion, but what pipeline has been influenced, what pipeline has been stalled out, um, and making sure that ultimately what's happening at events is turning to revenue, because I think that's what every single person in the event space wants.

Alison French: Like events are already big enough, but if we had the ability to start showing people where revenue is coming from and connecting the dots on that, I think we would all as a industry be in such a beautiful spot in this land of AI to say, "Hey, we have a way to grow revenue consistently." Like, I think we would all just be like, "Great, this is the way we wanna go for the rest of our lives."

Alison French: Because in the land of AI, the human connection that events are providing cannot be matched 

Chris Dunn: Yeah. 

Dana Esposito: Agreed. 

Chris Dunn: Put a pin in that one, that's for sure. Um, yeah, and I, I think, you [00:46:00] know, en- entering 2026, we are unsure as to where the market was gonna go. It seemed like it was gonna be good, and here we are, like, halfway through the year, and I think, you know, Dana and her team are working overtime just trying to keep up with the volume this summer.

Chris Dunn: Yeah. You- normally our summers are slower. Um- Normally summers 

Alison French: are dead, and it's been a 

Chris Dunn: hopping one. We are, we are hopping, and, uh, she's trying to keep up. Um, so, you know, good problem to have. But I think it, it speaks to the popularity, uh, for good reason as to- Yeah ... you know, people are leaning into events.

Chris Dunn: They're, they're making sure, um, you know, that they're participating. And I think the one thing that, in many cases, lacks, right? You can throw a bunch of money at it and do a bunch of events, but if you're not doing them well, it's just gonna be a bit of pissing, you know, pissing your money away. You're 

Alison French: not gonna, you're not gonna have a job.

Alison French: Like, let's, like, in complete transparency- Right ... like, marketers are the first to go in the land of AI. It's like, you want some job security? Tie it to revenue. Like, anyone that's bringing revenue into an organization, generally speaking, is not [00:47:00] on the cutting block. 

Dana Esposito: True story. 

Chris Dunn: Like 

Alison French: the new college grads, focus on anything that contributes to revenue.

Alison French: You want to be in marketing or communications? Tie it to revenue, then you're- 

Chris Dunn: Right. You are not a cost center. You are- Right. ... a revenue generation center. There you go. Lean into that piece for sure. All right. Um, what are some of the habits that, uh, and I know we've kind of talked about it, but building habits that kind of improve ROI over time, and I know we've just kind of talked about stringing the shows together.

Chris Dunn: But are there... I, I would imagine as, as a seller, right, and if I'm gonna be doing three or four or five shows a year, once I do the first one and I start seeing the results, I'm like, "All right, so I'm, I'm not just going here to, you know, go out at night and party, uh, and come in and sit through this process and be semi-hungover and slightly, you know, ineffective."

Chris Dunn: I start seeing some results. Yeah. I realize that that can put money in my pocket and revenue into the company, and everybody seems to be in a way better mood when we're having really good shows. I, I'm guessing that those [00:48:00] learnings probably build upon themselves as they go forward. Are you seeing that with companies who are, who are- Yeah

Chris Dunn: developing consistencies? 

Alison French: Well, and what I see the problem that comes out is it's so successful they bring new people in, and that single seller who just had their own formula and was doing it well isn't a repeatable process. Mm-hmm. So the companies that are winning are the ones who are treating it as like a true channel.

Alison French: Like, if I'm sending someone, I'm gonna train them. Like, I'm gonna make sure whoever's working the booth actually understands how to get them to that action that we're looking for to be accomplished. And then I'm gonna make sure all the data is in our CRM because people come and go, but if the company owns the data and we have it kind of an SOP around how we're storing data, and that is onbo- any new marketing person that comes in, 'cause in a dream state events are working so well, you have a sales enablement person and their job is to do kind of what I'm doing.

Alison French: It's like you've had such success that they are now helping the team manage the outreach and doing everything. But you need [00:49:00] to recognize events are their own channel. A great phone seller might not do great in the booth. Like, sending your junior marketing person to represent your company and man your booth, so to speak, might not be your best idea if they don't know how to do it.

Alison French: So I think that's the habits people need to think about if, when they start to see success, is what is it that's successful, and can we rinse and repeat that by creating some processes and systems to really get the right things in place? Because I think we've all seen the people manning a booth who have zero idea how to have a sales conversation, and they're just, just there to scan a badge.

Chris Dunn: Yeah, 100%. W- we've, we've had a couple of other episodes where we've been talking to folks who, um, kind of head up and, and really kind of banging the drum on that, uh, on that idea of properly training your people- Yeah ... uh, and not leaving it to chance. And not just assuming that the right people to send are, are salespeople, um, or any salesperson is fine.

Chris Dunn: You know, you gotta find the person that kind of [00:50:00] thrives in that environment. Um, maybe you have a mix of technical people, you have a, a mix of customer success people, you have a mix of introverts and extroverts, and you find that a well kind of rounded team, manning the booth, is much more su- you know, successful than just all the, you know, totally outgoing salespeople who are running from the exhibit hall to, to the bar, to the next event, to the next event, and they're focused on maybe more face-to-face and less of the, the process and the follow-through.

Chris Dunn: Not that I'm speaking- Yeah. It 

Alison French: really- ... 

Chris Dunn: as my- as myself as an example on that. 

Alison French: Well, but you run... I've- the way I've seen you interact, you come more of, like, the founder-led sales energy, and I think that's something that's I haven't quite figured out how to communicate that to clients. But I'm always, when I'm working with these companies that are trying to get to series A, I'm like, "Y- you just need the founder at the booth.

Alison French: Like, you kind of just have to suck it up whether you want to or not." Like, no one can tell the story better than a founder. Mm-hmm. And so how does a company scale that as well? That's really [00:51:00] hard, 'cause the founder can hear the problem that the person is talking about and instantly know how to shift the product to speak to that.

Alison French: But a junior seller just knows their bullets, and so that's the part that people- Right ... have to work really carefully, and you have to think about that in the what action do you want them to take at the booth. You have to think about that. Because if you don't have someone who can connect problem to solution, you just need to make sure the next action is, "Would you like to get on a call with my founder?

Alison French: He would love to have a conversation with you about this." And that is the measure of success for the booth. 

Chris Dunn: Yeah. That's great to identify that particular piece, um, and, and looking for opportunities to, to create a sustainable and duplicatable process that really anybody can kind of follow. You know, Dana, on, on your end, um, I, I do love the fact that we also not only do we design exhibits, but we also participate in the sales process and going to, you know, going in an exhibitor.

Chris Dunn: It helps us to put on our clients' shoes, feel their pain, understand where they're coming [00:52:00] from. We learn a lot when we do it. Um, and Dana, on your end, you are, you know, as someone who heads up our design department, um, you're intricately involved in, you know, designing the booth, but also, like, you become kind of that booth mom as well when we're there, like making sure that the, the, the team that is gonna go represent us is well-trained and we understand the story of what is it that we're trying to tell?

Chris Dunn: What are our goals here on site? Um, so it's, I, I think it just speaks to how well-rounded of a, of a, you know, leader you are in our industry that you're able to do all of those different things along the way. And then the benefit for our clientele is the fact that when we're sitting there talking to them, we fully understand where, where their pain points can be.

Chris Dunn: Um, we don't yet understand exactly what, what they're going for and, and maybe exactly what they're trying to do, and it kind of yields, um, great questions and, and things of that nature that come from, um, the creative group. They understand those. 

Dana Esposito: Thank you for saying that. Um, one [00:53:00] thing I've found useful over the past three decades other than I listen a lot to everything, even things that are not design, you wouldn't think are design related because they do all connect together.

Dana Esposito: But another thing that I've, um, started to do over the past decade is interviewing the end user. Mm-hmm. So I've interviewed clients, I've interviewed a lot of trade show and event managers. I've, um, uh, in different, uh, in different, at different shows. Um, you know, the, uh, the easy one is Exhibitor Live because I'm very involved with that, that crowd, so to speak.

Dana Esposito: Um, but even like procurement officers, you know, um, I've, I've reached out and just said, "You know, we've met before. Can I ask you a bunch of questions?" Mm. "Because we're going to a show that's got procurement officers. Can you mind? You know, I really enjoyed talking to you. Can I ask you some more questions?"

Dana Esposito: And who's- Yeah ... not going to want someone to ask them about their expertise and their [00:54:00] opinion, right? So what, and I'm an introvert by nature, so what started off as feeling like extremely uncomfortable ended up being a really good thing both for the companies that I work for and also even myself. Um- Yeah

Dana Esposito: and it is also even a relationship building tool, although that's not why I use it. I use it more to collect data to have a more strategic design solution, um, that's not just the structure. So 

Chris Dunn: There you go 

Dana Esposito: There you go 

Chris Dunn: And there you go. Fantastic. So we are nearing the end of our show here at the, The Old Toolbox.

Chris Dunn: We try to wrap it up within about an hour or so. So Alison, this has been a wonderful conversation. I think- Thank you for the opportunity ... one of our most, yeah, one of our most actionable pieces, uh, or episodes where people can really kind of follow along and listen and, and take notes and then incorporate those things.

Chris Dunn: So, um, a couple of things. If we could circle back and have you kind of look at the big picture of the conversation we've just had, but also understand [00:55:00] where a lot of people's pain points are, are there one or two things, like kind of real gold nugget type of things, that you can leave with our listeners or our viewers, um, that they, they could, you know, hear and really implement right off the bat?

Chris Dunn: Yes. 

Alison French: What would you want to say? The first one is an easy one for me, it's a no-brainer. It's just do not commit to a show until you have a visibility on how that show is gonna help you connect with your audience. Um- Okay ... there's brain date, there's a w- lot of different ways, there's show apps, but just make sure the show you're investing your dollars in is going to help you connect with your audience.

Alison French: I'm not saying they need to give you a list, I'm just saying that make sure you have some measure of, "I think I can connect with people who want to buy my product or service." So that would be the thing, lens from like a B2B perspective, is I would do that first. And then from a second perspective, I would really think as a marketer, like if I was a marketer and I'm trying to show ROI, but I don't own the sales process, really start looking at [00:56:00] projected revenue.

Alison French: And you can use some industry best practices, jump into ChatGPT, help, you know, ask what a lead to opportunity clo- and a opportunity to close rates are for your industry, and, like, start with an average. If you can't, ask a friend that's a seller and be like, "Hey, how many, you know, opportunities are you typically closing?"

Alison French: Like, try to get those two numbers. So you wanna go from your lead to your opportunity pipeline. So you want that conversion rate, you want your opportunity to close conversion rate, and then you want your projected revenue, which is look at your average order value, lifetime c- value, whatever it is for your organization, give that to leadership as you're walking out of your show, because that's what you have contributed to the organization, and that's a number that's gonna make you look good, it's gonna make the show look good, and it's gonna really shine a light on the effort that you put into it 

Chris Dunn: Wow, that's perfect.

Chris Dunn: Perfect. You know, we're always kind of, we, we tell our clients straight up, we're like, "We wanna make you look like rock stars." Yeah, totally. And absolutely what you're, what you're bringing to the table is a, is a, is a key [00:57:00] component of that. Um, so those are two great recommendations. Thank you for, uh, dropping those in.

Chris Dunn: And let's just close with this. Um, if people wanna get ahold of Allison French and, uh, get, get more of, uh, of LTO in their lives, where can they find you, and what's the best way to reach you? Yep. 

Alison French: Yep, LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn. I think I'm /frenchallison, so please message me there, or our website is joinlto.com.

Alison French: I'm happy to have a conversation if anyone that's looking to figure out how to grow revenue at events. 

Chris Dunn: Fantastic. Well, that's a great way to wrap it up. Uh, thank you so much- Yeah, thank you ... uh, for spending some time on the toolbox with us. Dana, as always, I appreciate you, and the queen bee who's watching you there over your, over your shoulder.

Chris Dunn: Yeah. Um, there she is right there. All good, and, uh- I always feel like we're being watched. For everybody out there in the event world, thank you very much for, uh, for participating, for being part of the episode. I hope you get a lot from it. Reach out to Allison, um, and, uh, and hopefully we've given you some tools to move your program [00:58:00] forward.

Chris Dunn: So thank you very much. Cheers to everybody. Happy eventing out there. Take care, everybody. Bye-bye