Do this after a conference

So this is a timely one. I just attended an incredible conference last week. Met a lot of people. Reconnected IRL with people, some of whom I haven’t seen in years. As I came back to reality, I thought to myself - what now? BTW - reply back and let me know what you thought of this - or give a quick rating at the bottom. 

Early in my career, I made a lot of silly mistakes. And by early, I also mean, last week.

One of the biggest: After a conference, I would be more focused on playing catch-up on what I’d missed than I was about capitalizing on my new connections. 

Please, dear reader, don’t repeat my error.

Why do we go to conferences?

Conferences are a great opportunity to meet people in your line of work. They’re a chance to know and be known by people with whom you may want to work now or in the future. If they remember and like you, that is a huge step toward new opportunities.

These outcomes don’t just happen. That’s why we previously discussed how to prepare for a conference.

Let’s assume you read our preparation guide. You identified your goals and targets, had some great conversations, and you went home with a fat stack of business cards, er, new relationships (the past four conferences I’ve attended in the past couple years, I’ve left with maybe half a dozen cards in my pocket). What next?

If you’re like the young and foolish version of me, you might take pride in the size of your card collection. Like a prized set of baseball cards, you might organize them by position and apparent rarity and put them into boxes to keep them as pristine as possible. The kids back at the office are gonna be so jelly!

Or, you might just forget those cards in your briefcase or clothes pockets until, eventually, they’re ruined in the laundry. Either way, these are big mistakes.

Continue building the connection

Meeting somebody at a conference is really just the starting point of what could become a valuable long-term relationship. But it won’t happen unless you follow up.

A face to face meeting is an ephemeral experience. I must have met thousands of people at conferences who I have long since forgotten. I’m sure they forgot me too. But a digital contact is (potentially) forever. After a conference, we need to translate those physical connections into digital ones.

Even when a business contact lives in the same city as you, how often can you get together? Once a month? Once a quarter? A year? By contrast, phone, email, and other digital communications are easy. You can reach out any time, on whatever cadence makes sense.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before you can turn a contact into a long-term relationship, make sure you follow-up on any action items that came out of your first conversation. This alone can make you stand out from the crowd.

Everybody is going back to the “real world” and even great interactions are going to fade quickly. Strike while the iron is hot!

Also, remember to capture relevant information in your notes. Those details make a big difference.

Getting tactical

Here’s a simple system for maximizing the value of your hard-won conference contacts. Take these steps as soon as possible:

1. Give yourself some dedicated time to capture and process information about contacts and conversations from the conference. You may want to block off up to half a day just to handle conference follow-up.

2. Make a spreadsheet. Many of you may have a more complex tool, like a CRM. You know I love CRMs (like Relatable!), but at this point, we want to capture data as quickly as smoothly as possible. Spreadsheets are fast and easy and can be imported into a CRM later.

3. Prepare an ice bath to cool your hands down, cause you’re about to do some speed typing!

4. Create and fill in the following fields in your spreadsheet

   1. Name

   2. Contact info (whatever is available)

   3. Notes (anything relevant you can remember from the conversation)

   4. Next steps (this one is critical! If nothing else, send a “great to meet you email”)

   5. The contact’s “sphere” (or their priority)

5. Import the spreadsheet into your CRM tool.

6. Send a quick “great meeting you” message to new contacts hoping they had an easy trip home, ensuring you both have each other’s contact info, and reminding them of any follow ups. Note: If you’re reminding them that they are supposed to follow up, you can soften that up by saying it can be at their convenience.

7. Crank through all your follow ups while the memories are fresh.

Done? Great. You earned two scoops of ice cream after dinner.