Practical Tips for First Time Conference Attendees

Affiliate Summit East 2008 in Boston is not very far away anymore (August 10-12, 2008) and the time for some tips & tricks for people who never attended a conference yet, especially one as big as Affiliate Summit. The tips are for people who already registered for the event and also for folks who are still thinking about whether or not they should go or not.

Teresa Caldwell started an Affiliate Summit Mentor Program where Affiliate Summit veterans will team up with first timers to help them get the most out of the conference.

This is a very neat idea and I signed up as a mentor. I have been to the last three Affiliate Summits and might be able to provide some tips and suggestions, based on my own experiences.

I have some fundamental tips that I would like to share with you and the first tips that I will give to the first-timer that will be assigned to me.

Tip #1

Provide your cell phone number to people that you are interested in meeting in advance, if you are interested in meeting them for business or socializing does not matter.

Ask people that you would like to meet and talk to at the conference for their cell phone number. It does not matter, if you just want to say hello or talk to them for hours.

Ask nicely and tell people why you want to have their cell phone number (and not their office #).

Here is the why. To be able to call them during the conference and find out where he/she is and what he/she is doing at the moment that you will be able to determine if you can simply walk over where they are at that moment (if they are nearby) , just to “say hi” or maybe to chat a little bit more. Having the number is especially important for the people that you scheduled an appointment with. If you are held up by something and not be able to make it on time, you can at least call your contact partner and let them know about the delay and then decide if it makes sense that the other person waits or if you should reschedule the meeting altogether.

What you do not want to do is relying on nice phrases like: “See you at the Summit“. That might (probably) will not work that way (I learned that the hard way myself). It is okay to say that, if you really do not care that much, if you are ever going to see that person at the Summit and be able to exchange more than just a “Hi, nice to meet you, I gotta go, see you later“, because chances are good that this will be all and you don’t bump into the same person again during the whole show*.

*I am working on a theory that explains why it is that you tend to bump into the same 4-5 guys at a conference all the time, while you never bump into some folks at all, especially the ones that you really wanted to bump into in the first place.

Tip #2

Make appointments with the people that you really, really want to meet with and/or really want to discuss something specific and important that cannot or should not be discussed via email or via phone.

Don’t pack your schedule too tight or too full though that you end up spending the Summit with running from one meeting to another.

Many (if not the most or at least best) networking opportunities happen by chance. You don’t know who you meet and where you meet them. That cannot happen, if you don’t have the time to meet anybody by chance and engage in a discussion, if you do not have the time to do it.

The Summit is IMO first and foremost a networking event; specifically for meeting people face to face.

There is plenty of time for pure business talk after the Summit via phone or email. There is only little time for direct human contact and it will be over fast. It will then not be available again for a long time until the next show, where it happens that both, you and the other person, happen to plan to attend.

Tip #3

In order to do your Networking, but then also be able to re-connect after the Summit to people who you talked to, it is critical to exchange contact information so that you can contact them or they can contact you at any point in time in the future. Exchange business cards not only with people where you already plan to do specific business together, after the conference, but with anybody who you are going to meet.

You probably won’t do any business with 99% of them in the months following the Summit, but that does not mean that you will never need somebody like the person who you met in person at one point in the future during your life. Maybe you do not need it for yourself, but a friend or colleague, who would be happy, if you could connect him with your contact.

It does sound like using a lot of business cards and also receiving a lot of them. That is correct.

This means that you have to make sure that you have plenty of business cards available and with you at ANY time during the duration of the Summit. As I said before, you often do not know who you meet, where you meet them and WHEN you meet them, while you are attending the conference.

I wrote a long article about business cards and their use at conferences back in January 2007 at ReveNews.com leading up to Affiliate Summit West 2007 in Las Vegas.

I tested some services that print custom business cards, mentioned price ranges and unique features of each of the services. It is not outdated yet and worth checking out.

All other tips are secondary and not as important, which does not mean that they are not important. Getting the basics straight is critical or anything that depends on it will fail, but it does not guarantee success, if you ignore other important factors that you should have considered and be prepared for.

More Posts by Others with Useful Tips

Mike Allen, “5 Tips to Make the Most of Affiliate Summit East“, ReveNews.com, July 6, 2007
Todd “Stuntdubl” Malicoat, “SEO Conference Tips and Tricks“, Stuntdubl.com, November 11, 2006
Jim Boykin, “SES NYC and Conference Tips“, JimBoykin.com, February 18, 2008
Bill Lampton, Ph.D, “Top 10 Tips for Attending a Conference“, BusinessKnowHow.com
David Peralty, “Tips for Attending Conferences“, Blog Herald, December 4, 2007

Podcast

Marty M. Fahncke and Shawn Collins, “10 Tips to Get Maximum Value from Affiliate Summit“, Affiliate Summit Blog, October 31, 2006

Resources Referred to in the Post

Affiliate Summit Conference Website
Affiliate Summit Mentorship Program organized by Teresa Caldwell
Affiliate Summit Social Network (for Conference Attendees ONLY)
Internet Marketing Events Calendar and Feeds
My article: “Printed Business Cards for Real Life Events 101”

I remember reading other great lists of tips and guides for conference attendees, but cannot remember who wrote and find the link to it. If you know of any good guide that would be helpful to the readers of this post, please feel free to post a link to this article in the comments area below.

If you are asking yourself why you should attend an industry conference to begin with, see my post from February 2008, titled “What is the Value of Attending Real-Life Conferences?”

Cheers
Carsten Cumbrowski