Ask HN: How to Sell Yourseslf at a Conference?

robg · on Aug 23, 2009

The best sales pitch is a great talk - interesting and informative. Use anecdotes to tell a story. Ask yourself: What's the one question you're answering for the audience so the next time they're thinking about similar stuff you, and your answer, come to mind. Then provide all relevant contact details. Be sure to save time for questions then have a few slides in your back pocket in case you have extra time. If your talk is good enough, that's your sales pitch right there. You're selling yourself through how you convey the main idea.

If you don't know people, conferences can be somewhat lonely. Just keep putting yourself out there. Try to arrange meetings beforehand and then try to spend meals talking with new people. Worry more about exchanging thoughts than business cards. It's easy to forget that you're there to learn. Find out when meeting people what they're learning there. It's a good opening and you'll soon find like minds.

tonystubblebine · on Aug 23, 2009

If you give a good talk, people will come up to you afterward. Get their business cards. A salesperson would call these people leads and follow up with them in order to ask the question directly, "Could your team perform at a higher level with some coaching of the sort I talked about in my talk?"

Your coaching work is probably also going to work it's way into your talk because that's where your anecdotes are coming from. Just make sure to spell it out directly at the end of your talk with a slide: "Thanks for listening, here's what I do, and how to contact me."

There's a non-car-sales technique to selling which is often summarized as give value first. That's what you're doing here because both of these techniques rely on you giving a great talk.

iamelgringo · on Aug 23, 2009

Your coaching work is probably also going to work it's way into your talk because that's where your anecdotes are coming from. Just make sure to spell it out directly at the end of your talk with a slide: "Thanks for listening, here's what I do, and how to contact me."

Give the contact and "here's what I do" slide at the beginning, too. If people watch the videos online to get your contact info after the conference, you don't want them to have to go through your whole slide deck/video to find you.

jamesbritt · on Aug 23, 2009

Seems pretty well covered in the comments so far, and you know to bring business cards (ideally, cards with enough white to write notes and such).

One additional thought: try not to have your time monopolized by people who either want to just impress you with their superior smarts, or pick your brains for free.

I don't mean to sound callous, but face time at conferences can be limited, and if a goal is to land work and contacts you need to be sort of ruthless at times with your attention.

wyw · on Aug 23, 2009

Being ruthless with your attention can be a hard act to pull off without appearing rude.

jamesbritt · on Aug 23, 2009

Oh, quite true, and it may not be the most natural behavior for many of us.

Still, I think most people would understand it if you politely explained that time is limited and you're trying to meet as many new people as possible, and here's my contact info so we can continue this discussion later.

skmurphy · on Aug 23, 2009

If folks are waiting in line to talk to you it's fine to say "do you mind if I give you a call or drop you an e-mail to do a follow up" and indicate (politely) that you would like to talk to folks who are waiting. Individuals will sometimes come up after a talk and want to have a 15 minute conversation--or try and have an argument of some sort--when three other people are waiting. It's not being rude to spend 30 seconds to a minute to understand the gist of what they want, make a note of it on their card, and follow up later.

mahmud · on Aug 23, 2009

Forget selling and focus on imparting good knowledge on your audience without babbling on for far too long.

I only remember two types of conference speakers; the really good and the really bad.

brandnewlow · on Aug 23, 2009

This time around, focus on giving a great talk that gets you invited to speak again somewhere else.

Then go buy and read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Never-Eat-Alone-Secrets-Relationship/d...

The author comes off as a complete tool, but every bit of advice he offers is pure gold and extremely practical.

skmurphy · on Aug 23, 2009

A lot of good suggestions already.

I think you have to offer one or two very specific symptoms of the problem that you help teams with. Note that a symptom is a prospect's perception of the problem, a diagnosis is the practitioners description.

After the talk exchange business cards with anyone who comes up. If there is some way you can assist them (e.g. send them a url or other info, make an intro) or a point you want to remember, jot down a 2-3 word note on the back of the card immediately so that you don't forget. Follow up within two days.

If you want to hand something out besides your card consider either or both of these:

1. 3x5 card with a pain question on one side (and two or three sentences on how you address) and a short 2-3 sentence backgrounder on the other. This is still small enough to fit in folks pocket. Bonus: preparing this also prepares you for small talk / networking conversations where you need to succinctly describe what you do.

2. An article as a "leave behind" instead of your slide deck, a good slide deck is incomplete without the spoken presentation, and article can be complete stand alone.

There are more than 50 sponsors: research each one's website and determine if there are potential synergies between their offerings and yours. I would visit any you might be able to partner with and introduce yourself.

kylecordes · on Aug 23, 2009

I haven't been to the Agile conference series in the last few years, so this is based on several-year-old impressions:

Most of the attendees are not be people "buying" agile; they are (like you) "selling" agile. A great many of them could be described their work as "teach/train/mentor/coach technology teams into becoming high performing teams".

sachinag · on Aug 23, 2009

If your website isn't crystal clear about what you offer, when you offer it, what your prices are, and how to hire you, it doesn't matter how many leads you get. Your conversion will suck.

If your site does all those things, your (first and) last slide just needs to have your URL and people will look at it (during and) after your speech.