The do’s and don’ts of networking at trade shows, workshops, and conferences with Dave Delaney

Hey, everybody, Drew here. You know, we are always looking for more ways to be helpful and meet you wherever you’re at to help you grow your agency. It’s one of the reasons why we’ve produced this podcast for so long, and I’m super grateful that you listen as often as you do. However, there are some topics that are better suited for quick hyper-focused answers in under 10 minutes. That’s where our YouTube channel really comes in. For quick doses of inspiration, best practices, tips and tricks, head over to youtube.com/the at sign Agency Management institute. Again, that’s youtube.com/the at sign or symbol.

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Welcome to the Agency Management Institute community, where you’ll learn how to grow and scale your business, attract and retain the best talent, make more money, and keep more of the money you make. The Build a Better Agency Podcast, presented by a White Label IQ is packed with insights on how small to mid-size agencies are getting things done, bringing his 25 years of experience as both an agency owner and agency consultant. Please welcome your host, Drew McLellan.

Hey everybody. Drew McLellan here with another episode of Build a Better Agency. We are marching our way to episode 500, so that’s exciting. I can remember starting this podcast kind of in a lark in 2 0 0 7 and think, you know, well, we’ll see how this goes. And so far, knock on wood, it seems to be going all right. So thanks for being a listener. Thanks for spending time with us, and thanks for being here today. Before I tell you a little bit about our guest and the topic, I wanna tell you about one of the speakers I’m super excited about who’s coming to the summit. So, as you know, we hold a conference every year, 350 agency owners and leaders coming together to learn how to run the agency more profitably, more, more sustainably in more stable way.

And obviously with the hopes that you can scale and build something that one day if you want to, you can sell. So the conference topics are just like a MI all focused on the back of the house, how to run the business better. And so one of the, one of the keynote speakers is a woman named Casey Brown. And Casey is a pricing expert. Casey has done some amazing things for some a MI agencies, but she’s gonna, she’s gonna spend 45 or 50 minutes talking to us about how to understand pricing concepts and methods and identifying actionable pricing opportunities. So this is gonna be a very action packed, a very, how to do a keynote, not something pie in the sky, but really giving you some tools and tips.

Casey believes that most pricing decisions are made from fear, not from confidence, instead of pricing to win most sellers price not to lose. And if that sounds familiar to you, then you’re gonna want to hear this keynote. Even with a perfect pricing strategy, margins still shrink in the face of outta control, discounting, and fear-based pricing. So Casey will launch us onto a path of improving our pricing, dramatically increasing profits and growing sales. And she does it in a really entertaining and interactive way. She’s gonna tell us great stories, she’s gonna give us great examples, and most importantly, she’s gonna give us some very practical, ready to implement steps to drive pricing up so we can drive profitability and without losing sales.

So, super excited about that. If you are, if you have not bought your ticket yet, we still do have some. So head over to agency management institute.com and in the upper left corner, there’s A-B-A-B-A Summit navigation tab. Click on that, click on registration, and you’re all set. We’d love to have you with us. If you are a member at any level, please remember that you’re welcome to join us for Member day on Monday, May 20th, before the actual conference starts on Mon on Tuesday, May 21st. So the conference itself is Tuesday the 21st, and Wednesday the 23rd. We’d love to have you there, and we would love to help you learn from really smart folks like Casey.

Alright, so today’s topic is one. So post Covid, many of you are back on the road. You are traveling to conferences, trade shows, some of you are speaking at conferences and trade shows. And if you remember from our 2023 Agency Edge research series where we asked clients how, when and where are they likely to give their existing agency more money, more budget. One of the things they said to us was, I wanna spend more time with the agency owner and the agency leaders, but I don’t want to be sold to, I want them to pitch me ideas and I want us to learn together. And one of the things they identified, which I thought was honestly a little surprising and very interesting, is one of the, one of the places they wanna hang out with you more is trade shows and conferences.

They’re already there, they’re out of the office, they’re already thinking bigger picture. They’re there to learn and they would like to do that with you. So if that’s not on your radar screen with either your existing clients or prospects, or both, maybe it should be for 2024. So our guest today is gonna help us get ready for that. So Dave Delaney is a keynote speaker. He has written some books. He has a depth of expertise on how to really show up at a conference or trade show or workshop in a way that allows you to build your network to create connections that matter, that lead to opportunities and referrals. And so we’re gonna learn from him the do’s and don’ts of trade shows and workshops and conferences.

So without any further ado, let’s welcome him to the show. Dave, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you, Drew. Yes, I am excited to be here with you today.

So give everybody a little bit of your background, how you came to know all of these tricks that you’re gonna teach us about trade shows and conferences. And then I’m gonna dig into the questions ’cause I know you have a lot to teach us.

Yeah, absolutely. So I, where do I begin? Well, I wrote a little book called New Business Networking All about using events, organizing your own events, but also attending trade shows, conferences, summits, you know, all of the things, how to grow your business, build relationships at all of these things. So, but the book itself is also about networking online and offline. So also using social networks, social media, content marketing, all that good stuff that helped to grow agencies through networking. So I’m very passionate about the topic. It’s something that I’ve practiced what I preached. And yeah, so it, you know, it it for me right back, it gets back to like moving from Toronto back in 2007 to Nashville, Tennessee where I live now.

So 16 years, but really not knowing anyone before moving here and how I networked my way into getting some jobs and ultimately starting my own business.

So how’s that changed since Covid

As far as like networking at events and things, or just growing businesses or,

Yeah, I, in terms of networking, like what, what changed post covid? I mean, obviously during Covid, and we’ll get into the online and, and live event thing. Obviously during Covid it was all online, but has, has Covid changed anything or are these tried and true methodologies that have worked since the dawn of time?

I think fundamentally they have worked for the test of time, right? However, CO obviously changed things in that if you weren’t familiar with a little company called Zoom, which is now really a verb, you know, it, it, things change obviously. So like, I, like, for example, I was, I’m a keynote speaker, so I do a lot of presentations about communication strategy, communication skills, networking, obviously being one of those topics. And I was, I was speaking in March of 2020 or April, I can’t remember, but to 6,000 people at a women’s business conference in San Francisco.

And of course that was the big, that was the first one that I had a rapidly pivot and suddenly we were doing it all virtually. And so I believe networking is most effective if you’re doing it the right way in person. And I believe that nowadays, even though many of us have gotten used to doing this, looking at webcams, I really do believe that the magic happens when you get outta your house or office and, and meet the people in person, regardless of whether you’re shy or introverted or extroverted or what have you.

It doesn’t really matter. You, you need to get out.

Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. And I, we even see it with employees, right? I mean, agencies have gone either completely virtual or hybrid, and they’re struggling to create culture and connectivity with the employees. And man, they do a two day retreat and it’s magic. People just have being together.

Yes, absolutely. I speak at a lot of retreats. In fact, I’m doing one in a couple of weeks again, and you’re, you’re spot on about that because you need to bring your your teams together too. And, and to your point, right? Like, so, you know, when we went fully remote, because we didn’t really have a choice with quarantining and all that good stuff, when we switched to even the hybrid model, a lot of businesses didn’t really, they weren’t really clear on how they were communicating those hybrid rules or, or Right. You know, so what happened was, you know, some people would come in the office Monday and some would come in Wednesday, and, and what would happen is the office would be empty when they came, came in.

Yeah. Which kind of defeats the purpose really, because the magic in, in person at work comes just like conferences and things when you’re actually there in person. So yeah,

Collaborating

And the collaboration, the serendipity, the spontaneity, like all those things happen. In fact, I wrote a blog post on my [email protected] on that site about, I called it Smoking with the Boss, and it was using a, a reference from a friend’s episode many years ago.

Oh, right. Where Rachel is smoking with her boss. Yeah, yeah. I’m embarrassed. I’m embarrassed that I immediately know what that is, but there you have it.

Oh, I’m also embarrassed that I, I am referencing friends, but I will be the first to admit that that is the only plot line I remember. And it’s, and for those who aren’t familiar, there was a new, a new bo or a new employee who was, who was just getting in and with the boss and Rachel got jealous. And so she realized that they were becoming so close because they were always out on smoke breaks together. So Rachel pretended she smoked in order to to, and hilarity ensued. So anyway, of

Course it does. Right, right. So how do we get this wrong? Because you would, you would think, you know, I the audience, these are articulate, curious, good, smart people, they’re used to connecting with other people. They know that the, the core of their business businesses relationally based. So you would think that nobody is better at networking than this listening audience than agency people. We should be great at this. So what do we do wrong?

I think what happens a lot of the time is we approach networking in this take, take, take mindset, right? We’re networking to get the next client. We’re Networking to upsell somebody, we’re networking to make money, make money. And in a sense, I mean, we are attending conferences and things to grow our businesses, so let’s not be, you know, naive there or anything. But, but, but truth be told, I mean, it’s a relationship game. Business is all about relationships and the you’ll align, you know, people do business with those they know, like, and trust and respect. And if you are attending events and whipping business cards at everybody, you meet like, you know, like a Vegas dealer throw and throwing playing cards.

Yeah. You’re not gonna, you’re not gonna get a lot of calls back after that. And so a big part of Networking, what I talk about networking and, and how I advise my clients is to focus on the three ups of networking. So the first is to show up, the second is to follow up, and the third is to catch up. And if you’re doing all those three things effectively, you’re gonna grow business ultimately by building relationships. And also, you know, an important point about networking is it’s a two-way street, right? So you’re, you’re planting seeds is a good way to think about it.

So what does that look like? So what, when you teach people how to, what, what, what are the best practices for networking? So let, let’s say I’m going to an, an industry trade show or conference. So everyone there ha half the people are my competitors and the other half are my prospects. And I probably have a couple clients there too. So how should I approach that kind of an event?

Yeah, great, great question. So what I started doing was advising, what happened was I was at an event not that long ago as a speaker. I was the keynote speaker at this conference that was sort of in an industry kind of foreign to me, but because I speak on soft skills around communication strategy, though I can, you know, it’s, my, my message is often pretty audience agnostic. Yeah. And what happened was, I was, I was speaking at this conference and I sat in on the other sessions and all the other speakers were pretty bad. And their decks were, you know, their presentation slides were, you know, white with like 25 bullets. And they were talking to the slide to the screen rather than the audience and, and so on and so on.

And people were shifting in their seats and leaving. And, and I witnessed this, and then I went and, and walked around the show floor afterwards at the exhibit hall. And I, I noticed that most people were, most exhibitors were on their phone just kind of standing be, you know, maybe on a seat sitting kind of under their booth, right. You know, just, just perusing whatever they were perusing on their phones. And I realized that with my experiences around networking, my experiences around content, around public speaking and training on, on all this stuff, I realized that I can help companies improve their outcomes, their return on investment by going to conferences, whether you’re sponsoring or attending.

Right. And this is when I came up with this idea of 10 x conference coaching, which you can find at future fourth, as I mentioned, shim was plug. I know. So to answer your question, you know, when I, I, and I have like a, a free form there that you can book time with me for free and I can give you ideas, which I’m gonna do with you now. So you are preparing to go to a conference. You said half of the people there, your competitors, the other half are prospects. First of all, when you’re, when you’re meeting with competitors, it’s important to remember that, you know, to treat them like a human rather than a competitor. And, and I mean this because things change, right? Agencies evolve, sometimes one buys another.

So sometimes people get frustrated at one agency and they quit. And if they quit, maybe they’re looking for a job and maybe they would be a great candidate for you. So it’s important not to disregard anyone for their current job title, regardless of, even if you consider them a competitor, as far as like meeting new, like meeting prospects at a conference. I mean, the first thing that I would do, and what I recommend my clients do is, is to research who’s going to be there. And that means looking at the exhibitor list, if there is one available, looking at the sponsors listed on the website, looking at the speakers listed on the website. It is a heck of a lot.

And I, I know this firsthand as a keynote speaker, it is a heck of a lot easier to access the speaker before he or she takes the stage, right? Right. Because after they’ve taken the stage, they’re inundated with people. And I always have a line of people asking me questions and all this stuff. So it’s very important if you wanna connect with the speakers to reach out to them before the conference. And so a big part of what you should be planning on and thinking about is preparing for the co conference before you actually even set foot at, at the conference center or the hotel or what have you.

So, so you do a ton of keynote speaking and I do a smattering of it, or I teach workshops or whatever. How often does someone reach out to you in advance?

It doesn’t happen very often, shockingly.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I, I think that’s sort of the point too, right? If you want to, if you wanna engage with someone, I think we either, A, don’t bother to do the homework or b we get in our head that this is a important person or a busy person or fill in the blank. And so we don’t wanna be a bother, but most people who are authors or speakers or subject matter experts, it’s not like you’re reaching out to Beyonce, right? I mean yeah, they’re, they’re, they’re not famous like that. And so, right. I think most of them would welcome the interaction and the fact that somebody’s paying attention and excited to hear their message. Is that kind of what you experience when you do that outreach?

Absolutely. But Drew, don’t you know who I think I am?

I’m famous. I know you are

Not at all

Current co company excluded most. Right, right. Genius. Right, right. Yeah.

Yeah. No, you, you, you raised a great point there. And, and the truth, truth is, I mean, most people and getting back to the, you know, working hybrid, working remotely, most, most people, a lot of speakers and so forth are probably like me sitting at home when they’re not in their home office. But they’re not, they’re not out and about. And, and oftentimes they would love someone to talk to. So it’s not a great thing to reach out. So Yes, yes. Absolutely.

All right. So step one is do some homework. Figure out who’s gonna be there harder on the attendee side, right? Probably.

It depends. It depends if you’ve attended that conference before, okay. That’s where there could be you, you have a leg up in that way. The, and that gets into that catching up line of those three ups that I mentioned. But if you don’t know who’s going to be attending the conference, there’s still some ways to do that. So for example, like one of the things you can do is reach out to the actual organizers of the conference, the planners, the people you kind of check to reach out to them and let them know that you would love to connect with some of the attendees before the conference.

And you would be surprised that oftentimes they would be willing to provide some introductions that way

Probably won’t give you the list, but if you’re specific about like, who you’d like to meet or somebody who does this kind of work, they’ll make some introductions. Okay.

Exactly. Yeah. I, I mean the, you have to remember that the conference planners or trade show organizers or what have you, they want the event to be a success, right? So as far as like the the 10 x conference coaching offer that I, that I do, they want it to be a success. They want attendees and sponsors, especially to see a huge return on their investment because if not, they’re probably not gonna return the next year. And so they need, you know, if they do, they’re doing a good job with it, and you reach out and ask for some introductions or some, you know, point, point you in the right direction to some folks that are gonna be there nine times outta 10, I expect that they would respond in a positive way and and facilitate that.

Another thing you can do is look at the sponsors who are gonna be there. ’cause that is something that you will be able to tell, maybe not all the exhibit hall perhaps, but you will at least see on their websites a bunch of logos. Sure. And those are companies worth reaching out to, to get an introduction ahead of time. And again, they might be a competitor, but who knows, maybe they’re pivoting to something else. They’re, so the point is it’s to, is to try to set up, schedule some meetings before the event

And what, and what kind of meetings. So let’s say you’re speaking at a conference and I’m a fan boy and I wanna meet you and I think you might be able to help my business, or you might be a prospect when I, when I reach out to you and we don’t know each other, so we’re having a, a brief little email exchange, right? What doesn’t look predatory or creepy or whatever. When it comes to like, setting up a meeting, is it, is it more like a, Hey, I know they’re serving lunch on Tuesday, you know, could we sit together or like, what’s, what’s appropriate? And, and does it matter if you’re a gender? Like if I’m a male approaching a female speaker, is that, do I have to do that differently?

Like, just tell us sort of the etiquette of all of that?

Yeah, it’s a great, great question. So first of all, as a general rule in everything you do, like, it’s almost life, like every aspect, right? A general rule is that if it feels like you’re being creepy, you are right, right. Right. So it feels a little bit like you’re being creepy than, and it’s the same with like, you know, it, you could replace creepy with like, you know, pushy or what have you, right? Like if you’re sending out like the 50th email to the same prospect and they haven’t responded, you know, if you’re feeling you’re being pushy, yeah, you probably are. Right? Right. So that said, though, I do encourage you to, to reach out to folks, I don’t personally feel, I don’t personally feel, I’ve never felt concerned about reaching out to somebody or to, to consider someone’s gender.

Maybe I am very vocally, happily married. Mm. Right? So, and, and I do not, not because of, I, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t promote the fact that I’m happily married with any reason, specifically just I’m happily married. So there, there may be that the other, but if, if that is a concern, perhaps one way or regardless of whether it’s a concern, one, one thing you could do is organize a coffee, like a coffee meetup

Ah, with a

Group of people I’ve done a lot. Yeah. Or a cocktail hour or something like that. That’s, that’s either, you know, during the lunch break or maybe it’s after the conference in the evening, or a breakfast before it starts. I’ve done all of the above over the years. And so what you can do is then email folks who are going to the conference. By the way, another thing I didn’t mention earlier was maybe to a lesser extent, but you can do a keyword search for the hashtag or the name of the conference on social media. All the social networks have some sort of search feature. And, and you can see people that way too, and perhaps respond to those folks with an invite to your, you know, cocktail hour lunch or something like that.

And I’ve done a lot of that over the years as well. So that’s one way to, to, you know, schedule some, some casual, you know, hangouts or meetups before Right. Or before you go to the event. But I, I think that’s the best way. The other thing too is if there’s somebody, like a speaker as I mentioned that you want to connect with, yeah. Reach out to that speaker ahead of time, let them know who you are. Let them know that you would love to meet, you know, for a coffee during the conference, or, you know, I wouldn’t, you know, getting to your point about, you know, possibly coming across a little, a little creepy or pushy. Yeah. You may not wanna like invite like a single or a, a person of, you know, to like a cocktail.

Like, Hey, let’s meet for cocktail. Right? Like, that may come

Off weird. Well, or, or it just feels sort of salesmany, right? So Yeah, I think, I think I know for me, and I’m sure for you too, mm, when you get, when someone reaches out to you, you’re always trying to assess intent a little bit, right? Sure, sure. And hey, I just wanna, I just wanna get to know you and learn from you and blah, blah blah. Yeah. Is different than when your spidey sense goes off and it’s like, oh, this is gonna be a miserable sales pitch, right? Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. So don’t be that reason why they, you know, right. Don’t, don’t prove them. Right. If they’re feeling that way instead, I mean, you don’t, I mean, you know, the old analogy of like, you know, dating right? Where you know you’re not gonna go all the way to the first date. Like, I mean, you wanna, you know, or, or you’re not maybe gonna get a job in the first job interview. Like, it’s gonna take a little time. So, and again, if you’re dating just for that, well maybe you should,

There you go, right?

Reconsider again, getting back to that creepy thing.

Okay. So do homework, reach out in advance. I wanna get, I know we’ve only scraped the surface of one tip, but let’s take a quick break and we’ll come back and talk about, all right, so we’ve done some reach out, what do we do on site? So let’s take a quick break and we’ll come back and we’ll talk to Dave about that. Hey everybody, just wanna remind you before we get back to the show, that we have a very engaged Facebook group. It’s a private group just for podcast listeners and agency owners that are in the AAMI community. And to find it, if you’re not a member, head over to facebook.com/groups/baba podcast.

So again, facebook.com/groups/baab podcast. All you have to do is answer a few questions to make sure that you are an actual agency owner leader. And we will let you write in and you can join over 1700 other agency owners and leaders. And I’m telling you, there’s probably 10 or 15 conversations that are started every day that are gonna be of value to you. So come join us. Alright, we are back with Dave Delaney and we’re talking about how to really leverage trade shows and conferences. How do we create connection? How do we use them as a sales tool? How do we build relationships? So before the break, we talked about doing some homework and actually doing some outreach before the conference or trade show.

So, Dave, what are one or two things we should do during, and I don’t wanna make, I wanna make sure I’m mindful of our time because I wanna talk about what we should do after the trade show or conference as well. But for now, what should we do while we’re on site?

Yeah, great. Great question. So, while you’re on site, it depends if you have, if you’re like exhibiting, right? So if you have a booth, for example, like I’ve, I’ve worked like four or five, I think it was five, css, the consumer electronic show at, on the booth floor. So like, I know exactly I have, I’ve, I’ve spent, you know, five, that’s five css, that’s like five years off my life from a week in Vegas. Each time it’s a lot. It’s a lot. So it depends on whether you, you’re gonna have a booth and things like that, or exhibit table or whatever it is. But during the conference, I mean, one of the most important things to do is that the people that you meet, you want to get their information so that you can follow up with them after the conference.

So when you meet people, and again, you’re not asking for a business card from everybody you meet because that’s annoying, but instead, when you meet people that you have, you strike a rapport with, perhaps there’s ways that you can provide value to them. That may not mean closing them in a cl as a client. It might mean getting them a new job or an investor or getting them a new client. But again, what you want to do is ask for a business card from people that you meet. And when you receive that business card, take notes on the back of the card about what you talked about and how you should follow up and consider. There’s a few things to consider here in, in this process, but what I’m saying is that like everybody has gotten back from a conference, they have a stack of business cards on their desk.

You might even see one on your desk right now if you look down, right? So you have a stack of business cards from people that you meet, and over time you neglect following up because you’re busy when you get back to work, you’re catching up with the day to day and suddenly you don’t have any idea who these people are. And so you recycle those cards or chuck ’em in the garbage and you never follow up. Right? And it’s such a missed opportunity. So by taking notes on those cards, you remember exactly what you talked about, how you can serve them, how you can help them, maybe they are a prospect, writing all that information down on the card. Couple important points. One is that depending on the culture back, the cultural background, authenticity, or not authenticity, but more cultural background of the person you’re speaking with, it’s important to consider how you handle that card.

So for example, if you’re interacting with someone from, let’s say Japan or like many Asian countries writing, like taking their card and writing notes on it is as good as slapping them in the face. It’s, it’s not. Oh, okay. Yeah. So there, there’s a, you know, a cultural ways to, to accept the card with two hands to, to, you know, admire the card, look at the card, and still hold it in your hands as you’re speaking rather than just like grabbing it, writing something, stuffing it in your pocket. So that said, it might be it, again, it just depends where you are, who you’re speaking with. But sometimes it’s like, on my business card, I have a space for people to write their notes ’cause I encourage people to do that.

And I include, I make sure my business cards are, are flat and not glossy so that ink will actually stay on the card. Ah, but if, if that’s the situation for you, it might be good after you’ve met to like go over to the bar or go into the bathroom and take the notes on the card there while they’re still top of mind. Another important

Point, are you, are you, are you finding most people still have business cards?

Yeah, that’s what I was just gonna, that’s that’s a point I was just gonna raise. So yeah, so it depends on your industry. Depends on your, the event. Yeah. But I do find that people still do have business cards. But again, it just depends. I’ll ra So I’ll, I’ll share a quick anecdote. Be careful on time here. But I will, my wife and I went to like a, a cool little small hip restaurant in Nashville for dinner one night. And we, it was kind of a last minute thing. We couldn’t get a table. So we sat at the bar and we sat next to this really beautiful, like, young couple and they sat right next to us. So we’re all at the bar together.

And, and we started talking, they started talking to us and we started chitchatting and next thing we know, we, we really struck a great, had a great conversation with, with this couple who were, it turned out we’re both actors in Nashville here for a shoot. But they were actually from Los Angeles. And at the end of the night she leans over to me and she’s like, Hey Dave, next if you guys, if you and Heather ever come out to la make sure you, you reach out to us. ’cause we would love to like, you know, show you around and hang out. And we’re like, wow. Yeah, that’s cool. Right? And so I reached in my pocket to get my business card and luckily I was at the end. So as I reached in my pocket to get my business card outta my wallet to give her, she grabs her phone and goes, what’s your Instagram?

Ah, interesting. In that, in that moment I’m like, oh, Instagram. Yeah, I’ve got like 3000 followers. Yeah. Yeah. I’m at Dave Delaney on Instagram and we became friends on Instagram and I slowly like moved my hand out of my pocket empty right. And return to the conversation. And in the car that night, my wife and I were la when I explained what happened to my wife, she’s like, you almost ruined it. Like they all, they thought we were so cool, right?

You almost uncool us, right? I

Almost completely, yeah. Screwed us on that one. Yeah. So to the point about the business cards, yes, less people are using business cards. Certainly one, as, as somebody who does a lot of digital marketing and content marketing and being an early adopter and all this stuff, it Amma and a former speaker for Google, I should add, it amazes me how these companies have great innovations and they do such a poor job promoting some of the coolest features that they have. So for example, Twitter or whatever it’s called now, had lists, right? And advanced search and, and things like that that they never promoted. LinkedIn has a certain thing, it’s called the QR code and right, it amazes me.

I have a video on my website on this. I’m happy to send you the link if you like. There is a QR code, if you click on the app, if you click the search window on the top, there’s a little square on the top right? If you click that, it opens up a QR code scanner and a QR code. So for example, you’re at a networking event or a conference, you meet somebody, you, you get the vibe that business cards are not gonna fly here, right? You can then say, are you on LinkedIn? Bring out the app. Blow their mind by connecting on LinkedIn. Important point, once you have done this, you’ve sent the connection request. They’ve accepted it right then in front of you, or vice versa. Make a note on your phone after you part ways of who they are and what you should follow up with.

’cause the same thing’s gonna happen except you’ll have way less likely a chance of following up with them even without a business card. ’cause you won’t remember. So keep a note on your phone about how to follow up.

All right, so I’ve made some connections. I have, I’ve fostered some relationships, passed some business cards. What else should I be doing on site to sort of, and, and by the way, what’s realistic? Am I leaving with a hundred business cards? Am I meeting with, leaving with five people to follow up with? What’s sort of the norm that I should sort of set for myself as a goal?

Yeah, so it’s, it’s a great question. And really the answer unfortunately is rather vague. It depends, right? So it depends on, on obviously how many people you’re meeting and things like that. But what I would urge you to do, let’s just for sake of argument, let’s just say business cards are still hip, right? And everybody’s got one only ask for a business card from somebody that you feel you can help, that you can provide value to, or somebody that you like and maybe you can’t, right? But, but somebody that you enjoyed meeting, ask them for a business card

Or, or maybe somebody that you want to introduce to someone else.

That’s the value part, right? Right. Providing value, right? Yeah, a hundred percent. So ask for their business card. I always ask for a business card. Even if we’re talking, I’ll say like, before I forget, I’ll forget. Before I forget, let me grab your card so that way I can, I can remember to follow up with you later. Like, just straight up, they’ll give me a card. Great. I mentioned this because if they ask for your card and you give them your card at that point, and you don’t have their information or their card, at that point, you’re at the mercy of them remembering how to follow up. Right. Or if they should follow up. Right?

Right.

And that’s,

And we all know how that goes.

And we all know how that goes. Yeah, exactly. They’re gonna get back, they’re gonna be busy. They’re not gonna listen to this riveting conversation. That’s where, or they may miss it and, and too bad for them, but you know, they, they didn’t keep notes and you know, it’s gonna end up in the recycling bin. So, so to that, that point, like as you are, as you’re meeting somebody, you know, make a note to ask for their card. If but not, don’t ask a car, ask for a card from everybody you meet. Don’t be that guy. Right? Because there is always one. And it’s very annoying, especially as you’re talking to somebody and they interrupt you, Hey, could I get a card? Could I get a card? Could I get a card? Right? Like, yeah, no, save a tree.

Well, and, and usually if you’ve got a stack of cards, your plan to do that is to go back to the office, throw ’em in your CRM and just start sending them, you know, canned emails. It’s not actually to connect. So what I’m hearing you say is ask for cards for someone that you plan on having some sort of interaction with after the event, either, Hey, I wanna introduce you to someone, or whatever it may be.

A hundred percent. Yeah. You’re, you’re, you, you’re doing this to provide value, right? Networking is a two way street. So you’re looking for ways to provide value. This doesn’t mean that you’re not looking for clients, it doesn’t mean that you’re not looking for investors or advertisers or, or, you know, whatever it is that you’re selling. Let’s not be naive there. But, but it is important to consider like you’re providing value to them first.

What I think that’s one of the keys about networking that we sort of forget is that it is, it is a reciprocity game. And I believe the most powerful and effective networkers are the ones who really go at it from a, I’m gonna try and meet people that I can help, that I, that I can, I can send them an article based on what we talked about, or I can introduce them to someone, or I have a resource I would share with them and, and stop like right there. Yes. They may also someday be a customer or a client, but thinking about it from a, I’m going into this with a giving mindset, a giving heart as opposed to the take, take, take, as you said earlier.

Yeah. Changes the whole dynamic. And honestly, I believe it changes how I experie. Like if you, if you and I meet at a conference and you have this sort of giving mindset of I’m gonna meet people looking for ways that I can be helpful to them when I meet you, that’s different. It feels different, right? Than if you’re trying to sell me something. Like I immediately know, and then I then, and then I’m able to let my guard down a little or stay in the conversation a little longer or actually create a connection because in the back of my head, I’m not thinking, oh my God, I have to escape him as quick as possible. Right? Exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you’re such a good example of that Drew, because you provide great value to your friends, fans, followers, subscribers, the, you know, the people that are, are reading your content, listening. I mean, how long you’ve got 400 pl how many episodes do you have in your podcast? Yeah.

Coming up on 500. Yeah, almost

500. Like that’s a lot of podcasts. Like for me, you know, I mean the, the podcast I’m doing now, which by the way is called A DHD, why? Squirrels for Late Diagnosed Adults with A DH adhd, which

Probably

Yes, yes. I, I discovery I found out last year at 50 about myself. But that’s a, a topic for another show perhaps, or this one if you like. But I mentioned that because I’ve had seven podcasts over the years Yeah. Since oh five and partly A-D-A-D-H-D related, right? But you’ve been providing all this great value to your listeners, and again, that’s a great reason for folks to be, to know you and trust you, right? ’cause you do, you’re living proof of this stuff. So now kudos to you. You’re doing everything.

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Well, and at a conference or a trade show, you’re doing it in a very concentrated moment, right? So even more so, I think you have to go out of your way to be really pure in your intentions,

Right? Yes. Yes.

Alright, so I have a, a small handful of business cards. I am on the plane home from the conference and I’m thinking I should have a plan for what I should do, right? I’m sure ideally I should have a plan before I flew there in the first place. But what are some of the ways you find that people actually can create meaningful relationships from people they’ve met at trade shows and conferences and meaningful could be that they are gonna be a great referral source. They could be a guest on a podcast or something else you’re producing. It could be somebody that you’re just gonna be able to connect with and make some introductions, and maybe you’re gonna introduce them to a client. And so that adds value to your client because now they know this new person.

So however it is that you’re going to have some sort of meaningful relationship. What do I do next?

Yeah, so great question as well. So what I recommend you do, you’ve got the, the information on the card about what you talked about or what you should follow up or who you should introduce them to. So yeah, yay for you, you’ve been keeping track or you’re referring back to your notes from your LinkedIn connections, what have you. The first thing you want to do is follow up with the person to, you want to keep that follow up email as brief as possible. Yeah. That means following up with them and just saying, Hey, it was so good to meet you at conference X. You know? Yes. I love the salmon, you know, just like you did over lunch or, or whatever it was. Just to give ’em a little reminder of, of who you are because remember, like you’ve got the notes, they don’t, right.

And they might have met a hundred people. So reminding them a little bit about who you are, like you talked over lunch or in the hallway about the speaker or whatever after that, what you were, what the goal of that email really is to keep the conversation going. And this gets into the following up part of networking, right? So you show up, you follow up and you catch up. So in following up, the main goal here is to schedule and schedule a call. Right? Just say, and if they’re in the same market as you, or if they’re, they’re nearby, then maybe that’s lunch, right? Hey, I would love to, to grab a coffee or grab lunch with you, learn more about what you do. I can share some of the stuff that I’m working on and yeah, who knows right?

But approaching it in a friendly way, if you’re not in the same city, a virtual coffee is fine as well. And so just reaching out and saying like, you know, Hey, it was so great to meet you. I would love to follow up with you about some ideas or, or, you know, whatever it is. And let’s, let’s schedule a quick call or zoom to, to chat further, you know, something to that effect. So you want to keep it very brief. Give them the scheduling link in the email. I always, I always add that, you know, I’m happy to use their scheduling link or their, their, you know, work around their schedule if they prefer. Sure. Just make it as easy as possible.

Make it brief. One other point is you may wanna hold off on sending that email for a few days or even a couple days depending. Yeah. And the reason why is because you have to imagine this person, like you probably are coming home from a conference and you’re like, oh God, I’ve got so many things to do now. Right?

Right. I’m, I’m booked solid for the next three days, right?

Yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean, you’ve got, you’ve, it’s, it’s time to play, you know, back to reality catch up mode, right. Of catching up, not to mention, you know, family and so forth. So it may be best to like give it a couple of days or a few days to follow up that way. So yeah, give it a little time. Just be mindful of, of how crazy their inbox may be. The what I would do though is when you do send that email, like, you know, you can use a CRM or set a reminder to try again, maybe a week later if they don’t respond only because you’re giving them the benefit of the doubt that they are probably busy as well, and they may still be catching up.

So send them another email just to, to try again after that. I wouldn’t put them into some long sorted, you know, if this, then that funnel, right? I’m not a, not a big fan of funnels unless we’re talking about funnel cake, in which case a big fan, delicious, let’s go to the carnival. Great. It’s the freshest there. It really is

Just the smell alone. I know, right? Yeah. Right. Yep. All about it.

How much better than email? Yep. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, so I, I mentioned that because depending on what the services are or the products that you’re selling, right? So, you know, when if you put somebody in some sort of funnel or system Yes. Sequence, you know, a sequence of emails, chances are because you work for an agency, you are probably selling a pretty expensive service, right? And because you’re selling a pretty expensive service, you don’t wanna say the same thing to everybody. Like you don’t wanna treat everybody the same. So you really wanna spend some time customizing that outreach. Yes. You can use a bit of a template for sure, sure, right.

In those emails. But you wanna buffer that with an introduction and abl you know, maybe something more personal at the end or ps but so I, I mean, I’m not, you know, you can use like some, but just, you know, treat people individually and, and yeah.

Well I think you went to all this effort to not be a smarmy salesperson.

Exactly.

And then if you throw somebody into an email sequence that feels like an email sequence Yeah. Then it, it sort of diminishes whatever connection you already had with them. Now they’re like, oh, I, now I know why. Right. He was talking to me is because he needed to fill his CRM with new people and I’m just one of the chum that flew into the net, so. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

It’s as bad as like writing back and say, Hey, it was so good to meet you. I really loved meeting you first name.

Right, right, right, right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That’s horrible. Right. All right, so at what point is it appropriate or is it ever appropriate then to put them into like after a while, after you fulfill the relationship for a period of time, is it okay to put them into a sequence? Or do you believe that you should say, Hey, we send out a newsletter every week and it’s got helpful tips in a video, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Would you like me to add you to the, like, what’s, what is, again, what’s the etiquette around that?

Yeah, I mean, I think that is the best approach is to, is to let them know that you have something of value that you’re, you’re happy to provide them with. And you can, you can, and you could even, depending on, on your email system and how it’s all set up, you can even include that link within the email itself that they can just click and then join the newsletter right. In one, in one click, depending if you use the same email platform as you do, or the same email m RRP platform as you do Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Your CRM. Yeah. So, so, and I can b you know, based on the needs of, of your listeners, if they go to future fourth.com, on the top left corner, it says 10 x conference coaching, and you can book a free session with me and I’m no strings attached like we’re talking about here.

Right. I’m happy to offer a lot of different ideas based on your specific, you know, whether you’re speaking at the conference and you need some help with the presentation or lead magnet as the kids say. So I just wanted to encourage folks to check that out because it’s different strokes for different folks depending on, you know, what, what you’re doing, but what your point you do. Yes. Yeah. Keep, keep that email brief and yeah, I wouldn’t put in some, some long system and instead just, you know, after you’ve exchanged emails, maybe after you’ve had that coffee or virtual coffee, that’s a good time to follow up with them and say, Hey, by the way, I’ve got this cool, this thing we just created, it’s got like 25 tips and blah, blah, blah.

Right? I think you’ll love it. You know, here’s the link. And now that they know you and they trust you, they’re more likely to join. ’cause you have to remember too, and I think we have access to so many great tools in this day and age and systems and strategies or even tactics that we just jump on them out of habit, right. And you have to think like you are, you know, if you, if you’re getting in a marketing speak, the email sequence is often like a kind of relationship building sequence, right? Even the CRM customer relationship management tool, right? Right. So you, so to put somebody cold into A-A-C-R-M like that, or into an email drip campaign or whatever, it’s, you’re trying to like build a relationship through that process, right?

What’s a better way to build a relationship, right? Like hanging out and having coffee. Right? Right, right. So you’ve already done half that work of building that relationship already, right? Well, I put them in a system in order to, to get back to point A, you’re, you’re better off, you know, moving the relationship along and then, you know, so anyway,

I, well, and in fact, I think it does more damage. So if you just grab someone’s email address and they don’t even know about it, and I know legal legally you’re not allowed to do this, but let’s just say you’re adding people in without their permission, but they don’t know you. Right. That’s one thing. But when they feel like they’ve met you and you have some relationship and then you do it to them, it sort of diminishes all the effort you put into it, up to that point.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, as I mentioned earlier, like if it feels creepy or pushy Yeah. Don’t do it. Yeah. ’cause you, and, and if you’ve worked in the space for long enough and not that long, by the way, it doesn’t take long to, to for this to happen is we meet even online, we have a quick call or whatever, and next thing I know I’m on your newsletter, right? I’m like, what the hell? I never subscribed to you. Like really? Right? This is what you’re doing. Right. And if you wanna take it a step further, then you could think, well, this person that I just met that has an agency that is supposed to be a specialist in email marketing, let’s say, should know that they’re actually like, to your point, they’re breaking can spam law. Right.

By adding you and soliciting you regardless of what the email says. So, right, right. For me, that’s a red flag right away to be like, well, hell, I’m not trusting this guy anymore. Right? Right. I’m not gonna be work with them. ’cause if they’re doing this for me, they’re gonna do it for my clients Right. That I send them to as well. And that could get them into hot water, so, right. Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s bad news all around that way.

Yeah. But as, as we’ve been talking, I’ve been thinking, you know, for a lot of the people listening, they may be saying, yep, I’ve learned that the hard way. Yep. I’ve learned that the hard way. But this is also, we have to teach our team members how to do this. Right? Yeah. I mean, I, I think we send people to trade shows and conferences and all of that, and if we’re not clear about our expectations about how they show up, then I think the assumption is, oh, I’m, I’m going there to sell, I have to find a client or a prospect or whatever. So this feels like not only is this useful for the person listening right now, but this is also something that they probably need to go, oh, you know what? We’ve never talked about this in an all team meeting, or we’ve never talked about this before.

We send people to a workshop or a conference or a whatever. This is a conversation that we should have.

Yeah. And, you know, if you want to talk to me about it, right?

That’s

Right. Just drop by future for.com. Yep. That’s, that’s the whole point here is, you know, I will, as I said, I mean, if I have, hopefully come across genuine enough because I am, you know, I’m more than happy to, to give folks some ideas and then if they choose, we can dig deeper and actually work together. I can do a workshop for your team. I can teach everybody how to create a presentation that’s gonna actually convert how to actually work the booth, how to, I have a whole bunch of different strategies that I’ve used over the years that, that work really well.

Yeah. It’s awesome. This has been great. This is a great reminder for some folks and a great reset, I think for others of, we have to be intentional about how we show up and it starts before we show up. And we, we need to then follow through that thread all the way to post, you know, host event and, and how we show up there either kind of says, yep, your impression of me was correct, or Nope, I am actually trying to just sell you something and therefore, you know, we turn off the prospect before we had a chance to actually have a meaningful conversation. So thanks so much for sharing your expertise and, and being with us today. This was super helpful.

Thanks so much first name. It’s been great chatting with you two. Thank you.

You’re welcome. Well, at least you didn’t call me Andy, because that’s when I know somebody doesn’t know me. Like they’ll see my full name is Andrew and then if, and anybody who calls me Andrew or Andy, I’m like, Nope, we do not know each other.

There is a reason why my company name is so long on LinkedIn because whenever I get an email that includes my company name that is that long in the email. Yeah. It automatically puts it in

Spam. Yeah. Yeah. You scraped it, right? Yeah. This was great. Thanks Dave. Appreciate it very much. We’ll include too, all of the links and all of that information in the show notes so folks can circle back with you. So thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

You bet. Alright guys, so action packed episode. As you know, I like these, I like episodes that, that give us things to do or stop doing. So first and foremost, this is stuff your entire team needs to know. So whether they go to local rotary meetings or chamber meetings, or they’re coming to an a mami workshop or they are going to your client’s trade show or conference, how they show up is not only a reflection on them, but it’s a reflection on your agency. So helping them understand what your expectations are of how they show up and how they make connection and how they start to build networks. One of the things that we find a lot in the AE bootcamps is your employees don’t really understand the power of building a network.

And I have found over the course of my career that my network is absolutely powerful. The more full it is with people I can help. It’s not about who can help me. It’s right. Who can I help? Because then when I do need something, they’re quick and ready to be helpful because I’ve already been helpful in the past. And so teaching your folks how to build a network, how to leverage that network, how to cultivate those relationships so that they’re real and genuine and they don’t feel yucky, number one. Number two, this may have been a refresher for you as we enter into the conference and trade show season, how you wanna show up a little differently and if nothing else, it takes some prep.

There’s so many things inside an agency where we should prep better than we do. And when we are hopping on a plane to go to a conference or a trade show or a workshop is a great example of when we should probably prep better than we do and some reminders of how to do that. So hopefully you took notes. If not, you can download the show notes and, and have chat GPT give you a list of to-dos from it, whatever, however you wanna do it. But I’m hoping that you put this episode to good work ’cause there was a lot of great content in it. All right, quick shout out and thank you to our friends at White. Label IQ. As you know, they are the white Label solution for PPC dev and design for lots of agencies.

So if you either don’t offer those services and you have a client that needs it, so you need a partner or you do offer those services and your team is swamped and you need some extra hands, head over to White Label IQ dot com slash aami and you will read about a special offer they have just for podcast guests. So we said thank you to them for making it possible for us to hang out every week. And as you know, super grateful that I’m just not talking to myself and my guests, but that at least a handful of you are out there listening every week. So I am grateful for that. Thanks for listening. Thanks for letting me know when you love an episode, and I’ll be back next week. Hopefully you will too. All right, talk to you then.

That’s a wrap for this week’s episode of Build Better Agency. Visit agency management institute.com to check out our workshops, coaching and consulting packages, and all the other ways we serve agencies just like yours. Thanks for listening.