Make the Most of Professional Events: Strategies to Generate More Leads as an Independent Consultant

In today's edition of THE INDEPENDENT, let's discuss using events to fill your consulting pipeline.

?

Are you planning to attend any professional events as part of your lead generation strategy?

Have you thought about attending professional events as a way to jumpstart your lead-generation process?

Have you thought about attending professional events as a way to keep your pipeline full?

Three common mistakes

I find that consultants make one of three mistakes when it comes to leveraging professional events as part of their marketing strategy.

Have you made any of these mistakes?

1. Avoiding professional events because you feel too awkward to "network"
2. Not going to professional events because you don't think it will generate leads and won't be worth the cost (time and/or money)
3. Going to events but not making the most of them while you're there and/or afterward in the follow-up

Why leverage professional events as part of your lead gen strategy

It's possible to overcome all three of these blockers (even if you're an introvert or have little to invest).

And, when you put in an effective, repeatable events strategy, you can accelerate the growth and predictability of your pipeline.

How?

The 3 RoE (return on event) strategies

There are 3 (actually 4) strategies to implement so you can maximize the return on time and return on investment of attending events, whether they're in person or virtual. At a high level, they are:

0. Find high-impact events to attend - I marked this as strategy 0 because that's implied here. If you avoid events (whether they're large or small, in person or virtual), that's a strong indicator that attending events will be well worth your time in terms of professional development and the side effect of growing your pipeline.

1. Create a pre-event process - leverage this process to find high-impact events; build an effective event attendee strategy that's tailored to the type of event (in person, virtual, etc); leverage best practices to prep yourself (mindset and tactics) to maximize the return on the event

2. Get creative - think like a business development professional; leverage your pre-event plan to maximize the results of attending an event; get creative, such as not buying an event ticket and meeting people in the lobby, bar, and coffee shop instead

3. Follow-through on your follow-up - Despite our best intentions, it's common to fall short on the follow-up after an event; leverage the tactics and mindset to make following up something that happens with ease

For more on this

These are the high-level strategies.

There's more in this week's podcast episode for you, so you can put this into action:

1. Listen to Episode 171 of the Grow Your Independent Consulting Business podcast: Make the Most of Professional Events: Strategies to Generate More Leads as an Independent Consultant
2. Then, reach out for help. I can help you build a thriving pipeline, using my IC-specific framework, strategy, and mindset tools. Click here to apply.

You're probably wondering what happens after you apply. Here's the answer.

• I'll read your application.
• If I believe we could be a good fit working together, we'll proceed with the exploratory call where we mutually decide if working together is a good fit. No pressure. Click here to apply.
• If I don't believe I'd be the best coach, I'll let you know and send you a relevant resource or next-step recommendation.

Have a great weekend,

Melisa

Melisa Liberman Coaching

• Coaching: Coaching for Independent Consultants
• Best-Selling Book: Grow Your Consulting Business: The 14-Step Roadmap to Make Your Independent Consulting Goals a Reality

Top-Rated Podcast: Grow Your Independent Consulting Business Podcas