Sure National Conference is a great time to see your friends, receive awards, and learn the latest and greatest tips and techniques to grow your business, right?!

One way to maximize your national conference is to have a scavenger hunt.

This is a great way to meet other people in your company, learn their top tips, and increase your skills as well.  Some things to include in your scavenger hunt could be:

• Find someone from a state where you don’t have very many consultants

• Gather a time saving tip a mom of 3 boys uses to run a successful business and family

• Ask someone in the queen’s court of sponsoring what their best sponsoring or prospecting tip is

• Ask someone in the queen’s court of sales for their best tip to high sales at parties

• One could be to be present at the team photo shoot

• Get creative and have 15-20 things to look for.

• Don’t forget to create a little social media buzz while doing this by asking them to post pics with some of the things they are searching for or some of the people that are sharing tips. You can create a special hashtag for your scavenger hunt.

As far as prizes go, if you are a leader it is fun to go to the gear store or special vendor and award prizes that can only be available at national conference, or bring some fun things with you that you know they will love like logo wear, Starbucks or gas cards are always a hit.

A great way to make this even more fun is to award everyone that completes the scavenger hunt with a conference survival kit and do a drawing for a larger prize and also award the first person to finish a larger prize.

Your conference survival kit could include ear plugs in case they are rooming with someone, protein bars, breath mints, a fun pen, a lanyard specific for your team.

In order to get the most from your conference you will need to be intentional.

• Go with a plan.
• Make appointments to meet with people during some of your down time to brainstorm or mastermind.
• Initiate conversations with others while in lines or at meals.
• Don’t just hang out with the people you can see every day at home.
• Ask interesting questions and share your wisdom as well.  Network, network, network!!  Connect, connect, connect.
• You never know… your next best friend or success partner could be sitting next to you or in line to use the restroom.
• Many times the “potty training” and conversations are more valuable than the formal training sessions.
• You never know who you will be in line with… and your specific question could be answered.  Some of these could be very insightful conversations.
• Stay at the host hotel… it is more convenient and you will be more apt to be able to engage more due to less travel time.
• Be sure to research the speakers and panelists.
• Take tons of business cards as well as thank you cards.  As a speaker, there is nothing like receiving a thank you card from a member in the audience that is hand written expressing how much your nugget, tip, or message helped change their life or business… or even gave them a fresh perspective. And, as a member of the audience, it is so rewarding to give gratitude.
• Wear comfortable shoes (at least to walk to and from the conference area) as most of the venues are huge.
• Don’t forget a sweater or wrap, as most venues think it is important to keep the meeting rooms colder than a meat locker… more similar to a deep freeze.
• When taking your notes… have a way to identify what you really would like to action on.
• You are going to hear a ton… and I do mean a ton of new ideas.
• They are all going to sound awesome and then when you get home, they stay in the notebook and go on a shelf or into a pile somewhere.

My mentor, John Maxwell taught us to use the A. C. T. method.  It goes like this:

• A is for everything you want to take action on

• C is for the things you would like to change

• T is for the things you want to train or teach to someone else.

I also have a greater but later page with great ideas, but that will need to be implemented later. I use separate pages in the back of the conference binder or in my notebook that I brought from home. Then, prioritize all of the A’s, C’s, & T’s.

Only implement your 1- A, 1-C, 1-T.  When those are done, move to 2-A, 2-C, 2-T… and so on.
Also share your intentions with your accountability partner or team leader. The chances of you accomplishing any goal goes from 10% to the upper 90 percentile by writing it down and sharing it with an accountability partner.  Crazy, right?

Review all of your notes on the way home. This will refresh your best ideas and spark new ones. It really anchors your learning.  Join into the conversation on twitter, post quotes and best ideas on Facebook, and snap pics for snap chat and Instagram. Tag the people you wish were there!!

Lastly, be sure to have fun!  Be present and don’t constantly checking emails and fretting about home, or worse yet, bring drama with you.

Enjoy your National Conference and be sure to share with me what the best part about your conference is by posting it on my Facebook page:  Direct Sales Specialist. Also… share with me how you maximize your National Conference below.

Make it a great week!!