By Garrett Hollander,

SalesStaff has become more active recently on the tradeshow and conference circuit. I’ve been researching some events that would be appropriate for our company to attend. Needless to say, I’ve attended my fair share of conferences and tradeshows, but I’m definitely not as well-travelled as some of you tradeshow veterans. 

In recent memory, I have had the pleasure of attending Dreamforce 2013. What a massive undertaking that was. Can you imagine 150,000 people populating five square blocks of downtown San Francisco? It was crazy, but I learned a lot about how to manage time wisely amidst all of the hullabaloo.

There are a few different benefits of attending one of the many conferences out there, but I’ve outlined the most important below.

Lead Generation / Marketing

Conferences and trade shows are a great place to rub elbows with some of your prospects. If your company is willing to foot the bill for a booth or sponsorship, Lead Generation becomes much easier with an army of badge scanners. However, if you attend without the luxury of a booth, there are a few things you can do to ensure successful sales prospecting at an event:

1. Do some pre-marketing if you can. Get a list of attendees (if offered) and market to them. Blog about your presence at an event. Post it in social media. The end game here is to secure a face-to-face at the event.

2. At the event, be personable and chatty with those in your close proximity as you search for prospects.

3. Trade business cards often – but not only that, for actionable prospects, try to nail down a tentative time to meet after the conference and write it on their business card as you collect it.

The bottom line is this: have a goal for the number of prospects you want to secure and do your best to achieve it.

Learning

If you are going to an event that has breakout sessions for learning, there are some best practices for maximizing the knowledge you get:

1. If possible, register for sessions as early as possible so you don’t miss out on the ones you want.

2. Take copious notes.

3. Take pictures with your smartphone of key slides in the slideshow.

4. Check to see if the speaker offers the slideshow after the show.

5. Relay actionable knowledge to your team when you get back to HQ.

6. Send your notes to your company’s resident blogger. It will jog ideas for articles and content.

There are some pretty impressive experts that show up to speak at some of these events. Be a sponge and take it all in.

Networking

These events are opportunities for you to get out of your comfy little cubicle or office and meet people that have similar professional interests. Whether you bump into someone who’s a prospect or not, always be networking. You never know how you might work with someone in the future as a partner, collaborator, or otherwise. Have your smartphone or tablet handy to connect with folks on LinkedIn on the fly.