How Was My International Confex Event?
WOW, for 39 years, International Confex has led the exhibition event space for the events industry. International Confex is a two-day event at ExCeL London.
I spoke at International Confex; this is my third or fourth year. I do it because the peopleinvolved in this event are exceptional. I love the networking and atmosphere created by the organiser and attendees.
Mind the Gap: Closing the Sales Opportunity Gap.
I wanted to summarise the three key strategies in my presentation:
Getting in the head of your key customers
What your customer prioritised in 2019/2020 is different in the post-pandemic climate. 2023 has seen a further re-prioritisation, driven by their customer changing prioritise. The closer you get to what drives your key customers, the more you can see the world as they do and anticipate their needs.
Identify The Priority
With all our customers’ competing and overwhelming challenges in 2023, understanding customer priorities are more important than understanding their pain points.
While pain points help you identify the challenges or problems that your customers are facing, customer priorities help you understand what your customers value most and what they are willing to spend money on more immediately.
Creating Sales Efficiency
Recent research has shown that businesses that take a data-driven approach to sales are more likely to be successful.
We analyse your data, taking the guesswork out of the sales operation and closing the sales opportunity gap, helping you make data-informed decisions. We use data to identify patterns, then use this information to optimise your sales approach and focus your efforts on helping your buyer to buy what they need most. Analysing your data, at SCALE know what good looks, having conducted this analysis over 25 years on data from 2.3 million sales professionals across 200 industries, looking at 462 data points, a crucial step in identifying and closing the sales opportunity gap.
It was standing room only and even better to receive this LinkedIn testimonial; thank you to Nastassja Keenes– Head of Business Development at Sleek Events.
“I attended a valuable session hosted by Janice B Gordon – Customer Growth Expert FISP FPSA FRSA, who did an inspirational speech on what to do next with closing the sales gap opportunities! Thank you – I look forward to putting this newfound knowledge to use.”
Insights gained from other presentations:
How TikTok can Supercharge your Event attendance – Tom McMahon
Creating Awareness and driving Consideration to Conversion is done on an individual basis, not corporate. Whether B2C or B2B, you promote Individual to individual or H2H.
Tom shared in their presentation the comparative cost of one of their campaigns:
- LinkedIn: CPC £4 CPM £7
- Google Search: CPC £1.50 CPM £30
- Facebook: CPC £1 CPM £7
- Tik Tok: CPC £.034 CPM £2.19
I just discovered that there are 20 million daily active users in the UK alone and that the age range is diverse. TikTok is great at creating awareness, and some say that Google Shorts will make TikTok redundant. This may be so; however, the cost compared to LinkedIn, Google, or Facebook makes it worth considering in an integrated campaign.
Successful Conferences need less blah and more AHA – Bev Hancock and The other Michael Jackson.
The co-presenters shared how to ensure you Fuel, Ignite and Accelerate events with dialogue, engagement, and well-designed stimulation.
They propose developing the agenda with stakeholder engagement to set the strategic goal. That keynote should be shorter, out with the 45-minute presentations, and networking breaks should be longer, like one hour, to ignite interactive discussion and insight. An event summary measures the outcome and ensures the dialogue continues, and actions are taken post-event.
Kerrin MacPhie, CEO of the Meeting Industry Association, shared her experience implementing these methods; those positive results far exceeded her expectations. https://www.mia-uk.org/
This session was undoubtedly AHA.
My Lightbulb ❤️
The highlight of my day was seeing David Meade, Keynote Speaker, attending my presentation; he is a global international speaking god :-).
I did not know what to expect when I participated in the hashtaglightbulbteams and hashtaggiveahand session.
With a team of strangers, we built a prosthetic hand, the hour passed seamlessly, and I felt connected to three other team members Kat Rack, Dave Turner and Natasha Jackson.
This is hand down (pun), the best team-building and networking activity I have participated in, ever! After the session, I told David Meade that he has my heart, and his origin story presentation and activity were impactful. You could not help but be changed by the experience.
Well done to David Meade Events for making a difference. Contact the Lightbulb Teams for more information on the Give a Hand Programme – email info@lightbulbteams.com.
Well done to International Confex and another well-executed educational and fun event.