Sales Executive - Exhibition Sales

Exhibitions are dynamic and therefore all those involved in their organisation need to adapt to varying situations.The role can be divided in sections, but not limited to the following description.

Stand Sales; Exhibitor Relationships; Organising

Stand Sales

It is essential that the Exhibition Sales Executive is aware of the ways in which space is sold and allocated in an exhibition and the techniques required to bring that about. Space is often sold and allocated in the following manners:

Application for Space: An application form will be received specifying the stands of interest to an exhibitor. If available, the space can be allocated and the booking procedure put into action.

Sales Enquiry: On occasions, a potential exhibitor will call to discuss various matters relating to the exhibition and may offer buying signals that will permit the Exhibition Sales Executive to achieve a provisional booking. Once achieved the booking procedure can be put into action.

Sales Call:Potential exhibitors will enquire about the exhibition and directly about the availability of space. Regular contact may subsequently be required to encourage the potential exhibitor to reserve space. Once achieved the booking procedure can be put into action.

Cold Calling: Contact and dialogue with the exhibitor and potential exhibitor profile and monitoring of the related media will identify potential exhibitors previously unknown to the Organisers. It is the role of the Exhibition Sales Executive to cold call any potential exhibitor identified to discover the right contact then to engage in an exchange of information and dialogue that will ultimately lead to a booking.

To make proper arrangements to sell exhibition space, including the preparation of promotional material and publicising the event to potential exhibitors. This is to include:

Development and maintenance of a bespoke potential exhibitor list to include full contact details of each company on the list to include the following contact details as follows
contact name, company, address, telephone, facsimile, email.
Preparation of a sales plan to meet the target sales of exhibition space.
Preparation and circulation of printed documentation to promote the event to potential exhibitors and to maximise the targeted sale of exhibition space.
Preparation of ground and elevation plans of the exhibition area necessary to sell exhibition space and to arrange for the erection and dismantling of stands or temporary structures.
Instigation and maintenance of a telesales campaign to encourage participation in the exhibition.
Proper administration of all exhibition space sold to include:
The issue of all provisional booking confirmations with details of space reserved and maintenance of provisional booking terms to include contract chasing as appropriate.
Processing of all contracts returned to include contract confirmation and the issue of invoices as set by the Terms and Conditions of Participation.
Monitoring of payments against contract terms and chase as appropriate. The Exhibition Sales Executive may be required to contribute to this procedure in the instance that payment is difficult to receive.
General Promotional Activities

It is the role of the Exhibition Sales Executive to be involved in many aspects relation to the successful organising of exhibitions. This will include contribution to promotional material.

Direct mail is a useful tool in the dissemination of information to potential exhibitors. It is the responsibility of the Exhibition Sales Executive to ensure that the potential exhibitor list is kept up to date by regularly monitoring the market and ensuring that the list is cleaned as it is mailed.

Thereafter, regular mailings will ensure that the exhibition is maintained in the forefront of the exhibitor and potential exhibitor sectors of the market. Such mailings will encourage enquiries and requests for information about exhibiting. Sales will result from enquiries.

Exhibitor Relationships

Once a company has decided to exhibit it is the role of the Exhibition Sales Executive to actively become involved in the after sales activities. This is a very important part of the task that all member of the team also need to perform whenever there is contact with exhibitors.

However, the Exhibition Sales Executive (and Exhibition Director) has a very important role in relation to exhibitor contact as follows:

Regular contact with exhibitors can be used to identify information that will be valuable to the development of the visitor promotion campaign. This will include such important matters as the following:
The leading titles in the market for advertising purposes.

Key issues of interest to visitors that can contribute to the development of additional activities related to the event eg profiles, conference sessions, seminars, workshops, incentives, free gifts, etc.

Key market areas that include essential visitor profiles. This is very important make certain that the right visitor groups are approached.

Regular contact with exhibitors will identify their objectives for participation and may illustrate means that will permit actions offer mutual benefit such as exchange of services for mailing lists (eg shell scheme extras, meeting rooms, catalogue advertising, etc).
Regular contact will ensure that any exhibitor difficulty or dissatisfaction is identified at an early stage and can be dealt with before the matter escalates.
Regular contact also a means exhibitors can be informed of the services available to them so that they are encouraged to participate fully in the promotion and success of the event. Research consistently indicates that nearly 50% of the visitor profile attend via invitations received from exhibitors. Motivating the exhibitors therefore is a vital aspect of the Organisers role.
Regular contact with exhibitors will identify information of significant importance to the future development of the event. This will include information as location, timing, venue, etc.
Organising

The Exhibition Sales Executive has the majority of the contact with the exhibitors. This means that there will be regular questions regarding the organisation of the event eg promotional schedule, venue facilities, related services (eg catalogue, shell scheme contractor, freight forwarder, etc).

Negotiable basic salary and open ended commission structure.

This role comes with good career prospects. It should be noted that my client has a low staff turnover.