Elise Holtzman | How to Get the Most ROI From Your Next Conference

Hi, everyone. It's Elise Holtzman here, a former practicing lawyer and the host of The Lawyer's Edge Podcast, where I sit down with successful attorneys, legal marketing specialists, business leaders, and authors to talk about how lawyers and law firms can grow and sustain healthy, profitable businesses.

Hi everyone and welcome back to another episode of The Lawyer's Edge Podcast. I'm Elise Holtzman, your host, and I want to talk to you today about how to derive concrete value from attending industry conferences or how to increase the value you're already getting from going to conferences.

Conference attendance can be a powerful part of your business development strategy, but it's going to be a waste of time, money, and energy if you don't know how to maximize the value of going. I've often heard lawyers say, "That XYZ conference, it's a waste of money. I went once and I didn't get anything out of it." When I hear that sort of response, I know that they made some mistakes along the way that can be easily rectified.

I'm going to give you a roadmap for conference attendance that will allow you to get the most ROI (Return On Investment) from your efforts. Before we get started, today's episode is brought to you by the Ignite Women's Business Development Accelerator, a nine-month business development program created by women lawyers for women lawyers.

Ignite is a carefully designed business development program containing content, coaching, and a community of like-minded women who are committed to becoming rainmakers and supporting the retention and advancement of other women in the profession. Registration is now open for the first 2025 Ignite cohort, and early bird pricing is available. To learn more about Ignite, visit thelawyersedge.com/ignite.

Let's talk about conferences. I recently finished a whirlwind couple of months of conferences, so the spring tends to be a big conference season, and the fall also tends to be a big conference season. Whether I was attending them, running them, or speaking at them, or a combination of all three, I was in and out of a variety of cities and spending a lot of time on planes, trains, and automobiles. So it's been on my mind a lot lately.

I've also talked to quite a few individual coaching clients and women in our Ignite program about how to use conference attendance to improve their rainmaking efforts and attract more clients. Let's start with the why when it comes to conferences. Remember here, we're talking primarily about attending conferences for the purposes of business development.

I recently did an episode of this podcast on the topic of the three essential pillars of business development, which I encourage you to check out because it gives you a structure for all of your business development efforts. You can figure out what to do, what you can do more of, what maybe you should be doing less of, and so take a listen to that episode.

Just as a quick recap, pillar number one is all about nurturing and growing professional and personal relationships. Pillar number two is about raising your profile as an expert so you're not a best-kept secret, because we know that really skilled lawyers who are invisible don't get business. Pillar number three is all about what I call the three T's of leadership advancement. For today's purposes, we're not really going to talk so much about that one particular pillar. We're going to stick to pillars one and two.

Going to conferences can be an amazing way to support activity in both of those essential pillars. When it comes to business development, there are two primary reasons to go to conferences. First, to get to know prospective clients and referral sources. We know that people do business and give opportunities to those they know, like, and trust. There's that know, like, and trust factor that marketers talk about all the time.

When you're spending time getting to know those in the legal and business communities, it will help you develop the relationships that can lead to client business. I often say, “Where are your clients hanging out? Where are your referral sources hanging out? Where do they get their information?” Oftentimes, they're getting their information and learning about what's going on in their industry, learning about trends, hearing from one another at conferences.

Another reason to be going is to raise your profile as a visible expert in those communities by delivering value, sharing knowledge, answering questions, and highlighting trends. Think about it. All of the panelists and speakers at the conferences you go to are doing just that. They're not getting paid. They're volunteering their time and they're sharing their knowledge, experience, and expertise so in doing that, they're demonstrating how they deliver value in the marketplace and where their expertise lies.

You walk out thinking, “Oh, this person is an expert in his or her field because otherwise, why would they be up in front of the room speaking on a panel or giving a keynote?” To get the value of doing both of those things, developing relationships, and raising your profile as a visible expert, you've got to do more than just show up and passively sit in on educational sessions. We're going to talk a little bit more about that in a few minutes.

Now, are there other reasons you could be going to a conference? Of course. You could be going to learn from other experts at the event. Maybe you want to learn more about a particular industry. You yourself want to know what the new trends are. You want to hear from the experts. Maybe it's just to have fun, to see people that you haven't seen in a while, to get away and get a hotel room and Netflix to yourself. I mean, there are a lot of different reasons to go. But when it comes to business development, it's all about the networking and creating visible expertise.

Let's talk about some of the potential downsides to conference attendance. It's important to look at this issue, I think, for a few reasons, not the least of which is the possibility that you need to convince someone else at your firm that they should pay for you to go. You've got to be prepared to advocate for yourself.

Obviously, there are direct costs to attend. Conference registration fees can often be significant. Depending on where you're going, travel fees can add up, such as airfare, train fare, car services, or Uber's, parking if you're driving on your own, hotels, meals. Then, of course, there's the opportunity cost because you're not going to be billing hours while you're at the conference.

That gets in the lawyer's way a lot of times because it's like, "Well, if I go to this conference for two and a half days, look at all the billable hours that I'm going to lose." This is a perfect example of making up your mind as to whether this is going to be an investment for you or whether it is a cost. There are different ways to offer value to your own firm.

One of them, of course, is billing hours and churning out the work. That's how law firms make money. Of course, another way is to bring in significant business, and it takes time to develop that. So giving up your time to go to a conference may well be a good idea. We're going to talk about how to evaluate whether that's a good idea.

There's also this idea of having to wind things down before you go. It could be a little stressful to get ready to go to a conference and leave your desk for a few days. Then there's ramping back up and digging out when you get home. Plus, there are always things going on in your personal life, which may involve getting others involved, they hold down the fort so you can get away.

Again, it is an investment. Whether you're footing the bill yourself or you're asking your firm to pay for you to go, there's money changing hands. Under those circumstances, it's essential that you be highly intentional about conference attendance or you're going to twist yourself in knots, run around getting yourself to the conference, and not necessarily get anything out of it.

That leads us to the question of how to be intentional about going to conferences and how to ring every bit of value out of going. Before you even sign up for a conference, I encourage you to do some inquiry beforehand. First of all, why do you want to go? Again, if you're going for business development reasons, then there's a lot to unpack there.

If you're going to learn, it might be simple. I'm going to learn, I'm going to spend this much money and time doing it, and that's what I want to do. If you're going for business development, though, you want to figure out, "Am I going to the right conference?" How do you know if you're going to the right conferences? There are plenty of conferences out there that you could potentially be going to.

Other people may have recommended that you go to some. There may be some that everyone you know goes to, and so you feel that you should be going there as well. The number one question you need to ask yourself once you've settled on business development as the primary reason for you to go is are your clients or referral sources there? It doesn't have to be both of them. It could be one or the other.

For example, there are a couple of different conferences that I make sure I get to every year. Sometimes there's more than one conference a year that I get to. One of the primary ones I go to is where my direct clients are hanging out. I get involved with something called The Managing Partner Forum, which is run by John Remsen, who has been a guest on this podcast as well.

When I go to Managing Partner Forum conferences, I am spending all of my time with managing partners of law firms. They are the ones who are making decisions. They are typically my alternate client. I also spend a lot of time volunteering for and going to conferences of the Legal Marketing Association. The Legal Marketing Association is exactly what it sounds like. It's an organization of legal marketing professionals.

I spend a lot of time with those folks because they are often my referral sources. They might refer me into their firm to their managing partner or to a practice group leader, to a particular attorney in the group for me to come in and do work with them. That's the primary question you need to ask yourself. If you're considering going to a conference that doesn't serve your clients or referral sources, that may be okay. Just ask yourself the question, "Why am I going?"

Again, if your clients and referral sources aren't hanging out there, it's probably not a great place for you to make an investment of time, money, and energy when it comes to business development. First, make sure you're going to the right conference or conferences.

The second thing is, for each particular conference that you're going to go to, or for each instance of attending a conference, decide why you are going. Yes, we're talking about business development, but are you going just to attend and to network with people and to do some learning? Or do you want to speak at the event? Do you want to sponsor an event? Do you want to host a dinner at the event? Are you there to do reconnaissance or recon and find out what's going on and whether it is the right fit for you?

I've recently been working with a client who got told by one of her senior partners that attending a particular conference was a waste of time. As I said in the beginning, I hear that a lot, “Oh, I went to this conference once and I never got anything out of it.” She did some research and decided it probably was a really good place for her to be, despite what that partner has said. We agreed that he probably hadn't done a lot of prep.

She made up her mind that the first year she was going, she was going to go, she was going to connect with some people that she knew were going as well. Then her primary purpose in being there was to do that recon, to do that research, to look around and see who attends this conference, who hosts events at this conference. Is it pay-to-play? In other words, are you only going to get a speaking engagement if you have paid sponsorship money for the event?

Do they have a lot of panels where they have several people up and the dais at the same time talking about an issue, or do they have a lot of keynotes where one person is speaking? What are the kinds of topics that they typically talk about? Are there lawyers on these panels, or is it just people from the companies that she typically represents?

Once she made up her mind that those were the specific purposes for her, she then was able to prepare and make sure that she was getting every bit of value out of going. For me, I'm often going to a conference because I'm on a panel or I'm giving a keynote. I recently sponsored an event for the first time and it was great to go to that event. I was able to get up for a minute and talk a little bit about my company, The Lawyer's Edge, and what we do. I was able to do a lot of networking there. I was able to put out some of my swag, which I've gotten recently, some pads of paper and pens, and things like that.

It was a little bit of a different purpose for me this time because I wasn't on the panel. It was a panel of general counsel. It was a Legal Marketing Association event and it wasn't an appropriate time for me to be on the dais, but it was an appropriate time for me to be able to be there with my colleagues, network with them, sponsor the event, and get the name of the company out there a little bit.

The second thing to do after you've decided that you're going to the right conference is to decide why you are going and what the purpose is for you being there at this particular time. It may be that in the future there's a different reason for you to go, but knowing your why is going to help you prepare.

Then we get to creating your conference timeline and taking action in each section of the conference timeline. What do I mean by that? I like to think of conferences as existing in three parts. There's the before, the during, and the after. Seems simple.

What most people do is they put the date on the calendar, they pay the registration fee, they get the airfare, they get the hotel, they get it all organized, and then they are running around with their hair on fire at the last minute trying to get out of the office, get out of the house, and go to the conference, and they kind of show up and they haven't prepared in advance.

What I'm going to encourage you to do is do exactly the opposite. Take action before you go to the conference. There are so many things you can do before you go to the conference that will make being at the conference well worth your time that you've invested in preparing. First of all, you do have to do all the travel stuff in advance.

If you know you're going to a conference well ahead of time, there's no excuse for not paying the early-bird registration fee, almost every conference has early-bird registration. So get yourself registered. Find out what the cancellation policy is so you know if you want to cancel in advance or you have to cancel in advance, how far in advance you have to cancel. But there are usually significant savings there for an early bird.

Number two, see if you can find out who's going. You may be able to get access to a list of attendees. Sometimes that doesn't happen until right before the conference. There may be an app that you can download on your phone where you get to scroll through and see who's going to be there. Even if you can't get that list, I recommend that you reach out to anybody that you think might be going to the event. Maybe you've gone in the past and you've met people there. Shoot them a quick email, “Hey, I'm going to this conference and I really enjoyed seeing you there last year. Curious as to whether you're going again. If so, I'd love to meet up with you while we're there.”

This does a couple of things. First of all, it makes it so that when you get to the conference, you already have somebody to talk to so you don't feel like you're wandering around without a purpose. It also brings you top of mind, puts you top of mind with the people that you want to connect with there.

The other thing is even if the person is not going to the conference this year, it gives you another touch, another way to be in front of the person. Everyone loves to be thought of and so when they get your email or your text saying, "Hey, I'm going to be there. Are you going to be there?" Even if they say no, you get to say, "Oh, yeah, I'm sorry, I'm not going to be able to see you, but maybe we can reconnect and I'll catch you up on what happened during the conference."

So there's value there even if the person isn't going to be going. It gives you an excuse, a pretext to reach out to people and reconnect. If you find out that people are going, make a plan to connect with them. One of the things you can do is to set up a time or a place.

“Hey at lunchtime, I'm going to be at the X, Y, Z restaurant in the hotel and I'm trying to get some people together to hang out. I'd love it if you were to join us.” It doesn't mean that you have to pay for the whole thing, but you're just gathering people together and people love that. They always want something to go to. They want to be included.

You have the opportunity to connect with individuals. You have the opportunity to gather people together in a group so that they can network with one another. You can also offer to make introductions for people, “Hey, I know a couple of people you might love to meet, so let's make sure that we connect with one another.”

Also, if you have people's email addresses and you don't have their cell phone numbers, I will typically give them my cell phone number and let them know that they can connect with me by texting. It's very hard sometimes to find people at conferences, especially if there are a lot of people there.

People turn their phones off. They don't hear their phones ring. They don't necessarily check their email, but they're much more likely to look at their texts. I do think it's important to have people's mobile phone numbers. The way to get them is to offer yours up and say, “If you'd like to share yours with me, please go ahead and do that so it's easy for us to find each other.”

Another thing to do in advance is to find out what events are going to happen. For example, dinners, cocktail parties, and networking opportunities. Look at the agenda to find out exactly what programs they're having at the event and decide which educational programs you're going to attend and which educational programs you can miss.

There is a lot to learn at these conferences, but when it comes to business development, it doesn't pay to sit in on a session and just listen to somebody. The magic is in the networking. The magic is in the relationships that you're building with other people.

If you look at the agenda beforehand and make a decision in advance about what you're going to attend and what time slots you're going to use for networking, it gives you the opportunity to set things up in advance and then not regret later, "Oh, I didn't get a chance to connect with so-and-so, and I really should have done that during the two o'clock breakout session when I really didn't have anything to do.”

I also think it's important to set aside some time for recharging, particularly if you're someone who's more on the introvert side of things, and we know that most lawyers are on the introvert side. When it comes to introverts and extroverts, it's really all about energy.

For introverts, being at a three-day conference can be really de-energizing. It can be fun. It can be interesting. You can enjoy meeting people. You can enjoy the learning. But for introverts, their energy tends to get drained over time.

I always ask my clients, particularly introverts, “When in this conference are you going to give yourself 20 minutes, a half hour, or an hour just to go back to your hotel room and recharge? Or go sit in another section of the hotel and be by yourself and recharge, even if that means just checking your email or listening to music or something like that.”

I don't take that lightly. I'm a very, very strong extrovert, so I tend to be energized by these things. Even for me, being at a conference where I have to constantly be on and talking to people for two or three days can be very exhausting. I think it's important for introverts to plan that time in advance so that they don't feel weird about taking it.

Okay, so this is the before. Who are you going to connect with in advance that you already know? Who are you going to try to meet with at the conference? What cocktail parties or invitation-only events are you going to go to? Which sessions are you going to sit in on and which sessions don't you need to sit in on?

Let me, by the way, add, that there are a couple of times I've been known to sit in on a session simply because I want to meet one of the panelists. I've had a session end and I've walked up to one of the panelists and introduced myself and asked them if they wanted to be a guest on this podcast.

That for me was a good idea in a couple of instances, but I had looked at the agenda. I had seen what I wanted to go to and I sat and I learned something, but I was there because I wanted to be able to engage with that person afterward. There are lots of different reasons you might want to go to a session. Be intentional. Know why you're going. Plan it out in advance so that you don't get there and feel like you're grasping at straws and you're not sure where you're supposed to be when.

Then we've got during the conference. What are you doing during the conference? We've talked about some of that. You've got your schedule. Now, especially if you're not a speaker, if you are attending without speaking, hosting, or sponsoring, you are there to network.

You're there to grow relationships. You're there to nurture the relationships you already have. You're there to meet new people. Then you're going to need to make sure you follow up and we'll talk about the after in a few minutes. While you're there, there are lots of opportunities to talk to people.

There are going to be meals, there are going to be cocktail parties, there are going to be just chats in the hallway, chats in between sessions, that kind of thing. Some of this requires proactivity. There are some people, even if they're extroverts, who don't necessarily feel comfortable just talking to somebody.

I think it's important to try to get yourself out of that comfort zone and try to strike up a conversation here and there with somebody that you don't know. One of the best ways that you can do that is to make up your mind that you're there to make other people feel comfortable. You're not the only one. To the extent, you do feel some discomfort, you're not the only one, believe me. I talk to people all day long who are somewhat uncomfortable about talking to people they don't know. But conferences are a great way to meet new people.

If you make up your mind that you're not going to sit around and worry about what you look like or what you sound like, but your job is outward facing, you're really there to make other people comfortable, then it's going to be a lot easier for you to have those conversations.

You're going to engage in normal networking. Be more interested than you are interesting. Find out about other people, make them comfortable, be interested in them, be curious about them, see if you can connect them with resources, and then offer to follow up with them and follow through.

If you're in a situation where you think the conversation is over, you're a little uncomfortable, and you want to move on, I just warmly say to somebody, "You know what? It's been so much fun talking to you. Thank you for taking the time. I'm going to go get a drink,” or, “I'm going to go to the lady's room,” or, whatever it may be, or, “I'm going to go talk to some other people and meet some other great people here."

You have to sometimes get yourself out of a conversation so that you can move on. But don't be uncomfortable doing it. As long as you do it with warmth and you're kind. If you want to bring the person along, say, "Hey I'm going to go meet some other people. I'm happy to have you join me. Should we just go do that together?"

There are lots of different ways of moving yourself ahead and conversations moving yourself along through the networking process. Let's talk about the after piece. This is where people lose a tremendous amount of opportunity. There is so much magic in the follow-up, and that's where many, many people fall down. Understandably so.

You get off the airplane, you get off the train, you get out of your car, you get back to the office. There are zillion emails in your inbox. People want you. They need you. It's very easy to lose track, like, "Okay, I went to that conference already. Now I'm finished with it." You're not finished with it. Now you've got a follow-up to do.

In order to do the follow-up, just to go backward, it's important that you be able to contact the people that you've met. You may think you're going to remember who you want to reach out to, but there's an excellent chance that you're not going to because let's face it, there's only so much we can keep in our heads and we've got a lot in there already.

If you can get people's business cards while you're there, I would do it. A lot of people still carry business cards and a lot of them don't. What I say is, “It was so nice talking to you. Do you have a business card on you?” The minute you say that, it makes it clear to them that you want to follow up with them.

If they have a business card, they're going to give it to you. You can say, “Thank you so much, I'll definitely follow-up with you when we get back, and here's my business card as well.” I recommend you carry them, they still have value.

If the person doesn't have a business card, what I recommend you do is say, “Okay, that's no problem, would it be okay with you if I took a photo of your name badge with my phone?” Rather than just leaning over and taking a picture of somebody's lapel or their belly button, ask them if it's okay if you can take a picture.

Then when you get home, scroll through those pictures and reach out and connect with that person. I think it's important to connect with them on LinkedIn. I would do it with a personalized invitation, “Hi, Susie, it was great meeting you this week at the XYZ conference. I look forward to seeing you again soon. In the meantime, let's connect here on LinkedIn.”

Or you can get even more forward if you think you might want to continue the conversation with the person and say the same thing, but something along the lines of, "If you're open to it, I'd love to continue the conversation. Please feel free to let me know when you're available," or, "Are you available the week of X month," whatever it may be.

See if you can get the person to connect with you so you can continue the conversation. You may want to do it through LinkedIn. You may want to do it through email. You may also want to add them to a list so that you can invite them to something if you're having an event or doing a webinar, or you want to send out an article that you've written or you're going to another conference and think that they might be interested in joining you there.

The follow-up is magic. It's not enough to just meet people and never talk to them again. It's important that you maintain the connection with people that you meet on whatever schedule makes sense to you. Now, that doesn't mean you have to reach out to and connect with every single person you meet at the conference.

Obviously, you've got to make choices about who the best person is or the best people are for you to reconnect with. But make sure that you are thinking about this conference as not being finished when you walk out the door.

To beat a dead horse here, there's the before, the during, and the after. When you do all of those things, you will get significant value out of conferences if you're going to the right conferences and hanging out with the right people.

Once you have determined that a conference is a good fit for you, I think it makes sense to try to get there every year or every six months or whatever it may look like because when people see you showing up at the same conference over and over again, now you have friends, now people are looking forward to seeing you. They get a better chance to understand who you are, what you're capable of doing, who you represent, and what you do for them.

Again, going to one conference 10 years ago and bemoaning the fact that you didn't get any business out of it, or going to one conference this year and saying, "Well, that was a waste of my time because I didn't go home and immediately get a client out of it," is a short-sighted view.

A brief word about profile raising when you go to conferences. I'm going to do a whole other podcast episode on how to get speaking gigs at conferences and how to leverage those. But for now, keep in mind that conference organizers are always looking for content.

There's a lot of opportunity to either give a keynote when you have a lot of experience under your belt or to sit on a panel and deliver some value that way. If you're just starting out, I recommend trying to sit on a panel. But again, it's important to do some research in advance.

What kinds of people do they have sitting on these panels? Where do these people come from? Do they tend to have the same people over and over again or are they open to having new blood on these panels? Do you know somebody who sits on a panel that you can say, "Hey I noticed you were on this panel and I would love to have a similar opportunity. Can you tell me how you made it happen?"

There are many conferences that six to eight months or even more before the conference happens, they put out a call for speakers. You might have to put in an application to speak, particularly at large conferences. They will look through the submissions and figure out what they want the content to look like, and who they want to involve on the panels, and sometimes you'll get rejected, sometimes you'll get accepted.

If you were declined, I think it's important to reach out and say, "Hey, I understand I was declined, no problem, just curious what I could do to make my application stronger.” You don't give up. If they say no, you don't just automatically give up. Ask the question. This happened to me once, just when I got involved with the Legal Marketing Association. There was a call for speakers. I put in an application and I was declined.

I reached out to the person who had sent me the letter saying that I had been declined. I said, “Thank you for letting me know. I'm very interested in doing something valuable for the organization in the future, would you let me know if there's a way that I can make my application more compelling?"

She came back to me and said, "Well, we don't usually take keynotes. What we really do is panels. What we really want is for people to put together a panel and bring us a whole panel." In other words, two or three people who are going to talk about a particular issue.

They wanted us to do the legwork first. I had no idea. There was a part of me that thought, "Well, that's fantastic. Why didn't you just put that in the application?" I would have known about it, but fine. They didn't put it in the application. I guess they figured people were supposed to figure it out.

At least I knew that for next time and I was able to put together an application the following year where a number of us got together and said that we would do a panel on a particular topic and it was accepted. Find out who's in charge of making those decisions. Maybe have a conversation with that person, and let them know you're interested.

Talk to all the people that you know. Get information about it, and act in advance. Many of these panels are determined, as I say, months and months and months before the event happens. If you decide even a few months before the event that you want to do something like this, you may be too late.

Also, as you get to know conference organizers, you may have the opportunity to get slotted in somewhere. I've had a couple of situations where people have reached out to me a couple months before the event. These are people who were co-chairing the event or running the event, and they realized that there was a slot that they needed to fill.

Because they know me and they know the things that I talk about, they asked me to slot in. That can happen as well, but that's usually something that's going to happen after you've had experience in the industry. People have seen you speak and they know what you're capable of.

I'm going to do, as I said, another episode on getting speaking gigs, getting writing gigs because that's something that I think gets in people's way. They think that they need to be asked when in fact it's really the other way around. While you will be asked once you've had a number of speaking engagements or writing gigs under your belt, people are not going to just pluck you from obscurity as much as we would wish that they could do that.

You've got to put yourself out there a little bit. I will get back to you with another episode on that shortly. Just to recap, what we're talking about here is how you get ROI from going to conferences. That means knowing that you're going to the right conferences, somewhere where your clients and referral sources hang out, figuring out your why and if it's business development, making sure that you break down conference attendance into three sections, the before, during, and after and take intentional, targeted, focused action in each of those arenas.

Thanks for tuning in. If you've enjoyed today's show, please subscribe, rate, and review us at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. In the meantime, be bold, take action, and make things happen. We'll see you next time.

Thank you for tuning in. If you've enjoyed today's show, please subscribe, rate, and review us at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. In the meantime, be bold, take action, and make things happen. We'll see you next time.