6 Ways to Benefit from a Conference

While industry conferences are often inspiring, it’s easy for busy professionals to let the new ideas they learn and the new partnership opportunities they encounter fade away soon after they return home.

“You are going to be bombarded in every direction with marketing materials and ideas – that’s the good part,” said consultant and frequent conference presenter/organizer Judy D'Angelo RN MSN ANP.

“The bad part is that you’re human and can only remember so much. It’s easy to get fired up at a conference and then lose the inspiration afterwards.”

One thing is to establish your goals and priorities at the very start of the conference.

Here are some tips:

1.Set your objectives. Before you go to an event, examine your business objectives, including what you would like to accomplish this year.
2. Prioritize. Select the presentations and workshops you would like to attend. Most conferences have a program agenda prior to the show/conference, and will sometimes ask you to select your choices prior to attending.
3. Develop questions you would like to ask the presenter. Confine your questions to those that will help you meet your business objectives and development. Presenters often have business cards that you can share and contact after the conference and you can always follow-up. This is not the time to ask a supplier about addressing a complaint that a client once had with their product. A better use of your time is to ask about better ways of working together, of how you can sell more of their products to a specific target market.
4. Sort and Organize. Perhaps use a binder to keep the conference presentations. Keep any hand-outs that may be available in one place.
5. Use your electronic devices. Most conferences have mobile access, if the presentation is available with speaker's permissions, download the presentation prior to the event, and follow along. If wi-fi access is not readily available, ask the front desk for access, and this is generally a small fee.
6.Keep alert and engaged. Maybe avoid too many carbs - it's easy to enjoy all those muffins, they may put you to sleep.