Mark Suster, whose blog and tweets I enjoy and whose investments strike me as innovative and smart wrote a blog post in October, Be Careful Not to Become a Conference Ho, that’s been grating on me. The central tenet seems wrong, or at the least, myopic.
via XKCD
Granted, the Internet is filled with content I find disagreeable. But, in this case, it came from a source I nearly always agree with and one who’s clearly influential. Thus, I felt presenting an alternative viewpoint could help those considering the choice and possibly even change Mark’s perspective (though, the chances of him reading this post are probably slim).
In case you didn’t read Mark’s post, here’s a relevant snippet:
In the industry they’re known as a “conference ho” OK, they’re known as conference “whores” but that sounded too harsh for a blog post. Inevitably a certain number of entrepreneurs feel compelled to attend every conference. I think I know the root cause. It can be magnetic being at conferences especially when you’re on a panel, you’re invited to a speakers’ dinner, you’re getting to meet so many new people and you’re getting so much attention.
And for all of these reasons it’s smart to selectively go to a few events here and there; particularly those that you’re likely to have the highest hit rates of connecting with people who can change your business. But there has to be a limit. In the same way you wouldn’t spend all of your day in front of your computer at the expense of customer interaction, there has to be a limit to attending conference.
I’ve heard all of the excuses from these CEOs. “How else could I get so much BD done? I work hard on my flights and in my hotel room? I have a really productive head of products cranking out code.”
Bullshit.
When you’re not in your office on a regular basis you’re not showing leadership. You’re not setting the agenda. You’re not establishing culture, inspiring people or resolving conflicts. When you’re on the road all the time you’re not as productive. You reach diminishing marginal returns of the next person you met in relation to all that you’re sacrificing by not being in the office working.
Clearly, I’m one of these “conference whores.”
I used my Google calendar to analyze the past 12 months and put together some metrics for 2010: 27 speaking events, ~100 business meetings, 114 days on the road (~90% for work) and 56 flight segments.
That’s a lot of events, a lot of travel and a lot of slide decks to prepare (especially since I’m often on multiple panels/sessions at a single conference). There’s no doubt this takes away from my day-to-day management and means that I’m not as permanent a fixture in the office. But, does it mean that it’s an irresponsible or unwise use of my time?
As CEO, my primary duties to the company are, in order of importance:
1) Creating, spreading and embodying the company’s strategy and culture internally and externally
2) Recruiting, managing and mentoring the executive team and individual team members (where necessary/helpful)
3) Evangelizing our brandhttps://moz.com/products and the broader brand of “SEO” to potential customers and those who influence them
4) Influencing/Reviewing tactical level work – wireframes, design, functionality, etc. – of our software, content and marketing strategies.
It’s certainly plausible that I’m wrong about what should be on that list, many others have their own opinions of what CEOs should do. And, there’s a long tail of less mission-critical items that I’m responsible for (blogging, weekly videos, monthly webinars, research projects, etc.) which consume plenty of time themselves. Of the essential elements of my job, conferences (and, more broadly, speaking to and meeting with customers, potential customers, partners, industry leaders, et al.) play a substantial role in #1 and #3, a moderate role in #4 and a detracting role in #2.
Thus, the right question to ask is: Do conferences/speaking materially add the most value possible for the effort/time cost?
It’s a hard question to answer and one where I’d struggle to use numeric metrics given the inexact nature of the problem (how many people attend each event, how many pay attention, how does engagement change between watching me speak vs. reading a blog post/watching an online video, what’s the value of having an industry influencer gain/maintain a positive relationship with SEOmoz, how much business development couldn’t be done without an in-person meeting, etc.). What I can do is apply intuition and experience.
Here’s where I see value in speaking at industry events:
• In-Person Branding: Once an event reaches ~150 potential users of our software (or influencers of those potential users), I view the increased engagement to outweigh the limited reach. My goal is to have the audience leave knowing what we do and having a positive impression of our trustworthiness, quality and knowledge of the field. In my experience, this makes them much more likely to buy/subscribe to our software or influence others on their team to do likewise.
• Getting Feedback: In the past couple years, nearly every event I attend has a substantive quantity of attendees who are already our customers. These folks often have excellent feedback about how they use our software, what they want, what else they’re currently using and what they dislike. This isn’t the type of feedback you get over a web form, and while it’s likely rose-colored, it’s still immensely valuable to make sure I’m not getting “out of touch” with real customers.
• Inspiration for Content/Research/Features: Our blog, videos, webinars, tools and research drives tens of thousands of visits to our site each day, but if I’m not active in the industry, particularly in the speaker rooms, bars and lobbies where marketers congregate and discuss their work, my edge is lost. I feel that these types of interactions were fundamental in making SEOmoz an influential resource in its field – allowing that to wane as we grow feels dangerous.
• Business Development + High Level Marketing: During our consulting days, conferences were the primary method of attracting new business (referrals accounted for most of the rest, but never eclipsed events). This has become true once again as our API business ramps up and we attract more premier accounts (the highest tier of our software offering). It even extends into the standard $99/month product – when I glance down the list of our most loyal subscribers, I can honestly say I’ve met and interacted with 7/10 of them at an event (whether this is correlation or causation is hard to say).
• Stay on the Cutting Edge: As many in the search marketing field know (and have observed in numerous blog posts), the speaker rooms, hotel lobbies, bars and parties after a show are prime territory for hearing the latest industry developments. I can point to nearly every piece of content I’ve ever written about SEO and find a direct or indirect influence from conversations conducted at events. A Q+A series after a talk, a dinner with industry colleagues or a bit of banter while walking between lunch and the speaker room have all been geneses for content that’s gone on to bring tens of thousands of visits to our site and dozens to hundreds of potential leads (as measured by our conversion tracking).
• Serendipity that Leads to Funding Events or An Exit: My company has received a few informal offers for acquisition, a handful of pro-active investors (who’ve come to us asking whether we’re interested in funding) and a large number of influencers who’ve helped to connect us when we sought venture financing. I’d estimate that less than 4/5 of all my contacts in the professional world have come via event participation, and I’d say it’s extremely likely that any positive sale outcome for the company will come via those channels. Out of 500 people I meet, maybe 400 will be potential customers, 10 will have a measurably positive impact on the company (beyond a sale) and only 1 will be a true game-changer. With odds like these, how can I refuse?
Given the value I extract (and I’m surely not the best example), I find it perplexing that Mark would argue against participation of this kind. I’m certain there’s a limit to the value achieved from the “road warrior” efforts (and I’m likely hitting up against that limit), but his post is uniquely one-sided.
My recommendation isn’t completely counter to his, though. I encourage you to apply the same discipline in metrics and data that you would with any other marketing / business development channel, add in a pinch of extra weight for the value serendipity might bring and then judge it against the other things you can do with your time.
Who knows – if I were a competent engineer who could crank out code to achieve our vision faster, that might take precedence. But, since I’m a marketer by background, I’m going to continue to hit the speaking circuit, make time for coffees/lunches/dinners and use what I learn to generate more scalable content for our site.
p.s. I wonder if Mark’s post might have been directed to consumer startup CEOs vs. B2B CEOs. The former makes much more sense to me; the latter seems counter-intuitive.