Conrey is for Closers

I’ve now had the opportunity to travel to a few conferences as part of my sales duties and here are a few things to think about when you’re going to a large gathering of potential leads and clients:

• Cary lots of business cards – this should go without saying.   Also carry a pen, a notebook, and gum or mints.  People will be more than happy to ask you for gum or mints if you have them because they know they’ll be talking to a lot of people as well.  Share liberaly
• Be at the conference location early and late.  Show up before the conference events start and stay after.  Wander the hallways between conference rooms if there isn’t a topic that really is important to you at a given time.  At SXSWi this past year I spent lots of time talking to people outside of sessions and made more connections that way than during any of the sessions as a whole.
• Go to the related “after hours” events when you can.  If there’s some sort of after-party or happy hour event (and there almost always will be) go to it.  People will be much more relaxed and conversational at these things.  Remember to just be a person not a ‘salesperson’ while there.  Just talk, have a drink if its your thing, and be visible.  People like to work with people they like – so be likable.
• Fly your flag.  Wear your company’s logo on a shirt if you can (and it fits the norms of the dress etc).  At Rails Conf this year the entire Integrum team wore our “Rails Developers Do It With Models” shirts with the Integrum logo and colors.  We got lots of notice and comments on them, plus a great visible reminder of what you are.
• Help out any way that you can.  Have an extra phone charger, or power strip, or pen, or whatever people are looking for.  Just being a friendly, ready to help person can do nothing but help increase your karma.
• Listen – follow the twitter hashtags for the conference if they’re tweeting about it, watch the conversations around you out in the common areas, be involved in as many channels as you can reasonably be available for.

There are hundreds of other things to do at a conference that can help you make sales, but these are some easy places to start.