Travel budgets to attend conferences have gotten tighter. As a result, organizations want a higher return on investment on the dollars their attendees spend.
The Situation
The attorneys could now get all the education they need from the webinars that the association regularly hosts, so who needs to spend time and money attending the conference? But the association has lawyers attend from all over the world. So why do lawyers go through the effort to travel globally? They want to develop face-to-face relationships to find other attorneys who can refer cases to them.
So last year, the association attempted an informal networking event with little success. Each attendee had only a random chance to meet a fellow association member who could benefit them.
One of the members saw the results of a structured Power Networking event that I hosted for another association, for which he provides legal counsel, and asked if I could help.
Attorneys in his organization attend the conference from fourteen different offices around the globe. So, naturally, they had no interest in spending time with the members of their offices, whom they already knew well.
In addition, the attorneys were only interested in meeting other attorneys with certain specialties – those who could specifically help them.
The Preparation
Before the event, I used a wall chart and multi-colored Post-It notes.
Each color of the Post-It note represented one of the different offices. In addition, at the top of each note, I wrote a number representing the attorney’s specialty. Then, at the bottom, a number represented the specialty of the attorney with whom they wanted to network.
On the wall chart, I outlined 16 tables. One Post-It note would remain stationary at the table for each of the six rounds. The attendees at each table would rotate around the host.
Making sure that no table had more than one color for each round, I assigned the 64 attendees to the tables.
The Event
Dressed in my referee shirt, I shared networking tips, then blew my whistle for Round One to begin.
Each table host spoke for two minutes, telling tablemates what they did and the composition of their ideal client. Then, I tweeted the whistle, and the attendee to their right repeated the process. After each tablemate had a chance to speak, we went to the Lightning Round. For three minutes during the Lightning Round, anyone at the table had the opportunity to ask anyone else at the table a question.
After I again blew the whistle, the participants looked at their cards and hustled to their next table assignment. We continued for five additional rounds.
The Outcome
By the end of this fast-paced session, each participant had the opportunity to interact with 18 other professionals (three attendees x six rounds) with whom they could continue to network during the remainder of the conference. Unfortunately, without a facilitator to guide them, they may have only had the opportunity to meet four or five.
