Speaking at a conference is a great way to share your knowledge and build your list of followers. Yet, if you don't have a clear plan for follow up or the offer you want to make, you can walk away empty-handed.

My assistant and I are in Jacksonville, Florida for the No More Homeless Pets conference. There are about 1500 attendees here and it's been a blast! I thought I'd share a little bit about how we planned for success.

About 3 weeks ago, my team and I sat down to strategize our opportunities at this conference. Our main goals were to help as many people as possible through my 2 presentations, and offer continued learning through my products which we sold in our exhibit booth. I knew from past experience with this conference that there would be lots of newbies here (and there are) so we put together a 3-part webinar series specifically for folks working in animal rescue who are just getting started. Our goal was to sign up 300 people in that webinar series. If you want to see what we're doing in that webinar series, go to www.GetFullyFunded.com/Sit-Stay-Give.

Both of my presentations were full (maybe 125-150 people in the room each time) and each time I gave away a copy of one of my books so I could collect business cards. THAT DAY we put the cards into our database and sent out an email to those folks with an additional nugget similar to what they learned in the session.  I invited them to visit us in the exhibit hall and also reminded them about the webinar series.

Our time in the exhibit hall has been wild and crazy!  We are swamped in there with people talking with us about our products, the webinar series, and private coaching. We think it's going to take at least a week to do all the follow up calls from this event, and I believe we will be able to close some sales and welcome some new clients on board.

Here are some nuggets I want to make sure you're getting from this story.

1. Go in with a plan. Don't wait until after a conference to figure out how to follow up.  By then it's too late.
2. Have something to offer that people want. The webinar series we created is specifically for animal rescue folks (which all of these people are) and they LOVE that it's just for them. Lots of people are jumping on it.
3. Bring help. There's NO WAY I could have worked this conference by myself, and I'm not really sure that only bringing 1 extra person was enough. I think we could have used a third person, because when people were standing 2 and 3 deep at our booth, we couldn't talk with everyone, and I don't like that.
4. Make sure that everything you do leads to the outcome you want. If you want to pick up clients, make sure your materials, your presentations (if you get to speak), any giveaways you have, and everything about you and your company builds trust and leads to the decision you want your prospect to make.  Otherwise, you're wasting your time.
5. The burden of follow up is on you, not your prospects. I learned this one the hard way. I used to give out my card, then sit back and wait for people to call me. Now, thanks to the great coaching I've received over the past year or so, I know better.  I'd MUCH rather have cards and be able to make those follow up calls myself.  There's opportunity aplenty out there, but if we wait for it to come find us, we may be disappointed.

 If you're a speaker, then be the best speaker you can be because there are lots of conferences and meetings out there where you can show off your knowledge. Just be ready to monetize it so you can support yourself while you're being of service to others.