Episode 144: If Conferences Feel Like a Time Suck, You’re Doing This Backwards | Story Snacks Series

Subscribe to Billion Dollar Backstory on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Let's talk about conference season.

You showed up and collected a gazillion business cards. You smiled until your face hurt. And three days later you got home, looked at that stack of business cards, and thought… now what?

If that sounds familiar, this Story Snack is for you.

In this episode, Stacy breaks down why conferences tend to feel like a huge waste of time. 

She’s sharing what she’s learned over the years about what it actually takes to make a conference worth your time. 

Listen in to learn: 

• What most people get backwards about conference ROI

• The pre-work that changes who you meet (and how those meetings feel)

• How to turn “great meeting you” into “let’s keep talking”

• Why doing less on-site and more upfront is the move

This is Story Snacks, a bite-sized, jam-packed series for fund managers who are ready to master strategic storytelling in under 20 minutes a week.

TRANSCRIPT

Below is an AI-generated transcript and therefore it may contain errors.

[00:00:00] Stacy Havener: Craving more knowledge, but don't always have time to sit down for a five course meal. Take a quick snack break with story snacks, bite-size content to feed your funnel. Each short episode features Stacey, digging into one question. This series has her talking stories, sales, and so much more. Oh yeah, it's time for story snacks.

[00:00:26] Wouldn't it be cool if you could diversify your investor base and add some non-US investors? Europe could be fun, or Latin America, maybe Antarctica. Hey, icebergs aren't really my jam, but you never know. You've only got one problem. How the heck do you do that? Fair question. Maybe this is a who not how thing.

[00:00:49] Meet my friends at Gem Cap. Not only do they handle all the back office stuff, the how. They'll also solve the who in your distribution conundrum. [00:01:00] They have an incredible network of distribution partners who can help you sell the thing. Once you've built the thing. And Gem Cap won't just help you launch globally.

[00:01:10] They'll tell you where to go, and maybe more importantly, where not to go. Saving you time, money, and annoying headaches. Want to find out if your investment firm is ready to go global? Visit billion dollar backstory.com/gem cap, G-E-M-C-A-P. We've created a quick quiz that'll help you figure out if you're ready to expand beyond the US and side note, it's pretty fun too.

[00:01:39] Get your firm in front of the right investors in the right places with Gem Cap. Take the quiz and get more info@billiondollarbackstory.com slash gem. CAP GE M-M-C-A-P.

[00:01:57] Guess what day it is? [00:02:00] Not really what day. Guess what time of year it is? Conference season. We're kicking it off and we've got a note in the mailbag with a question about conferences here. It's, I just got back from another conference where I spent three days networking and collecting business cards.

[00:02:21] Honestly, it felt like a waste of time. Am I doing it wrong? Is there a better way to approach conferences? Ooh, yeah. This is real talk, isn't it? Ah, you know, I still have. All the business cards from all the years of conferences. Why, why do I do that? I, I really should not have those. I'm not gonna ever go back to them, but it was like, it is kind of a game.

[00:02:48] Collecting the business cards, how many business cards did you get? A lot. Okay. That one have been a great conference. I think what this question is about is, was it really though? Look, I think conferences are [00:03:00] great. I think conferences can be great, I should say. But to me, what makes a conference great is what we do before the conference ever starts.

[00:03:13] So the typical approach, the old playbook approach to a conference is we buy the booth not cheap. We'll end up getting a shitty booth spot, unfortunately. So there's that. So we're now in the corner, hopefully not by the bathroom, but we could be, um, high traffic area I guess. But we have a shitty, oh, no pun intended.

[00:03:33] We have a bad booth spot and we've paid for this. With our, our own money here, and we're standing there and it's like a waste of time. And I, you're right, because we didn't do the prep work to make it a good use of time. So when you go to a conference, you're going to get an attendee list. The attendee list will arrive before said conference will begin.

[00:03:59] And as [00:04:00] soon as said, attendee list arrives, it's game on. It's game on because if we do this preparation well, what we're gonna do is set it up so that we are not meeting these people or talking to these people for the first time at the conference. Instead, if we have the list, we can send them a note ahead of time and say something like, oh, hey Mary.

[00:04:25] Um, I see that you're attending X, Y, Z conference, um, happens to be in Las Vegas, your hometown. I love, like I'm a big foodie. I wanna go to a really cool restaurant. Any recommendations for me? Like, whatever. I don't know. Think of something like, I'm super excited to come to Vegas. I haven't been in years. Um.

[00:04:45] Look forward to seeing you there, and if you've got any rest restaurant recommendations, hit me up. So I'm not pitching, I'm not saying, Hey, let's sit down for an hour at the conference and have some big meeting. I'm not, I'm just being a person who sees that [00:05:00] Mary is gonna be at the conference, and so I'm reaching out to her to say, Hey, like, you seem cool and you live there.

[00:05:06] So like, what should I do when I'm in town? Just being a person. Showing, showing up, and maybe Mary writes back, let's play this out. And she's like, oh, hey, I recognize you from LinkedIn. I recognize you from LinkedIn. I'm glad you're gonna be in Las Vegas. And here are three of my favorite restaurants. Look forward to seeing you at the show, and you write back and you say, thank you so much.

[00:05:30] I love sushi. It's my favorite. And I see there's a sushi spot on here. I'm definitely gonna go by the way, I'm gonna be at the conference from X to X. You know my booth number is y. Or whatever, like stop by. I would love to say hi and buy you a complimentary cup of coffee. That's probably bad, but whatever.

[00:05:49] We can pretend it's good and you know, whatever. Now we're sort of like making plans to meet up the conference. So I do this whole role playing thing to show you what it looks like [00:06:00] when you do the work ahead of time. Now also, you will notice that is not me sending out an intro template email blast that's five paragraphs long to everyone on the list.

[00:06:09] Wanna know why Nobody wants that. Literally no one wants that. Okay? That is an instant delete. But if you show up as a person and ask things that normal humans are curious about. Or even something vulnerable, like I've never been to this show and I know it's huge. Like any advice for like a first timer, like what, what do I need to know and what's good and all that.

[00:06:39] The point being that is it more work? It's a ton more work. Okay. It's a ton more work. Is it worth it? Yes, because now when you get to the conference, you don't walk away with 30 business cards that you can put on your shelf for apparently 15, 20 years like I have. You walk away with friends. It's not like, [00:07:00] Hey, how are you?

[00:07:00] What's your name? It's like, oh, hey Mary. It's so great to meet you in person. Let's go grab some sushi together. And it's the work we do ahead of time and then flip side and for another story snack, but it's then the work we do after. So I hope that helps. It's really all about the preparation, and I think that's true for meetings.

[00:07:21] I think that's true for webinars. I think that's true in most things. And the good news, bad news here is yes, it's more work. Bad news, good news. Very few people are willing to do it. So be one of those people. I hope that helps. Let's be real. No one wakes up and says, I can't wait to build some operational infrastructure today you are here to manage money to build something that lights you up, not chase down reports across five systems and 15 service providers.

[00:07:51] That's where Ultimas Fund Solutions comes in there. Your ops dream team, consolidating all your middle and back office chaos [00:08:00] into one clean, scalable setup. Registered funds, private funds, SMAs, all integrated, one team, one tech platform, one rock solid source of data. But here's the real differentiator service.

[00:08:18] I know that fund in a box sounds convenient. It's also a box. Know what? You can't put in a box? A human who picks up the phone when you call and need help. Real life people who know your name and your fund, and they care about getting it right. Ultimas was built on people doing business with people. You get institutional strength combined with boutique level service without getting stuck in a phone tree of doom.

[00:08:46] If you're ready to simplify scale and start working with a team that feels like an extension of yours, check out billion dollar backstory.com/ultimas. That's ul. [00:09:00] T-I-M-U-S. You've got the investment strategy, the vision, the track record. Now it's time to upgrade the engine behind it all with ultimas. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.

[00:09:18] The information is not an offer, solicitation, or recommendation of any of the funds, services, or products, or to adopt any investment strategy. Investment values may fluctuate and past performance is not a guide to future performance. All opinions expressed by guests on the show are solely their own opinion and do not necessarily reflect those at their firm.

[00:09:38] Manager's appearance on the show does not constitute an endorsement by Stacey Haven or Haven or Capital Partners.

Resources