If you ever go to a conference and don't seem to be able to see a return on your investment then I would encourage you to do a couple of things. The first is to ensure that you are really focused on what you need to achieve. I love going to parties, participate in sessions and chatting to all of the great people who attend but all of this is not necessarily going to bring my return on investment.
If you need to sell or buy some domains make sure that any conversation has aspects of this in it. Also, if you can help someone else reach their objective then give them a hand but remember that you can't always be helping people....after all you still have to eat.
The second thing that is very important is to ensure that you speak to as many people as possible so that you can find the various people that are a good fit for your own and their objectives.
I hate to say it but I think that many people attend conferences with the objective to make friends. Could I be so blunt as to say that you don't have to pay someone $2000 to help you to make friends. You attend conferences to do business.
One of the really nice by-products of doing business is that you often end up making some great friends. It's not really that good to make friends with people at one event only to drop the relationship because you can't afford to go to the next conference. This is why conferences are about business and being focused on that is imperative if you are to develop long standing friendships with people who regularly gather together.
I now have the privilege of counting people from all over the world my friends as I've been able to attend many conferences and had the opportunity to get to know them on both a business and personal level. I find that the biggest joy for me is to conduct business with a person that I really like hanging around. The business will often come first and then the friendship as you get to know the person better and better.
This all brings me back to TRAFFIC. Was it any good? For me it was fantastic. I conducted an incredible amount of business and I wonderfully made a lot of new friends as well as caught up with many people I've known for a long time. There is something really special about being able to combine both friendship and business in a positive manner.
What happened at TRAFFIC? As normal TRAFFIC ran like a well oiled machine administratively powered not by Rick and Howard but by Barbara, Alina and Ray. I really hope that TRAFFIC maintains its sense of family as I really look forward to their smiling faces permeating the conference.
Rick was his usual self, thumping the table about issues that most of us haven't even considered and raising points that will often save our mutual backsides. Howard moderated each and every one of the sessions. I'm not sure whether people realize just how draining that can be so many thanks go to you Howard.
The ICA seems to have at long last come of age and both Michael Collins is doing some great work ensuring that each of us have a business. The good news was that the Snow Bill looks like it's bogged down and won't be coming any time soon.
Many people said that the Orlando TRAFFIC conference was going to be the death of TRAFFIC and that it was going to fail. I'm glad to report that they were wrong. Although the numbers were down it was commensurate with the number of conferences there are per year. Even though some of the huge domainers were absent the quality of the attendees was outstanding and in many ways better than any conference that I've been to.
Despite all of this I would have to say that the best part about TRAFFIC was taking a ride in Michael Collins Corvette. I thought my Golf R32 was good until I felt the acceleration and exhilaration of being launched down the road like a bullet. I don't think that you could get the smile off my face for the next few hours.
See you at the next event!
Wiki: TRAFFIC, Rick Schwartz, Howard Neu, Michael Collins, ICA
Source: Posted on WhizzBangsBlog by Michael Gilmour -- Reprinted with permission -- May 28, 2008