3 Steps to Succeed with Conferences
The value of a great conference.
To some organizations they are liabilities, costing the bottom line. To others they are employee retention benefits, to others still they are generators. Generators of growth, expansion, learning, sharing, bonding, sales, and financial gains.
There are 3 necessary steps for succeeding with conferences:
1. Know what your goal is when attending, or with the representative attending.
2. Share that goal with the team, both with those staying behind and those going.
3. Perform an after actions review with both teams.
Conferences can be overwhelming to any team, having a plan of attack before you even set foot in the building will be paramount to getting the benefits you are after. I’ll take a recent conference in Chicago as an example, C2E2, or known as the Chicago Comic Con.
Within these 3 ½ days the McCormick Place becomes a wonderland for all things entertainment. You have the authors hangout over there, the artists hangout over on that side, the merchandise is everywhere, the food courts and beer vendors always have lines, free samples on every aisleway endcap, and the costumes and comics are amazing.
Can you tell I was in awe when I got there.
However, before I even stepped over the threshold I signed into their app, I viewed their floor plan, plotted my course, planned my time there down to the last free sample tried.
Oh, and I forgot to mention, the classes and panels you can attend too. Backing up one more step, before I did any of this I decided to go. Like any conference I had to define my goal, as this was a business conference, not just for leisure. Keeping with the 3 steps of successful conferences, my goal was to learn from other authors on how they handled their publishing and binding, learning from the artists how they would price their work for my comic, and attend the panels focused on writing horror and suspense.
Goal written down.
Next, focusing on sharing this with my team, the fortunate part was I was a solo attender, but the steps still apply. If your team doesn’t understand the goal, they might not know what to pay attention to, or what to deliver after the conference. Are they there to make sales? Or network for future sales? Or look for new products that promise efficiencies? Or there to learn new skills to bring back to the company field teams?
If you do something every day, its a system. If you're waiting to achieve it someday in the future, it's a goal. If you achieve your goal, you celebrate and feel terrific, but only until you realize you just lost the thing that gave you purpose and direction.
Quoted from: How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big.
I would have used a different approach if the outcome I was looking for was different.
Step 3, focusing on the after-action review - deliverables.
As with any new project or finished assignment an after actions review should be completed.
Entrepreneurship, at its base, is a fundamental progression of an idea. It will remain unfinished and causing problems in your mind unless you push it out and complete the journey.
What I learned from this event, from the authors, from the artists, from the vendors, is that if it is inside you no one will ever see it, and it will remain unfinished and in a nebulous state.
Work to bring out your story, or your business idea, and try to see if the world finds the same value you do. There are resources galore out there. Networks that want to help you. Tools that make it easy (easier anyway).
This was a hot topic in the military after marching miles and miles and confronting the objective. It is also used in the business world too. These reviews do not have to be hard or complicated, but they do have to be honest. Egos are always left at the door before you start one. Questions are started with open ended questions, leading to open conversation. Once everyone is warmed up and remembering the experience then the questions can go deeper down the rabbit hole. As an added tip, these should be completed as soon as possible after returning from a conference.
According to Statista, there are over 41,000 conferences in the US each year, another source detailed 1.8 million, that’s quite a discrepancy, the point still stands – A business cannot attend all of them and each industry has a few that are the gold standard in their industry. Investigate which are actionable, attend, have fun, and review the results.
Ready to shape your future through entrepreneurship? Be your own boss, make decisions, and craft something unique. Innovate freely, grow limitlessly, and follow your passion. Join successful entrepreneurs, face challenges, and succeed in the business world.
