How To Get What You Pay For

A Conference
The goal: To return to the workplace with valuable industry information, connections and/or new skills to boost your day-to-day effectiveness.

The reality: Simply attending or even hosting a conference won’t guarantee that you and other staff will return with new connections and insights. Networking takes skills that many shy people lack. And when it comes to return on investment, conferences are notoriously hard to measure.

The fix: Even if walking into a room full of people makes you downright nauseated, resist the urge to beeline to the cheese and meat tray. Instead, set goals about the number of people you’ll talk to each day, and make sure you share this with everyone from your organization who will be going, says Edmonton speaker and business instructor Sue Paulson.

One of the ways you can achieve these goals is by harnessing the social skills of others. Sidle up to a chatty extrovert, who will often happily introduce you to others. When chatting with others, ask a lot of questions to shift the focus to the other party. “That gives you a chance to think about the interaction and make whatever response you want to make,” says Paulson.

The best strategy, however, may be a matter of switching your perspective. “You need to go in with the mindset that people are here to help each other, so we just need to open a conversation to see if we can do that.”

Networking is an obvious benefit of attending or sending an employee to a conference, but the extent to which it will boost a company’s revenue is probably impossible to quantify. In fact, the other benefits of conference attendance – like new skills or greater industry knowledge – are also slippery. “Within the meetings industry, there’s a lot of talk on return on investment, but that’s really hard to quantify when you’re trying to get education across,” says Calgary meeting planner Niesa Silzer.

If you can’t quantify what you get out of a conference, at least you can quantify what goes into it – and plan carefully to keep costs down. Much can be negotiated, though organizations who’ve handed the task of organization to an inexperienced staffer often invest more than they have to.

Hotel costs are a prime example. Many offer a complimentary night for 40 or 50 stays, which can allow your staff or speakers to attend free of charge – if you ask. It’s also best to put various aspects of the conference, like the audiovisual services, up for bid to get a more reasonable rate.

In addition to hosting a conference or sending employees, you might consider buying a sponsorship package to get your name out. Meeting planners tend to bundle elements together as packages – which might include things such as exposure on the conference website, sponsoring a specific talk or room, your logo on swag, and so on – but a lot more can be negotiated. Collaborate with conference planners to find creative strategies that stretch your advertising dollars further.

The same goes if you’re responsible for hosting a conference. Don’t get stuck in a rut when you’re offering sponsorships. Silzer recalls one company that served Red Bull at a refreshment stand to target a younger demographic. “It made their refreshment break stand out from the others, and it was simple,” she says.

Final message: Don’t be too preoccupied with counting the dollars and cents. Instead, offer conference attendees tips on how to network before the event. Set goals. Do as much as you can to reduce costs.

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