I attend a lot of events and conferences. In the last few years, I’ve been to mostly marketing events, in Atlanta, Las Vegas, San Fransisco and Los Angeles. In the past, I’ve attended them in Denver, Austin, Minneapolis and San Antonio. And probably other places. Sometimes, my memory bone gets sprained. I’ve spoken, now, at 5 different events and been on panels at two.
I’ve never been to one where I didn’t learn a lot. I usually also meet some amazing people, often pick up new clients, customers or JV partners and always have fun.
The last event I was at was Dennis Becker’s annual marketing conference and seminar called Earn 1k a Day. This is the second time I’ve been, and I’m always amazed by the level of brains, talent and business know-how in the room. That’s not just the speakers, it’s also the participants. And, as for fun, the video below was shot at The Mirage. Most of the participants traveled down the strip, gathered in the rather fancy Mirage buffet room, ate marvelous food, interacted, talked about our lives, our businesses and the event itself. Afterwards, while waiting for my car to come back up from valet parking, the Mirage’s famous volcano erupted. Of course, I had to pull my iPone out. You can see in the video, I wasn’t the only one. (Ain’t technology grand? We now have hi-def cameras in our shirt pockets!)
Going to these events has become an integral part of my marketing strategy. When speaking or giving a class, it’s obvious what that strategy is. The people in the room get to see me, get to know a bit of my knowledge, but also get to know a bit of my personality and teaching style to see if I may be a good fit for future things. When just attending, the strategy is to meet and interact with people I haven’t yet connected with. They can be potential clients and customers, potential JV partners or just experts in fields I’m interested in.
I’ve had people ask what the best way to prepare for a live event is. I always say the same thing: “Set a goal. What do you want to achieve? What do you want to learn? Who do you want to meet? Who do you want to connect with?”
When you go with an intention set, your subconscious mind will be working overtime to notice things that will bring you closer to what you’re looking for. In the meantime, you may find something that’s amazing and quite different from what you set out to get, but having a goal, having an idea before hand opens the door for some powerful benefits to appear as if by magic. (If you’ve read much of my stuff, you know I say it’s not magic. It’s just your subconscious mind, doing what it does best.)
So find events to go to. Events in your niche and events focusing on general marketing and events dealing specifically with Internet marketing. Then go to some. A few will just be okay. A lot will be wonderful.
And if I’m at the event you go to, come up and say, “Hi!”
The post Work and Play, Learning in Las Vegas appeared first on Geoff Hoff Online.