I have a crazy confession. I lost my Macbook Pro over the weekend. 
Yes, me. The OCD woman that checks (at least) three times that she has her keys every time she leaves the house.
I had stayed over after the Savvy Blogging Summit, and was enjoying lunch & coffee breaks on the terrace of the Cheyenne Mountain Resort before taking off to visit family in the area.
I got distracted when Hillary arrived with sweet baby Jackson, and set everything down to toss him up on my hip and enjoy his cute little smile. Then we left. And sure enough I left my Macbook Pro sitting there on the Terrace all alone, and never even looked back...
It was a couple hours before I realized it was missing. I was hanging out with Hillary and playing with the baby, and enjoying a nice stroll through the Cheyenne National Park. The prairie dogs were adorable, by the way. 
Once we arrived at her place and I was gathering my bags... I realized my precious Macbook Pro was MIA. ::smackforehead::
In a matter of seconds I retraced my steps in my head, and realized I'd left it out there on the terrace. Ugh.
I had a seriously sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. But not for the reason you might think. The Macbook Pro, like all physical possessions, was replaceable. The data was safely backed up. And speaking of back-ups, Mozy can even locate your lost device now by tracing the IP address of your last backup (which happens automatically every 24 hours). Pretty cool, huh? 
What concerned me most was the other thing that was inside my MBP sleeve: my folder from the Savvy Blogging Summit that contained ALL of my contacts and follow-up material. (My event notes were safely organized in Evernote)
Fortunately I was reunited with my purple Macbook sleeve, and all of it's precious items, within a couple of hours. Many thanks to the awesome staff at the Cheyenne Mountain Resort, who remembered me AND my Macbook (lol).
I cannot even express what a relief it was to have it back in my hands. That manila folder is literally stuffed with highly valuable contact information & details!
(And yes, the contacts & connections I made at the Savvy Blogging Summit are worth FAR more than a single little Macbook Pro)
I'm sharing this whole crazy (and embarrassing) story just to emphasize the value of making connections, and then following up after live events...
Have A Specific Event Objective
Before you even attend a live event, you need a specific objective.
You should ask yourself:
- Why are you going?
- What do you want to achieve by attending?
- Who do you want to meet and speak to - and why?
If you know these specifics upfront it will make the event much more productive, and it will also help you organize a follow-up strategy that will actually benefit your business long after the event is over.
An objective is what makes an event an investment, instead of just an expense.
If you have looked through my Summit photos on Facebook you might think my objective was to kiss turtles, drink iced coffees, and lounge on the terrace (lol).
But I did have a very specific reason for attending SBS - and I'm happy to report that I achieved my objective...
AND I kissed a turtle. 
My objective was very simple. I wanted to learn how these bloggers were connecting so well with brands and merchants.
My focus has always been on affiliate marketing, which I love (and do very well at), but with my new niche blog I'm especially interested in connecting with various brands. I've dabbled in that a bit in the past with good results, but it was very obvious that these "savvy bloggers" had some insider secrets.
I learned A LOT. And I made some very valuable connections. I'm anxious to see how things pan out over next 12 months as I implement the things that were shared at SBS. I'm expecting to see some fun results...
The Importance of Post-Event Follow-Up
When you return home from an event there are always a million things to do. Spend quality time with the family, unpack your bags, do 6 loads of laundry, catch up on email & blogging, etc, etc, etc. And often, if an event was really good, you just want to sleep for about three days straight. 
And that's all fine and good, but once you get back into your normal routine you have to make time for post-event follow up. Otherwise, like I said before:
An objective is what makes an event an investment, instead of just an expense.
Your follow-up strategy is going to be specific to your objective. It might be to study your notes, and get to work on actionable items or creative ideas. It may be to get in touch with contacts you made, or seal deals with potential JV partners. It might be to sit down and create a product that came to mind while you were at the event.
I've been to plenty of events where I didn't make time to follow-up on ideas and contacts when I got back home. My loss. And lesson learned.
I kept all of my notes in Evernote. That way they would be easily accessible from any device - without any backing up or transferring of files. I could just come straight home, sit down to any computer, and get to work on the action items.
I also kept all business cards, brand notes & company flyers in my event folder so they would all be in one place for easy follow-up.
To stay connected I have saved the event hashtag (#sbsummit) search for easy access, and am also in the process of creating a Savvy Blogging Twitter List of people I met there. This will help me stay in touch with them and get to know them better throughout the year, leading up to the next Savvy Blogging Summit in 2012.
Like I said, your follow-up will be specific to your objective.
I would love to hear some other ideas from you if you attend live events or even local meet-ups and get-togethers. What types of things do YOU do following an event, to make the most of it?
Best,
p.s. You can get recordings from last years event, and you can also watch that page for recordings of the 2011 Savvy Blogging Summit event as well.
The Summit Sale ends on July 23. The discount code is “TheSprings”. All 2010 recordings will be 50% off plus if you get the recordings during the sale you’ll receive a free recording of Phil Hollow’s 2011 Email Marketing session:
