Educational Workshop: Doing Conferences the Right Way
A 90-minute tactical workshop on how to stop treating conferences as expensive networking happy hours and start running them like strategic business development campaigns
$99.00
Presented In Partnership With
About This Workshop
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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The Workshop Will Cover
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
