How to get your boss to send you to SourceCon
When I read this, I could not help but think that this presented some really good strategies on how to get your boss to send you to SourceCon2007. (Smile) Will I see you there?
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Industry conferences are fun. Ok fine, they are a flippin blast man! They are the highlight of many peoples entire year. You go and meet people that do just what you do. They can relate to your day-to-day trials, tribulations, and successes. They are fun to hang out with and party a bit too. The capper is that it is done without the wife/husband/kids/and coworkers around to ride rough shod. You know you have made it in the business world when your boss sends you to industry conferences. It is a dog-eat-dog world in some corporations where fights over seniority and perks break out when it comes down to who gets to go to a conference. You aren’t Carl Spackler, so here are some top tips on how to make sure you are the one that gets to go to the next must-see industry event.
Post Conference Deal Sealers:
Let’s start at the end and work backwards. You just went to a great conference where you: shook some hands, saw some inspiring speakers, got a mini vacation from the rigors of home life, drank some drinks, and lived the life - you had a ball, baby! So the question arises: how can you get to more conferences? Your bosses need to see value, value, and more value out of sending you to a conference. The best way to do that is to make sure you sell them on the conference you just visited. After all, your boss was probably begrudgingly agreeable to letting you go in the first place. Having you out of the office for that many days of lost productivity and expense can be a strong hill to climb for most cost-sensitive business people. It is imperative that you always follow up on what you learned with your staff.
The Follow Up Presentation:
*After a conference, ask for a meeting with the staff and your boss to show them a presentation on the conference and to “teach them” what you learned.
*If you can do a full formal presentation to your boss, then go for the Full Monty PowerPoint within the allotted time.
*If you can only do something in email, then do a shorter PowerPoint, but expound upon your bullet points (tip: put the really good stuff at the start).
*Take your notes from the conference and create a follow up presentation. Use the word “value” in all of your follow up discussions with your boss: overwhelming, paradigm shifting, revenue generating value, value, and more value. Your bosses look at conferences strictly from an ROI point of view. Perfect that overwhelmed glossy-eyed look.
*Find your boss’s pain points. What was to be solved by you going to the conference? How did the conference address that point?
*When you talk to coworkers, forget about the jello shots and focus on the sessions. You need allies in the office to help your case for the next conference.
*Use pictures from the conference in your PowerPoint.
*Get pictures of you with the quality speakers. You boss needs to know that you carried the flag to the right people.
*If the presentations can be downloaded from the conference website, then use a few slides from them.
*Put three to five specific “action items” in your powerpoint. Bosses love the self starters and real go-getters.
Click here for more strategies: Top Tips to Get Your Boss to Send You to a Conference
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Love it!