It’s Conference Season: 5 Ways to Maximize Your Time and Increase Business

It’s conference season.  From the NAB show in Las Vegas happening this week, to the AUVSI Xponential show May 8 in Dallas, drone companies are flying across the globe to participate, network and build their businesses.  Whether you’re part of a large company with a booth or a one man show attending the sessions, conference participation can be expensive.  Here are 5 tips to making the most of your time and attendance to profit your business.

1. Prepare.  It’s well worth the time it takes to prepare your business in advance for the conference.  Make sure that you have all of the materials you might want to provide prospects or business partners set up in advance.  This isn’t just business cards – although that’s important, too.  Establish a single, simple online link that you can send to contacts to view your value proposition.  This can be as sophisticated as a special landing page that you’ve set up just for the conference, or as simple as making sure that you’ve updated your company Instagram feed or website to showcase your latest work.  There’s nothing worse than having to tell a new contact that your site doesn’t really reflect your current offering or position.  It doesn’t hurt to prepare a stock email or text template in advance, so when you are speaking to a contact you can send the link from your mobile device as soon as you end your conversation.
2. Establish Your Goals. Are you looking for customers at the conference?  Do you have job openings that you need to fill?  Are you hoping to form partnerships with other vendors?  Do you just want to raise your company’s profile?  Have a clear idea of what you are trying to achieve.  Sharon Rossmark, a Part 107 pilot and the founder of leading networking site WomenandDrones, has become an influential voice in the industry by approaching conferences and events with the same focus and intelligent strategy that she applies to other aspects of her business.  “Identify your top two or three goals for attending the conference,” says Rossmark.  “Based on your goals, review the list of speakers and exhibitors, and identify a few of them to contact.”  Rossmark emphasizes the need to have fewer substantive conversations rather than brief greetings with a lot of different contacts. “During the conference, purposefully meet new people!” she advises.  “Focus on quality rather than quantity.”
3. Schedule. Take the time to review the schedule in advance, laying out the sessions that you want to attend and then identifying the free blocks you’ll have during the day.  Then reach out to the contacts you’ve identified, and try to schedule a specific time to speak with them.  “Make an appointment to connect with contacts during the conference,” Rossmark recommends. “The appointments can be over coffee or for a meal – be flexible as the speaker or exhibitor is likely to have several people making requests of their time.”  If you don’t feel that you can reach out by email in advance of the conference, stop by a booth early in the show to try and set up an appointment in person.  If you’re willing to meet at the booth, you will often find exhibitors happy to take the time to chat with you: but an appointment ensures that you’ll have their full attention.
4. Plan Your Conversations – Get to the point.  Conversations with strangers can be hard, even in a business context – but if you know what the goal is in advance, you can make sure that your conversations are profitable.  Introduce yourself and get to the point quickly.  If your contact is interested your time will be better spent – if they’re the wrong person to talk to, they may be able to point you in the right direction.  Make sure you have a clear result in mind.  Is the next step to connect by email and set up an appointment to speak further?  To send more information to a publisher for a future article or feature?  To get an introduction to someone else in the company?  Close the conversation with agreement on what happens next.
5. Follow Up. Follow up after the conference may well be the most important step.  The follow up is where your established goals are realized.  Keep a running list during the conference of what your follow up to-do’s are with each contact you make – and deliver them promptly.  If you send your follow up information during the conference, you may need to touch base again with your contacts the following week to make sure that you’re still on their dashboard. Conference weeks are hectic and sometimes things get lost in the shuffle.

A huge conference can seem overwhelming, and requires hard work to navigate.  Focused efforts are required to make your attendance worth the time, money and foot pain it costs you.  The opportunity to speak to significant voices in the industry, network with peers and get excited about new technology make the miles of steps between sessions worth it.