By Austin Gaule, PR Measurement Director at Universal Information ServicesAttending industry conferences and professional development events can be an expensive endeavor. No slight to the folks who work hard to setup professional development events, but they aren’t cheap! It doesn’t help that budgeting for professional development in the PR field is hard to come by in this day in age when companies are planning less for professional development of their employees. This is a fundamental problem, here.Professional development thrives on collaboration. Collaboration can be seen at industry conferences around the United States, even around the world. How can PR professionals maximize their budget allocated for professional development when it is so small?In my preparations to participate at an industry conference (PR News’ Measurement Conference in Chicago on Nov. 18^th) I thought I would share my thoughts on how PR pro’s can approach attending conferences and industry events.Pre-Conference

1. Be focused when choosing a conference to attend. Don’t just choose the first industry conference you can find and book your plane ticket. Be sure that you are looking for conferences/events that are specialized to your line of work. You should be looking to attend two conferences that are outside of your home city per year. One of those should be specific to the field of work you are in and the other may apply to the broader industry as a whole. For instance, I specialize in PR measurement – so I’ll be attending the PR News Measurement Conference in Chicago on November 18^th. I also have plans to attend a national PR conference that isn’t focused specifically on PR measurement, but public relations as a whole.
2. Make sure you pick an event that you will benefit from, not just an excuse to charge your company credit card. Ask yourself before you attend a professional development event: Is this worth my time AND my company’s money? Of course most people like to travel, but that’s not a reason to attend a conference. Your boss will be able to tell if the conference actually benefited you or if you treated the trip as a few days out of the office to have cocktails on the company’s dime.
3. Scout the list of people attending if it’s available. There is opportunity to grow your business when attending conferences and events. Sure, we all like to make sales and connections, but that isn’t the reason you are traveling to events. You’re there to learn. Make sure you learn about the people you’ll be spending time with. Learn what their companies do and see if there is a potential to speak with them about a business opportunity.

During Conference

1. Be ready to learn and network, not to sell. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t bring business cards, but be sure that your main objective of attending industry conferences isn’t to sell. Having the mindset that you are looking to build relationships, rather than selling your services (if you work in the B2B world). Nobody likes the person that is a walking sales pitch. It’s annoying and most the time it doesn’t attract business, it scares business away.
2. Pay attention during the conference. Too often I look around the room at the computers screens of fellow attendees and see people scrolling Facebook, answering client emails or browsing the internet. You paid $1,000 or more to come to this conference to do what? Sit there and distract yourself? That’s a waste of your time and your company’s money. Respect that the company you work for wants to invest in you and repay them by being attentive during the conference. Take notes. Think about what you are hearing and how it applies to the job you do.
3. Make use of the “networking time.” That’s self-explanatory. This is the allotted time when you CAN be a walking sales pitch. Don’t be pushy, just be social. Meet people, network, share and form relationships. Exchange business cards or Twitter handles.

Post-Conference

1. Attend post-conference events.Usually conferences are followed up with a cocktail hour or “meet-up” event. Seek them out and have casual conversations with likeminded folks who are also in your industry. Some of the greatest value can come from casual conversations.
2. Reflect!Hopefully during the conference you took notes so you can spend some time reflecting on what you learned. Go back through your notes and find sessions within the conference that resonated with you. Take what you learned and see if there is any sort of application that you can do to your own work. Innovate new products, new processes or new ideas. Your time on the flight home is a great opportunity to organize your key takeaways.

We hope to see you in Chicago next week for the PR News Measurement Conference, connect with us if you will be there – we would love to chat! In the meantime, we want to hear from you! How do YOU prepare for conferences or events? What do you look for when deciding which events/conferences to attend?