Attending IT Conferences: 5 Benefits of Showing Up
Do you make the effort to attend any IT conferences or seminars? If you’ve been in the industry for any length of time, you are no doubt invited to plenty, but perhaps you don’t think them worth your time. This article presents you with five reasons why it might be worth taking time out to attend the next one that piques your interest.
Do you make the effort to attend any IT conferences or seminars? If you’ve been in the industry for any length of time, you are no doubt invited to plenty, but perhaps you don’t think them worth your time.
This article presents you with five reasons why it might be worth taking time out to attend the next one that piques your interest.
A Break from Routine
While it’s easy to convince yourself that you can’t find the time to book a day or two out of the office to attend a conference, forcing yourself to break your routine can prove rewarding.
“A change is as good as a rest,” as the cliché goes. If you’ve fallen into the all-too-common trap of working too much in your business rather than on your business, a little time away is probably just what you need.
Inspiration for New Services
Industry conferences are designed to inspire the technical community and generate enthusiasm about new products and technologies. Exposure to these could well result in you returning to your business with a host of new revenue-generating ideas.
Networking Opportunities
Attending an IT conference will put you face to face with plenty of similar business owners and IT professionals. If nothing else, this will give you the opportunity for a good chat and gossip with those who understand some of the day-to-day issues you face.
Hopefully, however, you will get a chance to network in a far more productive way, and come away with some great new contacts, with whom you can exchange ideas, customers and cash-generating opportunities.
Customer Credibility
When you’re interacting with customers, both current and prospective, it does no harm to slip in the occasional comment akin to “when I was at Microsoft last week …”
While this may seem like rather self-indulgent name-dropping, it does no harm to show your customers that you take your work seriously and work to be at the forefront of new technical developments.
A Welcome Reminder of “What it’s All About”
As stated above, it’s incredibly easy to find your attention almost permanently diverted by the day-to-day minutiae of running your company. When this happens, it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture—namely, why you got into the industry and started your business in the first place.
It does no harm to take a step back from time to time. So, next time you receive an email inviting you to a conference that looks interesting, give some serious consideration to attending before thinking, “I’m far too busy,” and hitting the “delete” key!
You may even return from an inspiring conference with plans to take your business in a slightly different direction. This isn’t a bad thing. All businesses need to evolve and stay up to date.
If you are looking for a conference to attend this year, why not give some thought to joining us at one of the GFI MAX Customer Conferences?
With the world’s largest community of more than 9,000 MSPs we promise to bring together hundreds of the best and brightest minds in the channel and work together to drive business growth and in turn success.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-NO8FRc9z0
This year’s event promises to be bigger and better than ever before, with double the content of previous years and even more first class industry speakers!
Best of all, registration for the US MAX 2014 conference is already open, with a fantastic 70 percent discount available only until March 31! You’d be MAD to miss it!
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