How to make industry events worth your while

Picture this: you’ve come across an event on your LinkedIn feed and it sounds like an interesting opportunity, so you register to attend. You go along with all the right intentions, grab a free coffee and croissant, listen in to the panellists, take a mental note of a few relevant pointers and make a swift exit.

The trouble is you arguably can’t tap into the long-lasting value of industry events just by simply going along – a more proactive approach will undoubtedly pay off in the long run. Here’s how to get the best out of events, before, during and after attendance, to ultimately advance your career.

Before

A little bit of prep work prior to the event goes a long way. It’s a good idea to carry out some surface level research about the organiser, the main topic or debate and if there are any panellists, so you know what you’re heading into. You could come up with a couple of questions that you’d like to ask, so you can address what you want to get out of the discussion to expand your knowledge and support your role.

It goes without saying but for an in-person event, be sure to map out your journey in advance to avoid being late or arriving in a fluster. Similarly, if the event is online, seek a quiet room to help you focus and consider muting your emails or other communication channels to limit distractions and fully immerse yourself in the event.

During

Attending events, and hearing relevant presentations from industry leaders, is one of the most effective ways to stay up to speed with all the pressing topics that are affecting the word of credit. To make the most out of the valuable insights up for grabs, listen actively and write notes about anything that strikes you as interesting and useful.

Push yourself out of your comfort zone and strike up a conversation with a stranger. A lot of people attend events on their own, and are also feeling apprehensive, so be brave and make the first move by asking something light such as “how was your journey” or “how’s business for you at the moment?”. 

Take the prime opportunity to grow your network by building new connections and sharing contact details. People working in credit have their own web of contacts across the sector and often refer each other for new opportunities or projects, and attending industry events will raise your own profile within the industry, so you can utilise this vast network of professionals. 

Networking at events enables you to get recommendations that you may otherwise miss out on, as your credit peers might be able to tell you about a brilliant company that can automate your allocations process, a new credit referencing agency or a business that can implement AI into your O2C process for instance. Attendees of credit circles often share legal information on debtors and problematic customers, which in turn will help you to know your customers better and reduce credit risk to your business.

This goes both ways, as you can also give something back to the industry and offer someone else a helping hand, as they progress their career and navigate challenges that they are facing within their own business. Be open to offer your expertise, advice and recommendations.

After

Take a moment to reflect on the event including what went well, what your key takeaways were, who you met and how what you learnt this time around can benefit you when it comes to future events.

Consider what your next steps are for continuing to strengthen your network. You could reach out to a key contact you made and arrange to meet for a coffee to continue your conversation. Make sure you keep a record of who you networked with so you can return to this list should future opportunities arise to connect again and support one another. Remember it’s not all work and no play – networking and socialising go hand in hand and it’s amazing how quickly industry contacts become friends!

A great way to raise your profile internally within your own business is to bring information and new ideas that you have acquired back into your organisation, to support your team in their day-to-day roles and to boost productivity across your company. You can also have suggestions at the ready in terms of how to implement your key learns into your role specifically that your colleagues can learn from to support progress and innovation.

Talking to other credit professionals about the challenges they’ve overcome and successes they’ve achieved will hopefully give you a new perspective and fresh ideas that you can take back to your business. These could be anything from how they incentivise their workforce or how they have built a stronger relationship with sales.

Final thoughts

There is so much to be gained from industry events by dedicating time beforehand to prep, clarifying what you need from the event to enhance your career, arriving with the right attitude, being approachable and personable, actively engaging with the insights available, offering your own and putting in some work post-event to keep the ball rolling.

As featured in CICM Magazine.