From the company perspective, events are a practical way to facilitate interaction between potential customers and employees. Events provide the opportunity for employees to exemplify values and concepts that are core to the business. There is plenty of evidence out there that shows that many marketers and executives believe that events are the top source of marketing for their company. But events aren’t only beneficial to companies. So why should you attend events? Both in-person and online events can provide plenty of value to audiences. It is important for all professionals to attend events even if they aren’t interested in buying the company’s product or service. The reasons are listed below. 1. Networking This concept mainly applies to in-person events. Many events in tech cities have networking built into the schedule for the event. Here is an example agenda for events like the ones we host: 6:00-6:30: Check-in/Networking 6:30-7:30: Presentation 7:30-8:00: Wrap-up/Networking Networking can be built into the beginning and end of events to ensure there is plenty of time for attendees to meet each other. By having a networking portion at the end, it gives the attendees the opportunity to discuss what was said during the panel. It also allows for more individualized questions to be asked to the presenter. This format lends itself to stimulating conversations that can lead to lifelong connections. 2. Seek Out Immediate Business Opportunities This one goes hand-in-hand with networking but is more specific. Instead of just going to meet anybody else that is in attendance, you can have a more targeted approach. For example, imagine you are a recruiter for a smaller company and are looking for a SDR but can’t quite find the quality of candidate that will help your company. This prevents you from moving forward at the necessary pace since your candidate pool is limited. Attending an event focused on sales will immediately put you in the vicinity of a large group of sales professionals. There are plenty of other situations in which immediate business opportunities can come about as a result of events. 3. Learning In A New Way As humans, we become quite bored very easily. The average attention-span has gotten very short. When we do the something the same way every time, it becomes dull and boring. Learning is included here. If you learn by doing the same thing over and over again, the process will become forced and you will not unlock the full potential of this information. As a recent college graduate, I can attest to this. Some professors essentially did the same lecture but just changed the information. No videos, no guest speakers, no discussion, etc,. Do you think students respond well to this? I don’t think they do. People like to hear different perspectives. Hearing different people present the same content is a different experience in itself. It is the way they present the content. Some will rely more on anecdotes. Others will rely more on case studies. Some will rely more on personal stories. And finally some will rely strictly on data. They all could be telling you to do the same thing but the differentiator is the story. This is the power of an event. A speaker will have a unique story that has made them who they are today. This affects how they present their information to you. It will be different than what you are used to. It will seem new to you even though the content may be exactly the same. However, you be will be more likely to retain the information because it will be a memorable experience. 4. Getting In the Right Mindset Some events are less for the knowledge you will gain there and more to feel motivated by the speaker. Some of the top events in the world are specifically designed to motivate professionals and nothing else. Think Tony Robbins, Deepak Chopra, John C. Maxwell, and Gary Vaynerchuk. A lot of events hosted by these speakers are specifically designed to motivate you. Yet you can still find motivation by listening to other lesser known professionals speakers. There are many people in tech who have unique backgrounds. There are many billionaires and influential people who came from nothing. And there are stories of many people in tech rising up from unfavorable situations. Tech offers the unique opportunity for people from bad situations to potentially change the world. Some of the stories from people in tech will give you that extra motivation that you need to fulfill your potential. Events that help with personal development can be life-changing. Although there are now plenty of online events that happen every day, in-person events can truly change your life. To wrap it up, here are the main reasons you should attend events in 2019:
