This is part of Beyond Networking, a 40-page companion guide to the Community Made podcast by Jayson Gaignard. You can download the full book here.
Why Attend Events?
Events provide high-growth people with an unfair-advantage: speed.
First, there’s the speed of growth. Events are golden opportunities to surround yourself with people a couple steps ahead of you. Befriending these people can reshape your peer group, enriching your life and accelerating your progress.
Second, there’s the speed of wisdom. Learning from panelists and participants can help you avoid costly mistakes, shaving years off your learning curve.
Third, there’s the speed of relationships. Jayson says, “access is the ultimate asset,” and most access comes from your relationships. Events are great for relationship-building with likeminded people, especially since they tend to attract people with uncommon commonalities. These are exactly what they sound like: things people have in common that they are unlikely to share with a random stranger. Uncommon commonalities help relationships get deeper much faster.
These three elements—the speed of growth, wisdom, and relationships—make events high value. In fact, Jayson says, “If you’re not seeing an ROI from events, then you’re either attending the wrong events or not leveraging them to their full potential.”
Let’s take a peek at how to make the most of events.
The Event Playbook
Most event attendees primarily focus on the event itself. This is a mistake!
The majority of event value comes from the pre- and post-event work you do.
This is so important that Jayson dedicates 40% of his energy to pre-event prep, 20% to the event itself, and another 40% to post-event follow-ups.
Use the following playbook to prioritize pre- and post-event work and get the most out of events.
Pre-Event
The 3 Things You’ll Do at Every Event
No matter what type of event you attend, you will always do three things: 1) introduce yourself, 2) tell your story, and 3) make small talk.
Thankfully, you can prepare for all of them in advance.
Introductions are so important that they get their own episode. See S2 E4 for more.
Telling your story is an extension of your introduction. You want to be intriguing, compelling, and always leave people wanting to know more. Jayson prepares a few variations of his story, helping him adjust to time constraints and speak to the interests of specific audiences.
Small talk is the social lubricant between introductions and meaningful conversation. Your goal is to find an uncommon commonality, and when you do, move past small talk by geeking out.
Small talk also becomes easier if you have a few prepared questions in your back pocket. One of Jayson’s favorites is “Have you met anyone who really impressed you so far?” since it gets conversation going and helps him scan for other people to meet.
Pre-Event Research
Once you’re ready for the things you’ll do at every event, it’s time to start preparing for the specific event you’ll be attending.
Look through the speaker and attendee lists, identifying people you want to meet. Pick these people because you find them fascinating, not because you think they’re famous.
Once you have a shortlist of potential connections, poke around their LinkedIn profiles, blogs, and personal websites. Try to find uncommon commonalities or potential conversation starters.
You’ll want to enter the event with low expectations—Jayson aims for good conversations with 3-8 people—so don’t make your shortlist so long that you can’t remember people’s details.
It can also be helpful to make personal decisions, like what to wear and where to eat, before arriving. This helps you avoid decision fatigue and remain fully present throughout the event.
Now with shortlist and potential conversation topics in hand, you’re ready to attend the event.
During the Event
Warming Up
When you arrive at an event, start by getting comfortable.
The easiest way to do this is strike up an early, low-stakes conversation with someone you already know or who looks friendly. The goal here is to relax and settle any nerves.
It can also be helpful to change your body language. Physiology controls psychology, so changing the way you carry yourself will change how you feel internally.
Positive body language also improves first impressions, helping your relationships start right.
In Good Conversations
Once you settle into the event you’ll likely end up in good conversations.
When you do, try shifting into the question-asker role. This has three benefits:
First, asking questions takes the pressure off, since it’s always easier to ask than to answer. Second, asking questions makes people feel good, since everyone likes talking about themselves. Third, asking questions lets you steer the conversation, helping you learn interesting information.
When asking questions, Jayson looks for four things:
- Who and what do they care about?
- What are they good at?
- What are their goals?
- What obstacles are in the way of their goals?
To learn the last two things, Jayson has two questions he asks back-to-back:
First, there’s the champagne question: “If we were to meet a year from today, with a bottle of champagne, what would we be celebrating?”
Second, there’s the obstacles question: “If that’s your goal, what challenges will you need to overcome to get there?”
Asking those two questions in succession leads people to share what they’re working on and where they might need help, which you can potentially provide.
While it’s important to record insights like these for later relationship-building, try to never pull out your phone in the middle of a conversation.
Relationships move at the speed of vulnerability and few things kill intimacy like a cellphone.
Graciously Escaping Conversations
If you talk to many people at an event, you’ll inevitably have conversations you want to leave.
Graciously exiting these conversations is one of the most difficult aspects of events. You want to strike a careful balance between treating everyone kindly while also protecting your time.
Jayson suggests two strategies for graciously escaping these conversations.
First, he recommends “having a small bladder.” Stepping away to use the restroom is always a viable way to leave a conversation. And you can also use the break to record notes on who you’ve met and what you’ve learned.
Second, Jayson sometimes asks people if they’re sticking around for a while. If they are, you can offer to reconnect later and politely slip out of the conversation.
Whether you use either of these strategies or create your own, remember to be gentle. Good relationship builders treat everyone with importance, regardless of their status or background.
Connecting with Speakers
At some events you’ll want to connect with speakers along with attendees. This is completely achievable, but you’ll need to be strategic.
One way to connect with a speaker is by having a micro-interaction before the event. For example, you could send a brief email saying you’re excited to see them speak. If they reply, you can then mention the email when you meet, making you memorable.
You can also engage speakers by talking to them before their presentation. Few people pay attention to them in those moments, so you might get a nice one-on-one conversation.
A third strategy is writing a letter and handing it to the speaker at the event. This lets you to pre-package your message, bypass the competition for their time, and stand out. Honestly, how many other letters is a speaker going to get at an event anyway?
The best strategy to engage speakers, however, is by becoming a catalyst and hosting small events around the large event. We’ll explore how to do this in S2 E8.
Regardless of how you engage a speaker, avoid meeting them right after their talk. Everyone else tries to engage the speaker at this precise moment, making a lasting impression difficult.
Post-Event
To get the most value from events, your work continues after the event is over. Follow-ups are the key to staying connected and building further relationship.
There are four stages of post-event follow-up.
Stage #1: Capture
The first step is transferring all the intel you gathered during the event into a CRM. We’ll talk about how to use this intel to deepen relationships in S2 E16, but the first step is capturing it.
Stage #2: Capitalize
Once you’ve captured everything you learned at an event, it’s time to decide which relationships merit further investment. You can only pour into so many relationships, so it’s important to prioritize the ones that matter most.
When following up with these individuals, you’ll want to do four things:
First, mention something discussed in your conversation. This helps people distinguish you from all the other people they met at the event.
Second, reiterate the goal they’re working towards. This is likely their answer to the champagne question. Including it shows you were listening while giving them a chance to change or expand their answer, giving you more intel.
Third, provide the names of any resources you mentioned in conversation. Whether they came up randomly or in-response to a specific need or obstacle this person is facing, writing these resources down will help the other person find them.
Fourth, if you want, you can make a call-to-action, like scheduling a 1-on-1 conversation. While this can be a good way to deepen relationships, Jayson usually omits a call-to-action. Instead, he leaves the email as a “planted seed.” If Jayson follows up later—maybe even years later—he replies to the same email thread to remind this person of their past interaction.
Additionally, if there was someone you wanted to meet at the event but didn’t, you can still use follow-ups to plant a seed for future interaction. Send them an email saying you’d hoped to meet at the event, and while it didn’t happen, you’re hopeful to meet them in the near future.
One final note: don’t feel like you need to send follow-ups immediately after the event. Sending them a couple weeks later can help your messages stand out from chaotic post-event catch-up.
Stage #3: Close the Loop
If a person you met complimented someone else you know, it can be fun to pass along the compliment. Doing so makes everyone look and feel good while also giving you another touchpoint with each individual. Just make sure you never exaggerate their words! You never know if the person who gave the compliment will get cc’ed back into the email chain.
Stage #4: Check-In
After post-event follow-up, you’ll want to check-in periodically with the people you met.
Instead of sending the dreaded, “Hey, how are you?” emails follow-up with specifics. Ask about the vacation they were looking forward to or congratulate them on an achievement you saw.
A good rule of thumb for follow-ups is to ask if you’d call to say the same thing.
If yes, send the message. If no, don’t waste anyone’s time.
Final Thoughts
At the end of the day, events are about planting seeds. You want to spark relationships with interesting people so you can follow-up and deepen relationships later.
This should frame what events you choose to attend. Pick your events based on their potential for high-quality connections, not just high-quality content.
If you can afford it, it might also be worth paying for intimate, high-price events. Pricing often separates “talkers” from “players,” making these exclusive events extremely high value.
Now you know all you need to get the most out of events. Go have fun!
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