{"id":431,"date":"2011-02-22T12:08:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-22T12:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/?p=431"},"modified":"2014-08-27T07:46:03","modified_gmt":"2014-08-27T12:46:03","slug":"getting-most-out-of-conferences-before","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2011\/02\/getting-most-out-of-conferences-before.html","title":{"rendered":"Getting the most out of conferences before you go"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The past couple of weeks, we&#8217;ve been talking about <a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2011\/02\/not-finding-conference-sponsors-sponsor.html\">how to get the money to attend those important conferences<\/a>. Now, let&#8217;s talk about how to make the most of those conferences. Let&#8217;s start with preparation before the event.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s all about planning. You need to know the five W&#8217;s of your conference before you ever go.<\/p>\n<table cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/bjmccray\/4428169031\/\" title=\"Question Mark and Bryan Person by bjmccray, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Question Mark and Bryan Person\" height=\"180\" src=\"https:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4051\/4428169031_b10ac51362_m.jpg\" width=\"240\"><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Mark Williams and Bryan Person<br \/>at SXSW 2010<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><b>Who<\/b><\/p>\n<div><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Who do you want to meet?\u00a0Think customers, partners, competitors, mentors, and vendors.<\/li>\n<li>Who could you cooperate with?<\/li>\n<li>Who could send you customers? Who could you send customers for an affiliate offer?<\/li>\n<li>Who have you talked to several times, and you just need to push it over the edge and get something going with them?\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><b>What<\/b><\/div>\n<div><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What do you want to talk to these people about?<\/li>\n<li>What project are you working on that is too big for you alone?\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>What are you wanting to learn? What sessions should you make time for?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><b>When and Where<\/b><\/div>\n<div><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Set meetings up before you go.<\/li>\n<li>Are there sessions you don\u2019t want to miss? Invite a friend to meet you at a particular session that relates to a project you\u2019re working on.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div><b>Why<\/b><\/div>\n<div><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Make an index card of your goals for the event.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p><b>A couple of other points\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Order some business cards, if you&#8217;re in a business card kind of industry. I still use a few (about a dozen) at most big conferences.<\/li>\n<li>Post something relevant on your blog.<\/li>\n<li>Post a recent photo of yourself on your blog or Twitter profile. Yes, you. Just do it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What before-the-conference tips do you have?<\/p>\n<p>Next in the series: <a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2011\/03\/make-most-of-being-at-conference.html\">make the most of your time at a conference<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the <a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/guided-tour.html\"> Guided Tour<\/a>. Like what you see? <a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/get-updates.html\">Get our updates<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The past couple of weeks, we&#8217;ve been talking about how to get the money to attend those important conferences. Now, let&#8217;s talk about how to make the most of those conferences. Let&#8217;s start with preparation before the event. It&#8217;s all about planning. You need to know the five W&#8217;s of your conference before you ever [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,3,5],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7269,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions\/7269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}