BluShark Digital 0:00
Welcome to the Conference Connection. Your go to place to get the scoop on what conferences are coming up that you need to know about. Here are your hosts, Paul Faust, President of RingBoost and Seth Price, Founder of BluShark Digital and Managing Partner of Price Benowitz.
Paul Faust 0:16
How ya doing, Paul Faust, ringboost.com, and Seth Price as usual, from Price Benowitz and BluShark here with another episode of The Conference Connection.
Seth Price 0:25
Excited to be back.
Paul Faust 0:27
We are back.
Seth Price 0:27
And so look, Paul, we come to conferences, and let’s look at this from like the vendor point of view. I don’t love the term vendor, but the non lawyer point of view with the legal conferences. You know, people come here, and one of the goals is to connect, whether it’s to sell, whether it’s to network, whatever it is, what are some of the things you think that people do really well? And you know, conversely, what are some of the missteps that you see people do? That just sort of like to quote my kids, are cringeworthy.
Paul Faust 0:54
A lot of those and, and when I bring these my ideas and my thoughts, I’m very passionate about this topic. I’ve, it’s not because I’m some genius. It’s because I made every mistake. I did it wrong and I learned. Remember, you told me about my booth and something nice, too much this, here’s what I would tell you, as a vendor, as a vendor or industry partner, um, don’t sit at the booth all day long and then complain that you had, that there was no business here. Look, the booth is one component. There’s one thing to sit there. Here’s what I would do as a vendor. Know when the brakes are make sure you’re at the booth when the breaks and the room’s crowded, when the room’s not crowded. If there’s more than one of you. One of you could sit at the booth, the other one go around and meet all the other vendors. We’re all marketing the same. People. Go walk around, introduce yourself. Hi, my name is Paul Faust. This is what I do, what do you do? Hey, maybe we can hop on a call next week, because I get, I would say, 80% of my business from other vendors and other lawyers that know what I do. So I don’t have to, understand, when you network with me, when you meet me, you’re not meeting me, you’re meeting me and my entire network. So I’ll give you. I love that you asked the cringeworthy ones. Here’s the cringeworthy ones. Four people sitting at a booth all day when there’s no one in the room, um, three people sitting at booth behind laptops and on cell phones. You knew you’re going to be here. You’re at a conference. It’s really unapproachable. When I’m, a lawyer, is walking through and they see two people on their phones with their head down looking on the, they want to stop and talk to you? Make yourself approachable. Another, my biggest cringeworthy is, I see you know a company will come, then we have these great lunches, and I’ll see four people from the same company eating at a table together. Like, why are you guys eating together? Why aren’t you four different tables meeting people? You’ll see me a lot of times. I’ll sit at four different tables during lunch. I’ll get up and say, excuse me. Go somewhere else.There’s more to the conference than just that booth that’s just like a placeholder. Go meet the other vendors, walk around, go down to the bar area, go out to the pool area when the breaks are that’s where the real kind of breaking bread and business is done.
Seth Price 2:55
No absolutely, one thing that I’ve noticed of late, and especially as some of these conferences have, taken gotten larger, and you’re seeing new levels of, you know, sort of junior people coming to them is that there’s a balance, right? You want to be able to introduce yourself to anybody, but reading a room. If three people are in the middle of a deep conversation, not the time to engage. Or if you do start to engage people say, you know what? I misread this. Let me make sure I give them some breathing room, and because, nothing happens without taking a shot but being strategic about it, so that you’re not infringing but rather being welcomed into a conversation.
Paul Faust 3:32
Absolutely, there’s there’s, come on, we’re all professionals. You will see when Seth and I are smiling, and you’ll see when Seth and I are are deep in a business conversation. Don’t interrupt. Maybe wave. Let let us know that I’ll see you. I’ll catch you in a minute. But if there’s an art form to going to conferences too, just like there’s an art form being a lawyer, there’s an art form of being a salesperson. You know what I say? Talk to the people who’ve been doing this for 20 years. Ask their advice. If any vendors ever come to me and said, hey, you mind if I shadow you for a few minutes? No, let me talk to you, we want to share the knowledge. This is an industry, and as I said, I get 80% of my business from other vendors. Like they’re my resource too. So you’re not just sitting at the booth hoping that people come to you, walk around, network with the whole community, set up calls for later. The other one’s really important I want to point this out is, and I’m going to be blunt about it, lawyers are in these sessions all day long. They get a 15-20, minute break. They got to go to the bathroom, they got to call home, they got to call their office. The last thing that they’re all saying is, man, I can’t wait to walk out of this room and get bombarded with 100 people trying to sell me something. You know, Seth will come by and I’ll be like, hey, uh, Seth, look, love to talk to you later. Look, here’s my card. Get to your session. It’s starting. Let’s, let’s pick up next week or later. If you have a minute like they can’t go to 50 booths and get bombarded by everybody, respect people’s time. Respect that there’s a lot they’re trying to do here. Um, and just be aware of that kind of pay attention.
Seth Price 5:04
I would say, look, I knew it’s tough, because there are people who have as their job, you know, a quota they’re trying to hit. But at the end of the day, people do business with people they know, like and trust, and if you go in with the binary, buy now, right?
Paul Faust 5:20
Which I did when I started.
Seth Price 5:21
Right, it is so much. I mean, of the people take the phone number business, there are times when, like, and there are people in your business that are very binary. I have a number. Do you want this? Well, they did enough research to know who you were, but the idea that somebody gets to know you, because if you look, take Paul as a classic example, if there is any Facebook group where somebody says, where do I get a number within lawyers, there are going to be no less than 17 call Paul Faust responses. That doesn’t happen overnight, and it didn’t come because you did a hard sell on anybody at any one time. By by figuring out how to build those relationships, whether it’s as a junior person asking, somebody asks you for advice as to, how do you best work this room? How do you that is going to create asking a favor, very often is counterintuitive, because you think, wow, that’s taking goodwill. But I find the opposite, that by when somebody asks a favor, I very often find that that builds a relationship that’s very hard doing any other way. As a more senior person, if you add value, if you see something like you mentioned at one point where you had some cockamamie booth with like crazy words all over it, I’m like, he’s the phone number for effen guy, right?
Paul Faust 6:32
Just write that.
Seth Price 6:33
Literally, today, there was a CPA guy I saw, and he had all these words on a dark back, and can barely read it. And I was like, you two things, are you saving somebody on taxes and do you need a new CPA? That’s what you’re trying to do. Whatever creative you want, but everything else is just jumble. There was a guy with who’s trying to do ERC stuff. He had 50 words on the booth. It’s, do you want free money because of COVID losses? That’s it.
Paul Faust 6:57
Look, if your Booth’s gonna do all the selling, don’t come here, put a note and then leave. The booth, has essentially from a distance, there’s phone numbers that I’ll talk to you about it.
Seth Price 7:08
Right, and I guess my point was, if you can add value in any way, it may be that somebody has something sticking off of their jacket that they don’t want, anything you can do to make somebody better in any way, shape or form, which is tough when you’re [inaudible]. But anything you can do that helps that, if you’re in a conversation, adding value of the great, amazing restaurant you went to, whatever it is, but something that is creating that bond or that relationship to me, that’s what’s going to pay dividends.
Paul Faust 7:34
I’ve had that. I I’m not I don’t want you to call me for a phone number. I want you to call me for everything. Like I’ve literally had lawyers call me say, can you go sit in this session? I can’t be there. Take some notes for me. Or I had a lawyer, friend of mine came to the conference. And I said, Hey, what are you doing here? And he goes, I this, is this, this. I said, Let’s go for a walk. So I took him to four different booths that were things that he would need. So I didn’t sell phone numbers even talk about what I do. I just wanted want to help them out.
Seth Price 8:04
And look, I have an SEO widget, right? BluShark does great work there. But what I find is that half the time when somebody’s coming, they think they need that, but their intake is all – I mean, not uncommon, but point is like, if you listen very often the person, you’re a referral based law firm with no extra bandwidth. You shouldn’t be touching SEO. What you should be doing is figuring out how to get yourself another trial lawyer, because right now, you’re going to collapse if you don’t do that, and figuring out what is the real question somebody’s asking, not what they think they’re asking.
Paul Faust 8:35
And not just because you want to make a sale. If you want to make a sale, you can make some quick money. You’ll see the people who’ve been in this industry 20 years, because it’s a time and a place not to sell something, to tell someone slow down. You’ll go faster. I mean, look, we’re I’m a great salesperson. So are a lot of people in this room. I’ve literally seen lawyers walk through a conference, and I said when he goes, I just signed withthat guy for PR. Then I did SEO with that guy. I’m doing billboards with this guy, and I just wait, four, do they know each other? You got four different marketing guys. You just hired a newsletter guy. Are they all gonna talk? Is there a concerted, like, they just got sold. Like, wait a minute, slow down. Maybe we talk to a marketing person. Say, what’s the PR strategy? Like, you can literally go and get sold. There’s good, there’s great sales with great products, but it might not fit sometimes, slow down.
Seth Price 9:24
It’s funny you say that because I had something I’ve noticed reflecting on BluShark, anybody who comes and signs up at a conference, I’m in, on something as complicated as SEO, that client’s not going to make it. It’s almost never. If some, it’s it’s that big of a decision that if somebody is that quick to go in, it’s that quick to go out.
Paul Faust 9:45
Unless they’ve analyzed the problem. I’m coming to this conference to sit down with two SEO companies.
Seth Price 9:52
There are exceptions of exeptions. No, but what I’m saying is the impulse, right?
Paul Faust 9:57
The impulse.
Seth Price 9:58
Well, and there are areas of the industry where impulse is good, right? I mean, for example, if somebody, if somebody says, I want a phone number, they send you a check and it’s good, great, God bless. But if they’re, if you are selling something more complex, case management software, AI, the idea that somebody’s going to instantaneously at that moment, commit unequivocally, is generally, in my experience, a bad sign, and one that, whoa, it feels good for the minute, but when you get back, because there’s all that, how many people meaningfully say things at the conference that never get followed through afterwards? That’s not exactly what I’m talking about, but the idea that if you have a relationship, you’ll figure out what the real need is and be able to service it, rather than that impulse, which, again, shiny object picked today, there’s gonna be a different one for them tomorrow.
Paul Faust 10:42
Or the lawyer met someone great and bought something and then goes back to his office. Like we can’t use that, like we already had that, or we don’t, or it doesn’t fit in with this.
Seth Price 10:52
Correct.
Paul Faust 10:53
So that’s why, I think, especially when you’re new to these conferences, don’t just show up. Have a little bit of a plan. It’s the the websites put out. Who are the speakers, who are the vendors? Come with a little roadmap. And the other thing I’ll tell you this is, I think really important, really important. There is going to be 1000 pieces of knowledge here. If you try and take home 1000 pieces of knowledge, you’re gonna do nothing. Leave with one or two good nuggets. Don’t try and take it all in.
Seth Price 11:20
I’ll go. I’ll conclude with this. My, my old way, which I still believe in, top 10 things, right? You take all your notes. Flight Home, very important you don’t wait for like a week. You make your, you star everything in your notes. Top 10 things, three things you’re going to prioritize immediately. Four things, medium term. Three things are, great ideas you can’t do. I used to sort of, that was the way I operated as we moved to EOS, it’s now taking those things and then putting them into your rocks, so that you’re not coming back to your office, because visionaries like myself will come back with all these ideas and flood, not good, because you’re just crushing your people, and you’re deprioritizing, making sure that whatever ideas you get here go into your plan, and that you know you sort of like, ask yourself, I always talk about, like, making sure, like, sleeping on it, if you get a bad review you don’t immediately respond to the person, just like that. You’re gonna get a bunch of ideas, make sure you sleep on it and then cautiously integrate it into your firm, rather than crush it, because your staff already is fully maxed out. If you put additional stuff on it, can upset the apple cart in ways they’re undefended.
Paul Faust 12:22
I’ll give you one other, one other pointer, vendor and lawyer. When you meet people, I know I’m a dinosaur, we trade business cards. Okay, in the now world, we’re grabbing our phones. Trade contact. When you trade contacts, and I go, okay, hey, take care. Take a moment. Met Seth, we talked about this. He owns a law firm Price Benowitz, and this, because I’ve gotten back from conferences with a stack of business cards, I’m like, what did I talk to that person about? Like, make sure, because you you could, literally, if you do it right, meet 50 people in a 10 minute span. I take the time to write a piece, met him at the cabana. We were laughing about this, and we talked about this. I’m supposed to do this. Make those notes for yourself, because when you go back and you open up this stack of cards, you’re not going to remember what you spoke to me about.
Seth Price 13:07
Could not, like I’m guilty of that more than anybody, but I totally agree. I would say my last piece of advice would be, when you’re out, never offer a business card without gaining the contact information. It’s almost, like I’ve gone and offer my business card to people that want to sell me major, expensive products, I never hear from them, like things that I want. And what I found is, unless you have an outbound email that then goes back to your team, or back to yourself, if you’re smaller, so that you can then process that information very often, those, those that business card that goes out without, it’s just efemoral and it’s gone right?
Paul Faust 13:10
I’ll save another episode for my my greatest marketing thing I’ve ever done.
Seth Price 13:28
We’ll do a top 10 list next next time.
Paul Faust 13:47
One of my greatest marketing things to do, and you know, just flooding people with folders. So we’ll talk about later, like here. Take this. Take this. They put in their bag, and then didn’t throw it out. But we’ll get to that later. Anything else for?
Seth Price 14:01
No, we’re told we have to like, comment, share.
Paul Faust 14:05
Like, comment, share and tell us what you are doing. If you have a micro conference, a niche conference, somebody else will know about it. We’ll try and talk about it. And if you want to come on and talk about it, we can talk about it. You can tell people about it. We’d love to have you. This is, again, this is not ours. This is ours. This is, this is the community’s. So we wanted to, we want it to be for everybody.
BluShark Digital 14:30
Thank you for tuning in to the Conference Connection. Make sure to hit subscribe if you haven’t already, and we will see you for our next episode.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai