I spent a day at a packaging expo and trade show, walking the stands. I wasn’t there to buy anything. I was there to watch how suppliers sell when, for once, they don’t have to chase anyone: the customer walks up to them, willing and ready.
For nearly two decades I was a procurement professional. I bought cellulose fibres, chemicals, packaging, oils and services for some of the largest FMCG companies in the world, and I attended shows exactly like this one to size up suppliers and decide which ones were worth my time. I have been the customer your stand is built to win. So I know what that stand is worth to a sales team. It is the one environment where you don’t cold-call, don’t beg for a meeting, don’t wait by the phone. Every person who stops at your stand chose to be there, and the aisles are full of exactly the buyers you dream of meeting. On paper, the richest sales opportunity you will get all year.
As a buyer, I often left disappointed back in the day. And when I walked those aisles the other day, I left disappointed again, because almost every stand still makes the same mistake.
They were all selling their product.
Shiny displays. Customer logos printed large. Gimmicky innovation showcases. Flashy samples laid out to be admired. Everything engineered to make a buyer stop and say “impressive.” It felt less like a B2B conversation and more like a B2C marketplace: attribute-led, attention-seeking, entirely about the thing being sold. What I never once saw was a stand telling me how it would make its customers more successful.
And when I stopped, the conversation ran on rails:
“Hello, who do you work for? Ah, nice to meet you. Let me show you our newest range. Can I take your details? Let’s stay in touch.”
Next buyer, rinse and repeat.
That exchange does not make a buyer remember you. It makes you one more provider of a slightly different version of whatever is on the next stand along. It is a wasted opportunity for you, and wasted time for me.
Because here is what the buyer is actually doing while your rep runs the script. They are qualifying you. They are asking one question: could this supplier meet my KPIs and make me successful? Showing your latest innovation matters, and it proves you can build things. But for the procurement professional standing in front of you, two other things matter more, that no one raises.
Will your supply chain hold?
Buyers do not lose their jobs over the price they pay, or over how innovative you are. They lose them over supply. Right product, right quantity, right quality, on time — that is the number one thing a buyer is measured on, and the thing that keeps them awake at night.
Tell your customer before they even ask what you will do to secure supply at all time. What are the steps that you will take to always have enough product, in spec, in quality even when an issue occurs.
When I was buying, my favourite question for a new supplier was blunt: what happens if a plane crashes into your factory tomorrow? Most answered, “We would get back up and running as fast as we could.” Wrong answer. I wanted the buffer stock, the alternative site that needs nothing from me to switch on, the name of the person who calls me in the first hour.
So at your stand, don’t wait for the buyer to ask, because they won’t. They will not bring up airplanes and disaster plans. What they need is reassurance. Walk them through exactly how you keep supply running when something breaks.
Fear of missing out.
The second fear is not that you are too expensive, or that you lack innovation. It is that by potentially committing to you, the buyer will miss something better in the market. At a trade show, that fear peaks. I am overwhelmed by the many options that I am presented with, and you expect me to sort them, rank them, and remember you from a five-minute conversation and the pen you handed me.
So address the fear, and you will be remembered. Talk about your competition. Not badly. Tell the buyer what your rivals at the stand next door genuinely do better than you, and what you are doing about it. This makes me listen and helps me structure my thoughts. Once you have shown you are not complacent about the market around you, then — and only then — tell them what you are truly best at. Everyone at a trade show talks about their strengths, but no one puts them into context. Do it and stand out.
A buyer does not walk your stand to learn what you sell. They walk it to find out whether you understand them.
Trade shows are very powerful in B2B. Buyers and sellers, in person, ready to do business. But a wall of product samples asks the buyer to do all the work of imagining how you fit their world. The suppliers who win next season will be the ones who did that thinking first, who spent a few minutes proving they understood the buyer’s business and their anxieties about supply and alternatives.
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That shift, from selling your shiny product to selling sustainable success that your customer is after, is what we teach at FIVIS. If you want to go deeper, or you’d like us to cast a buyer’s eye over your stand before the next show, get in touch.
