The Rooms · 07 of 12
The Industry Conference
Three days of being read by people who decide in ten seconds whether to keep talking to you.
What they’re reading
Your shoes, your badge, and whether you look like you're about to sell them something.
What to wear
An unstructured jacket and trousers you can walk eight miles in, because you will. Shoes that are broken in. You will regret new shoes by two o'clock on the first day and you'll be useless by the third.
A jacket over a knit polo is the highest-return outfit at any conference. Dressed enough to be taken seriously, comfortable enough to survive.
What to bring
Cards. A phone battery. One bag that doesn't look like swag.
When to arrive
To sessions, five minutes early. Sit in the second or third row, on an aisle. Front row reads as eager, back row reads as uninterested, and the aisle means you can leave a bad session without making it a moment.
The first sixty seconds
Name, company in four words, then a question. Never a pitch.
David, commercial side, Harlow Group. What brought you to this one?
That question outperforms anything you could possibly say about yourself, because it lets them talk and it tells you in thirty seconds whether this is a conversation worth having.
How to act
Listen for
what people complain about in the hallway, which is the actual state of the industry and is never what's on the stage. And listen for a name that comes up twice in two different conversations, because that's the person you should be trying to meet.
When you speak
in a group, be the third to speak rather than the first. The first person to talk in a circle of strangers is performing. The third is participating. One-on-one, ask two questions before you say anything at all about yourself.
How you speak
short. Everyone is tired and half-listening by eleven in the morning. And you need to be able to say what you do in one sentence a stranger understands. If it takes you three, you lost them somewhere in the second.
Your body
open stance, and physically step back to make room when somebody approaches a circle you're standing in. The men who get remembered at conferences are the ones who opened the circle.
The thing you can't fake
leaving well. “Good to meet you, I'm going to go find some coffee.” Warm, clean, no excuse required. The man who can't exit a conversation gracefully is the man nobody starts one with on day two.
The mistake
Treating the floor like a sales floor. Everyone can feel it and everyone is avoiding those men by lunchtime on day one. The conversations that turn into anything are the ones where you were interested first.
Also, the lanyard. Keep the badge facing out and at chest height so people don't have to squint at your sternum, and take it off entirely at dinner.
The guide
All twelve rooms,
with the drawings.
Fifty-eight pages. Free, and there is no email field.