Ripe for the Picking: Maximize your Conference ROI

Answer a question for me, and be honest.  

When you sign up to attend a conference, what is the point?

I would guess that your answers, with a varying levels of importance, include networking with peers, expanding your knowledge, getting insights on latest trends, meeting vendors or influencers you’ve been following, and having a few nice meals or drinks in a city you don’t often visit.  

Did I get it right?

Ok, follow up question. Think back to the most recent conference you attended.  

Did you accomplish what you wanted to when you signed up in the first place?  

It’s ok, this is a safe place.  

There are a variety of reasons a conference may feel like a bust to you. Maybe the speakers had an off day (or in reality weren’t as good as you hoped). Maybe the session synopsis wasn’t an accurate reflection of the actual content provided. Maybe you were up too late the night before and accidentally slept through the sessions you were most looking forward to.  

Or maybe, maybe, you experience what I have, which is that everything went perfectly: you attended all sessions, cheered when you were supposed to, participated in meaningful conversations with peers and mentors, had an uneventful trip home, and yet, something still feels wrong.  

While exhilarating, at the end of these trips I’m exhausted, and yet the horrors, er, I mean, responsibilities wait for me. Those good ideas and clever tools quickly fade away, only to resurface in the occasional conversation, but rarely through intentional practice.  

And then, you look at the budget. Between travel, meals, the conference pass, and your time away from work, attending a conference is a true investment.  

With networking, sessions, and vendor conversations, how do you actually implement your investment into what you've learned, follow up with the people you’ve met, or pursue that tool that's going to change your life?

I have some thoughts on that. But first, let’s talk about gardens.  

On gardens, goals, and going to conferences.

When planning any event, project, or goal, I'm sure you’ve heard someone wryly cite Murphy’s Law (“Anything that can go wrong will go wrong”) or quote the poet Robert Burns: “The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry.”  

The implication? Don’t plan too much, just go with the flow. If you don’t plan, you can’t be disappointed.  

I hate it when people say that. And not just as a driven, technical, successful person. As a practical, down-to-earth person with a garden in my front yard, it’s the quickest way to tell me that you’re out of touch with reality.  

Let me paint you a picture using tomatoes (or another delicious fruit of your choosing).  

Every tomato gardener and farmer plants with the end goal in mind: a beautiful, bumper crop of brilliant red tomatoes, sun ripened and perfect for sandwiches, sauces, and salads.

But you don't just plant the seeds and immediately get the fruit. A full growing season looks like this:  

• You choose. You choose your tomato variety according to those that suit your palate, use-case, length of growing season, and environment. In Georgia, we have a much longer growing season than my friends in Ohio, so I can easily plant larger and slower growing varieties than they can, maybe even twice in a growing season!

• You plant. You plant them at specific times depending on the maturity of the product (are you using seeds or saplings), how much time you have before average last frost in your area, and your growing situation (is it indoors, in a greenhouse, or outside in the ground?)

• You protect. As they grow, you watch them for signs of distress and you protect them from pests or problems. You smash caterpillars, prune judiciously, and trellis them early, giving them their best chance to provide good fruit. You watch for Volunteer Plants and determine if you want to keep them or weed them out to focus on your main crop.

• You actively invest. You water and feed your plants meticulously. As the fruit ripens, you wait for the color to deepen and the right time to pull them from the vine. The trellis you put up earlier has given you places to tie branches to if the fruit gets too heavy.  

• You harvest. If you’ve done it right, you have too many to eat before they go bad and will scramble to find friends, neighbors, and co-workers to gift them to, ways to preserve them through canning or drying. Otherwise, you may have to leave them to rot on the vine.  

• You do it all again. And then, at the end of the summer, when the plant is spent, you have to decide what to do with what is left on the branch. Perhaps there are ones the birds got to before you, rotting on the ground. Perhaps there is a slew of green tomatoes that you can pull and make a meal of. You also need to decide what you will plant next, and if the soil is ready for it.  

Life happens. Just because I planted tomatoes doesn't mean I harvest tomatoes.

Just because I put a trellis up for my tomatoes doesn’t mean I can dictate where each branch will weave and grow. It just means there is a structure there for it to fall back on when things literally go sideways.  

When you know what success looks like (a full, healthy tomato plant with brilliant red fruit), you can iterate from there or return to it when things inevitably go wrong, like needing to tie the branches that have gotten too heavy.

The goal is rarely perfection, but consistency and accountability so you can gain the literal benefits of the fruit of your labor. This metaphor on gardening is something I apply in both my personal and professional life (Starting Seeds: Episode 1 - Let's Grow!), but it’s especially critical at conferences. Conferences are fast-paced, exhausting, and packed with information. It’s easy to get caught up in the moment and never actually apply what you’ve learned, leaving beautiful tomatoes rotting in the sun.  

Pre-planning and setting your intentions not only help you stay focused but also gives you more flexibility. Ironically, preparation makes it easier to pivot when plans shift. It also gives you the mental clarity to clean up at the end of the season and better prepare the soil for what you want to do next.  

So join me in our figurative conference gardens and let’s look at how we can better set ourselves up for success and that bumper crop of good ideas for our businesses, communities, and personal growth.  

Visualize your success and plan accordingly.  

One of the unspoken lessons that underpins our analogy about tomatoes is that time matters. Setting small things in motion early on allows for success because there are other parts of your environment (sun, rain, pollinators) that can do the work while you’re not actively thinking about it.  

• Pick your Seeds. Set Your Intentions.  
  • Read the agenda. Look at the sponsors, look at the session summaries. Consider the Pre-Day learning opportunities or certification add-ons.
  • Determine your big goals. Are you looking for new tools, career development, networking, industry insights? What does a successful event look like to you?
  • Consider other special aspects of this event. Who do you want to meet? What do you want to learn?
  • Talk with Your Team. Sometimes knowing what your colleagues are interested in learning from a conference makes you more engaged with topics you’d otherwise overlook.

• Prepare the Soil. Pre-Prep what you can.
  • Plan out the Schedule. Drop sessions you wish to attend into your calendar or export them from the app. Plans will change—document why they did! That insight is valuable. ‍
  • Identify your Tools. What will you use for note-taking, for connecting with others, or for making your life easier during this trip? Do you need to make business cards, pack company shirts, or a battery to charge your phone and tablet after a long day of sessions? 
  • Lay out your trellises. How can you take ordered notes instead of scribbling on the back of business cards or sale sheets? I have a template in OneNote that I’m sharing, if you’d like a place to start (find it at Doodles or Data: A Conference Note Survival Guide). Maybe you use a nice AI transcription tool like PLAUD.AI or Otter.ai. Make sure your devices are charged and there aren’t rules about recording at that event or session.  

• Evaluate the Spacing. Don’t Overcrowd.
  • Make sure you’re not overcommitting. Roots need to go deep for successful plantings, in both business and the garden. Review the schedule and give yourself breathing room to meet other people, even block off hours you should be in your room sleeping!  ‍
  • Communicate with people who may need you. At Rising Tide, we expect our team members to attend at least 75% of the sessions. Therefore, it’s important to let customers and colleagues know you’ll be offline.  

Tend to your goals and protect them with vigilance.  

Watch what you’ve planted and care for it.  That means using wisdom to prune, weed, stake up and feed your garden as needed, with a careful eye for success. I had to remove the word "ruthless" at least three times in this section. While the word is gone, my sentiment remains and I encourage you to use it freely in this section where I say "careful, intentional, test, focus...": you are the protector of your business and your ideas. One of my favorite sayings is, "If everything is important, nothing is important." What is important? Be intentional about focusing on that and letting everything else go to the wayside.

• Prune ideas with precision. Don’t just mindlessly consume.
  • Take notes, but don’t try to be too thorough. Focus on engaging in the sessions, ask questions, and write just enough to help jog your memory or find the source information later.
  • Test everything that is said. Does that check out to you? Do you have further questions? Throw out the bad stuff, keep the good.  

• Squash Bugs, Pull Weeds that are leeching your time.
  • Limit Distractions. Set aside time in the morning or afternoon for minimal client work but remember—you’re here to learn and connect with the environment at the conference.
  • Sometimes the distractions are good things. Above, I mention volunteers in the garden. Sometimes the plants that grow are viable and welcome additions to your investment. Only you can determine if splitting resources between those bonus plants and your intended produce is worth chasing. Be careful about your time and energy, but be gracious and understand that sometimes it's the surprising things that come up naturally are the most hardy and equipped for your garden!
  • Tell people no. This one is really tough, but be intentional about doing so and do it kindly! You're here to learn and grow as a person AND a business. Learn how to identify what is adding to your experience and what is just a distraction.  
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• Trellis liberally. Return to the structure you created as necessary! It’s ok if you miss a session because you were talking to someone in the hallway. It’s ok if you get up and leave a session because it’s clearly not a good fit.  Again, it’s not about perfection, it’s about the end goal.  

• Add Water and Nutrients as Needed. Literally.
  • Eat a vegetable. Drink water. Sleep. It’ll help your performance.  
  • Be moderate. You know what I'm saying. Have a good time, but keep first things, first. (And if you’re going to drink heavily, as your MSP Channel Big Sister, drink a glass of water in between each drink and take some B Vitamins, ok?)

Speaking of setting goals at conferences, Tara Rummer at Immy.Bot and Immense Networks, gave her insight in a recent conversation:  

We always did a little powwow before events to discuss what sessions each of us would be attending. And during the event (and after) we would do check-ins regarding something we've learned from our morning or afternoon... Or maybe you met an awesome vendor or had a hallway conversation that stuck with you. All of that was fair game! Learning isn't limited to planned content!  
 
I always kept the maximum to three things you learned that day because the amount of information you take in at events can be overwhelming. There are so many intelligent people talking about their passions and successes / failures.  

Tara makes some great points, but specifically, this is a good place to mention the 3-3 approach, which can help you focus and fortify ideas or experiences, either by challenging you to do more or challenging you to do less! The emcee at Right of Boom 2025, Robert Cioffi, mentioned a version of this from the stage this year. At Rising Tide, I word it like this:  

• Meet 3 New People. It’s tempting to only hang out with people you know already. When else do you get to spend time with a friend who lives on the other side of the world? That said, go out of your way to sit at a different table for meals, introduce yourself to people sitting near you in the conference hall, or add the keynote speaker on LinkedIn and tell her what you enjoyed the most about her talk!  

• Find 3 “New” Products. Learn about (and limit it to) 3 new tools, services, or vendors you weren’t familiar with. How do these tools compare to other ones you’re familiar with? What do you NOT like about them?  

• Identify 3 Points of Potential. What are 3 key insights you can bring back to the team that could impact your business or industry? Was there a common theme all speakers mentioned? A valuable phrase or saying that meant a lot to you?  

Actively harvest the bounty.  

What’s the point of a good tomato if you can’t take the first one and immediately slap it between some white bread with salt and pepper and mayonnaise? (By the way, the Duke's and Hellman's argument is wrong, it should only be Kewpie)

Often in a garden, the fruit comes to maturity in waves. It is up to us to determine what we want to do with it.

Back to Tara's experience at Immense and Immy.bot: 

At the end of the event we would each come back with one or two large takeaways.... Something we'd like to try, a vendor we'd like to meet with, etc.  
 
I've seen a lot of people come back from events and try to change everything all at once, which quickly caused dumpster fires within their teams. I've tried to put guardrails up to help guide the team a bit and keep them away from shiny objects.

Oof. Your team is your wealth and overwhelming them or frustrating them is a quick way to lose not just morale but efficiency! How can you, like Tara, put up guardrails up to protect their time? 

For me, the heart of this is to take the key things you learned and actually celebrate and use them!

• Harvest, sort, and enjoy the fruit. ‍
  • Do it yourself, first. For me, I personally set one hour aside to complete this step, either on the flight home or first thing in the office with a fresh cup of something warm. It is low-dopamine and I’m often tired, but this is super vital and what all the other “steps” have led to. Just do it. Finish strong and power through, don’t get distracted. ‍
  • Analyze your Notes. Fill out the notes that you only half jotted down. Use a generative AI tool to analyze the entire event and sessions including your notes. Highlight and pull-out questions you may have asked, or tools mentioned that you’d like to research further.
  • Review with your Team. If my team is with me, we set time aside to accomplish this step before we leave the event.

• Share the bounty. Conversations that spring from teaching others often lead to better understanding of the content and also better and stronger ideas! Do so liberally!  ‍
  • Teach your team in a team meeting what the best things you learned were.  ‍
  • Share with community. Write a blog post, film a reaction video, or post insights on LinkedIn.
    

• Preserve what you cannot use and be ok letting some go. You are going to come up with so many ideas. Take the good ones that you can implement now (literal “low hanging fruit”) and be intentional about setting a timeline for returning to the other ideas.  
  • Put good ideas worth implementing later in a meaningful place, like a project board in your PSA or another collaborative note-taking tool.  
  • Not every good idea is able to be executed with your current time and resources. And that is ok. You can always grow more, and composting puts those nutrients back into your garden as soil amendments that can feed the other ideas you have!
  • Some ideas aren't good for now, or this season. Intentionally putting them aside means they can actually be ready when the time is right.

Make your plans for what is next.  

In the end, sometimes you end up harvesting something that you didn't expect, but that worked out.

Did you see my photos about tomatillos? I didn't even plant those and they kept our home fed that entire summer. What did I learn? Next time, I'll only keep two plants so they don't overtake my garden!

So, how did this harvest go? What can you do better next growing season?  

• Honestly Review the Harvest.
  • Did you pick the wrong seeds for your business needs? Which sessions were worth it? What didn’t you agree with? Should this conference be on the calendar next year? Were you the best person to attend, or should someone else on your team go next year?
  • Was this completely the wrong fruit to grow? There are so many events you could attend, within our industry and industry adjacent. How do you choose and how do you vote with your money and energy, on which ones are actually building our industry and which ones are detracting from it? A large portion are just dog-and-pony shows, built to capitalize on FOMO, with smoke and mirrors, and to send you home on a high that you may never match. Are you actually getting what you need out of these events, or are you the product?
  • What should you do differently? You know what they say: do what you've always done and get what you've always got. Expand your horizons based on your business goals. If you're looking for a good place to start, I've attended, volunteered for, and spoken at MSPGeekCon – A Conference for MSPs by MSPs since its inception in 2023. If you're looking for a conference that is going to teach you and your team as the core focus, get your tickets for their upcoming 3rd year at MSPGeekCon 2025 Registration.

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• Follow Up on things that will support your future Gardens. I hate to make this one so trite. But like, just do it. Make a plan and execute it. Connect with people you met on LinkedIn, send emails to continue conversations with vendors, implement ONE thing from the conference into your process, and turn other notes into clear action.

• Prepare the Soil for next year.
  • What can you do now? Do you need to lay a cover crop, plant a complementary plant, or turn it over and add fertilizers or amendments? (What do you need to do to invest in your business NOW so it can be more receptive next season?)
  • Should you do nothing? Do you need to let your soil lay fallow for a season to regain balance? (Maybe you’re adding too many things and you should work on maintaining what you have before adding anything else)
  • Should you change your approach? Do you need to move where you plant that crop to a different area on your property with better drainage or sunlight patterns?  (Maybe your market doesn’t even want what you have to offer and you need to rethink your focus.)
  • Should you do something completely different? Do you need to evaluate why you were planting in the first place and maybe you just want to be a goat farmer? (Is this even what you want to be doing? Should you be prepping someone else to do this or lead?)

Put your effort where it rewards you.  

At the end of the day, a garden only succeeds with the right combination of time, resources, and attention.  

And a conference is exactly the same way. It is truly only as valuable as the effort you put into it.  

Let’s face it, we’re all exhausted and it’s easy to be a consumer. It’s easy to just go to the grocery and pick up a beautiful tomato that someone else made.  

It’s easy to only meet with people or vendors you already know and like. It’s easy to just take what people give us and check a box saying we attended an event. It’s easy to mindlessly take in what you’re being fed – to not question it, to not challenge it, to not chew it up and consider if it actually serves you or not before swallowing the meat, fat, and gristle in one bite.  

I propose to you, friends and colleagues, that you can attend every session, shake every hand, and still walk away having wasted your time and money if you’re not actively tending the garden and harvesting the fruit in your personal and professional life.  It is vital that you consider your agency and power in controlling your own growth and own destiny. We must be intentional with our time and resources if we are to harvest the best fruit.  

Lastly, if this speaks to you and you attend conferences for the content, I intend to create a conference content webinar that reviews conference material and gives people a chance to ask questions and to determine what action could and should look like following conferences in our industry. Find me on LinkedIn and let’s talk about collaborating and making this happen together or come find me at MSPGeekCon!  

I look forward to continuing to tend to our industry, together.  

Love,  

El

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