Read This Before Your Next Conference!
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4.14 min Read This is your “ready for any conference” guide. Let’s keep this super actionable and practical. BUT FIRST-- A word from this weeks sponsor... Me. I just launched a podcast. This has been in the works for over a year now with my co-host John Reinesch and we finally got it up and going. It's called Start. Buy. Scale. We dive deep into the specifics of how entrepreneurs and business owners STARTED, BOUGHT and/or SCALED their business. What we really want to know is the "HOW". Actionable takeaways. And while we build this podcast and community, we intend to show you how WE'RE doing it as well. Monthly we'll breakdown all the iterations that we're going through. What's working, what's not working, views, monetization, branding, growth, pivots, etc. Full transparency of the process. If that sounds cool, check us out here My goal for this email os that you can screen shot it (I’ll tell you when it’s a good spot to take a pic) and use it to prep for the next or FIRST conference you go to. With that, let’s dive in. I just spent the week in Coeur D’Alene, ID for a self storage conference. I filmed a vlog about it that I’ll be dropping here shortly. This is my third year at the conference and maybe my 10th conference over the years. There are plenty of peeps that have been to more, but from my 10 conferences of experience, I’m going to share with you: WHAT YOU THINK YOU NEED TO KNOW vs WHAT YOU ACTUALLY NEED TO KNOW BUSINESS CARDS: You don’t need business cards. It’s kind of a fun process to create them, order them and then hold the physical product… I get it. But you don’t need them. No one gave me a business card this last conference. ZERO cards collected. INSTEAD, use an app like Blinq (not sponsored by Blinq). Here is my account to check out what It looks like Load all your info on here and share it with a text or scan. OR if you have an iPhone and they have an iPhone, open your contacts and then put the top of your phones against one another and you will exchange contacts. It’s actually really cool. You should try it. ATTIRE You don’t need to go and buy a new set of fancy clothes just for the conference. Most conferences will post what the attire is what the events will be. Try and find that on their website or email support just so you’re prepared with proper outfits, BUT you don’t need to go all out. People go to conferences to meet other PEOPLE in person. If you’re normally a jeans and t-shirt dude/gal, go as a jeans a tshirt dude/gal. People might disagree, but I stand my ground that authenticity goes so much further than a suit and tie. I spent hundreds on a new attire before my first conference years ago only to realize that I was too fancy. GYM TIME Go to the gym. It sounds crazy, but if you’re staying at a hotel where everyone is staying and they have a gym there, go to it in the morning. Even if just to run on the treadmill. Here’s what happens; you recognize people that you saw in the gym when you see them later in the conference. Theres a mutual respect that you were up early grinding and now you’re out there networking. Maybe you even chat it up in the gym with them and exchange numbers. I have personally done a business transaction with someone that I initially met in the gym before the conference started. He later became a mentor of mine and I keep in touch with him to this day. ELEVATOR PITCH Know your elevator pitch. This is super important. WHO ARE YOU AND WHY DOES IT MATTER?? I know you might not like talking about yourself, but don’t think of it that way. People WANT to meet you at these things. You’re giving them what they want. Have a small pitch that you use every time you’re meeting someone new and they ask you about yourself. It might need to be adjusted for each specific conference, but here’s an example and a template you can fill in for yourself: Other person: Great to meet you, so what do you do? Me: Ya great to meet you as well! So by day, I’m a police officer but that’s really just my 9-5. Im an entrepreneur at heart. I own and operate a few businesses including self storage, a bookkeeping business and a VA agency. I write a newsletter all about entrepreneurship and just launched a podcast. Im also married with 2 girls and 1 boy on the way. Template: [Humble Acknowledgement]. I’m a ______ and work/ own ______. Right now I’m working on _______. What i'm really passionate about and why I’m here is ________. Other than that, I do _______. [Add in family break down] [Finish with a smile] Most importantly though, when you’re done, stop talking and listen. Make it about THEM. ADD VALUE Provide some kind of value. This is all very situational. It might not be tangible, but you want to think of SOMETHING that you can bring to the table to make yourself someone that people will remember and want to STAY connected with. The first conference I went to, I actually started a newsletter for the purpose of talking to people further and staying connected with them. Instead of “picking their brain” I offered them a chance to be interviewed for my newsletter. It made them feel good and then I got to connect with them on a deeper level. This last year, I launched a podcast while at a conference and now have some DEEP connections from the several interviews I did. So what value do you have to bring?
Whatever it is, I know you have something to share. Figure that out and sneak that in your chats FOLLOW UP It’s really easy for there to be so much energy from the event and then you travel back, get into the normal groove and lose all the momentum. Don’t let that happen. You might not stay connected with everyone, but you need to be intentional about staying connected with the peeps that you really resonated with. Let everyone get back and maybe a week pass by, then via email, reach out and just touch base with no objective. Just to thank them for such great conversations and hope they got home alright. Maybe throw in a random question to keep the dialogue going. Here’s an example: Hey Christine! This is Kevin Bell from the conference! I hope you got home alright and settled back in to everything. Thank you SO much for coming on the podcast last week in Idaho! You were a blast to talk to! Seriously can’t wait to talk again and see what you do next. Hey random question, what was the name of that fiddle academy you were mentioning. That sounded pretty cool. Excited to chat with you again! Best, Kevin So there you have it, using just that guide, you will be GOOD TO GO for your next or first conference. Let’s quickly review [SCREEN SHOT THIS]
If you end up using these at your next conference and they help, let me know! Also, if they didn’t help, I’d appreciate hearing that as well. 🤷🏻♂️ P.S. I posted this to Twitter to see what other conference goer's would add to my list and this is what they came up with:
GUESTS ALWAYS WELCOME: If you are an entrepreneur, business owner or industry expert with a story to tell of how you started, bought or scaled your business, I want to hear it... and so does the world. Email me back and lets get on the calendar for an episode. Until next time... Stay in the fight, My best tweet of the week:
My favorite tweet of the week:
If you were forwarded this email, you can subscribe HERE Other places to find me:🐥 Twitter 🎙️ Podcast 🎥 YouTube ✍️ Personal Blog 🧑💻 Medium 📸 IG 🔗 LinkedIn 🙋🏻♂️ About Me📚 What I'm Reading✏️ What I'm Writing 🧱 What I'm Doing📌 Pinned Article |
Sunday Doughnuts By Kevin Bell
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