What motivates you to attend a conference? For some entrepreneurs, conferences are a place to learn from all the speakers in the various breakout sessions and keynote talks. For others, conferences provide an opportunity to network and generate more leads.

This year, Margy and I flew to Orlando, Florida where we attended the 5th year of Podfest Multimedia Expo! We are big supporters of Podfest because this event in particular has been excellent for networking, lead generation and has helped spark new ideas for how we can grow our podcast.

If you’ve never heard of Podfest, go listen to my interview with the founder, Chris Krimitsos on our podcast here!

We have been sponsoring Podfest since year one. In fact, Chris said we may have been their first ever sponsor, which we take a lot of pride in because this conference has grown so much and I am glad we have been attending every year!

Even though in year’s past we have had a booth on the trade show floor and have led breakout sessions, we made the choice to not apply to speak or exhibit. Instead, we bought a quarter page ad in the program and simply attend this year. Having a booth was a great way to get exposure for Interview Connections, but it also meant we didn’t have as much freedom to network and attend sessions.

Margy and I flew in Thursday evening and had a full day at the conference on Friday. We hit the tradeshow floor first to see some friends and clients who had booths, like Ralph and Carol Lynn at Podcasters Toolbox. We’re honored to have the opportunity to consult with them on their business a few times a year through our VIP Strategy Days.

 

Margy and I share more about how we started offering VIP Strategy Days in this episode of our podcast.

One of our newest clients, Mikey Moran and his podcast co host, Zakiyrah took us to lunch where we got so many tips and ideas for how to continue growing Interview Connections. Mikey’s company has 25 employees so as we grow our business we find a ton of value in learning from those who are further along in their entrepreneurial journey!  

After lunch, we went to the lobby coffee bar where we met Brett Burky, founder of PaperSac. Tyler Sheff referred Brett to Interview Connections a few weeks prior so it was great to meet him face to face and talk more about working together! Brett said he wanted to meet more real estate podcasters so I sent a text to our long time client, Kevin Bupp who was able to come meet us as well!

To hear my panel about how to be a great interviewer with Tyler Sheff, Erica Mandy and Ryan Gray from Podfest 2018, click here!

Another reason we love meeting clients in person is bonding over smart fashion choices like stretchy jeans and sweatshirt material blazers.

 

After that, we all walked over to the Real Estate panel moderated by Tyler Sheff. Panelists included Kerry Lutz, Dustin Matthews, Kevin Bupp and Sharon Vornholt. While this session was focused on real estate podcasters, they had some amazing stories of how much their podcasts have changed lives!

Here are some of their top tips for new real estate podcasters:

• Get a USB Microphone and focus on providing valuable content. Most listeners can’t tell the difference between the ATR 2100 which is $70, and a $500 microphone.
• Don’t fake it til you make it, just teach what you know. If you’ve done 3 deals, you know more than someone who hasn’t done any deals.

We interviewed Kevin Bupp on our show about his podcasting strategy here and if you’re a real estate investor who wants to learn how to leverage podcast interviews, check out this episode of our podcast!

 

After this session, I said hello to Scott Carson of The Note Closers podcast. He gave us a great idea for how to leverage LinkedIn to find and pitch podcast hosts, and also introduced me to Scott Smith who I had spoken to on the phone a few weeks prior. I love how conferences give me the opportunity to meet people in person that I email and talk to on the phone!

One of the major highlights of our trip was having our client, Mikey Moran go through our website with us and give us a ton of ideas on how to improve our SEO and website conversion. He also helped us set up Facebook ads to retarget our website visitors. Margy and I were so thankful for this amazing support and just love how successful 7 figure entrepreneurs are so willing to help other business owners succeed. We laughed at how we probably would have paid a lot of money to do what he helped us set up in 20 minutes!

 

We wrapped up our Friday with a sales call back in the hotel room and a conference party at Howl at the Moon! We only stayed for one drink but the photo booth made it worth it.

 

Saturday morning involved some travel arrangements as we tracked a winter storm going across the midwest. We originally had a 6:30am flight scheduled for Sunday morning but with my son’s 6th birthday that same day, I did not want to risk have a delayed or even cancelled flight. Also, past Jess and Margy did not account for how daylight savings time would make a 6:30am flight incredibly difficult.

We rescheduled our flight for Saturday evening and wrapped up Podfest by meeting with a few other friends, like Dustin Matthew, host of Wealth Fit, and watching Michael O’Neal’s funny and helpful keynote presentation.

 

Podfest Multimedia Expo is a conference we will continue to support and attend because of the people who run it and the people who attend. The conversations we were able to have by flying down to Florida for this conference were worth it alone and the knowledge we gained by attending the sessions was also a huge value add for us.