10 Ways to Crush It at Your Next Professional Event

Trying to keep pace with the plethora of national, local, and regional events in our respective industries can be a time consuming task! Whether it’s an industry conference, seminar, local luncheon, round table discussion, or networking happy hour — these events are full of rich learning opportunities and are tremendous ways to expand your professional networks. When preparing to attend a professional event, there are a variety of ways you can optimize your experience with a practical plan. Developing a plan to take full advantage of the various offerings will serve to enhance your knowledge and provide tangible takeaways you can then implement in your daily job.

Here are some helpful tips to maximize your event experience:

1. Expand your industry knowledge: We often find ourselves immersed in a “bubble” of knowledge at any given company. This can be detrimental to professional growth. Renew your excitement in your work and engage with other professionals in your industry by returning with valuable knowledge that drives actionable improvements.

2. Ideas for new processes: Always seek new ways to enhance your team or company-wide processes. Attending professional events may trigger your ability to develop ideas that will benefit you, your department, and the whole company (e.g. new sales techniques, cost accounting methods, etc.).

3. New training content: Collaborating with peers at an event may spark new approaches to developing educational content to pass along to your colleagues, thus amplifying your company’s ROI sending you to an event (e.g. new sales training techniques, etc.).

4. Participate: Build your confidence by speaking on panels, joining in roundtables, engaging in breakout sessions, and chatting at the lunch table during an event. Offering well informed comments, providing suggestive solutions, or telling an anecdotal story can speak volumes of your intent to develop professionally.

5. Introduce yourself: If you’re not actively networking, you’re limiting your investment and time! Last year, as a panelist at a local symposium I met a guy who took a liking to my proposed ideas to improve downtown transportation. We exchanged information and now connect regularly on our growing businesses. Challenge yourself to make introductions to at least five new people at an event.

6. Take notes: Write down three great takeaways from each session you participate in. Develop an actionable plan for how you’ll take this knowledge back to your work at home. Hold on to any handouts and presentation copies that could be disseminated across your company.

7. Put your phone damn down: Smartphones create distractions and hinder your ability to focus on substantive presentation points. Unplugging will help your ability to retain knowledge and strike up meaningful conversations during and after sessions. Work emails can wait until break time.

8. Solidify your connections: Add new professional connections to your LinkedIn network to continue the conversation. Make a point to follow up via email and plan to meet in person if you’re local.

9. Social thank you’s: Share conference insights on social media and thank speakers and conference organizers to strengthen your professional networks and represent yourself and your company in a positive light.

10. Plan for next year’s event: Conference veterans will tell you of their intentions to return each year to annual events because it creates a family of industry professionals who look forward to reconnecting and growing together in their respective industries. Annual events may even provide company recruiters with the ability to source talent to join your organization someday, with the help of your recommendations.

Following these simple steps can help to create a strong case when pitching the value of attending future events to your supervisor. Remember to adhere to any existing company guidelines for attending events — this could mean creating an actionable plan to implement significant improvements to your work, or spread knowledge among your team by teaching new training sessions. Lastly, utilizing these tips can help you brand yourself as a confident, informed representative of your company, thus maximizing the company’s investment and your professional growth.