Many exhibitors face a disconnect – the marketing team works hard to design an engaging and interactive exhibit that attracts crowds, but the sales team feels it’s not delivering the right type of leads.
How can you bridge that divide?
Teresa Lopez has a lot of experience getting both of these teams working together. In this episode, she shares some of her favorite strategies for how to:
- Get sales to see you (the marketing or exhibit manager) as part of their team
- Find the overlap to create the right in-booth talking points
- Design booth activations and experiences that are relevant
- Use lead gathering methods that streamline follow-up
Related links:
- Connect with Teresa on LinkedIn (let her know you discovered her on Trade Show Insights!)
- Teresa’s website, Pivot Events
- The Challenge of Using Salespeople as Booth Staff (previous TSI post)
About Teresa Lopez

Teresa Lopez is an events expert with a proven track record producing impactful events across diverse industries. She’s known for creating, managing, and executing events that strategically align with sales and marketing objectives. She’s worked for global corporations, B2B tech startups, and now recently launched her own event marketing and corporate event planning business, Pivot Events.
Her ‘secret sauce’ is a combination of her creativity to build a strong event design, strict project planning tactics to ensure logistics plans are executed flawlessly, and a keen eye for reducing waste in both process and expenses.
Above all, Teresa has a passion for the attendee experience – whether it’s a trade show booth or an incentive trip – her goal is for every person who attends your event to walk away excited about your company, your product, and/or your mission.
[00:00:00.500] - Marlys Arnold
You're listening to The Trade Show Insights podcast, Season 19, Episode 9. I'm your host, and Exhibit Marketing Strategist, Marlys Arnold, bringing you tools to improve your Exhibit results. On today's episode, brought to you by the Exhibit Marketers Cafe, we're talking about how to get sales and marketing working together to accomplish your trade show goals. Teresa Lopez is an events expert with a proven track record producing impactful events across diverse industries. She's known for creating, managing, and executing events that strategically aligned with sales and marketing objectives, which is key for today's discussion. She's worked for global corporations, B2B tech startups, and now recently launched her own event marketing and corporate event planning business called Pivot Events. Her secret sauce is a combination of her creativity to build a strong event design, strict project planning tactics to ensure logistics plans are executed flawlessly, and a keen eye for reducing waste in both process and expenses. Above all, Teresa has a passion for the attendee experience, whether it's a trade show booth or an incentive trip. Her goal is for every person who attends your event to walk away excited about your company, your product, and your mission.
[00:02:02.960] - Marlys Arnold
So welcome to Trade Show Insights, Teresa.
[00:02:06.060] - Teresa Lopez
Hello, and thank you for having me.
[00:02:09.040] - Marlys Arnold
Well, I really love how you have that framework of putting sales and marketing together to work together on the event, because I think too often, especially in the trade show world, it's oftentimes it's the marketing person or the marketing team that's in charge of getting the trade show booth together and getting it all there. But then it's sales that's doing the follow-up, and then there's this huge disconnect in between. Let's start there and talk about how can we go about building that relationship between sales and marketing? I know you've got some key strategies for that.
[00:02:46.370] - Teresa Lopez
I have to say that the very first key, and probably the biggest key, is to make sure that you are creating a strong bond with not just the sales leadership team, but also the AEs that you work with on a day-to-day basis or that you should be working with on a day-to-day basis, right? One of the things that I do is that I really try to embed myself with the sales teams as much as possible so that they consider me as part of the team and not someone within the organization, but very disconnected from them. And I typically like to be as much a part of the team as they allow me. Their daily stand-ups, their copy me in on the emails, their regular meetings and cadences, anything that they are at, I want to be at as well.
[00:03:36.600] - Marlys Arnold
Well, and I think that's a really good point, is getting them to see you as part of their sales team. So let's unpack that a little bit more of what are some of the things... So you said you want to stay in the loop communications-wise, but what are some of the things that you can do to draw some of that out of them? Because let's face it, some sales teams are probably a little more open to working with an outsider than others. So what could you do to build that relationship and make them feel more comfortable having you as part of their team?
[00:04:11.190] - Teresa Lopez
Use any sneaky tactic that you can find. And so anything that works.
[00:04:16.250] - Marlys Arnold
Well, not sneaky. Let's call it stealth. Yes, stealth mode.
[00:04:19.600] - Teresa Lopez
I love that. I love it. But for me, it's about building the relationship. So I have the pleasure that even when I'm working remotely, I be boots on the ground at some of the bigger events. And when that happens, I immediately jump on the opportunity to get to know people face to face, find out what they're working on, what their priorities are, what their challenges are. I spend a lot of my downtime really trying to learn about them if I haven't already had the opportunity to get to know that in other ways. So that's one of those stealth tactics. Another thing that I really try to think about is ways to learn the lingo in the language. I wouldn't have known even half of the things that they talk about if I wasn't looking into the acronym directory or working in HubSpot or any of their CRMs and their databases. So again, really just trying to get to their level of understanding and how can I make their lives easier?
[00:05:22.990] - Marlys Arnold
I think that's a really great way of looking at it is figuring out how you can be the person that helps make their life or their job easier. Because I think a lot of times sales is looking at it as marketing just loves to make my job harder. To be fair, a lot of times the marketing team or the the Exhibit strategy team, whoever it is that's in charge of the Exhibit itself, they don't necessarily keep in mind sales needs afterwards. They may be designing the Exhibit so that it just looks It's really cool, but it's not really driving the right leads. So what are some things that marketing can do? Or when we say marketing, we mean the trade show marketing, exhibiting staff. What can they do to make, to design that exhibit so that it is more in line with what sales is looking for?
[00:06:23.260] - Teresa Lopez
Before I even start thinking about a trade show booth or what I'm going to exhibit, I try to align to not just the marketing objectives, but again, also the sales objectives and figure out where that Venn diagram overlap exists, right? So if my company is for furniture, And I'm going to a trade show for computers, it's a mismatch, right? And even if, let's say, from a marketing objective, the future goal is to break into computers, for somebody who is in the AE, who is currently working on the furniture, this means nothing to them. This is ambitious stuff that doesn't get the job done. So I definitely just try to align those goals as much as possible and make sure that they understand the value behind the event that they're doing. And so that's one of the things that's really important to me as well. And I want to make sure that when I sign up for a trade show, that everybody knows that I did that and where we're going and why we're going and what's going to happen when we're there. But then also use those marketing tactics because we don't want to disregard the value of marketing either, right?
[00:07:32.510] - Teresa Lopez
So what are those talking points and how do we align that so that we're all talking the same language and off of the same playbook, as opposed to when you talk to person A, they'll focus on this, and person B will focus on that or not ask the right questions. So I also try to do a lot of sales enablement ahead of the show, making sure that we look and feel like one company at all times.
[00:07:56.610] - Marlys Arnold
Yeah, and that's really key because you are all all part of the same company, so you should all be working in the same direction. I like how you said aligning the talking points, because again, I think that's something that oftentimes, maybe the message that's happening in the booth or the pre-show marketing that you're doing or whatever is not in line with what sales is wanting to communicate or to get out of it in the end result. So it might be, say, the marketing department is focused on, like you said, announcing a new product line, whereas sales is really wanting to talk up the benefits of some existing product.
[00:08:40.110] - Teresa Lopez
Existing product line.
[00:08:40.740] - Marlys Arnold
Yeah, some existing product. Yeah, exactly. So finding what those things are. It could be everything from the design of the booth, the pre-show marketing that you do, the people you're targeting at the show. There's a lot of different pieces. Let's talk a little bit about more, how do you design an exhibit to generate the right type of leads, or how do you do that conversation? How do you have that conversation with the sales department to get them to tell you what they're wanting and then figuring out how to translate that?
[00:09:14.740] - Marlys Arnold
Or how much do you have them involved with the design process to begin with? I know there's a lot there in that question.
[00:09:20.530] - Teresa Lopez
That's okay. That's okay. And I'll do my best to cover it, but definitely come back and pick at me further if I've missed anything. So I think that in terms of the I would say I rely on sales less so in that area. I think the marketing teams, especially when it comes to the design and brand folks, just have a bigger area of expertise in that side of things. But then when I'm thinking about the experience and what do I want the AEs to take away from that experience, that's where I really start working more directly with them. And I love being that bridge between the two groups, right? So the big picture design and creativity, as well as the boots on the ground tactics of what's happening on the day to day. One of the things I also try to think through is activations and, again, experiences that are relevant. So I would never design, let's say, an activation or a gamification that doesn't really match up with the corporate goals or the talking points. And many people who have worked with me in the past will tell you, I'm not a big fan of basketball for basketball.
[00:10:29.740] - Teresa Lopez
For happy hour's sake, or happy hour for happy hour's sake. But if we can design those experiences to the theme and the objectives, when somebody takes away your gift or your whatever, they should have that call back to the conversation that you had or to the company or to the brand in some way. And so those are things that I definitely think through. And it's important to ask sales all of those things so that you're aligning the brand from all aspects of the organization.
[00:10:57.330] - Marlys Arnold
Well, and I like what you said. It's like marketing starts the design process, but then to fine tune it, figuring out, like you said, what activities need to happen in the booth, what kinds of conversations, maybe what you need to be focusing on as far as presentation applications in the booth, all those kinds of things are things that you can have that conversation with the sales team about and get their buy-in. Then I think, too, you probably want to go back. If marketing is designing the booth, you want to Do you present that then to the sales team and say, Here's what the booth is going to look like, and then maybe take any input that they have at that point, or do you just pretty much say, Here's how the booth is going to look, and now let's talk about what content happens in the booth? How do you approach that?
[00:11:47.810] - Teresa Lopez
The booth typically is what it is. I don't necessarily take that for feedback in the moment. However, if we do a show and something is really not working, I absolutely take that feedback, and modify accordingly. Going back to the previous example where I won't do basketball for basketball's sake. I use that very specifically because that happened to me in one case. And mid-show, I found that these folks were having trouble figuring out how to get engagement. It was very uncomfortable and awkward to stand in the aisle and try to get folks to draw in. So I caved, right? And, hey, go out and buy a basketball, who bring it in the next day. And sure enough, just holding the and having something to approach the people with, it was like a comfort, Blanky, almost. And it made things so much better that it really wasn't about the game or aligning the game to the booth and the objectives. It was just giving the AEs something to feel comfortable approaching the other person with.
[00:12:47.870] - Marlys Arnold
Well, and I think that's a good point because especially, all the time, I tell people, in fact, I did a blog post years ago about that salespeople are not necessarily the best booth staffers, because they don't necessarily... They're used to being in an environment where they're calling on their customers or they're maybe doing cold calls, but they're not... They don't necessarily have that in-person, chit-chatty vibe about them. And so, like you said, there may be some personnel training that needs to go on, some coaching, back to the basketball analogy, some coaching that needs to go on to help them feel more comfortable in the booth. Because just because they're good as a salesperson doesn't mean that they're good, like you said, starting those conversations on the show floor.
[00:13:40.640] - Teresa Lopez
Yeah, absolutely. I'll give you three quick tips that I have just on that topic. The first one is because I get to do corporate events as well, typically in my roles, and what that means is I can plan the national regional sales meetings where, again, I try to get into the sales meetings as much as I can. Another stealth tactic for me is that I use that as my farm, right? So I'll go and I'll scope people out and get to know them on a face-to-face basis and see how they interact and what's different about them in person versus their outbounding efforts. And then I try to make recommendations accordingly. The second thing is when I have the ability to take more than one salesperson, I also like to partner a more senior with a more junior person, and so that the more senior person can do mentorship and training throughout the event and coach them on the different ways to sell to people in person versus some of their other tactics. And then the third thing is enable them. I said that earlier, but I'll explain that a little further and just say that before the event, at least two or three days before we get there, I'll call everybody into a meeting and I go over the logistics, the talking points, what's in the booth and everything.
[00:14:57.270] - Teresa Lopez
And we talk about, if you're an introvert, these are some ways to really catch people's attention. If you're an extrovert, here are some other ways. Because even extroverts sometimes struggle with these things because they're too much out there, right?
[00:15:08.890] - Marlys Arnold
Oh, yes.
[00:15:09.320] - Teresa Lopez
That can be a little off-putting, too. And so there's some nuances in the art of the conversation and understanding when to really get that consent to begin to have the conversation. And so we talk through that quite a bit. And for bigger shows, bonus, is when we're talking about three to four day multi-shows, I make sure they have meetings every morning with the entire booth staff. And it's a very collaborative meeting where I ask people to talk about what's worked for them, what's not working for them, how to overcome those conversations, who's the subject matter expert that they can pull into something, and we adjust on the fly throughout the day.
[00:15:47.320] - Marlys Arnold
Well, like you said, sometimes you do have to adjust midstream, like with your basketball story. It's like, if something's not working, let's figure out. By having those daily team meetings, that's something I always recommend to my clients as well, is don't wait till the end to do a recap and a debrief, but talk it through and make changes as you need to, because sometimes... Sometimes it could be something like maybe just re arranging furniture in your booth to make it a little bit more conversational or changing up how you're approaching people. But you're right, there's a very fine line between what I call attract and attack. Sometimes You've got salespeople that are both ways. Some of them are too chit-chatty, and they never really get to the point because they're in schmoosing mode, we'll say. But then you've got the other ones that's like, they don't have any warm up conversation at all. They just jump right in there. That could be overpowering and intimidating to the attendees as well. Finding that balance, I think, is so key when you're working a trade show booth.
[00:16:58.760] - Teresa Lopez
Absolutely.
[00:17:00.570] - Marlys Arnold
So let's talk about leads support and tracking, because I think this is oftentimes, we talked about what to do to try to make the booth more in line with those sales goals as well.
[00:17:15.270] - Marlys Arnold
But a lot of times I think this is where the wheels come off the bus is you get all those leads at the show, and they may or may not be the leads or the quality of leads that sales is looking for. And then those leads are just handed off. It's like, Okay, we gathered them. We got you 500 leads. Here you go. And that's the end of the cooperative team mentality. So what do you do on the back-end to try to make that process, that follow-up process, as smooth as possible?
[00:17:51.350] - Teresa Lopez
Well, number one, definitely don't wait till the end of the show to figure that out. This is the upfront work that has to happen before you even get to the show, and that's part of the planning process. And so a part of embedding yourself with sales is getting to understand, how do they work other leads that have nothing to do with the trade show? Do they get distributed through a round Robin? Do they get distributed through geographical territories? Or by or by last name or whatever the case is. And so that you have an understanding of where do the leads go afterwards? How do they get uploaded? Are they in a CRM? Does it make sense to have acronyms instead of... I prefer quality notes, but sometimes Sometimes you can't sit there and write an entire half-page novel about your conversation. So when you create cheat sheets with acronyms and different quick codes that you can put in, and that whoever then receives the lead can also interpret and understand. And so So again, having that relationship, and if not with the top leadership, but with the midline directors or even the day to day sales, as much as you can really understand the lingo and the language and accommodate to that, so that then when I receive a lead list, clean it, take out those leads that really aren't leads per se.
[00:19:08.050] - Teresa Lopez
Somebody came by the booth looking for a job, so you scan the badge or whatever the case is. Take those out, Organize them in the format that's needed so that it's just a quick upload, and then work directly with your sales ops or your marketing ops or whoever to understand, is this going to go into a dashboard, a campaign? How does the lead get warmed? And then create your own dashboard to be able to follow up on that. And a week later or two weeks later, whatever cadence you put together, just start saying, Hey, these leads were distributed over a week ago, and I'm looking in Salesforce and I don't see anything here. There's no movement. I know you're busy, but what's going on and how can we help? And do we need to talk to somebody else about this or whatever the case is? And just stay in that relationship mode of I'm still trying to help you because if this doesn't get worked, then you may not get the deal. And if you don't get the deal, you don't get the commissions. The bottom line doesn't improve, and I can't do these things again.
[00:20:09.180] - Marlys Arnold
Well, I think that's really important, too, because, again, you're taking that whole, I want to I want to help you. I want to help make your job easier. What else can I do to help you? I think that's really important to keep that frame of mind so that you're not just saying, Hey, I see these leads haven't been followed up. Why? It's more like, Oh, I see these leads haven't been followed up. How can I help you? What can we do to facilitate this? It's much more of an us mentality versus, Hey, we gave this to you. Now get on it.
[00:20:42.610] - Teresa Lopez
Sometimes it's a simple as writing some copy for them just so that they have already a template available and giving them access to the post-event reports, especially those that can't attend. If you can give them access to the post-event reports, a couple of pictures from the event, it's something to make feel like they were there. It's just so much easier for them to then start the conversation, which I think is always the hardest part. Once people start replying and coming back to you that they're ready to schedule a demo or whatever the case is, that conversation starts flowing through the regular process. However, trying to just get that open door, especially when you weren't there, can be difficult. And so if you can make it easier somehow, you've already done half the work for them.
[00:21:26.020] - Marlys Arnold
Yeah. And I like a couple of things you said there, the idea of having a template that you've already crafted for them is really important because that way it can... Because like you said, if they weren't there, they don't know what those conversations were like. So if you have something drafted that can guide them in that conversation, because I'm sure that's really awkward. This salesperson gets all these leads and they're like, these names mean nothing to me. I don't know who these people are. I didn't have a conversation with any of them. So I think the more notes, and I always say this, whatever notes can make during that conversation in the booth. I liked your idea of having some little cheat codes or something that can streamline that, but yet communicate to the salesperson who's doing the follow-up. Hey, these are some key things about this conversation with this person. So when they follow up, no, they're not trying to pretend like they were the one that had the conversation in the booth, but they can say, Hey, I see you spoke with Teresa in the booth, and she told me that you guys talked about X, Y, and Z, then that helps to open up that door.
[00:22:34.820] - Marlys Arnold
So it's a much more natural conversation that's happening.
[00:22:39.250] - Teresa Lopez
That's right. That's exactly right. And I will tell you that for hot leads where you know that this needs that immediate follow-up, give them the white glove service. The person who was there should do the introduction and the bridge to the one who needs to do the follow-up. So even if that has to happen outside the CRM in the very beginning, of course, we'll make sure to get it documented and that everything else goes through your CRM. But at least that first interaction, make sure it happens within 24 to 48 hours. And there's that white glove handover. I really enjoyed speaking with you. I love learning about your dog, right? Yeah, exactly. Tell Charlie, I say, Hi. Hey, going forward, you're going to be working with this person, and you're going to be in really great hands.
[00:23:20.340] - Marlys Arnold
I love that. I love that. Yeah, making that introduction. So it's a very natural transition for both the salesperson and for the attendee that was in your booth, that they don't just feel like they're a football being tossed over to the next person, but you're making that introduction and you're bringing them into the conversation. So I really like that. Teresa, you've had so many great tips for us today. What's the best way for people to get in touch with you if they want to go further with this conversation?
[00:23:51.700] - Teresa Lopez
Thank you so much again for having me. I really feel honored to be here and to be able to have a chance to speak with you. And if anyone has any questions or to chat all things trade shows, always look me up on LinkedIn. You can definitely do that. You can email me at teresa@thepivetevents.com. Any email I receive, if you just go ahead and put Trade Show Insights on the subject line, I'll know exactly where I'm hearing from you from. And I hope that I can meet as many folks that are your listeners out there, out in the wild, and be able to exchange ideas because you have to be a constant learner to be able to get these tips.
[00:24:28.800] - Marlys Arnold
That's true. That's It's true. I love that you're building the bridge by having them put Trade Show Insights in the subject line. You're building that bridge so that you know where that connection came from. I love it. We will definitely put a link for your LinkedIn profile and your website on the show notes as well. Teresa, thank you so much for being on Trade Show Insights with us today. And to everybody listening, go out there and build that bridge between sales and marketing to make your future events that much more successful.
[00:25:00.220] - Marlys Arnold
Trade Show Insights has been nominated for a podcast award, but I need your help to win. So to learn more and get details on how to cast your vote, go to tradeshowinsights.com/vote-tsi. Thanks, and I'll keep you posted. If you enjoyed today's episode and would like more, you can subscribe to the Trade Show Insights podcast and automatically receive future episodes on your chosen device. Simply search for Trade Show Insights in Apple, Spotify, or virtually anywhere else that podcasts are found, then click the Subscribe button. Trade Show Insights is protected by the Creative Commons copyright license. You may feel free to share share this recording with colleagues or embed it on your own blog as long as it's shared in its entirety and is not used for commercial purposes.
[00:26:08.290] - Marlys Arnold
To learn more, please see the link in the sidebar of the show notes at TradeShowInsights.com. Well, that's it for this episode of Trade Show Insights. Be sure to check out our show notes and archives at TradeShowInsights.com. You can also connect with me using the social media links or the contact page on the site. I'm Marlys Arnold. Thanks for listening, and be sure to join us next time for more tools to improve your Exhibit Results.
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