Make Friends With Your Market

Applying a favorite framework to trade shows and conferences

It’s springtime. Which means it’s officially conference season.

I spent this past weekend manning a booth in Detroit with one of our portfolio companies. And during the show, I noticed a consistent pattern of behavior that I see way too often at events like these:

Salespeople sitting behind their table, checking their phones… just waiting.

Not scanning the room. Not noticing the person who slowed down for a half-second to look at their booth. Not making eye contact with the passersby who leaned in and considered their brochure or table or signage.

Just sitting there waiting for the next hot lead to walk up, introduce themselves, and elbow their way into their pipeline.

Those people are missing something important.

They’re missing an opportunity to make friends with their market.

What Does It Mean To “Make Friends With Your Market?”

“Make friends with your market” is one of those powerful principles that has all kinds of applications.

At its most basic level, it’s about recognizing that sales and marketing and anything that gets and keeps customers is mostly about human relationships: Creating them, keeping them healthy, and using the fact that they matter to guide your behavior and strategy and in-the-moment choices re: how you do your work.

An illustrative LinkedIn post below:

The connections with the people who might eventually buy something from you don’t just happen. Nobody is going to randomly wander into a relationship with you or your company. You have to build that relationship intentionally, one small, proactive, thoughtful interaction at a time.

Too many sellers and marketers ignore this principle. They assume their prospects already know they exist. They assume some invisible relationship is developing in the background without anyone tending to it. They assume that simply by showing up and logging in, they are magnetically attracting attention and demand and dollars their way.

Spoiler: That is not how it works.

Forget about work for a second. We’re talking life now. What does it take to make friends? Mostly, it takes proactive effort. Think about what good friends actually do. They remember things about you. They send you stuff they saw that made them think of you. They check in without needing a reason. They don’t wait for you to reach out first. None of this is elaborate. It’s just consistent, low-key proof that sends a signal: You matter to me, and I’m paying attention.

It’s no different with work. The sellers and marketers who are easiest to buy from aren’t necessarily the ones with the best product or the slickest deck. They’re the ones who manage the balance in the relationship piggy-bank. They’re the ones who send you relevant stuff, who remember the thing you mentioned three months ago, who make you feel like a person and not a pipeline opportunity.

They’re easy to buy from, because you already know them, like them, and trust them. Not because of a single action, but because of the accumulation of all those little signals.

The reason I’m connecting this concept with trade shows and conferences is this: Trade shows and conferences are a hyper-concentrated opportunity to make friends with your market.

In the span of two or three days, you’re surrounded by more of the right people than you’ll encounter in a normal month of blindly firing off outbound sequences and LinkedIn DMs. And it’s not just about potential customers. It’s also about everyone else playing the same game you are: the vendors in the booths next to you, the competitors across the aisle, and the whole entire ecosystem of people who live and work in your market every day.

The more you know and connect with those people, the better you understand the market. And the better you understand the market, the easier everything gets.

Here’s my thoughts on how to make the most of that opportunity at your next event.

How to Make Friends With Your Market: The Trade Show + Conference Playbook

Look For Openings

Here’s what manning a booth looks like when you’re doing it wrong: you’re standing behind the table, arms crossed, waiting for someone to walk up and announce themselves as a lead. Maybe you’re checking your phone. Maybe you’re chatting with your colleague. Either way, you’re missing all the little opportunities happening five feet in front of you.

Here’s what it looks like when you’re doing it right: you’re not just watching the room, you’re paying attention to it. You notice the guy who slowed down for half a second to read your banner before moving on. You catch the person who made eye contact, held it a beat, and then looked away. You see the person who thought about picking up your brochure, but then hesitated.

Those are openings.

And what do you do with those openings? You create an invitation.

An invitation doesn’t mean a rehearsed opener or a mini sales pitch. It’s just a hello:

“Come and talk to us if you want.”

Some people will. Some won’t. That’s fine. The point is you noticed, you put yourself out there, and you made it easy for someone who was even a little curious to engage.

Every one of those hellos is a potential connection. Stack enough of them up and you’ve got a very different return on that expensive booth of yours — and a much more interesting two days.

Meet Your Neighbors

Here’s what most people do with the vendors next to them at a trade show: nothing. They set up their booth, they face forward, and they treat the people eighteen inches to their left and right like furniture. Polite nods if eye contact happens. Otherwise, strangers.

Which is a waste. Those people are away from their families, staying at the same hotel, doing the exact same thing you are. They know your market. They talk to your customers. They have relationships you don’t have and problems you might be able to solve — or vice versa. You just don’t know any of that yet because you never said hello.

So here’s my strategic recommendation: Say hello.

This past weekend, we spent 20 minutes talking to the software company next to us and walked away with a potential future intro into a customer segment we hadn’t even considered before. That doesn’t happen if we treat those people like strangers.

Yes, you’re there at the booth to meet customers. But you’re also there to create the surface area for luck. The people to the left and right of your booth are the easiest place to start to help make that happen.

Get To Know Your Competitors

Here’s what most salespeople do when they spot a competitor’s booth at a trade show: they avoid it.

This is a mistake. At every conference, you should try and meet at least a couple people from competitors.

These people are playing the same game as you. They understand your market, your buyers, and your problems better maybe even better than you do. They can teach you something.

Jason Lemkin said it plainly in a recent post: there are very few downsides to knowing your competitors. So get to know a few. They’re just people (like you).

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Final Thoughts

It’s a lot more fun selling to friends.

So, at your next conference, trade show, or event, try a few of these techniques and go make some.

You’ll be glad you did.

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Email me at paul@hellooperator.com. I’d love to hear from you.