There’s plenty of advice out there on how to ‘survive’ MIPIM but ultimately, writing check lists that include comfy footwear and extra chargers for your phone aren’t going to do the one thing you’re out there to do – build your network and seek out new business opportunities.
So how do you make the most out of the trip and the connections you make?
The week prior to MIPIM is the all-important time to polish up your sales presentations and update your testimonials and case studies so that you’re ready to hit send as soon as you’re back in Blighty. I’ll get back to this in more detail later but knowing your sales story should also be top of your ‘to-do’ list before you hot foot it to Cannes.
Do you know what your key sales messages are for when people ask you what you and your company does? Rather than saying the same thing to everyone you meet, there will be aspects of your business that will appeal to different audiences. Identify what would interest them about what you do and lead with that, instead of a generic overarching job title.
For example, a landscape architect might lead with “I help developers achieve their placemaking ambitions through designing creative public spaces.”
When you’re out from dawn ‘til dusk and beyond in France, time can disappear in the blink of an eye. Before you know it, you’re leaving Cannes, trying to remember as much of the last few days as possible so that you can relay it to your team when you get back. Who did you meet? What did you discuss? What was the outcome? It can be overwhelming.
Make time at the end of each day to draft up some notes, maybe even send an email back to the office, so that your colleagues can see what you’ve been up to and who you’ve been meeting. They might even be able to give you some insightful information about that topic or person that can help you with subsequent conversations. It will also help you with your follow-up if you have notes to look back on. Making a note of a key contacts' details is also useful, just so you have a back-up in case you lose their business card.
Once you’re back to the day job, your MIPIM work is far from done for another year. And although it’s tempting to take a few days off to recuperate, time is of the essence in the first week back.
The week in MIPIM itself is valuable if you attend enough events, and network with the right people, but what you do before and after is even more important if you want to deliver a return on investment for your business.
Do you have a process in place to make sure you follow-up with your valuable new contacts effectively? If not, it will need some serious thought. So many people that we speak to don’t follow-up in the most effective way that they can, meaning that they could be missing out on making that new acquaintance their next new client.
Our advice would be to try and keep your diary as clear as possible during that first week back so that you can spend time reviewing the connections you’ve made and follow-up by sending them meaningful content (such as the presentations I mentioned earlier), rather than just a quick email.
Make sure that what you’re sending them is bespoke to their company/sector, that it reflects what you discussed when you were in Cannes and that it shows how your business could address their requirements or pain points.
Also, if you’re not doing so already, follow your new prospects on Twitter and connect on LinkedIn. Ask them whether they would be happy to be added to your database to receive e-newsletters. These are all small things that can help build engagement and keep you and your business on their radar.
Winning new business from contacts you’ve made at MIPIM could be a slow-burn, it could be months or years before your new acquaintances have an opportunity to put in front of you. But if you nurture those relationships from the minute you touch down, you will almost certainly increase your chances of creating new partnerships and seeing a real return on investment for your business.