Stock prices are down, meetings are being canceled, and some
corporations are cutting back sharply on their financial support
for employees who want to attend conferences. Technology User
groups are finding that corporation-sponsored attendance is
dropping or being canceled altogether.
Don't despair. You can DO something about it. Here's a strategy
for making companies willing and even enthusiastic to send
their employees to your meetings and conferences.
Boosting attendance is one of my frequent assignments for
clients like the Cyborg Users' Group, ADP's Meeting of the
Minds client-user meetings, and the American Payroll Association
Congress. How do I do it? In my talks and seminars, I start
by asking all attendees this question:
Do you have an appointment set up with your upper management
to report on what you learned at this meeting?
It is surprising how few attendees are required to do this.
I always recommend that attendees take the initiative and
ask to give a verbal presentation to their manager or to the
committee that okayed the budget for them to go.
I teach them to follow this simple outline in their verbal
reports, following the basic framework that I recommend for
all conference attendees. By making careful preparations and
keeping quality notes, attendees should be able to give management
a strong presentation that makes a good case on why they should
return the next year.
The
Fripp Conference Outline
What did they do:
1. Before attending the conference. (Including)
*Make
a list of vendors and individuals they want to meet.
*Study
the brochure to select best sessions to attend.
*If
several people attend and relevant sessions conflict, coordinate
who attends what so different individuals can report back
on each session.
*Prepare
a list of specific questions they need or want answered. Carefully
note the answers and their sources.
2. During the conference.
* Note what was learned from the keynote speakers, breakout
sessions, conversations with other attendees, and vendors
met at the trade show portion of the conference.
3. After the conference.
* Do a debriefing with others who attended to share what everyone
learned.
* Prepare a verbal and brief written report for management.
Practice on the verbal presentation on friends or family.
The opening thirty seconds of a presentation is the most important
part. I recommend that everyone starts their report to management
with something like this:
Sending me to the such-and-such conference was an incredible
investment for the company. Here's why.
* Conclude with specific recommendations for the company,
based on new knowledge.
Why
Bother?
Does this seem like a lot of work on your part? Not if you
want to keep your attendance up! Companies don't want to spend
thousands of dollars unless they can see a payoff. Your attendance
may continue to drop unless your attendees can show their
companies the immediate and long-term value of what they have
experienced. When they do, chances are that their companies
will be happy to send them to your next meeting or conference.
And, since a presentation to management can be a stressful
experience for your attendees, some are bound to ask you the
same question: "Why Bother?" To sell your attendees on the
note-taking and reporting process, stress the following points:
* Reporting shows management they are company-minded and see
the bottom line.
* Reporting shows management they take advantage of opportunities.
* Reporting increases they chances of attending future meetings.
* By attending, they personally gain important and transferable
skills.
This last thought should be a big selling point. In a downsized,
right-sized, re-engineered, outsourcing world, everyone needs
to upgrade skills constantly. Even when individuals have support
from a management that believes in education, they must constantly
resell the benefits on why it is a good investment to send
them.
What if a company won't pay for your attendees to come? Some
will come anyway. Many people I've met at the American Payroll
Association conferences used vacation time to attend because
their managers didn't see the value. However, they constantly
resold the company on the worth of the conference -- with
a big payoff. When their current manager or a new one realized
the value of the experience, some were actually reimbursed
for attending past conferences, and their vacation time was
restored.
To keep your attendance up, convince your attendees of the
importance of reporting back to management. If you'd like
me to do it FOR you, I'd be glad to. I tell all conference
attendees to get smarter every day because all skills are
transferable: Never be concerned with being employed. Be concerned
with being EMPLOYABLE! That is the true security.
