Event Revenue Challenges: Sales Problem or Product Issue?

I’ve been leading our exhibit sponsorship and advertising sales team for the past decade, and I’ve seen sales success. I know the formula that works, and there is much more to it than the single ingredient that is the individual salesperson. Don’t get me wrong, smart, driven, strategic, consultative salespeople are an essential piece to driving revenue growth. Far too often though, organizers don’t understand the rest of the equation.

We we are fortunate to have a talented team with diverse skillets. Our event strategists and experience designers have been studying events longer than I have been responsible for selling them. They are essentially product developers, with events being the product. One thing I’ve learned from these truly brilliant colleagues in our expanded and integrated capacity is that the research, data, and insights they deliver are essential to sales success because they ensure the buying audience is there for the exhibitors and sponsors to access. When the quality and quantity of prospective clients hit critical mass, the sales team is happy. Every salesperson wants to sell the best product on the market – a product that “sells itself.” Our event strategy team helps create these kinds of event products.

The event experience is a precursor to the success of your selling. Event attendance and organizational growth contribute significantly to the sales success. In the last three years, marketing budgets have become tight. Your partners have many more choices on where to spend their marketing dollars to find sales. Within your industry your partners all talk to each other, and when your event is in poor shape or declining your best sales people will be challenged. They might be awesome at closing business, but each year the show declines, retention the following year declines and that means sales must find incrementally more new business each year which is a heavier lift than the renewal business. We are fortunate to have the ability to assess and create a vision for what your event should look like, identify what needs to change to turn around your attendance decline, and ultimately how to optimize the attendee experience. Our strategists call this “audience-centric event design.” Uncovering the value your attendees expect, delivering it at the event, and extending that value into a year-round value proposition opens up a dialog with the sales team on how to position and engage partners in the new and improved event and year round value delivery.

I have seen organizations swap out sales teams with the hope of revitalizing the sales numbers. The rationale is varied. If it truly is a sales problem and the swap eliminates complacency and lack of discipline, you will almost surely see a boost in your revenue. But I recommend reading between the lines in your post event surveys, listen to the street, and listen to your partners. The issue could be a product problem more than a sales problem.