By Megan Beattie

I have spent nearly 20 years in this business, coaching and training and teaching lead generation processes. There are number of factors that lead to either success or failure when it comes to generating leads. But most companies are a little baffled when I reveal the most important things involved in succeeding with lead generation at home and garden shows.

Why are they baffled? Because they normally are under the impression that the secret is in specific displays, or company schwag, or beautifully designed literature. And while all those things are important, it isn’t the secret sauce to seeing a real return on your investment at home shows or even just events programs in general. You can have all those things, but still walk away with a volume of leads that leaves something to be desired: MORE!

So, what is the secret sauce? What is the secret that those succeeding with home shows seem to do effortlessly? There are two words: People and Process.

I was recently coaching a basement and exteriors company out of the Chicago area, and we had a new leader who was going to be executing a home show for the first time. She attended one of our 90-minute group training events we conduct virtually. During that training, I made everyone aware that “Very few other companies will be executing this strategy you are learning. Do not be surprised if what you are doing looks different than what 90% of all home show booths are doing.”

This leader met with me the following week after the home show and she said “Wow, you weren’t kidding. Everyone else was sitting in chairs, behind a table, and most were just looking at their phones the whole time.” A tale as old as time. I know this is the reality of the shows we work, in fact I have an entire folder filled with pictures my clients send me, of this exact same scenario where event workers are avoiding eye contact with customers at all costs. And believe me when I say, it doesn’t matter how many pretty displays you have, if your team works the show in this same manner. Now, this leader I trained walked away with 24 leads on paper, by herself, at her very first show in January. She also made me aware of all the other companies that approached her and tried to offer her a job. When they saw her executing and delivering results, everyone wanted her to come and work for their company.

Where my passion comes from, is that behind all of those booths where the event marketers were doing next to nothing, is an owner who paid for those booth spaces and heard a story for lackluster performance that sounded like this: “The show was really slow this year. Foot traffic was down. Must have been the weather. Maybe shows and events just don’t work for us.” I hate to be the bearer of bad news, (well, actually I’m a consultant so being the bearer of bad news is kind of what I do, but the good news is, I usually have a solution for the bad news) but it wasn’t the SHOW that didn’t work. It was your TEAM that didn’t work!

The same way we have a process for selling a tub or shower in the home, we must have a process for lead generation. The same way we teach our installers, that there is a right way and a wrong way for installation, we must teach our events team the same thing. The best companies with the highest ROI at shows and events have an entire team of Lead Generators and their entire jobs are to generate as many qualified leads as possible. They don’t have sales reps or installers working the

booth. They have professional conversationalists whose entire job is to sell appointments. Yes, the appointments are free, but they do cost a customer something: their time. And time is a commodity in 2025, that most consumers don’t want to part with. They certainly aren’t going to walk up to us at the event, ask if they can be our customer, and proceed to write the appointment themselves.

So how do we develop the team? We hire outgoing individuals, who enjoy talking to people, but have enough backbone to approach strangers without it destroying them if someone says no. We are looking for people who want to develop the skill of being able to approach people and learn to be persuasive without being pushy. I have found a ton of success when I have hired people who are honest, hungry, humble, and hone able. Competitive nature is great, and they must have a will and drive to be better than they were yesterday. Athletes or former athletes do well. They understand training, and most want to win! We also need individuals who are willing to work a schedule of odd hours because many trade shows are taking place on weekends. Because of this, we have seen the most common demographic that fits all the characteristics being college students. Especially those majoring in marketing, sales, business, or communications. The skillset they will learn from us will be valuable to them whether they are with us for a reason or a season. Most importantly, we have to get everyone excited and bought in our company mission. We help people age in place, we help people upgrade their largest investment, and most importantly we save potential customers from choosing an unskilled laborer who may not take care of their home the way we would.

In terms of our process, we must have a way that we do things that is effective in generating leads from homeowners that have a future bath project on the to-do list. We break this down into 7 steps.

The first step that is the most crucial, is the engagement step. Where we approach and start conversations with people walking by our booth. As we have a variety of methods including word tracks, fun games, as well as prize giveaways where we can shepherd the potential customer into the booth, without it feeling like pressure. Once that takes place, we can begin the process of isolating to a project we offer that they may look into. That conversation should naturally flow into what is ailing the potential client, or the pain points if you will, around their current bathroom in their home. Once they have shared with us that they do have some serious concerns about the look, safety, or condition of their current bathroom, we simply state that it sounds like this is something they are going to be looking into sooner rather than later. The way we execute this process becomes such a natural conversation, the customer doesn’t at all feel pushed, as we are simply sharing that since they told us they have a problem, and we happen to have a solution, we would kind of be a jerk NOT to tell them about it. Now it’s time to share what we can do for them when we come over the give an estimate. This can include sharing details on what we find during a bathroom inspection, providing color and style options, and of course leaving them with a price. We then schedule an appointment within the next 48 hours. The customer should be going home with a couple of tangible items that remind them of the appointment, and some literature they can share with their spouse. This gets them prepared for the appointment.

This exact process was the key to my success while I ran a 300 events per year, event program at a large remodeler in West Michigan. I was able to grow the lead generation from 1.7 million to 8 million utilizing this process. Those numbers happened between events and a Call Center following up on the event leads later. If you want to execute strategies that will produce revenue, people and process are a MUST! Feel free to reach out to me at: megan@tonyhoty.com if you have questions! For free weekly tips, we are happy to get you on our email list as well.