Post conference week. What do you do?

Last week saw many big conferences on both sides of the Atlantic. Learning Technologies, Learning and Skills, The Cloud and BETT were all in London. ASDT TechKnowledge in the USA.

If you attended any of these then this week be prepared to suffer the consequences.

Each time your badge was scanned you got added to a mailing list. Each time you walked up and down a staircase or changed shows at Olympia you were counted and became a statistic.

Did you go home with a carrier bag full of brochures? Please tell me, what did you do with them? Are they in the recycling yet?

This week all those who managed to grab your name will be emailing or calling. How do you filter these and take the calls worth hearing?

For many years I worked that side of the fence, standing at the trade show trying to accumulate as many contacts as possible in two short expensive days. A couple of days after the show the data arrived. Now was follow up time. That starts today.

Well if you as vendor are reading this be aware from the punter angle and if you attended, be aware from the vendor angle, please.

I have been out of the office since Tuesday last week. The pile of paper on my desk this morning all needs dealing with. I have 30 important saved emails from the 400 or so that arrived that I could not deal with from my iPhone. All need to be replied or actioned by tomorrow or Wednesday at the latest. Do I have time to follow up with anyone other than those I already promised? Most of the other attendees are just like me.

So here is what to expect from me.

If I spoke to you and said ‘let’s lunch’ or you saw me put you on a list in my phone. Expect an email today or tomorrow.

If I visited your stand and asked you for a business card, call me I will take your call or call you back if you leave a message. There are two whose card I took who can expect a call from me, I want to purchase what you had.

I have clients who are looking and look to me to be abreast of new things and new offerings. Check out my site ‘click here’ Email mail me if I visited and you scanned my badge. If you call I will say hello but I will be honest and tell you I don’t have time today to chat.

If you think you missed me and have something great to show me that my clients may like then email me and tell me.

If you, like me, attended these shows then I ask you don’t ignore the people you saw. When I was on that side of the fence there was nothing worse than leaving a lot of voicemails and getting no reply or emailing as I had been asked to do to find myself just being ignored. So if you email me you will get a reply. If you call, leave not only your number but your email address. I will get back to you but probably not till later this week.

Have fun in follow up week, those of you, you know who you are, expect my call or email.