Every year, real estate professionals and their companies spend thousands of dollars on conference registrations, travel, hotels, sponsorships, and booth space. Most of them show up without a plan, collect a stack of business cards, and return to the office with little to show for it.
 

Conference season doesn't have to work this way. With the right preparation, on-site execution, and post-event follow-up system, conferences become one of the highest-ROI business development channels available.
 

This workshop – taught by Thesis Driven partners Brad Hargreaves and Paul Stanton – gives you a complete, repeatable playbook for getting measurably more out of every conference you attend this year. We’ll also share some behind-the-scenes tips and tricks we’ve learned from decades attending shows.
 

You’ll Learn How To:

• Choose which conferences to attend based on your specific goals, audience, and budget

• Build a pre-conference outreach plan that fills your calendar before you arrive

• Use conference apps, attendee lists, and speaker lineups to identify and prioritize targets

• Turn conferences into content engines that fuel your LinkedIn and newsletter strategy

• Evaluate sponsorship and booth investments against your actual business development goals

• Maximize your time on-site with a structured approach to meetings, sessions, and events

• Run a post-conference follow-up system that converts conversations into real pipeline
   

Questions about the workshop?
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Choosing the Right Conferences

Not every show deserves your time and budget:

• Mapping conferences to your business development goals

• Evaluating attendee quality, format, and networking structure

• Building an annual conference calendar with clear ROI criteria

• Knowing when to skip, when to walk the floor, and when to sponsor
   

Pre-Conference Preparation

The work that separates top performers from everyone else:

• Mining attendee lists, speaker rosters, and conference apps before the event

• Pre-scheduling meetings and building a target list

• Preparing collateral, talking points, and follow-up materials in advance

• Coordinating team roles if you're sending multiple people
   

Conferences as a Marketing Channel

Turning attendance into content and visibility:

• Live-posting frameworks for LinkedIn and social media

• Repurposing panels, conversations, and takeaways into thought leadership

• Building your brand on-site and online simultaneously

• Leveraging event hashtags, speaker tags, and attendee networks
   

Sponsorship & Booth Strategy

Making paid placements actually work:

• Weighing the benefits and drawbacks of sponsorship and booth purchases

• Hosting side events, dinners, and breakout meetings

• Measuring ROI beyond logo placement
   

On-Site Execution

Getting the most from every hour at the event:

• Structuring your day around high-value interactions

• Navigating receptions, dinners, and informal settings strategically

• Managing energy, logistics, and competing priorities

• Quick-capture systems for notes, contacts, and action items
   

Post-Conference Follow-Up

Where most of the value is actually created:

• Building a follow-up system that runs within 48 hours

• Segmenting contacts by priority and next steps

• Converting conference conversations into meetings, deals, and relationships

• Tracking long-term ROI across your conference portfolio