# Lead capture for engineers Trade show floors, vendor booths, technical conferences, and the queue after a talk: capture the suppliers, specialists, and recruiters worth keeping without spelling out your email over the noise. > ConnectMachine turns trade shows and technical conferences into captured contacts. The other person scans your QR code and shares real details in a second, with no email spelled out over booth noise. You add a note on what they make or specialise in, and every contact lands in one organized list you can export to CSV, or sync to your CRM on a paid plan. A trade show floor is loud, and half the exchange is repeating your email address twice and still getting it wrong. Meanwhile the useful part, what the vendor actually makes and whether it solves your problem, goes unrecorded. Lead capture with ConnectMachine fixes both ends. Your details go across by QR in one tap, theirs come back clean, and the note you attach is what makes the contact worth having in six months. ## Why trade show contacts go stale You come back from a show with a lanyard full of cards and a bag of literature. The intention is to sort it on the plane. It rarely survives the first week back. By the time a spec changes and you need the supplier who had the right connector, the card is somewhere and the memory of which booth it came from is gone. - Forty cards, no record of which booth or what they make. - Email addresses mis-heard across a noisy stand. - Literature that goes in a drawer with the cards. - Nothing searchable when procurement asks for options. ## Set up before the show There is nothing to configure on the day. Build the card once and it works at every booth. 1. Create your card with your name, discipline, company, and a link to your profile or portfolio. 2. Save the QR to your phone home screen or wallet so it opens instantly. 3. At the booth, hold up the QR instead of spelling anything out. 4. Scan the cards you are handed as you go. 5. Add a note on what they make before you walk to the next stand. Nothing to install on their side, which matters at a booth where the person opposite is using whatever their company issued them. ## Capture what they build, not just who they are A company name tells you nothing when a spec changes. What matters is the part, the process, or the capability you were standing there discussing. "Machined aluminium enclosures, five-day turnaround on prototypes, min order 25, quoted roughly $50 a unit at that volume." That note is worth more than the card it is attached to. - What they actually make or specialise in. - Lead times, minimums, or constraints they mentioned. - The booth or session, so you can place them later. - Whether they are a supplier, a peer, or a recruiter. ## Off the floor with a list By the end of the day, every exchange is a clean contact with a note attached. There is no evening of typing, and nothing is lost because a card went through a bag. Export the list to CSV for procurement, or sync it into the company CRM on a paid plan. ## Follow up on the actual problem "Good to meet you at the show" gets ignored. "You mentioned five-day turnaround on machined enclosures, we have a prototype run coming in March" gets a quote. The specific follow-up is only possible because you wrote down the specific thing. ## Beyond the trade show The same flow works at a site visit, a standards committee, a user group, or the queue after a conference talk. Anywhere you would have handed over a card, you can capture theirs with the context that makes it useful. ## Frequently asked questions ### How do engineers capture leads at trade shows? Share your card by QR so the other person saves your details in one tap, scan the cards you are handed, and add a note on what they make before moving to the next booth. ### Does the person at the booth need an app? No. They scan your QR or open your link in a browser and save your details in one tap, with nothing to install. ### Can I tag contacts by the event? Yes. Tag each contact with the show or session when you add it, then search on that later to bring back everyone from a particular trip. ### Can the list go to procurement? Yes. Contacts export to CSV on any plan, and paid plans sync to CRMs and to 5,000+ apps through Zapier. ### What about the cards I already have? Scan them. The AI scanner works through a backlog in a sitting and keeps the original card image. ### Does it read cards in other languages? Yes, in five or more languages, which covers the stack from an international show without retyping. ## Getting started with lead capture Build the card, save the QR to your home screen, and take it to the next show. Scanning and CSV export are free; CRM sync and unlimited scanning come with a paid plan. ## Get started Come back from the show with a list, not a lanyard. [Create your engineer card free](https://www.connectmachine.ai/download-app/) ## More for Engineers - [AI Concierge for engineers](https://www.connectmachine.ai/for/engineers/ai-concierge.md): The AI Concierge answers questions about an engineer's own network in plain language. - [Business card scanning for engineers](https://www.connectmachine.ai/for/engineers/business-card-scanning.md): ConnectMachine's AI scanner turns an engineer's collected business cards into clean contacts. - [Contact management for engineers](https://www.connectmachine.ai/for/engineers/contact-management.md): ConnectMachine keeps an engineer's professional contacts in one private, searchable place. - [Digital business cards for engineers](https://www.connectmachine.ai/for/engineers.md): ConnectMachine gives engineers a digital business card that shares discipline, title, and technical profile by QR or link, an AI scanner that turns conference and site-visit cards into clean contacts, and a note on each person recording what they build.