How To Get The Most From Your Conferences

ALSD is this week. Three things I learned about conferences, my network, and how it has built my business and career.

Three Things I Learned In SaaS, Sports, Tech, and Live Events

Conferences and your network.

In 2011 we wrote a $25k check to sponsor the Association of Luxury Suite Directors conference in Los Angeles.

It was the biggest check we'd written at the time and a big swing for us.

The annual conference hosts suite and premium sales executives from teams around the country. It was still the after-effects of the 2008 financial collapse so the teams were friendly with us as they were looking for any way to sell suites and tickets to companies who had cut costs.

We have sponsored or worked with ALSD off and on for the past 14 years. I learned a lot about conference life—not just from ALSD but from the hundreds of conferences I've attended.

Look to your left and look to your right.

I was 31 years old at the ALSD conference in 2011. That is the sweet spot for that conference. Most of the attendees are Manager to Director level. The VPs generally "graduate" out and send their Directors.

Today's directors are tomorrow's VPs. The friendships I made at those conferences from 2010-2015 are the "connections" I have now in the industry. They grow with you. It's not a coincidence I have so many friends who are team Presidents and similar.

If you're driven enough to go to the conference, plan and take networking meetings, and work the conference as a work event instead of a social boondoggle, you'll find yourself surrounded by others who are the same way.

Go to everything

Sleep can wait. When at a conference or a sporting event, attend it all. It's a golden time where you can get facetime like nowhere else. Like having thirty business trips condensed into three days.

I got to know the now president of the Texans drinking louis trey at midnight at the hotel bar.

I sang karoake in Koreatown in 2011 with a team who has been one of our best partners ever since.

I chanted "moons over my hammie" in 2013 with a bank who is one of our closest friends at 2am at a Denny's in San Francisco

I met a major German brand at the bar on the rooftop who ended up a paying customer

I bar hopped with my dear friend Jim Harding of Arsenal in Minneapolis - a memory I'll have forever as we've since lost Jimmy to cancer.

I watched co-workers footrace down 51st st in New York City at 1am.

And I've had dinner with my close friends Adam and his buddy Yao Ming (OK - it's not really Yao Ming, it's a figurine missing limbs, but that's a story for another time).

Control Yourself

Go to everything and have fun. But control yourself.

I've seen people hook-up, a poolside fight over a girl, and even the cops called at conferences. I've seen many married people stray. Gossip moves fast at these things.

Don’t be that guy.

Enjoy ALSD and I can't wait to see the memories made this year!