Mobile World Congress (MWC) is the world’s largest mobile industry Exhibition & Conference. Over 2500 exhibitors and thousands of attendees meet for four days every winter at the Fira in Barcelona
One Million Meetings? Very rough calculation – MWC claims 107k attendees came through the Fira doors, A fair assumption is that each person had at least 10 meetings during their time there. Not counting the business done among the exhibitors, 1,000,000 is a very conservative estimate. One excited exhibitor told me he alone had over 50 meetings!
So here comes the challenge – What did you get from those meetings? How are you measuring their success? How are you processing the leads?
After spending years participating at Exhibitions and Conferences and working with companies to maximize their participation, I know that it’s very easy to come back after an exhibition and get caught up with ‘real life’ and with all good intentions, just not spending the time analyzing what you got out of all those meetings.
Here are some tips I have put together to help you maximize your investment post MWC2018 (and post any major event like RSA last week).
Tip # 1 – Timeline
Process within a week – you spent a lot of money to go to the Congress – make sure you allocate your valuable time to process it. Otherwise you will forget!!
Tip #2 – Categorize
Sort your meetings and leads into categories. It’s very easy to focus just on the hot leads, but you may have some potential leads or new contacts that you don’t want to lose. You know the categories of people you met (potential customers, partners, competitors, investors, etc.)
Tip # 3 –Document
Spend the resource to document all the meetings – yes that means in a CRM
Tip # 4 – Follow Up
Follow up with everyone. Actually, you should have a form letter in advance for the different types of people you will meet.
Tip # 5 – 6 Week Follow Up
Revisit the status of your leads, responses etc. in 6 weeks and decide on next step.
Tip # 6 - To Debrief or not to Debrief
General guideline - take a look at what worked. That’s where you put your energy. Your time is the most valuable asset you have. Then examine what you could have done better. Spend less time on what went wrong – more time on what worked.
What are your Best Practices?
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