So you’ve been to an industry or professional conference, and met lots of interesting people. Where to from here ?
- List the good ideas you’ve collected - Choose a couple of great ones and implement these. Determine timeframes
- Circulate useful conference materials to interested colleagues and contacts
- List the contacts you’ve made and decide how and when to follow up with each - add them to you database
- Prioritise follow-up contacts and pick up the phone or dash off an informal email in the first week post-conference
- Offer value to every contact - whether an article, some information, an idea, or an introduction to a useful network contact, make certain that you have some value to offer with each follow-up
- Follow-up with the conference organiser if you or a colleague could present a worthwhile paper next year.
This way, you’ll find that conferences produce more value than merely some immediate learning and industry contacts: they can be used to build useful business.
|
