After the trade show: a same-evening routine for the visiting cards

Three days at the stall, two hundred visiting cards, and on the train home nobody knows which card was the engineer with the worn shaft. Cards lose value every day they sit in a box, because the visitor forgets your stall and you forget the question. Sort them the same evening, at the hotel, while the faces are fresh. Write on the back of each what the person wanted, in their words, and who will sign for it. Answer the cards with a drawing or a date first, before you are back at the factory.

Why the evening matters more than the week after

At an engineering exhibition, the visitors are a mix. Maintenance engineers from plants with a part that keeps failing. Design engineers from OEMs looking for a new source. Purchase officers collecting names for a vendor list. Consultants who write specifications. Traders, students, job seekers, and sales representatives trying to sell you a machine.

By the third day they blur. The card says "Manager, Projects" and nothing else. The designation does not tell you whether the visitor signs orders or carries files, and only the person who stood at the stall knows what was asked. That memory lasts about as long as the show. Give it a week and the box becomes a mailing list.

The routine, each evening of the show

1. Empty the box before you leave the hall. One envelope per day, with the stall diary and any drawings or sketches visitors left.
2. At the hotel, each person sorts the cards they took. Not the owner alone; the owner did not meet everyone.
3. Write five things on the back of every card that asked for something. What they wanted, in their own words. The part or product. Who signs for it at their end. By when it is needed. What we promised.
4. Make three piles. Cards with a drawing, a date or a request to visit go in the first. Requests for a datasheet, a rate for a standard item or a catalogue go in the second. Cards with no ask go in the third.
5. Send the first pile a message that night or before the hall opens. The owner reads each card himself and decides who calls.
6. Bring the envelopes home in hand luggage. Not in the stall boxes that come back by truck.

The note on the back is the part that cannot be skipped. Here is one: "Impeller shaft, EN24, breaks at keyway, 6 nos, maintenance HOD signs, shutdown in March, we said we would quote once the drawing arrives." That card is a sales file. A blank card is a name.

What to send the first pile

Name where you met, what was asked and the one next step. Do not attach the company profile.

"Mr Banerjee, this is Arup from (firm), stall (number) at the engineering fair. You asked about the impeller shafts that keep failing at the keyway. Please send the drawing to this number. A photo of the old shaft will do. I will quote once I have it, and I will call you on [day] to check we have what we need."

This works on ordinary WhatsApp, typed by hand, from the phone of the person who met the visitor. Write a day or a date into the message only if you will keep it.

The second pile gets its datasheet or rate once you are back, with one line naming what was asked. The third pile gets one short message, or nothing. Students, job seekers and sellers get nothing from sales; pass job seekers' cards to whoever handles hiring.

For example: an Adityapur shop at a Kolkata fair

Imagine a CNC machining and fabrication shop in Adityapur, Jamshedpur, with a stall at an engineering exhibition in Kolkata. The shop and its details are invented.

After its first show, the cards went home in a carton with the banners. Ten days later the office typed them into a sheet, and everyone got the same email with a brochure attached. A maintenance engineer from a plant in Haldia had asked for a quote on shafts before a planned shutdown. By the time the brochure arrived, the plant had bought from a Howrah shop. A design engineer from a Kolkata OEM had asked whether the shop could build a welding fixture to a drawing. The engineer got the same brochure. Nobody asked for the drawing.

At the next show, the two people who ran the stall did the evening routine. The Haldia-type cards, four of them this time, got a message before the hall opened the next morning and a call from the owner the day after. Three sent drawings, and each had a quote by the date the message gave. The fixture card went to the estimator with its note intact, and the estimator's first question was about the welding sequence on the drawing, not "please share requirement". Two of the three quotes were lost on price. The fixture quote got a reply, and a second drawing.

When the routine is not worth the evening

If your stall was there for the brand, to be seen by the dealers who already stock you, a short message to each dealer is enough. If most visitors were students and walkers-in, the third pile may be most of the box, and an hour on the train home does the sorting.

And it fails if the people who stood at the stall are not the people who write the notes. Sending a junior to the stall and the owner to the hotel with the box gets you sorted names and no memory.

For a CNC machining shop, an exhibition is a place where a design engineer may walk up with a drawing in a bag. One stall a year will not build an order book on its own; the evening routine is what lets a show add to it. The manufacturing hub has more on building the rest.

Pack the stall kit for the evenings

Before the next show, put a pen, a stack of envelopes and a card printed with the five things into the stall kit. Agree who sorts on which evening. Back at the factory, the cards join the register that holds every other enquiry; the India International Trade Fair note shows one for a consumer trade. If you want help planning the next show, see event and trade show marketing or tell us what you need.