Client
Our client is a mid-sized software house from Central Europe, operating B2B and building tools for the defense, aviation and fuel industries. Their leadership travels heavily - both to industry trade fairs and on business delegations abroad - where high-seniority, relationship-led selling happens face to face.
They came to Vanderbuild with the same problem on every trip: a calendar full of travel, and no system to make sure the right people were booked before they landed.
Challenge: two kinds of trips, one recurring problem
A plane ticket and a conference badge aren't a pipeline. Whether the destination was a trade fair or a delegation city, the client needed the same thing - the right decision-makers booked in advance - but each context demanded a different play:
Trade fairs (MSPO Kielce). MSPO in Kielce is one of Central and Eastern Europe's most important defense and technology events. The client needed to reach technical and R&D directors of exhibiting companies, build relationships with the people who choose new tools, and generate leads before the fair even began - all within three days of the request.
Delegations (Miami, US). On a US business delegation, the goal was to expand the local network and book meetings at director and CEO level in Oil & Gas, MedTech and Telecom. The hard part: reaching very senior people, and doing it with a sequence that read as an authentic relationship attempt, not mass outreach.
The core question
How do you make every trip - however different - reliably pay for itself before you arrive?
Solution
An event-by-event, trip-by-trip motion that adapts to the context: event-graph outreach for trade fairs, local-network outreach for delegations. Same system, tuned per destination.
Business Value
Each trip came with a ready-to-run outreach package - and the motion repeats for the next one.
- Per-trip target maps: exhibitor graphs for fairs, local network lists for delegations.
- Context-fit messaging tuned to each event and city.
- The right channel matched to each audience - cold email for events, LinkedIn for delegations.
- A repeatable motion that turns any trip into booked meetings, faster each time.
Results: booked meetings on both kinds of trip
Across trade fair and delegation, the same motion produced qualified meeting interest on tight, pre-trip timelines.
MSPO Kielce (event, cold email): 202 companies contacted, 16.7% response rate, 9.1% qualified and interested in a meeting - 17 positive replies, and meetings booked with technical decision-makers before the fair.
Miami (delegation, LinkedIn): 111 new LinkedIn contacts, 32 message replies, 24% invite acceptance in target industries - opening doors to MedTech, Telecom and Oil & Gas CEOs.
The takeaway: one repeatable motion, two very different trips, meetings booked on both. That's what makes it worth running trip after trip - not a one-off campaign, but a system that turns a travel calendar into pipeline.
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