Build an Exhibitor Sales Pipeline

An exhibitor sales pipeline is a list of all potential exhibiting companies that may contract for booth space at your event. These records are stored as Exhibitors. Exhibitor records are extensions of your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) records for that specific event. The Exhibitor records allow you to store all the information about a company for a specific event and booth.

Building up your sales pipeline means creating Exhibitor records on the event and assigning someone as the exhibitor salesperson. You also need to make sure you are using the sales opportunity fields on the exhibitor, such as: Sales Stage, Expected Revenue Amount, Win Probability, Probable Amount, Expected Close.  Those fields are used to report on your sales pipeline. 

• Sales Stage – Where the exhibitor is in your sales process. 
• Expected Revenue Amount – Revenue amount you expect when the sales is closed.
• Win Probability – Estimated percentage between 0 and 100 that represents how confident the salesperson is about the sale closing. 
• Probable Amount – Expected Revenue Amount multiplied by the Win Probability. This is used for an estimate of your forecasted revenue for reporting.
• Expected Close - Date when the salesperson expects to close the sale.

Once all the information is entered, these roll up on the Exhibitors list, showing you where you are in reaching your sales goals. You can also see where you are compared to other salespeople in your organization. 

You can also chart this same information:

You can also create a KPI for the total sales pipeline:

Now that you have an overview of the Exhibitor sales pipeline, let's look at how you can create it. There are several ways that you can create it:

• Copy Active Exhibitors When Copying the Event
• Create Exhibitors From Previous Events
• Create Exhibitors From an Accounts List
• Create Exhibitors From Campaign Results
• Add Exhibitors One at at Time
• Exhibitors Add Themselves from the Exhibitor Portal

Copy Active Exhibitors When Copying the Event

Copying active exhibitors when copying an event is usually the best way to start creating your pipeline with the highest qualified leads since they exhibited at the previous event.  

On the Copy Event screen, you need to expand the Exhibitor Options to choose the exhibitor information you want to copy to the new event. If any of the below options are not on your screen, you may need to add them to your screen layout. For more information about copying events, see Copy an Event. 

• Include Exhibitors - If checked, exhibitors matching the selected exhibitor status are copied to the new event. To copy all exhibitors, select *ALL.
• New Exhibitor Status - Status for the exhibitors on the new event.
• Exhibitor Booth Preferences - If checked, the exhibitor's booth preferences for the event are copied to the new event.
• Exhibitor Catalog Profile - If checked, the exhibitor catalog profile is copied to the new event.
• Exhibitor Products/Services - If checked, the products and services for each exhibitor are copied to the new event.
• Exhibitor Categories - If checked, the exhibitor categories are copied to the new event.
• User Defined Fields - If checked, the user defined fields for the exhibitor are copied to the new event.
• Exhibitor Notes - If checked, notes for the exhibitor with note classes matching the selected note class are copied to the new event. To copy all notes, select *ALL.
• Exhibitor Documents - If checked, documents for the exhibitor are copied to the new event.
• Exhibitor Activities - If checked, activities for the exhibitor are copied to the new event.
• Exhibitor Last Event Data - If checked, the exhibitor's booth information is copied into the Last Events field on the new event. Includes booth number, length, width, open sides, and area.

Create Exhibitors From Previous Events

When you want to bring in exhibitors from several past events, you can create exhibitors from previous events. You can also use this if you forgot to copy the exhibitors during the Copy Event process. To create exhibitors from previous events:

1. Click the Events link from the Main Menu. The Events screen opens.
2. Select the event to add the exhibitors to.
3. Right-click and select Tools -> Exhibitors -> Create Exhibitors. The Create Exhibitors screen opens. For details on each available field, see Create Exhibitors From Other Events.
4. Click OK. 

Create Exhibitors From an Accounts List

You can filter your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) accounts and then add the accounts to an event as exhibitors. You can also import a list of accounts, select those accounts on the Accounts screen and add those accounts as exhibitors. 

1. Click the Accounts link from the Main Menu. The Account screen opens.
2. Filter the screen to the desired accounts.
3. Select the accounts to add as exhibitors to the event. Use Ctrl+Click or Shift+Click to select multiple accounts.
4. Right-click and select Add -> Add Exhibitors. The Add Exhibitors screen opens. For details on each available field, see Create Exhibitors From the Accounts Screen.
5. Click OK.

Create Exhibitors From Campaign Results

If you use campaigns, you can use them to create exhibitors in an event. The process is similar to creating exhibitors from an Accounts list except you perform it from the Campaign Results screen.

1. Click the Campaigns link from the Main Menu. The Campaigns screen opens.
2. Select the campaign that contains the accounts you want to copy to the event.
3. Right-click and select View -> Results. The Campaign Results screen opens.
4. Select the accounts to add to the event. Use Ctrl+Click or Shift+Click to select multiple accounts.
5. Right-click and select Add -> Add Exhibitors. The Add Exhibitors screen opens. For details on each available field, see Create Exhibitors From Campaigns.
6. After selecting your preferred options, click OK.

Add Exhibitors One at a Time

If you need to add an exhibitor for a specific account, you can add an exhibitor one at a time. You can add new exhibitors from different places depending on what screen you are on:

• From the Accounts screen, right-click and select Add -> Events -> Add Exhibitor.
• Click the arrow next to the Exhibitors button on the Global Navigation Bar and select Add Exhibitor.
• From the Event screen or Edit Event screen, select the Exhibitors tab and click the Add button.
• If you have an event gadget configured on your dashboard, right-click and select Add -> Add Exhibitor.

See Add Exhibitors for details on the available fields on the Add Exhibitor screen.

Exhibitors Add Themselves from the Exhibitor Portal

One of the easiest ways to add exhibitors is to allow your exhibitors to add themselves. You can do this by opening up your Exhibitor Portal to allow exhibitors to sign in or sign up and add themselves to the event. You can set up a simple application task that only new or unknown exhibitors can see and then set up a more complex application or contract task for your known exhibitors.