How to Prepare for Your Next Conference With These 4 Tips
The key to getting the most out of any conference is going into it prepared, organized, and with a bit of flexibility in case it doesn’t happen as planned. If you take care to prepare and get appropriately organized, your conference experience can be productive, engaging, informative, and fun. If you don’t plan, it could be completely overwhelming, exhausting, and frankly, a waste of time and resources.
Here’s a quick guide on how to prepare for your next conference.
- Make sure all staff have tied up loose ends
Before your team leaves to attend the conference, it’s critical to make sure they have all tied up any loose ends, like finishing tasks that have been started, completing projects that have upcoming deadlines, and ensuring that they notify their clients of their upcoming absence from the office. Anything that hasn’t been finished can be taken care of when they come back. This is to ensure that the employees who are attending are going in without other distractions, allowing them to get the most out of their experience.
- Make sure you have enough equipment
Whether you’re hosting or attending, you want to make sure you’re prepared from an equipment standpoint. If you’re sending a few employees to a conference, you may want to rent a laptop for them to use so they can stay connected to your team back at the office. That way, they can relay any relevant or useful information, send over any documents, and stay on top of any sudden work that needs to be completed.
If you’re hosting a conference, you want to make sure your attendees have what they need to get the most out of the event. Renting equipment is an excellent way to ensure this happens without breaking the bank on brand new equipment you may not have a use for once the conference wraps up.
- Gather all necessary documents
All travel documents, airline confirmation numbers, hotel bookings, and itineraries should be collected and easily accessible when traveling. This will help your team get a good idea of their travel requirements and start everything off with a positive experience. Your staff can even use one of many travel apps to help them organize this information right on their smartphones.
- Prepare branded collateral
One of the main reasons for attending a conference is to network and work to expand the business by gaining new clients. To be adequately prepared, make sure your team has current branded business cards and any other handouts they may need that they can easily hand out to anyone they engage with. A good tip is to use both sides of the paper or card and include your company logo on both sides to help get your business top-of-mind and improve brand awareness.
It’s also a good idea to prepare a professional branding statement so that your team can effectively and concisely answer the question, “so what does your company do?” Their response to this question can help make a great first impression and leave a lasting impression.
