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BNI 780: Business Matters 113 - It Is Conference Season
00:22:17
In this week's Business Matters episodes we talk about attending conferences and some do's and don'ts.
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- [00:02]
A
SA welcome back. Business Matters podcast, part of BNI Power of One, Tim Roberts with Michael Martin. Michael, good morning. How are you?
- [00:38]
B
Right, two in a row.
- [00:39]
A
Yeah. Yeah. We're going to create a streak here ideally. So last episode we were talking about the importance of training, and again, that being a big theme throughout the year. And part of that, we started talking about conferences a little bit. It is conference, trade show, whatever you want to call it. Season. I'll be headed to one in a couple weeks for International Franchise association, which will be interesting. I'm kind of excited about that one. I'm excited about the keynote speaker on that and some of the breakouts. But just talk in general, you've been to obviously, numerous trade shows and conferences. I've been to numerous trade shows and conferences. There's the good, the bad, the ugly of all of them. And so as people are preparing to go to these things, I thought it would be good for us to kind of talk about experiences on all three of that, like, kind of tips, tricks, strategies, things to avoid that kind of stuff as you get into that part of the year you didn't go to. You used to go to. Was it C. CES ces yeah. You haven't been there, though, for a while, right?
- [01:41]
B
Which by the time this airs, it would be. Have just ended. Yeah, yeah. I haven't been in. In. In a few years since. Since before COVID actually. But it's actually a good thing. I was thinking about it even as you were in the lead in, like, what was the point of me going to that and how I planned ahead and, you know, I think you've talked about it a lot and, and we have in the past about the importance of having a plan before you go into like a networking event. And I would say going to a conference and going to a trade show is the same thing. You know, have some sort of a plan of what you want to accomplish while you're there, the things you might want to see and, you know, make sure. And for going to the CES show, I would look at every year before going, like, okay, who's coming? Like, where? What's the booth layout? I was getting to the point where I was like, I need to maximize my time because it was across three different. It's across three different hotels in Vegas and convention centers. So you have to take transportation from one to another.
- [02:50]
A
Yeah.
- [02:50]
B
So maximizing your usage of time is. Is really important. And, you know, so, yeah, there's certainly planning that goes into it. And I think in the last, you know, Podcast we were talking about making sure that you do your diligence to make sure that a what that trade show, that conference is actually for you, that it has the content that you think you need and are looking for. Or even if you went into your research thinking I need this, but then you see what the agenda is and you go, oh, that could be interesting. Make sure you know that up front so you can schedule your time wisely and go to those sessions that you know could be most impactful to your business.
- [03:27]
A
Yeah, like, so I'm going into the International Franchise Association Conference. It is, I've been before. It's an interesting thing because I'm going as a franchisee and I've been before is when I was working for B and I Global more of a franchise or standpoint. So yeah, you have to do a lot of research to a massive agenda. Massive, like breakouts and all these things. And it's like really fine tuning, like, all right, which ones are going to be most influential for me from this point of view. And then like I said, the keynote speakers and stuff, I'm, I'm excited about this one. Is James Clear. Do you know James Clear? Is he wrote Atomic Habits? So yeah, it's a really good book. I've read the book. So I'm excited to kind of pick. But you know, and I've seen other really big name keynote speakers at those and you know, like you've said, I think in the last podcast we did about like, yeah, it could be motivational but it's like, really, what are you going to take away from it? What are you going to implement from it? Those kind of things. They're huge learning opportunities. Obviously. I think a lot of people go feeling like obligated to go, right? Like, oh, it's my companies or my organizations and like, whatever. And when you go with that, I mean, what a colossal waste of time that could be. Yeah, I've fallen victim to that with bni. I mean I've been to so many now I get the number. Yeah, it's got to be close to 40 plus conferences. And so you can kind of go like you feel obligated and then. And I've left a lot of them going, man, I really missed out, you know, I mean, I probably should have done better just because I went in there not wanting to go. Yeah, but everyone creates an opportunity. But at the same time, I've always talked a lot about the downsides of them. They can be extremely disruptive and distracting. I have found, at least in the BNI World. Right. Like, you go and you get all these people talking about all these different things, and all of a sudden, like, now you're like, oh, we got to do this and we got to do that, and we got to do this and we got to do that, and what about this over here? And we can do this over here. And it's like, now you're just in a cluster of distraction. And so they can have a downside to them as well if you don't go in with kind of like a. A plan for the event, but a plan for after the event.
- [05:35]
B
Yeah.
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A
Especially if you're going with team members.
- [05:38]
B
Yeah, I. I think. But. But I think that that's the important thing if you're going with team members. Number one, if. If you're the leader, you have to work really hard to make sure that you don't get so overly excited by all the new things we're going to hear today, which are not necessarily new things. They're just things you haven't done yet and that. That you kind of let that be the driver, and you go, yeah, I've got 10 things I heard, and oh, my God, I'm so excited. Then you don't implement any of them. You have to be able to separate the chaff out from that, because what it all boils down to is exactly what we said last time and what you just touched on again. You have to actually implement these things. So if you hear 10 things, you have to have in your head a process in place to look at. Out of these 10 things, what are the three most important to my business today that I can go and do? It doesn't mean the other ones are worthless, but you can't do them all.
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A
Right.
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B
So especially if you're a solopreneur, you're not going to have the time to do them all. You're gonna have to pick maybe even one out of those 10 things to do really well and then get that one out of the way and then maybe go to the second one or whatever, and by that time you do all 10, it'll be time for the next conference.
- [06:47]
A
Right, Right, exactly.
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B
But I also think a lot of the people that go in, especially when you're going in a group and they get all excited, they're putting on a little bit of a show. And I think this is also important as a leader to be able to, like, look at your team and not just say, oh, my God, they got so motivated. We're all going to do so much because you're the one who has to actually get them to act after.
- [07:06]
A
Right.
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B
So there's a lot of people that go to these things and it's a highly, like, socially charged atmosphere, which is awesome. It can get people excited, but you can't just like that excitement's going to fade. So it's like when the excitement fades, are they actually going to remember anything that they learned? There are people that go to these things that are purely there for the social aspect and fine, but you'll find that those people can't really help you.
- [07:34]
A
100. So I wanted to ask you about that too. So what when. Let's start with just the beginning and you're doing your research and you're figuring out, okay, where am I going to go, what am I going to listen to, what's my fits, my strategy and stuff. Two parts. What kind of research would you do? And then two, if you were going with the team, did you guys do a divide and conquer, kind of like a study group thing? Like, okay, let's all go to different things and then come back together.
- [08:00]
B
Yeah, done. Done that. But let me to your first point about like, what kind of prep did we do? So when I was in the consumer good space, a big part of our activities at trade show were go and scope out what our competition was doing.
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A
Okay.
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B
So in that case, we would say, okay, you know, we, we know what we sell. We've done our prep. Our sales reps are in there as sales managers, as other people, we would basically try and act as spies and go and figure out what are they, what's everyone else doing, Are they doing something we're missing or can we get confirmation that what we're doing is better?
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A
Yep.
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B
And, and so we can kind of start taking of these competitors off the board. Or if we hear that we, we think they're doing something really awesome, we've got to bring that back. Hey, they're doing this and they're selling that product this way to our current clients. So we might lose business if we don't do something different or whatever. So there was that part of it where was a lot of recon. And we knew who our competition set was. So we go and see what's up. Other times it was, you know, depending on who you were. Like, I'd send the, the shoe developers in the shoe business would literally just all walk around. They just go out for hours. Almost never in our booth. And they were trying to see what kind of new can shoe building techniques were going on, who had interesting materials they would talk to materials people who didn't make a finished shoe, but, like, what are you making that's available to us that we might incorporate further down? So there was always an aspect of going out and looking at what was. We called it, what's on the market. And that was one piece. When it came to me being an attendee of a trade conference, you know, I would try and look up, all right, they say, this guy is giving a keynote. Okay, well, what has this person done? How is it relevant to me? And is it a keynote speech or is it an interview? And I have found that, like, a lot of interviews I've gone to of these great business leaders are boring and flat because the interviewer is not great.
- [10:04]
A
Right.
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B
And so you go into these things and you go, why did I even sit through that? And I've been through a few of them. When it's a real speech, there might be something interesting that I'm going to go and learn about. So, you know, I. I think we would compartmentalize the research aspect and then, you know, divide and conquer and go out and do those types of things. And if we found something super interesting, we would then focus more resources in going to see that thing.
- [10:33]
A
Yeah.
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B
So when I would go to a trade show, like at ces, I always went with a buddy of mine, Mike, who you know, and we would basically like, hey, you go that way, I'm going this way on the floor. And we're just going to walk up and down. And if there was something interesting, we would text each other the booth number and the name of the place.
- [10:51]
A
Yep.
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B
And then at the. Usually over lunchtime, it's like, okay, what did we just see? For the first three hours, we'd sit, we'd meet for lunch or whatever, and then we might go back to whatever he thought was most interesting. And then what I thought was most interesting together.
- [11:05]
A
Yep. That's.
- [11:06]
B
We could share kind of perspectives. And we kind of did it that way so that we maximized our time, you know, and there were other areas where, like, you could look at from a distance and go, yeah, we're probably not walking down there.
- [11:19]
A
Yeah, we especially just most of mine are B and I related, but they're. So they're more training based than they are product based. You know, the IFA will be a mix of both. But one of my big things is I always tell my team is like, all right, let's spread out. I don't need all of you going to the same one. Right. It's just there's usually they do like three breakouts at a time kind of thing. So it's like, okay, like we don't all need to be at this one. Let's spread out and then we'll meet after. And I tell them all to gather the information and if it's super exciting to you, that's awesome. But we're not going to really discuss any of them until the Monday after and then we're going to all share notes on what we thought and we're going to whittle it down to are we doing anything? Because sometimes there's years where like none of this is going to move the needle for where we're going or at least we're not doing all of it. And so we'll figure out what's the one that we want to then further pursue. So kind of study that I often tell them too for me you got to, you got to be able to sell me on, on what it is. So you got to have enough passion. So if somebody triggers something, your job that conference is to get as much information as you can. So if it's like hey, we got this new whatever program we're running in our region, don't just do the breakout now, go do a one to one go do meet with people from the get as you need to get as much information so that if you're presenting it, I'm going to drill you with questions on figuring out nope, you don't know it enough or go get more information or what have you. Because there is so much in being in the B and I world there's so much of the, the I call them the BFOs the blinding or the just the squirrel moments, right? Like oh this is super cool. It's like, okay, well one of the things with conferences I've learned is especially in the B and I world, it's like somebody did something this year that was cool or had the result and so they get blown up and they get put on the stage and they go do a presentation on it's like, but is there any like consistent like is it a just like a unicorn moment? Like did they just do something once and now we all think that's the way to go or has there been like some consistency to record? Same thing with. Like, you know when I tell them what teams to meet with and who to meet with, it's like go to the people who have consistently been near the top. That means they're doing something on a consistent basis or not something that worked one time and then hasn't happened ever again or won't happen ever again.
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B
Yeah.
- [13:35]
A
So that's always my challenge with them.
- [13:38]
B
And, and you know, I think you have to, how you're going to approach is going to be different based on what the format of the actual conference is like. A lot of times when they have concurrent sessions, you have to divide and conquer because you know, if you're there by yourself, you got to pick and choose right what it is you're going to listen to because there's always concurrent sessions running on. If it's an all day kind of seminar type thing where there's a set agenda and everybody shows up at one time, that's different. Your whole team can be there. One of the things that we've done in the past and successfully, very similar to you, you know, we would send people in saying, okay, not everybody can go to these sessions. So we would pick some cases, the person whose field it was in based on the title and the content of the, you know, the explanation of the agenda item. And we'd send them in, but only if we trusted them to come back without a lot of personal bias in their report. Other times I would take somebody in finance, send them into product and take someone from product and send them into finance and just say, write everything down.
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A
Yeah. Because they don't have like a, well, this person.
- [14:46]
B
Write it down. And then you come back and like, okay, you know, you had somebody type it all up and it's like. And now you have the most clean version of it. But that's when you like if you're, if you're not quite sure your team, you know, has the ability to come around and really report back what they heard so that you, you know, because if someone listens to it and says, yeah, I've heard that all before, and then they give you some sort of watered down thing. They, something that was important or unimportant to them might have been important to you had you even known that it was there. And that's the risk of dividing without a purpose. So I think, you know, it could be good practice to send two people, one in that field and one not in that field. And I guarantee you that if you give them the instructions to take notes and report back, they will be two vastly different pieces of paper.
- [15:36]
A
Yeah, personal bias is a big part. I suffer from that, like I fully admit. So, like, oftentimes a lot of these ideas that we will get will come better from my team members because a lot of mine are, I mean, they're all newer to BNI than I am, but even some very new. So they just, they'll hear it different, they'll have a different excitement about it. One of the projects we're working on right now, I had, I probably should have started last year, but I had a personal bias against kind of like the word of mouth of how it's working. I was kind of like, oh, that's a dumb idea. And then I went to a meeting and I went actually, it's actually a really interesting idea. And so like I was like, I'm six months behind now because of this, like those things can happen. But I, my biggest fear always, I love them because for me, and everybody's different too. I, I've always found them the, the time where my brain shuts down a little bit from like day to day stuff and I actually get to deeper think about my business. So I'll go into a breakout and I might miss like 50% of what they're saying because my brain went somewhere else too. But it's all like, it like triggers something where I further deep think about my. It's like where a lot of our innovation and stuff eventually comes from because it's a time where it's like, okay, I'm at this conference and I'm not home and distracted with like everything else. So for me it's even valuable like just for that moment. Obviously the networking opportunity of them is probably the most valuable thing out of all of them if done right.
- [17:00]
B
I, I think a good practice when you, when you go to these things, besides having the plan up front and all that is okay, the first step to actually taking action is to make sure that. And, and we used to do this and, and I sometimes did it really well and other times I kind of blew it off. And, and probably to my own detriment is noting what you heard, you know, taking that positive action of actually writing it down or typing it. So I, I would send myself an email every night, go back to the hotel room and I'd be like, here's all the stuff from my notes. And I found that getting it from the page or out of my head onto something real, I wouldn't forget stuff because a lot of times, listen, we're all human. So you're going to take in a lot of information at these things and then you're going to forget a lot.
- [17:43]
A
Of the Kelly Bundy. Kelly. You ever see the Kelly Bundy thing, right? As one new information goes in, one old one goes out kind of thing? It's Very much.
- [17:50]
B
Yeah, but that, that happens. And, and then you sit there and you go, well, what? God, there was something I wanted to remember and, and it could have been really important. So write it down in the moment. Carry a little scratch pad with you or something. Take notes while you're listening, even just like little bullet points. And then go back to your room and add context or self. Record, step away. When the session is over, go out to find a place and talk into your recording device. Talking to your phone, tell it to a teammate that's taking notes. You can have a designated note person. We used to have a little, at our big trade shows, we'd have a little office set up and it was like, this is the keeper of the information. So you bring all these things in and they would just notate everything so that you didn't forget.
- [18:32]
A
Yep.
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B
If you went for your debrief, you had something to take. But for the people who are sitting there going, I don't have time to take action. Do that in the moment. That is an action and you will remember it if you write it down.
- [18:43]
A
Yep. All right, last piece. And we do have to wrap up, but last, just a little note for everybody to realize. The number one, it's the number one rule to networking, which makes it the number one rule for conferences and trade shows and everything else. Perception's a hundred percent reality. So how you behave, how you dress, how you act, what's your attitude? Like, all of that stuff is going to speak volumes before you ever say a word, shake a hand, do any of those kind of things. And I've seen so many people at these things just make asses of themselves in a variety of ways from like overindulging in drinking to just being, you know, disheveled or just not taking it serious enough and hurting their professionalism and how they dress to people going to booths and talking people like, well, this just like unbelievable amount of, just like lack of insight of like what they're projecting out there and the long term effects of those things. Be careful with that. That, that is just rule number one, you know, I mean, you can never dress too well. You can never be too excited. You can never be, you know, I mean, like too professional you. But you can definitely be the negative person nobody wants to talk to or all those kind of things. So I agree, keep that in mind because that is, I think a lot of people hurt themselves by going to these things. And it's not because of anything. They actually, it's just because of those things. Right. These simple Stuff that people lose insight for. So even if you're forced to be there, your boss tells you you gotta go, or you're obligated, like we are actually obligated to go to bni ones with contractually like, I have to go, which can hurt the mindset of it. When you, when you're told you have to be somewhere, sometimes you'll look at it less as an opportunity and more as an obligation. And even if that's the case, you gotta paint the picture. I've definitely not done that at times. Like, I've hurt myself.
- [20:36]
B
We're all human, but. Yeah, but like anything else, you know, when you see the lesson, you got to actually do something.
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A
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've walked in and been like, telling people, like, I don't want to be here. And then shockingly, nobody wanted to talk to me.
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B
The worst thing too is besides, like, the clear aura of I don't want to be here.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And you, you can give that off and most people will sniff that out. The other thing is, you know, how you behave and act in these social situations. Not just your dress and your. And your kind of aura and how you talk to people, but what are they seeing you doing? If. If the first thing people say about you the night after an industry or a trade conference cocktail party is, oh, my God, they got so drunk last night. That's not good.
- [21:17]
A
No. Yeah, it's a bad start.
- [21:18]
B
Not good at all.
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A
There's no good story coming after that.
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B
No. No, not good at all. And. And that'll be, you know, kind of how you're perceived.
- [21:26]
A
Oh, all the way until next year when everybody's like, let's see how drunk they get today. Yeah, of course.
- [21:31]
B
That's what you're remembered for. Yeah. And I've probably been on that side of things too. Not good at some point in my life. So.
- [21:39]
A
Yeah. Be careful. Be careful with it. All right. But thank you again and we will be back next week. And as always, if you've got any questions, topics, business, you know, related, not. Not necessarily B and I at all, go to bnipower of1.com, leave it there, let us know and we'll definitely make sure to get to that. We want to hear from you, want to make it this as valuable as a resource to you as possible. So we talk to you soon.
- [22:00]
B
Thanks, everybody.