Forums, conferences, and trade shows are easy to treat as a mandatory item on the calendar: "We have to be there, everybody will be there (even Dyusha Metyolkin)".
It is habit that kicks in, not calculation.
My ironclad rule "before the conference":
Participation is justified if the expected revenue from the event is at least 10 times the cost of it.
— Whoa! EXPENSIVE! VERY! But why exactly that number?
— Well... so you don't spend three working days on nonsense.
Part of the revenue will not arrive right away or directly, some contacts will not turn into deals, and not everything can be attributed to the event. That is why you need a big margin.
Count the costs in full
- ticket or booth;
- travel and accommodation;
- time (hours × people × hourly rate);
- preparation and working with the contacts afterward.
Six questions before you register
1) Who will be in the room: our buyers or only fellow industry people?
2) How many people from my target list will I meet in person?
3) Can I arrange meetings in advance?
4) What do we get if nobody buys: contacts, a publication, a recording of the talk? Ask the organizers and the program committee for as much as you can. Speaking from the stage beats sitting in the audience ;-)
5) What result will say "it paid off"? Write it down before the event.
6) Wouldn't it be better to spend the same time (and money) on one-on-one meetings with the same people? Before, after, instead?
Sample calculation
A one-day conference in my city. I speak at a round table (an hour, from 11:00), and I arrive at 10:00 for the coffee break: I know there will be two banks, an HR and marketing director in one, a vice president in the other.
I count at $80 an hour:
- on site 4 h + preparation 2 h = $480;
- follow-up to everyone I met: an assistant with GPT 2 h + my review 0.5 h = $200;
- ticket and travel: $0.
Total ~$680. So I need at least $6,800 in revenue. Plus the recording of the talk and the contacts, even if nobody buys.
After the event, we compare the fact with the plan. Within a year you will have your own statistics, and decisions will get easier than with any ratings made by others.
Want to squeeze more out of events?
Message me directly: @lbugaev. I am working on a new direction, "Finding a job through friends of friends"; and conferences are a goldmine here.
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