Author Archive

Roger SalamIn the previous article (if you missed it, see Part I), I mentioned about all the things you’ll need to do before and during attending a seminar to maximize the investment of your time and resources.

However, that’s not enough. If you really want to capitalize (and I’m assuming you do, otherwise you’d not be reading this), you MUST implement these post seminar suggestions. Actually, these are more than just “suggestions” they are requirements to truly maximize the experience of being there.

1. What To Do With The Business Cards

I hope you collected tons of business cards (or exchanged contact information electronically) to expand your contacts and sphere of influence. Now what do you do with them? Stack them in some corner of your work desk at your office or home perhaps with the rubber band? No, that’ll not do. I hope you’ve some kind of contact management software (I use Infusionsoft.com). Type them (preferably your assistant) into your contact manager or you can use a business card reader to make it faster. I give my stack of business cards (with notes on back) to my assistant and they go into my CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software for follow up actions. On the back of the card, I write down where and when we met and anything that stands out about that person in the notes section of the contact. Read More→

Roger SalamI’ll admit it; I’m a bit of a seminar junkie. I go to every seminar I can and I probably should go to the “Seminars Anonymous” meeting too. The truth is, I’ve learned from all of them (even the bad ones). I sit near the back so that I can find an electrical outlet for my laptop and type furious notes as I’m listening. Some larger conferences offer wi-fi (wireless) access so you can browse the Internet when a speaker mentions a specific site. Trouble is you tend to check your email and wander other places online. And then you’re not actively listening. So beware of being too plugged in.

How do you know if the seminar was worth the cost, the hassle of traveling and the time out of the office? If you’re not purposeful, after a week or two, you may not even remember the name of the great speaker let alone what he or she said or what you got out of it. And you really haven’t changed the way you do business or anything. Here are some steps to take to set yourself up for success before you actually fork out your hard earned dollars.

To get the most out of any seminar (or event in general), there are two sets of preparation, pre and post event. US Army lives by the 5 P’s – Prior Preparation Prevents Poor Performance. So, here are a few things you can do prior to jetting out. Read More→