Live Event Tips

Summary: Hey, this is Mike from epicmarketer.com. Today we're talking about going to live events, how they can help your business and some great strategies in order to help you to make better connections. So let's jump right in. First of all when you go to live events you want to have a specific purpose in mind of why you're going. One of the big things that people do mistake is they go there simply to learn from the actual content being shared onstage. While this is great, the thing to remember is that the main purpose of going to an event is actually the networking or the relationships that you build. Now having said this you don't want to approach the event by going to people that are there with the attitude of "what can you do for me" the idea that is to be helpful and to do it often. Now been helpful does not mean going up to somebody saying "I think you're awesome and I'll do whatever it takes to work with you" or "hey how can I help you and your business". Those are not helpful. Those are actually requiring the other person to come up with solutions for you two to work together. Being helpful is to go to somebody and listen to them, listen to what's going on in their business, listen to their presentation, listen to what they're saying to other people and then go to them and to say something like "Hey John my name is Mike Cowles and I was listening to what you were saying earlier about getting traffic to your site and it seems like this guy Chris over here would be really good match for you since he's into pay-per click. I think it bring a lot of traffic to your site. Would you like me introduce you two?". Or maybe you know another solution might be something like "Hey John my name's Mike Cowles and I was listening presentation and one of the things that you mentioned was that you spent a lot of money on your graphics and I happen to be a graphic designer. Would you be open to me doing graphics for you say for 10 hours in exchange for you coaching with me for one hour? Or possibly something like proofreading, something like editing video, things like that, but you're coming to them with a solution that's really a win-win situation where they can't say no to it. Another big thing as far as being prepared is to get business cards. You can go to Gotprint.com and you can get 250 business cards done for I think five bucks it's ridiculously cheap. I think for under $10 you get close to a thousand business cards done. These will be full-color glossy thick card stock, all that good stuff. So when you go to get your business cards done keep them simple. - Have your website - Have your e-mail address - Have your phone number - Have your name That's about it. If you want to put a logo on there, fine, but keep it simple have the back of the card plain so that you can write down somebody else's number on there as well. This is just a fast way to say "here's how to get in touch with me". Another thing that you can do as far as a great way to remove the awkwardness of meeting people is to go to the person that's actually running the event and to say "Hey Tom my name's Mike Cowles, listen I'm working on a book or I'm working on a product that does this and this. Who do you think would be a good person to talk to that would help them find out more about what I'm doing? And then let the person that's running the show actually introduce you. Same thing when you meet somebody and you say "Great, who else do you think might be interested or it might be helpful to talk with me about some of these things I'm working on. So have a clear, specific purpose in mind when you get started. I know Tim Ferris did this same strategy when he was promoting his first book 'The Four Hour Work Week' and this was part of the ways, one of the strategies that he used to really get on the map and to get known around a lot of people was to go to events, meet em face to face and see if he could help.