Be Intentional About the Events You Attend

RCS Influencer Danny Kerr says that it’s important to set goals ahead of time for what you want to accomplish at a trade show.  

Editor’s note: Watch the video to see and hear what Danny Kerr and Erin Scheel have to say about their trade show strategy. You can read the transcript below the audio recording or listen to the conversation below.     

Megan Ellsworth: Hi, welcome to February's Influencer Topic. My name is Megan Ellsworth, and today I have Erin Scheel and Danny Kerr from Breakthrough Academy with us. The topic for February is what is your 2021 trade show strategy? What is your guys' strategy? Do you go into trade shows with a plan? Do you go in, no plan at all? 

Danny Kerr: Cool. Yeah. Well, the coronavirus put a little change on a few things, for sure. 

Megan Ellsworth: Yes it did. 

Danny Kerr: We, historically, from January till around mid April, May would be going to anywhere from 30 to 50 events all across the US and Canada. So we live the trade show world and I definitely lived out of a suitcase on a plane for four or five months of the year. And we learned a lot about what works, what doesn't work. And we also have adapted a ton since March, April, since there's been very few live events. There's a few, and we've actually go to one a little while ago, but they're few and far between. And we've got an extra complication actually because of the border. It's a little bit more challenging to go across the border these days. 

Megan Ellsworth: Ah, yes. 

Danny Kerr: But generally our strategy is that we do want to take a lot of time to think through what we're getting involved in ahead of time. We've definitely in the past just sprayed and done a little bit of everything. And I think in the beginning that could be good because you get to know people, you get out there, you kind of see what works, what doesn't. But over time you definitely want to hone in on that because I think what we're all noticing, even even online right now as we do a lot of online events, there's just more and more every year. And it's hard sometimes to sort the wheat from the chaff of which ones are actually beneficial and which ones are just, "Hey, you showed up, you had some drinks, you met some people, but you didn't really come away with anything." So you got to start to become a little more intentional, I would say, is a big thing we've been learning over the last little bit. 

Erin Scheel: Yeah, we're really focusing on events that our culture and values align. And we're making sure to ask more questions around our industry peers. The people that we really enjoy partnering with, we're sort of going, "Hey, which events are you going to? What audiences are you focused on? Because we really think your values align. And if these are the people that are your kind of people, we want to go meet those people." So in a sea of a ton of events and more so virtually, you can't conceivably go everywhere and you have to start discerning where to go. We're really looking at the people we know and trust and where they're going. 

Megan Ellsworth: I love it. 

Danny Kerr: Cool. And also I'll say this too. I think a lot of people will go to a trade show because they think it'll be good. "It'll be good. We'll get some results from it or we'll meet some people." But what is the actual goal? What is the goal? "We want 10 leads and to meet these two people and have better connections with them." Cool. That's a goal. That's tangible. We can focus on hitting that and then figure out what it takes to be able to achieve that. But when people are just going to events to meet more people or get some more work or make a connection, but there's no real tangible side to that, it can get pretty fluffy pretty quick for, you know what, you're just flying around attending events and everyone loves you, but there's not much ROI coming out of the time. And I'll be the first to put my hand up. I'm a social guy. I love hanging out, but I've also got three girls at home and I got a wife. And that time is valuable in the consideration of the fact that it's not with them. So it better be worth it. 

Erin Scheel: Yep. We've gotten better over time at really making that deliberate. We go to events and we love speaking at events and delivering educational content, but we also know Danny wants to meet people and loves meeting people. So behind the scenes, a few of us go, "Okay, here's some people that we really want you to meet and here's when you should go meet them and we've talked to them too." So there's a few rocks in the stream, but like, "Here's some people that you should go have lunch with while you're there." 

Danny Kerr: Yeah. So literally they set up my agenda ahead of time. I literally have an hour by hour agenda on exactly what I should be doing every hour. So be at your booth, doing this, be speaking for this, get prepped for this, go have lunch with this person over here, come back. I'm just told what to do and it works. 

Megan Ellsworth: I love that. It makes it kind of easy, doesn't it? It's just, well, not easy, but nice. You got a plan. 

Danny Kerr: It is. And on the opposite side, it is easy to just get carried away with the flow of the event because they are very fast paced. And it's funny, you go in and you think you have all the time in the world, but you realize you don't. There's just always conversations, there's always the next thing to go do. And when you have an agenda, it does kind of keep you a little bit more on pace and make sure... If you have an agenda with some goals, it keeps you a lot more focused on what you're doing with that time. 

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah. I'm hearing a lot of intention. I love that you said that, right off the bat. Intention. Going in with a plan and agenda, I think that's brilliant, especially for people as experienced as you, you've got to use your time wisely. I love it. I know you guys just held an online event. So what was that like? How did you prepare for it? Tell me a little bit about that. 

Danny Kerr: Cool. 

Erin Scheel: We just hosted our annual Winter Summit, which is the pinnacle event for our brand that brings together our members, usually at an epic location together in person. Historically, it's been in Breckenridge or in Whistler. So that was not feasible this year and we thought, "Okay, we need to do this virtually, at a consequence." But community and connection is so significant to Breakthrough Academy and we're not a distant company to the people we work with. We're always connected. We thought, "How can we do this virtually, but be highly connected to our members and engage with our partners who are attending?"  So wild ride getting prepared and figuring out different ways to use a virtual platform that actually allows people to interact with presenters and had a virtual networking function where people could go and actually make connections. So there was this business connection side of things, and there was also cocktail hour side of things. We sent everybody drink mixes in the mail prior so that you've got a drink mix for social hour. And we're going to use this platform where your head is a little bubble that roams around the screen and you can connect with other people in clusters or go off and have a one-on-one conversation or join in this group conversation because you see there's a bunch of people talking over here, which was really fascinating. I mean, there was lessons learned through it, but pretty hilarious to find out that virtual networking and cocktail hours can actually be incredibly fun. 

Megan Ellsworth: Wow. 

Danny Kerr: I had a lot of fun. Yeah. I lost myself. I was like, mic on, focused and just hanging out with and chilling with people and then I took my headphones off after two hours of socializing and I was like, "I'm in a room alone this whole time." But I just felt like I was just hanging out with people the whole time. And I was a little buzzed too because I was drinking while I was talking to them. I got literally carried away with that. 

Erin Scheel: Well, we see late at night... You could see... We had a meeting where our team got into a different meeting and there was still a monitor up showing this virtual networking environment. And there's a little cluster talking and there's a guy with his laptop and his headphones on in his hot tub. And they're enjoying social hour late into the night.  But so many people don't get these connections right now because we're all at home and we're virtual, and yeah, it was still a virtual event, but speaking of intentionality, we were really conscious to make sure that you weren't just in a Zoom meeting for eight hours. You were in some different environments. There were people on a stage presenting. There were small group breakout work that was focused. There was networking in an environment with 200 people moving around that you could talk to and connect with. There was vendors involved that you could go and learn about their product and get points toward an epic prize if you made meaningful connections. So it was like, "How do we use this virtual platform to engage people in different ways to keep energy high, to keep engagement high and to provide value?" 

Megan Ellsworth: Wow, that's brilliant. And the drink mixes, that's so fun. Oh my gosh. What was the platform called again that you guys used? 

Erin Scheel: The platform we use to host the event is called Socio. So that was the actual event platform. And we integrated a networking application called Wonder.me. 

Megan Ellsworth: Wow. 

Erin Scheel: And you know what? Everything wasn't perfect. It went pretty well and we learned along the way and we did a lot of hard work as a team to set this up in a format we'd never done before. So this virtual networking environment, we learned if you just unleash several hundred people into a networking environment like that, it's awesome and a bit confusing all at once. And you just see... because everybody's a little circular icon and you'd see people clustered up having conversations. It's like, "Okay, they've figured it out." And then you see other ones, it looks like a video game and they're flying around the screen and when you zoom out you're like, "Okay, there's a few people who are confused and they're just running around. It's like ants in a colony." But we learned that there's a broadcast feature. So if we do it again, when we do it again, you let everybody in to play around and you can see people are confused and then you just do a little broadcast to say, "Hey, everybody. Now that you're in here, here's what you need to know to connect with people." 

Megan Ellsworth: Oh my gosh. That's brilliant, you guys. Oh my goodness. Wow. 

Erin Scheel: And then behind the scenes, we just had a live streaming platform so that we could integrate Zoom and YouTube and Wonder and Socio and bring whatever we needed to bring to the forefront at any given time. 

Megan Ellsworth: Wow. Brilliant. Well, I love it. And I love the strategy for trade shows. The event you guys did sounds like it was so much fun. Maybe a little chaotic at times, but so fun. Thank you. Do you have any other things to add for this February topic? 

Danny Kerr: I just think, don't underestimate the power of connection. I think we spend a lot of time online and we spend a lot of time in our homes now working from home and you just can't underestimate the power of connecting with people, whether it's digital or in person... Nothing's ever going to replace in person, obviously. And yeah, I think when you're going to events, I mean, the big things we brought up today, which is make sure you know what events are worthwhile. So spend time exploring, but then start to get dialed on which ones you're committing to for the year. Make sure you have goals on what you're trying to achieve when you go to these events, try and have a bit of an agenda to keep you kind of well-rounded.  And if you cannot go to events because of the virus or whatever, it's not an option, look at alternative options that are online. And if you're hosting events... What Erin just brought up about some of the software we're using, take the time to go that extra mile. It makes a huge difference. I think people need to connect now more than ever. Megan, I'm not sure if you've felt this, but you seem like a super social person like your mom and it's hard to not be around people. And when you finally are, and you have a cool night where you all hang out, you're like, "Wow. I was missing that in my soul." And I think that we need to not forget that as we do this. Because, I mean, I get a ton out of hanging out from all of these events and I do miss it a little bit. And even just doing that digital version of what we did, I was like, "I feel oddly filled up right now with that social energy." So, it's good. 

Megan Ellsworth: Yes. Oh yeah. I love it. Someday soon, hopefully, we will all be together again. So, more fun. Fingers crossed. 

Danny Kerr: Totally. 

Megan Ellsworth: Well, thank you both so much. This was so informative and I can't wait to get it out there for everybody to listen to. Thank you so much and I'll see you in March. 

Danny Kerr: Awesome, guys. 

Erin Scheel: Thanks Megan. 

Danny Kerr: Thanks Megan. 

Erin Scheel: Great. 

Megan Ellsworth: Thanks. 

Danny Kerr is the Director of Assessment of Breakthrough Academy. See his full bio here.