You’ve just attended a conference – spent a week out of the office networking, earning CEUs, finding opportunities. Now you need a conference follow up plan. A method to sort through the stack of business cards, or the download the attendee list, or likely a combination of both. Returning from a conference, you are energized – filled with a million ideas about how to implement all that you learned while you were away. During the conference you were immersed in innovation – from the energetic presentations, from the buzz in the networking areas (and all the coffee!) – you were able to fully focus on your company, your goals, your vision for the future and how the connections at this conference will help you achieve it all.

But now, you are back in the office. You have a backlog of emails, clients who need attention, your internal team to share your experience with, and all of the day-to-day operational activities to deal with. The forecasts of opportunities, lists of attendees, and stacks of business cards will sit neatly on your desk. Do not let them stay there – and do not neatly file them away for a later date. If you have a marketing department or administrative assistant to help import all of the data to excel or your CRM system, get them engaged ASAP to start the data entry.

While you still have the inspiration and motivation from the conference block off time on your calendar to meet with your team and review these important items.

During this meeting, you will:

1. Review the forecasts of opportunities and identify the ones that stand out as likely pursuits for your organization
2. Put this information into your CRM or business development report
3. Set up searches in SAM, state systems, and/or or other lead service you use for the client agencies
4. Assign team members to start research on USASpending or FPDS (learn about these tools here and here) and to create a capture plan for the clients or opportunities you have identified
5. Review the business cards / attendee lists / collateral from the exhibit hall with your team (hopefully you jotted down reminder notes on the cards to help you remember conversations)
6. Ensure these contacts are entered into your CRM / contact list with as much detail as possible
7. Create an action plan for these new contacts – those that have immediate action items and responses needed and those to touch base with in the future (a tickler file)
8. Assign team members to follow up with contacts that are relevant to their projects – and follow up quickly

Follow up after a conference is important, so is follow up six months later when new opportunities arise. Continue the conversations you started at the conference – online, on the phone, and in person. These efforts allow you and your team to build meaningful relationships with new clients and partners.