Gyro25

Account Executive

Heading to my first conference - Need advice on networking and leads

Title says it. Heading to a pretty big marketing summit next week(Marketing, I know), but we're there essentially to network, do demos, bring product awareness and aggressive lead gathering. I'll be boothing for a few days as well. What are some do's and don't from vets here? How do I network so I can gather leads and build rapport with seasoned buyers?

My goal out of this to build a fat pipeline, network and generally just gain more industry knowledge. Thoughts?

🎈 Mentorship

👑 Sales Strategy

🤝 Networking

45 comments

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CoorsKing

WR Officer

Retired King of the Coors Knights

Book your meetings in advance, talk to literally everyone, and go to as many after parties and happy hours as you can.

UrAssIsSaaS

Arsonist

SaaS Eater

Just leaving little nuggets all over the place today

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

I ❤ nuggies

UrAssIsSaaS

Arsonist

SaaS Eater

Make sure you get really drunk, good things always follow

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Ah, but do you remember those things?

UrAssIsSaaS

Arsonist

SaaS Eater

That’s part of the fun. Trying to put it all back together

goose

Politicker

Sales Executive

I always prefer to walk the floor as opposed to manning a booth. Leave that to others. Conversations occur on the floor. Talk about what interests you (or them). Don’t talk about your stuff unless they ask. It’s always easier to send a message pertaining to a conversation about fake moon landings than it is to send a message about “following up on our value prop”.

Send follow ups immediately or after. Attendees are bombarded with messages after the show. Either hit them up via email or text immediately or send the “I’m probably the last email you receive” email a week after. Try to avoid getting mixed in with all the other messages.

Someone else said it but I’ll repeat it. Try to arrange for meetings in advance. It increases your odds of connecting with specific attendees.

If it’s more than one day don’t get hammered the first night. This is about first impressions most times and no one wants to talk with a sloppy, hungover sales person.

UrAssIsSaaS

Arsonist

SaaS Eater

Now I understand why you were watching moon landing on youtube.

goose

Politicker

Sales Executive

* fake moon landing

UrAssIsSaaS

Arsonist

SaaS Eater

What other conspiracy theories are you hot on right now?

goose

Politicker

Sales Executive

Aliens are real. No doubt. Lee Harvey Oswald was a patsy. I’m sure Charles Manson is crazy but there was help from the outside on that one. Adnan Syed is not guilty. Neither is Steve Avery. The Titanic didn’t sink. And if we can envision a Matrix like future then who is to say we aren’t living there already?

mitts2

Politicker

Account Executive

Sick post, great advice. Even better follow-ups on conspiracies. Goose is on a heater

UrAssIsSaaS

Arsonist

SaaS Eater

I am all in on the Goose train right now. There isn't enough Reynolds at the nearest grocery store for the ride we are about to go on

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

I like the email strategy.

Mobi85

Politicker

Regional Sales Manager

Wear comfy shoes because you will be on your feet all day long in the booth and having sore ass feet won't allow you to retain info given to you at the booth or really allow you to get out and network because your feet hurt so much.

Go Alcohol drink, water, alcohol drink, water and so on so forth. You are there to work and not get absolutely blasted, yes have a few drinks (if you drink) to loosen up a little bit but don't go overboard. In the past, I would go vodka/club soda for a few drinks and then just club soda with a lime after to keep up appearances but also keep it under control. Also going back to the comfy shoe part, trying to work a booth and network with a massive hangover isn't fun.

Also if you are running with business cards, throw them in your lanyard behind your name card. Makes it easy for you find them and then you don't have to fumble around in your pocket to find your crumbled up business cards. Also going from a marketing perspective if you can have something to give away in the booth and have a QR code that they have to scan to gain access to the giveaway or demo it is an easy way to gain leads.

FamilyTruckster

Politicker

Exec Director, Major Accounts

Really strong advice here.

Gyro25

Notorious Answer

Account Executive

Awesome, thanks. Yeah, we're giving away the usual merch with one big giveaway. We get our own QR code for leads and meeting, which is great cuz I'd hate to remember all that info. I'm pretty personable, but have yet to network and intro myself all whilst wearing a mask.

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

I'm worried about networking NOT in a mask as I'm heading to Texas next week for one of these...

Mobi85

Politicker

Regional Sales Manager

Have been at a few conferences this year with some masked mandatory and some not masked. Kept some hand sani close by at all times and treated it like a standard cold/flu season and kept some socially acceptable distance from people but not be the weird dude standing in the corner with a can of lysol.

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

Yea I hear you... that's the balance we need to strike.

Don't want to be the Canadian weirdo's in hazmat suits...

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

All great ideas, especially the vodka/soda hack - great to not look like a teetotaler whilst keeping your shit together.

I rock a business card case though, so it's easy to grab and they're never crumpled.

FamilyTruckster

Politicker

Exec Director, Major Accounts

Find out where the parties are and get invited.

SaaSam

Politicker

Account Executive

Personally I don't like manning the booth as I'm not a fan of waiting for opportunities to come to me. I absolutely love conferences and I spend a majority of my time walking around introducing myself to folks. Think of it as cold calling in person.

May not be what everyone would recommend but it's worked great for me.

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

You're headed next week? Should have started prospecting the attendee's list a week or so ago...

Start researching all of the vendors right now. Find folks that fit your ICP, and send them messages Saturday/Sunday requesting a meeting at their booth/your booth/coffee.

Booth to booth lead gen is bullshit and it's all for swag anyways.

Gyro25

Notorious Answer

Account Executive

We just got the registration two days ago, was super abrupt and I hopped on it the second I had the chance to go. But yeah, I'm going through the attendee list with my AE later to make a plan. Solid advice 👌

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

Oh, and have fun but don't be stupid during the after-hour events!

hh456

Celebrated Contributor

sales

I’m gonna murder you for not talking to me first.

1 - quickly get the attendee list.
2 - email everyone who is a target personally, don’t use whatever platform you have, it’ll get filtered to spam.
3 - rvm all your targets
4 - go to groundtruth and geofence the conference with your ad, booth # and contact info.
5 - spend time away from booth. Go make deals happen by getting out there.

good luck!

IYNFYL

Politicker

Enterprise SaaS AE

Try to think in their shoes if you came up to booths how you would want to be pitched / pressure into being sold. I think this humanizes you more to have better conversations instead of canned/fake

DataSlangah

Politicker

SAE

See if yoh can get a list of attendees beforehand and use zoominfo to get their email addresses and set up as many meetings as possible.

Gyro25

Notorious Answer

Account Executive

Yup, made my c level and decision maker list. Going to be sending invites to network l/meet on Sunday

SADNES5

Politicker

down voters are marketing spies

I hope to get this in. Food lines. This is the best time to build rapport. Guards are down. Get in line near your prospective clients. Make small talk. Ask to join them.

Gyro25

Notorious Answer

Account Executive

Unfortunately, we have staggered food pods. Apparently only groups of 1-2 are allowed to eat together or some shit.. Kinda defeats the purpose

SADNES5

Politicker

down voters are marketing spies

Hmm. Someone else mentioned get invites to everything. Ask everyone if they have dinner plans or if there are other events you haven't heard of.

Don't be a time vampire either. My biggest confrence peeve is when someone keeps chatting with me and I'm being polite, but there is no sales opportunity. Just wrap up with a "great seeing you", we should grab a beer if time permits and leave.

If you ask someone for their card, and they say they don't have any, chances are they do, they just don't want to give you deets. Accept it and move on. Be a shark, if you're not moving and chatting you're dying.

FromaBlankPerspective

Politicker

District Manager

Reach out to people you know will be there beforehand and try to set up a time to engage with them. I used to do this when I went to more conferences and it was always a better use of time than just wandering around the booths.

Blackwargreymon

Politicker

MDR

Make sure you get really drunk, good things always follow

cw95

Politicker

Sales Development Lead

Haven’t really got that much advice apart from be yourself and avoid being the classic cliche of a sales person! That will get you far!

Diablo

Politicker

Sr. AE

I use to visit relevant booths, understand, meet different people, consume data patiently as much as they had to share, exchange card and introduce a bit of what we do.

Then I would see if our solution would make sense and send them an email with the use case that would solve their biz problem (synergy identification).

Don't forget your business cards 🤠

Gyro25

Notorious Answer

Account Executive

Don't have business cards unfortunately. Pretty relevant, but I guess with my company being fully remote, there was never a need, until now.. Lol

DungeonsNDemos

Big Shot

Rolling 20's all day

atleast have a digital card option. free apps out there to do so.

justatopproducer

Politicker

VP OF SALES -US

Lol, networking events arent made to work espicially in marketing are they??

Njanack

Good Citizen

SDR

Be approachable and look your best!

Beans

Big Shot

Enterprise Account Executive

Get your LinkedIn QR code ready and easy to scan directly in the booth - any looky-loo's who you can't engage with can give you a quick add, they tend to be much more serious when they do that as well rather than just snagging a physical copy.

Gyro25

Notorious Answer

Account Executive

Update: Event is going great, ton of solid opps and leads I've schmoozed my way into. Been giving demos and sending li follow ups for meetings right after. Heading to the after party later. P.s solid advice on the shoes, been in my feet all day, but have in soles.

Salesvpfl

Good Citizen

VP of Sales

Definitely pre-book as many meetings as you can before the conference. My team and I have done 3 conferences over the last several weeks, and we have another next week. The attendance has been very light at all of them. My best advice is if you are able to, don’t wait to set the next meeting after the show. These people are getting a million follow ups and it’s hard to get their attention, book the follow up right then and there (if it feels appropriate). Most people are very receptive and will pull out their phone and pick a time. We have had way more success doing that lately then waiting until afterwards.

MR.StretchISR

Politicker

ISR

Gyro25

Notorious Answer

Account Executive

You gotta stop spamming..

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Gyro25

Heading to my first conference - Need advice on networking and leads

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