MBA1217 How To Choose The Right Conference Ticket + Free Ride Friday!

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Visit Dell.com deals. Hey, today is Free Ride Friday so make sure you hang on to the end of the episode to hear who won this week's Free ride. If you want to win a lifetime membership to one of our programs, this month we're giving away easy course, our 30 day course on how to build your own online course. It retails for $500 over at EasyCourse Co, but you can win it for free. All you gotta do is leave us an iTunes rating and review. That's how you enter our weekly random draw. And on Friday, listen in to see if you won and and once you left us a review, you enter the draw every week until you win. It's our way to say thanks for showing us love on itunes. All right, let's jump into today's episode. Hey O. Welcome to the Hundred Dollar RME show, the business podcast that gives you more than you bargain for every day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also co founder of the $100 MBA, a complete business training and community online. And in today's episode you will learn how to choose the right conference ticket, the holiday and the New Year's buzz is over and you're probably planning out which conferences are you going to Attend this year. You may have earmarked a few conferences. And now you're asking the question, which conference ticket should I buy? Every conference is going to come with different options, different ticket types, the bare bones standard ticket up to the VVV VIP ticket. That includes everything, including all your meals to a manicure and a pedicure. No, seriously, there are a lot of choices out there and I'm going to give you some guidelines. When it comes to choosing your conference ticket, you're going to be spending a fair bit of money to get there, you know, with your airfare, as well as staying there with your accommodations, your airport transfers. And often the conference ticket is probably the lowest price piece of the puzzle. So you want to make sure that you invest in the right things and you choose the right ticket for you. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Before we talk about choosing the right ticket, let's talk about the purpose of going to a conference. The whole point of going to a conference, in my opinion is really two priorities. Priority number one is building your professional network, is surrounding yourself with people you want to surround yourself with, people that are going to make you better, people that you want to get to know, people that are doing great things, people that maybe you want to work with in the future, people you want to build a relationship with. This is the power of in person conferences. It's the connections you're making because you can learn knowledge, tactics, strategies online. You don't really need to go to a conference to get information. Yes, you may learn things at the conference and a lot of these conferences are going to give you a lot of great information, but it's not like that information can't be found elsewhere. The reason why you're going to a conference is to make these connections. This is why actually people go to Ivy League schools. It's not because, you know Harvard or Yale or Princeton or Berkeley has a superior level of education. It's that they are collecting great minds in one place. People that are going to be doing great things in the future. You want to get to know these people because they're going to help you out through your career. So a conference is kind of like going to an Ivy League school, is surrounding yourself around people that are going to do interesting things that you want to be a part of. Now, I said two priorities. The second one is perspective. By spending some time with other entrepreneurs, other business builders, with other people that are like you, you get perspective on your own business, on your own life, what you can do better what you're doing. Okay. You start to realize, hey, I'm not doing such a bad job, or these are some things I can improve on. It's hard to get perspective if you're just in a bubble by yourself. So again, connections and perspective is really the reason you go to a conference. And now that we've established that, we're going to use that criteria to choose our ticket. Which ticket is going to give us the opportunity to build those relationships that we have to go to a conference to do? We can start relationships online, but they don't really solidify until you're in person. This is just my experience. So when you look at the conference ticket types, they're often going to show you what each ticket type will include. Now, when it comes to getting to know people and building connections, I really believe in quality over quantity and in depth over breadth. So I would prefer to walk away from a conference really getting to know five or six people over just getting, you know, a hundred business cards of people. I don't remember what they look like or what their business is. I want to make 5, 6, 7 strong connections in my 3 to 4 days at the conference. Right. So how can I do that? Well, often these tickets will come with some sort of dinner for an exclusive group. Often the speakers are at that dinner. So you may want to get to know the speakers, People that are actually at a place where you want to be in the future. The ticket to have some sort of special event for a smaller group. I would take a look at that ticket. Some of these tickets also include, like a networking event with everybody at the conference. That's good and all, but remember, if this is hundreds of people, it's going to be really hard for you to really have a deep conversation. If it's just networking over music and drinks. I find it's very hard to speak over the loud noise of everybody talking and the music and the whole atmosphere. I prefer to actually have a dinner where the dinner might be 20, 30 people, but the setting is set up for me to actually get to know somebody, at least the four or five people around me at the dinner table or closest to me. Sometimes the dinner alone is worth the ticket price by itself. Why? Because you're spending two, three, four hours with a group of people. You become friends, you get to know each other, you get to know them personally, you get to know what they do, their business, you exchange contact, and you exchange real stories. So it's actually worth it to buy a more expensive ticket if it Includes one of these smaller group dinners now sometimes with a higher price ticket. It'll include the dinner and then also like you'll get VIP seating. That means you're closer to the stage or you get first access to seating. Personally, I don't really think that's worth much. The knowledge you're going to get from the sessions are not going to differ if you're in the first row or the last row. The networking is really what I want. The networking is what I'm willing to pay for. So if the ticket tier that's passed the networking tier includes some sort of VIP seating. Not really interested. Don't need to spend the money on that. Find out if the event has some a la carte options where you can buy a basic ticket but then buy access to the dinners you want to go to or some of the VIP elements. Some higher priced tickets will also include your accommodation and your meals. Again, personally I don't think that's worth buying. I only want meals that I can network with. I could probably get a better deal on an Airbnb or a local hotel. So now that you know your priorities, I want to build strong relationships and network and get perspective through those relationships. It's easy for me to dismiss which tickets I don't want and the tickets I'm really interested in. Some tickets will come with some one on one time. A coaching session with the expert of the conference or experts from the conference might come with also a training program. I think that's worth considering if the one on one training is in person or at least on a video call where again you can build a relationship with that expert. Yes, you're paying for this, but it's well worth the investment if you later down the line can work together or at the very least be able to shoot them an email for some advice here and there. All in all, you'll find that the basic bare bones ticket, it may be the least expensive one, but a couple tiers up you'll pay a little bit more, but you're gonna get a whole lot more. You're there anyway. You're doing all this effort to travel, you're spending all this money on accommodations, you're spending all this money on transport. So invest in a better ticket and a better chance for you to build better relationships that are deeper and more meaningful.

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If you have the choice to go to three conferences this year, if you opt for the basic ticket, I would actually recommend to go to two conferences instead. With that same budget, you'll save money because you're not going to be traveling to a third city and in some cases a third country. Spending on accommodations and ground transport plus you know, all the meals you're going to spend there, plus that basic ticket price. Take that budget and use it to events at a higher price ticket. That's going to enable you to build better relationships. You're going to get a lot more value. You're capitalizing on each event to the max. Quality over quantity is so true when it comes to conferences and plus conferences. I got to tell you are tiring. Even if you're not speaking and you're an attendee, it's very tiring because you're on your feet all day. You're talking, you're learning, you're listening, your brain is on overload and it's just really a long day that you're completely switched on. On top of that, you're away from work, you're away from office, you're away from your tasks and your to do's. Don't make the mistake thinking you can get work done. When you go to a conference, Big mistake. You won't have time to get things done. So by going to two instead of three, you actually get more work done and you could just focus on actually enjoying the conference or the conferences you go to and you'll get totally burnt out at conferences by the end of the year. Trust me, I know. In 2015 I went to 10 conferences. Yes, most of those I was going there to speak, but I was still on for three to four days every single time. I still had to travel pretty much every month. I still was away from the business, I still had to do all that stuff. It's really tiring. And you want to make sure that instead of trying to go as many as you can, go to the ones that really matter and maximize the experience. Well, there you have it. Thank you so much for listening to the $100 NBA show. Today's episode's not over though. It's Free Ride Friday. We gotta give away a lifetime membership to ezcourse. Let's see who won this week's free ride. And the winner is Knapp PC Knapp says. Well worth the 10 minutes a day. Fast paced and fun and very relevant information at living a full and professional life without sacrificing yourself in the process. Well, thanks for that awesome review K Nap. You are our Free Ride Friday winner. Your mission is to email me at omar00mba.net so I can hook you up with the lifetime membership of EZcourse. If you want to win a free ride, just leave us an iTunes rating and a review and you enter our weekly random draw. Just listen on Friday to see if you won. It's that simple. Thanks so much for everybody who's dropped us reviews. We read every single one of them and we'll keep drawing until you win. Alright, before I go, I want to leave you with this often with these higher tiered tickets at the conferences, they just make the experience better for you. Whether you have a VIP badge and therefore you don't have to wait in line to register or you have assigned seating or a special lounge to take a coffee break. It just makes the conference experience easier on you. You're traveling, you're tired, you're speaking to people, you're on your feet all day like I mentioned. So there's another benefit to actually paying a little bit more. It allows you to be at your top form. It makes the whole experience a little bit more comfortable. Just another thing to consider when you go quality over quantity. All right, I'll check you in Monday's episode.

I'll see you then.

Take care.

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