MBA2205 Q&A Wednesday: Should I spend $4,000 on attending an-in person conference?

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Hey oh welcome to the Hundred Dollar RMBA show, the business podcast that keeps you going every single 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 the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my co founder back in 2014.

And today's episode is Q and A Wednesday.

On Q and A Wednesdays I answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you got a question you want to ask, go ahead and email me over@omar00mba.net Today's question is from Matt and Matt asks, hey Omar, I'm an up and coming creator, specifically a YouTuber with 10,000 subscribers. Just hit that milestone recently. There's an in person YouTube conference that I'm thinking about going to but it's going to cost me all up $4,000 between the ticket, the airfare and the hotel. Now I'm not earning a ton of money right now so this conference has to be really worth going to. I'm not sure if I should be spending $4,000 on a conference. What should I do? Thanks for the advice in advance. Your podcast rocks. Matt Matt, thanks so much for the compliment and Congrats for hitting 10,000 subscribers on YouTube not easy. Fantastic question about attending in person events. They can be expensive. The ticket price alone can reach 1000 or more. Then you got travel and accommodations and meals and all kinds of other expenses. It's got to be worth it, especially when you're first starting out and every penny counts and you want to make sure that you get a return on investment. In today's episode, I'm going to share with you what my when it comes to choosing if you should spend and invest in in person conferences, because you should definitely see it as an investment. Also, with a lot of conferences going online or programs going online or communities, a lot of people are asking should I go in person? Which is often more expensive than doing it online or figuring out a way to network online. We're going to be discussing all these questions and serving up some answers so that you can make a decision for your business, for your upcoming conference schedule to see, hey, is it worth dropping the cash to go to these things? So let's get into it. Let's get down to business.

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This is a solid question from Matt in today's Q and A Wednesday's episode, should he invest $4,000 to go to a conference? It's a conference for YouTubers. He's an up and coming YouTuber, just hit 10,000 followers. Amazing stuff. Now when it comes to in person events, conferences, meetups, retreats, all those things in this situation, on this topic, I like to share my own experience. I can share with you my takeaways, what was worth it, what wasn't worth it. And then you can use that knowledge to make your own decisions. I'll give you my recommendations, I'll give you what kind of homework I do before I commit to going to a conference. All that. But just to start off the bat, every in person event I've ever been to, even the ones that were not that great, I've gotten a return on investment. I have gotten value out of it. It has allowed me to meet people that I would never meet before, make connections Stronger connections build upon the connections I had online. For me, in person, events are always a win. But specifically in today's Q and A Wednesday's question, Matt asked, is it worth the $4,000 investment? That's a lot of money. Money's not flowing like a waterfall right now. Should he drop this cash? Well, I'm going to share my own story. Back in 2014, Nicole and I went to an event called New Media Expo. It was like a blogging online business event in Vegas. At the time, Nicole and I were still getting our start. We just started the $100 MBA. This podcast actually didn't launch yet. We launched it maybe about six months later. And a big reason why we launched the $100 MBA was because of the experience we had at that conference. Long story short, we went to that conference, we met some very interesting people. We got incredibly inspired, made lifelong friends and connections and relationships in business. I owe so much to that conference. And the crazy thing is, is that the conference itself, like in terms of the sessions, the content, it wasn't earth shattering. I went to better conferences. It was actually not that great of a conference. But the people I met and the people hung out with and the bonds I built and the emails I captured, you know, just through business cards, were worth the investment. And it cost Nicole and I, I believe, around $2,000 to go to this conference all up like hotel and flights and tickets. And let me just say that that was not easy. It was really tight at the time for us, and we had to scrape that $2,000 to make it happen. But I'm glad we did because it was a pivotal moment in our trajectory as entrepreneurs. But I have to say that I met people that went to that same conference and had a totally different experience. And it's all about the approach. Some people, they go to conferences and they think that it's the conference's job to make it an amazing experience, to make it worthwhile, to give you an roi. Nicole and I had a different approach. We're like, we're going to make the most out of this. It costs us a lot of money to get here. For us, it was a lot of money. It's a real gamble. Let's try to maximize our return on investment. We went to as many sessions and many networking events and dinners and drinks and met up with many people as we can. Grab people's contacts, followed up with those contacts later on, followed them on Twitter, really made an effort, right? Like, milked every minute, every second, every moment, every connection we could from that conference. And that leads me to my first piece of advice when evaluating a conference to see if it's worth it, is who's going to be there, who's attending, what kind of people will attend this conference? Are these people that you want to be around, you want to meet, you want to connect with, you want to collaborate with, maybe in the future work with? If the attendees of this conference are people that you want to get to know better or just meet people, period, then you should go to this conference. It's hard to put a dollar value at, like, what was the return on investment at a $2,000 conference that we went to? But I can probably say with full certainty it was well worth the $2,000. Just from the inspiration point of view, seeing people where we want to be in a few years, meeting these people, having dinner with them, and realizing they're not that special, they're not that much different from me. I could do this. I can be as successful off the top of my head. I can list the names of the people that I met that are now lifelong friends, people that I know that have done amazing things in business connections. People like Nathan Barry, the founder of ConvertKit, John Lee Dumas, who is the host of Entrepreneurs on Fire podcast and runs the business Entrepreneurs on Fire. We became friends ever since. Mike Vardy, a prolific author. Antonio centeno, an incredible YouTuber and fashion expert. All these great creators and innovators, people that. That were just starting out when we were starting out, are now just these huge people online. And I can call them friends because we got to know each other, we stayed in touch, we worked together in some capacity, helped each other out. Everybody starts somewhere, and you're gonna find people who are at your level. And yeah, you'll meet maybe 30, 40 people, and only five of them will be successful, quote, unquote. But that doesn't really matter. The other people are still your friends. You learn from them, you work with them, you help each other out. It's just a great experience overall for you as an entrepreneur to go to these events. Now, I have to say that when we compare online events to in person events, yes, I do see the appeal. Online, meaning there's no travel, there's less expenses, you know, the comfort of your home, all that. Totally get it. And I do a lot of online events myself. I run online events. But the connection is not as deep, it's not as strong as in person events. We are social beings. This is how we're hardwired. And when we meet somebody in Person when we talk to them in person. That bond is a whole lot stronger than maybe even hours and days and years of knowing somebody online. Now, if you haven't noticed yet, I am a big fan of in person events. I think they are a lot of value and I believe that 80% of that value are the connections that you make, the people that you meet. So you gotta make sure you prioritize that when you go there. Even if you're an introvert, your mission now is not to just sit in your hotel room or just go to the conference and not introduce yourself. Meet people. You gotta get out of your shell a little bit, be out of your comfort zone and meet new people. Now what I highly recommend that has helped me in the past when I was getting started, is going to an event with a friend or somebody you know online, say, hey, let's go to this conference together, Even if you guys don't live in the same city, whatever, meet up there and you guys can meet people and network together. And this is so much better, so much easier, because then you can introduce each other. Meaning, say, for example, I have a buddy of mine that I'm with at the conference. I can introduce my buddy, my buddy can introduce me. I don't have to talk about myself. It just is easier to meet people and network when you're not alone. My next piece of advice is that go into this conference with your calendar cleared. Don't try to work while you're there. Don't pretend like this is a normal workday in your business batch. Any kind of content you're creating or scheduling for social media so you're fully present at the conference. The worst thing you do is go to this conference for three to four days and you're preoccupied with half the time in your hotel room trying to finish up your day's work that you normally do, plan it properly, clear your calendar, get the work done before you leave so that you're fully focused on getting the most out of the conference next. Most conferences will give you the agenda, the schedule ahead in advance. I like to plan all my sessions or the sessions I want to attend in advance so I don't waste time making those decisions beforehand. I literally just print it out on a piece of paper and I just circle the sessions I'm going to. And that way I can just rock up and go to those sessions without even thinking about it. I like to have a balance between going to sessions because of the topic and because of the speaker. What I mean by going to a session because of the speaker. Sometimes you just know that speaker has experience and you know that whatever they speak about, it's going to be valuable. On the other hand, there could be some interesting topics that you want to explore. I'd like to have a couple wildcards that maybe this session is going to be a surprise and be a winner. Now, if some conferences, they pack the calendar tight or the schedule tight, if that's the case, I don't attend sessions after lunch. Why? Because I'm there to meet people. And if I'm having lunch with somebody, having a great discussion, I don't want to feel like I got to cut off that discussion because I got to go to a session. I probably will get more out of the discussion than at the session if I just extend my lunch. The same goes if they have a very early start. Most conferences, most of the networking happens at night. I'm not a night owl. But if I go to a conference and I know that there's going to be meetups and dinners and parties and chances for me to get to know people as people and network, then I gotta switch up my schedule a little bit. I'm not gonna get up at 5 o' clock in the morning like I normally do. I'll probably have to wake up a little bit later and, you know, hit the gym and all that kind of stuff later as well. I won't put too much pressure on myself to hit that morning slot if there's like an 8 o' clock session. Because again, the most important thing here is meeting people, getting to know people. Because this is where you make the connections you need to grow in business. I can't stress how much your relationships matter in business. Your relationships is what you have. It's an asset that you can keep for life. Meaning, let's say, for example, you sell your business and now you got to start from scratch. You still have your network to lean on, to ask for advice, to get support, to get promotion, maybe for your next thing. Same thing goes if your business fails, if you go out of business, your network is there for you. It's truly your net worth. As Jim Rohn says, your network is your net worth.

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To wrap up today's Q and A, Wednesday's question from Matt. Should he attend a conference that's going to cost him $4,000? Well, I want to say as a disclaimer, if this is going to put you in a super tight position where you don't know if you're going to be able to pay your bills, don't do it. Don't put yourself in that situation. But if you do have the opportunity to do it and you're able to afford it and you know that the right people that you want to meet are going to be there, I say go. Because these are investments in you, in your business, in your network, in your connections. You just never know. I mean, I met people at conferences that I just became friends with, really didn't work with before, never did any kind of collaboration or any kind of business. But five, six years down the line there was an opportunity and we did work together because we knew each other. But we would never be able to do that if we never met or kept the relationship going. So my advice is that if you do go to a conference and you do make connections and you do have contacts now and you're on your WhatsApp channels and all that kind of stuff, keep the connection, make sure you stay in touch. Send a message to each person you met at least once a month just to say, hey, hope everything's going well, just like you would do with a friend. That way if there's any ever an opportunity for you guys to work together or to help each other out, support each other's work, you're in the know, you know what's going on and you can jump on that opportunity. Thanks so much for listening to the hundred dollars MBA show and thanks Matt for the great question on Q and A Wednesday. If you got a question you want to ask just like Matt did, go ahead and email me at Omar@100- MBA NET before I go, I want to leave you with this. Conferences can be tiring, so make sure you make enough time to rest. Whether you're traveling from a far distance and you're jet lagged, get it in a day earlier so you can rest up or you're just having a long night because you're out meeting people and having a good time. Get enough sleep, get enough fluids, eat right, try to do some exercise in the morning. It's easy to just fall ill when you're tired and weak and your immune system is down. You don't want to be in a situation where you can't, you know, take advantage of the opportunities at the conference or go back home and be derailed from your business and what you're doing because you're sick. Understand, this is a strenuous activity. We need to make sure that we get rest and we treat ourselves right so that we can rest, recover, and go at it 100%. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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