Article by Nicola Tapson
My morning starts off with a good hearty breakfast, so that I will be well fuelled for my day of networking, and learning. Next I go through my checklist to ensure I will get the most out of every opportunity I will face today.
My checklist:
- Business cards: these will be critical for when I meet potential clients or vendors.
- Elevator pitch: a single sentence which clearly indicates what my business and I am about.
- Business attire: unfortunately, people usually judge a book by a cover, and hopefully my cover will let them know I mean business.
- Ticket: I got my ticket before the event which meant that it was free.
Great, now that I have everything. I can be off.
As I enter the conference centre, I am quickly ushered towards the pre-purchased tickets and am efficiently checked into the event.
Next, I walk into the exhibition hall and my senses are charged with excitement. Everyone here is looking to build up small businesses, whether from scratch or help them to grow.
I scan the seminars which will be on offer. I find that there are two seminars at 10:00am and 11:15am which will help me to grow my brand. As my main objective for attending this conference is to learn about marketing my business better I decide these are the best seminars for me.
Click here for the seminar line-up
As I have a bit of time I decide to walk through the exhibitions and see what the different vendors have on offer. There are many opportunities to find out about funding and some of the major banks have huge stands and they have various small business solutions on offer. As I walk through the exhibit I see a display by Google. They are offering to verify my business. This is great as I have been struggling to get it done over the past months. I rush over to the stand and ask one of the Google agents to assist me and they are ready to make my business visible on Google.
Click here to see our exhibitors
Next, I walk through more exhibitions. I come across some exhibitors who are offering their products as prizes if you give them your business card. Luckily I brought a bunch with me. I make sure that I only enter those competitions which will benefit the goals of my business. I check my watch and see that the seminar will be on 10 minutes I make my way to Zone 1 to get a seat as it works on a first-come first-served basis. I am lucky as I get a seat right at the front. I am excited to learn about how I can improve my sales. The presenter is passionate about the message and after the talk I walk away feeling like I can conquer the world.
I move on to Zone 2 to take in another presentation about how to promote my business with some basic, easy-to-implement marketing strategies. As I sit down, I greet the gentleman sitting next to me and we discuss what we do. He is a landscape architect and is trying to grow his business. I ask him if he has a website. He says he has tried to build one on his own but is struggling with a few things. I offer to help him. We exchange business cards and listen to the presentation.
My stomach starts to grumble. Time to get a bite to eat before I go through the rest of the exhibition. After lunch I walk through the exhibition and I see some innovate ideas to help small businesses to get ahead and I learn about how to protect my IP
WOW! That was an awesome exhibition. I feel equipped to grow my business into an empire and I have great list of contacts to get back to tomorrow.