Don’t you just love events and the potential they bring to your business? No, you really don’t? Stop thinking of them as an unnecessary time commitment, but instead look at them as an avenue to generate growth and sales.

Events shouldn’t be a hassle and it’s really quite easy to turn them into a profitable experience. Simply participate. You can host the event, exhibit at it or you can just show up and attend. All three ways can lead to sales for your business. Here’s how:

• Hosting an event.  This can be stressful, but if hosted correctly your event can stimulate new sales and even add to existing sales. Hold an event and ask your customer to bring a friend – not their spouse but a friend. This is the cheapest form of advertising since it’s a terrific tool for personal referrals. If your customer is happy with you, then they will refer you to their friend. I do this myself and I’m always more than happy to share my incredible shopping or dining experience with my friends.

• Exhibiting at an event. While it can be a lot of work to create the killer display, exhibiting gives you the opportunity to get in front of thousands of potential customers and to even size up the competition. An average tradeshow can have up to 10,000 visitors – or 10,000 potential customers. It’s likely that hundreds of these guests will visit your exhibit daily. Consider this, if you were making sales calls or doing door-to-door sales, it would be hard to hit over a hundred people in one day. Finally, when you start exhibiting at a tradeshow on a regular basis, clients will look forward to seeing you at your exhibit.

• Attending an event. I bet you are wondering how that can equal sales, right? Well, by just attending an event you have the opportunity to talk to thousands of potential clients. At a typical tradeshow there are up to 1,000 exhibitors – or 1,000 sales calls. Attendance and communication opens the door between you and potential business networking opportunities.

Whether you’re hosting, exhibiting or attending an event, here are some more simple solutions for success. Take around 100 business cards and hand them all out before the end of the day. Make sure that when you hand a business card out, you get a lead in return too.

Follow up on those leads you collected. Your potential customers expect a call, that’s why they gave you their business card in the first place. Take the time to call them personally a week after the event. It’s likely your phone call will generate a sale since 79% of all leads are never contacted after the event.

Grow your business and get involved at your next event. It’s time wisely invested in your company and you won’t regret the results. Learn how to plan an event today.