We are in high season for conferences, training, industry days, networking events and holiday get togethers. These events are an essential piece of the business capture eco-system. How to choose which ones to attend?
Free is Not Free
Even if an event is free, there’s an opportunity cost that should be evaluated against your time. As a business owner, ask, “is this 1 hour | 3 hours | 7 hours | multi-day event worth you or your employees’ time?
Some criteria to evaluate:
- Rate how this customer is a target
- Rate how this information is relevant
- Rate how the networking could expand market awareness
- Rate the contribution that you or your employee(s) can offer to the conversations surrounding the topics presented?
Opportunity Cost
Time is valuable. The goal is to create a healthy work/life balance. If I am not discerning how I spend my time at work, then I may have to take time away from my “life” or miss out on a work opportunity that could have been more valuable.
So, when opportunities are plentiful and time is limited, I evaluate the criteria mentioned above to help with the decision-making process.
Anything under a 50% aggregate rating can be immediately put aside. Opportunities over 50% can be evaluated against other opportunities that will be missed because of the choice.
The Order of Operations
Word of mouth is a powerful marketing tool. Friends and colleagues share experiences on social media, creating FOMO (fear of missing out). It’s so easy to get caught up in the swell and make the determination not to miss another event! So, you:
- Purchase an admission ticket
- Make travel arrangements
- Clear the calendar
- Reference your pipeline to see if anything aligns
- Determine which industry and government partners to engage.
- Look at the agenda to choose which sessions are relevant
- Cross reference your past performance and craft your elevator pitch
Let’s be realistic. Schedules are hectic. How much time and attention are available to pay attention to Step 7?
What if you changed the order of operations?
- Cross reference your past performance and craft your elevator pitch
- Reference your pipeline to see if anything aligns
- Determine which industry and government partners to engage
- Look at the agenda to choose which sessions are relevant
- Clear the calendar
- Make travel arrangements
- Purchase an admission ticket
It’s All About the Past Performance
Every event holds the potential to provide value. As a business owner, if you want to maximize the potential return on investment, start with past performance. Past performance helps craft your elevator pitch. Your past performance helps you build your pipeline. Your past performance attracts strategic business partners. Your past performance can help you keep FOMO in check by evaluating opportunity cost and return on investment to help choose.
Past Performance Executive Overview
To help leverage your past performance in the decision-making processes, create a past performance executive overview to guide you.
Contact Mild Red, LLC
If you feel the opportunity cost to stop your business development and capture managers from the tasks already in progress to normalize your past performance to create an executive overview, contact Mild Red for a quote to do it for you.
Great post!