Just "showing up" to tech conferences isn't a strategy. Here's how to leave with job leads, contacts, and opportunities.
Your guide to making sure you never leave a tech conference or networking event empty-handed again.
If your strategy for attending a tech conference is just showing up, or the generic advice to “wear comfy shoes and stay hydrated,” friend, you don’t really have much of a strategy.
It’s good advice for surviving a day at a theme park, but if you’re investing time, money, and energy to attend a tech conference in-person, you need a plan that guarantees you leave with something tangible—whether that’s job leads, new connections, or new technical skills.
Just showing up doesn’t guarantee you anything. You need a strategy, and a strategy requires a system to track it.
After speaking at 18 conferences and attending over 25 this year, I’ve broken down my entire five-phase plan for ensuring you get the biggest return on your conference investment in this video. Watch the full breakdown below, and then keep reading to grab the exact tool I mention in the video to manage it all.
If you’ve ever come home from a conference with screenshots of LinkedIn profiles, scattered memories of a great keynote, and zero follow-up plan, you’re leaving opportunities on the table.
You are going to learn so much and meet so many people, and at the end of the day, you will be tired. You don’t want to let all that information and those opportunities go in one ear and out the other.
Some of my most impactful moments have happened while grabbing coffee or in the “hallway track”. But what turns those brief conversations into real connections is intentional follow-up after the event.
To make sure I actually follow up, I built my own Conference HQ. It’s a Notion dashboard that acts as my external brain during conferences and networking events. I track the sessions I can’t miss, quickly log every new connection (and what we actually talked about!), and organize all the resources I collect throughout the event.
Now, I’m sharing this exact system with you for free ✨
It’s designed for mobile quick-capture so you can reduce friction when connecting and spend more time being present.
👉 Grab the free Conference HQ Notion template here
Stop winging it and start treating your conference attendance like the investment it is. You did all the work to get there; now go get what you came for.