Planning to go to an investor conference? Read this first.

It's not enough to just buy a ticket and show up. Here’s our guide to help you take full advantage of every second of your time at an investor conference and every dollar you spent to get there.

Those that say that conferences, trade shows, networking events, etc are a “waste of time and money in today’s digital world” are just not leveraging their unique opportunity to make one-on-one in person connections effectively.

No doubt about it, attending an investment conference can be costly - between entry tickets, flights, and accommodation, expenses can add up quickly. It’s part of why we estimate that it will cost you between $20,000-$200,000 to close a round of funding.

But, like with any business expense/investment you should:

1. Have a clear vision and set specific goals

2. Properly assess the potential ROI that any expense can bring you

3. Take action to maximize the potential impact of your spend

For example, if you spend $1,000 on Social Media Ads with no clear CTA (call to action) and a janky landing page that doesn’t easily enable E-commerce or a way for that lead to get a call scheduled with your sales team (depending on your business)… was that $1,000 expense really a waste of time and money? Or were you just not maximizing its potential?

Here’s our guide to make sure you take full advantage of every second of your time at an investor conference and every dollar spent to get there. But if you haven’t yet, you might want to start here first:

Africa's top investor conferences (and how you can get in for free)

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Maximizing your time, money, and energy at a conference

Follow these key strategies:

1. Set clear objectives and plan ahead ✍️

• Figure out exactly what you’re looking for at the conference. ✅

  • Funding, new customers, vendors, other partnerships, media connections, mentorship, etc?

  • Or just industry insights, knowledge, and/or brand exposure?

• Check the different types of entry tickets. ✅

  • What are the different benefits of each tier?

  • Would a sponsorship of the event or an exhibitor booth help you reach your objectives? If so, is the potential ROI worth the investment?

• Review the agenda (or last year’s if the new one is not published). ✅

  • Are there any specific sessions, panel discussions, workshops, or meet-and-greets you want to attend during the conference?

  • We recommend skipping out on any lectures that don’t provide direct access to one-on-one connections. You can get the notes/recorded sessions later. :)

• Prepare your materials, SWAG, and tighten up your pitch deck. ✅

  • Full list of recommendations for premium subscribers below 👇

2. Effectively leverage the conference’s (networking) app 📲

• Get registered on the conference’s app or networking platform as soon as possible

  • If the conference doesn’t have one, ask for the organizers to give you a list of attendees; otherwise use LinkedIn to find out who else might going

  • There will be detailed information on how to leverage the app effectively in our next post: “How we got 20+ investor meetings at Sankalp/AFSIC/SOCAP. And you can too!”

• Create a winning “profile” page to attract people to you and your business

  • Full tips for premium subscribers below 👇

• Get a “lay of the land” of the app

  • Specific things to look for: premium subscribers see below 👇

• Scrub through the list of attendees to find the right people to connect with

  • In our next post, we’ll show you how to easily turn A into B w/ AI 👇

  

  

3. Make the most of your investment 🚀

Even if you were able to follow our guide on how you can get into an investment conference for FREE, you’ll still have to take care of flights, accommodation, meals, transportation etc. Here’s how you to make the best bang for your buck:

• Tag on an extra day or two before and after the conference onto your trip if the conference is outside of your home market

  • Tourism! It can’t hurt to unwind and take in some new sites. For a lot of people, this can help motivate you to get even more excited about the event.

  • Take advantage of being in a new city to meet in-person with other leads who may or may not be attending the conference

• Plan your day and meetings well

  • You’ll likely have to chase people around. You don’t want to set to eight 30-minute meetings for yourself in a row and you want to leave some time for spontaneous connections

  • Make sure you can pitch (and ask the right questions) in a 25 minute window

  • The full guide to an in-person pitch for premium subscribers below 👇

• Find a place to “camp out” for your meetings

  • But be willing to move around if your lead requests you come to them

  • Full list of recommendations for premium subscribers below 👇

• Don’t be a “networking-phobe”

  • Others hate it too. Just talk to people; Everyone is there to talk

  • Premium subscribers… see the “best” conversation starters below 👇

  • Perfect your two sentence “Elevator Intro” and “USP” (unique selling proposition) i.e. who you are and what you do

  • Take advantage of lunch hours, networking/coffee breaks, the early morning before the conference starts, side events/cocktail hours, etc.

  • Don’t sit around looking at your phone! It makes you seem unapproachable

• End your meetings with actionable follow up

  • “I’ll send you XYZ documents next week and we’ll go from there.”

  • “Let’s plan a follow up call next week; How’s Thursday at 11AM?”

  • “So looks like we’re not a good fit, but thanks for your offer to introduce me and my company to XYZ, can I check in with you the week after next as a reminder in case I don’t see your intro email?”

And most importantly, have fun. Enjoy your experience.🎉

Summary

Following the outlines above (and the additional strategies below) will help you maximize your ROI at a conference. While our focus is on funder leads (see our post on the best investment conferences in Africa), the same concepts apply to trade shows, sales conferences, and more.

Keep an eye out in your inbox for our follow up post: “How we got 20+ investor meetings at Sankalp/AFSIC/SOCAP. And you can too!”

There, we’ll talk more about leveraging the conference networking app, your CRM, and AI to find and qualify leads and creating a SMART outreach strategy (in-app, email series, and LinkedIn) to get you face time with 20 or more potential funders.

Here’s a sneak peak:

Let’s get into the weeds on how to best get ready for your conference.

👇👇👇 Premium subscribers and Grant & Co clients 👇👇👇

• Planning your day

• Perfecting your pitch

• Setting up your profile

• Materials to bring with you

• Make it easy for people to find you

• How to spark up a new conversation

• What to look for in the networking APP