Conference Season Just Kicked Off. Here’s How To Make The Most Of It.

The conference season officially kicked off for the retail industry this week, with the National Retail Federation’s “Big Show” in New York.

With a ticket price of up to $3,800, plus travel, accommodation, and meals, such events can be costly to attend. Not to mention the three or four days that attendees will be away from their family and regular work duties. To maximize your time and financial investment, going into such events with a game-plan is critical.

When done right, the rewards can be high. Industry events are an ideal place to learn about new trends and generate ideas for challenges your organization might be having. But to me, the biggest value-add is connecting with new and old peers and friends in the industry. These are people who can truly shape the future of your career and business.

Here are six strategies I have learned from attending a couple dozen of such events over the years.

1. Focus on making meaningful connections, rather than the content on the agenda.

Leaders from public companies are usually very limited in what they can share in a public forum. The headline speakers might be alluring, but unfortunately a lot of their content, particularly at very large events, has to be watered down by their corporate communications and legal teams. That’s because it’s not just other brands attending these events. Their competitors, journalists, financial analysts, are in the audience too.

Instead, the real insights come from the “hallway track”. If you had a chance to speak with the same person in a 1:1 or small group setting, the insights they could provide would be less guarded and far more interesting.

Instead of frantically running around to catch all the keynote sessions and writing reams of notes, reframe your overall objective from ‘big’ to ‘small’. Focus on getting into the smaller workshops with small group discussions, where participants feel freer to share. Attend the intimate dinners, rather than the big networking parties.

2. Aim to make 2-3 new friends at each event.

A great outcome from attending an event is to leave away with a handful of really great new industry connections. These are friends who’ll tell it to you straight, who you can call in a pinch, swap notes, and help each other in your respective careers. I am fortunate to now have dozens of industry friends who I frequently catch up with to validate ideas and get an early read on trends. These relationships take time to nurture in the beginning, so it’s counter-productive to leave with a whole rolodex of new people to call after every event. Again, think small.

So how exactly does one make friends at such events? Here’s my advice.

1. Avoid just hanging out with your co-workers. Attend alone or make a commitment with each other to get out of your comfort zones so you can all maximize the event.
2. Skip the small talk. Write down your top 3 business challenges, and make it an early point of conversation. Why? Small talk is exhausting! I think it’s actually what makes people hate networking. Instead, frame these conversations as ‘research’. Ask for advice on challenges that you’re facing right now, and how they have dealt with similar issues. Everyone loves to be asked for advice, and you’ll gain some fresh new ideas.
3. Consider their phone as a decoy. Get to workshops and panels early. Sit next to someone who’s scrolling their phone. They might look busy, I can guarantee they are just trying to not look lonely. “Can I sit next to you? So, what sessions have been your favorite so far?”
4. Put your own phone away. Networking lunches and happy hours can be the scariest situations of all if you don’t know anyone. Just remember, everyone else is also a little uncomfortable. My challenge to you is, put away your phone, grab a drink, and just….. Stand there. And smile. You may feel super awkward, but this actually makes you look approachable and friendly, so that other people will come up to you for a chat.

3. Find out who else is attending.

Perhaps I lost you for a moment there by saying you should ditch your colleagues and try to strike up conversations with strangers instead. I still heartily recommend trying to make a couple of new friends that way, but its also a great opportunity to solidify existing relationships – including the friends you made at your last event!

Here’s a few ideas for that.

1. Vendors – tell your current or future vendors that you’re attending. Ask who else they know is attending – they have a key interest in this – and they will probably be happy to make introductions. Many vendors host dinners and events, which are usually smaller and invite more free-flowing conversations. If they don’t know you’re going, you won’t get invited.
2. Look up who’s sponsoring the event. Reach out to the vendors that fit your brand size well. (e.g. Enterprise or SMB). Run the same playbook as above.
3. Post on LinkedIn a few weeks out that you’re attending, and ask that other attendees let you know. Look for similar posts from other people, and who’s commented on their posts. Often an event will have a hashtag, which you can follow as well.
4. On the day before or day of the event, there’s usually fever pitch interest among attendees, trying to get a read on who else is there. Take a selfie at the boarding gate as you’re flying out, and share again that you’re going. Use the event hashtag! See who responds.

4. Use the exhibition floor for trend-casting.

I get it, walking the exhibition floor can feel like running a gauntlet. Vendors are peering at your name tag and perhaps chasing you down.

To be honest, I am not the expert here, but I’ll give a shout out to my fellow Forbes Retail contributor, Richard Kestenbaum, who is. He will speak with all the vendors with the intention of trying to understand trends in the space. If you can consider this activity as “research”, you can get past the sales pitch and use this as an activity to understand your industry better.

1. Questions to ask:
2. What are the top challenges you’re solving for brands?
3. Why was that an important challenge to solve for?
4. What does that issue typically cost a company like mine each year?
5. What is unique or novel about your approach to solving for it? Why is that the right approach?
6. What are you working on for your next release? Why is that important?

5. If you want to speak, ask.

Many people want to get up on that stage one day. Or in a more low-key way, get on a podcast or get their smart insights covered in the press. Events are perfect occasions to starting building toward this goal.

Firstly, if you’re Director-level or above, reach out to the event organizers and tell them you want to speak. Usually there is a submission form or instructions on the event website 4-6 months before the event, so set an alert for the events you’re most interested in.

Find out which podcasters will be at the event. As a podcaster myself, I often get a list of speakers at an event and then it’s a matter of doing a lot of outreach to see who is interested in being interviewed. But if you’re not a speaker, I would not know you’re attending. So reach out to the podcasters who are covering the event! Again, the event website is the best source for this. Often it will show which publishers are in the “podcaster lounge”.

When you reach out, it’s best if you can pitch a couple of ideas for topics. What do you have a strong point of view on? What have you grappled with recently and won? This is a great opportunity to practice your media pitching skills. Podcasters are nice, I promise.

6. 80% of results are in the follow-up.

The event is over and you are shattered. Introverts especially may want to crawl into a quiet place and not speak with anyone for a couple of days. But don’t let all your hard work over the past few days go to waste. It’s important to recap what you learned, not only for your own benefit, but to demonstrate that attending these events is a good use of company funds.

I like to check as many of these things off during the plane ride home as possible, while things are still fresh and your calendar and inbox haven’t distracted you yet.

1. Connect with your new friends! Schedule a chat on the calendar within a few weeks. Set up another one a few months later. Bring your challenges and wins to the table, and set the tone for a relationship that’s a value-add.
2. Bonus points if you can create a mini “mastermind” with your new peers. Invite your peers from non-competing brands to connect regularly and freely share businesses challenges. There is a lot of information online about how to facilitate a mastermind. The smartest people I know have some kind of formal or informal peer group that they use to better themselves in this way.
3. Share your takeaways privately with your leadership team. Beyond sharing trends and big ideas, always include the “so what?” for your organization, and any immediate actions you plan to take next. Sharing sharp insights and showing how they translate into actions or results will help to build the case for attending more events in the future – for yourself, but also your team.
4. Share your takeaways publicly on LinkedIn. Bullet points of takeaways and observations are great, but visuals are even better! If you like to create mind maps and diagrams, take a photo and post these.

Generative AI is so good at summarizing content now, there is simply no excuse for not sharing your insights.

In conclusion, making the most of retail industry conferences and events isn’t just about absorbing presentations; it’s about actively engaging and extracting value through strategic networking, insightful discussions, and targeted follow-up actions. By focusing on forming a few significant connections, cleverly navigating the event landscape, and effectively utilizing social and professional channels post-conference, you can turn a daunting list of sessions and mixers into a tailored opportunity for personal and organizational growth.

Industry conferences are more than just annual fixtures on your calendar—they are springboards for forging impactful relationships, steering industry conversations, and shaping the future trajectory of your career and company.