Pre Connecting with Prospects Prior To Events

Events and conferences have always been, and always will be, a great place to do business and connect with potential customers.
Very few individuals or companies make the most out of them though.
Sure, they’re happy to invest in a big fancy booth, or drop a bundle on tickets to ‘do some networking’, but real ROI is rare.
In my experience, this is for two reasons:
- Poor outreach strategy to connect with prospects prior to the event
- Inconsistent follow up after the event
That’s not to say that simply showing up to an event can sometimes be enough.
Maybe you’re lucky, or really outgoing, or really good at ending unproductive conversations early. And at least you showed up.
For the rest of us, planning is key.
Reaching Out Before The Event

Most event attendees don’t connect with other attendees prior, so the good news is people are happy to get meetings in their calendar with interesting and relevant people.
So make sure you are interesting and relevant!
Here’s an outreach message that has worked for me @ Sellcrowd.
Hi John, wondering if you’re heading to LaunchScale event in San Francisco on October 8? I’m currently looking after sales for a few AI companies and would love to catch up if you’re attending. AcmeCo looks super-interesting. Best, Lloyd
If you’re a cold email or automation PRO, look closely and you’ll see that you can really super-charge this message:
Hi #FirstName, wondering if you’re heading to #EventName in #Location on #Date? I’m currently looking after #ServiceOffering for a few #Industry companies and would love to catch up if you’re attending. #BusinessName looks super-interesting. Best, #YourName
Try it, and you might get a calendar full of meetings.
Maximising Event ROI
The number of events happening every day in the business, startup and tech worlds is staggering.
Just look at Meetup, Eventbrite, or Google.
If you’re a startup founder, or sales focused, there’s really no excuse.
Get out there, build real relationships with people and push yourself out of your comfort zone.
Be strategic about outreach and follow up and events can become a HUGE source of new business for you and new potential customers and investors.
The only question will be, how are you going to attend all those meetings given there are so many good ones to attend? Hmmm.
If only there was a way to hire on-demand salespeople in any location around the world…………….?
Or an easy way to hire salespeople to follow up leads……………….?
Lloyd Perry is the founder of Sellcrowd.com, a global marketplace for hiring salespeople on a part-time, freelance or fractional basis. He is a travel addict, keen snowboarder and avid basketballer, still throwing down a 2 hand dunk on a good day.