In the first article, we started with the market.
Where is the opportunity?
Which country, region or industry makes sense for the business?
Once that becomes clearer, the next question is:
Who are we actually trying to meet?
​Because a market is not a buyer.

A company may decide that Southeast Asia is a good opportunity.
Or that it wants to explore Europe, the Middle East or China.
That gives us direction.
But it still does not tell us who we need to speak to.

The answer depends on what the company wants to achieve.
If the objective is to enter a new market, perhaps the priority is finding a distributor.
If the company already has distribution, perhaps it needs to reach workshops, retailers or end users.
So the question is not simply:

“Who buys our product?”

It is:

“Who do we need to meet to move this opportunity forward?”

This becomes important when we look at exhibitions.
A show may attract thousands of visitors.
But a large visitor number does not automatically mean that all those visitors are relevant to your business.

If you are looking for distributors, meeting ten serious distributors may be more valuable than collecting 200 general contacts.

That does not mean the other visitors have no value.

They may help with visibility, market learning or future opportunities.

​But the right buyer matters more than the biggest number.

The location of the exhibition does not always tell us where the buyer comes from.

A Malaysian company exhibiting in Shanghai may meet Chinese buyers.

But it may also meet international distributors and sourcing teams that travel to China because that is where the industry gathers.

The same applies to exhibitions in Dubai, Frankfurt, Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur.

So we should not only ask:
“Where is the exhibition?”

We should also ask:
“Who comes to the exhibition?”

And most importantly:
“Are they the people we want to meet?”

You do not need to know every buyer by name before joining an exhibition.

But you should have a reasonable idea of the type of company you are looking for.

The clearer that picture is, the easier it becomes to decide whether an exhibition is relevant.

It also helps your team on the exhibition floor.

Instead of treating every conversation the same, they know which conversations deserve more attention.

Once we understand the market and the buyer, the next question becomes much easier:

Where do these buyers gather?

That is where the exhibition comes in.

The right exhibition is not necessarily the biggest one.

It is the one that gives you access to the people you actually want to meet.

And that is the next part of the series.

First understand the opportunity.

Then understand who you need to meet.

Next, find the exhibition that brings those people together.

Only after that should we start talking about the booth.