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Creating a Sales Energized Trade Show Plan – post 4 – Prioritization
2 min read
Another key task in setting mutual goals is to prioritize. This is always difficult since lots of folks will have their own agendas and it will be up to you and your boss to clearly weed thru all the suggestions and clearly prioritize the show objectives.
Categorizing into the groups shown below is a useful way to manage the prioritization process and can help make it clear which goals, while important, may not be a fit for a particular show. It’s also important to do this as part of your annual trade show plan since that will allow you to properly align goals with shows, rather than trying to stuff everything into any one particular show.
Long versus short term. You want a balance here. As an example, branding falls more into a long term goal and is very important, but you also want to support some short term goals – such as meeting quarterly sales objectives, or launching a new product line
Corporate vs. divisional goals. One great way to manage this conflict is to agree up front in the annual plan which shows are focused more on corporate goals and which shows you’ll be able to focus on divisional goals. Then if there are complaints about “corporate controlling this particular show”, you can remind them that you will absolutely support their goals with XYZ show or shows.
Not only will goals likely vary by show, this is often a good thing as we’ve pointed out and as we already discussed, the annual plan helps greatly with alignment and can serve as your tie-braker if and when any tensions arise over priority setting.