Sometimes, your home business needs you to get out of the house. A conference is a great place to boost your home business.
In a couple of weeks, I'm heading to St. Louis to attend the Financial Blogger Conference. This conference is the highlight of my year. I rub shoulders with other bloggers, website owners, and financial industry representatives and attend informative sessions.
Conference attendance can be a great way to help your home business. Many of us think of running a home business as something done from, well,?the home. Isn't the point of working from home the fact that you don't have to leave the house?
While working from the comfort of your home is nice, the reality is that you sometimes need to get out of the house if you want to make useful connections and if you want to shake things up a little bit. In my case, attending blogger conferences helps me get out of whatever rut I happen to be in.
Here are some other good reasons to attend a conference as a home business owner:
New Ideas and Best Practices
We can all learn new things and improve. If you want new ideas for your home business, conference attendance can inspire you. If you attend a conference related to your niche, you can get ideas for marketing tactics that work for your audience, as well as ideas for developing new products.
Conference attendance can be a lot like joining a mastermind group, only on a larger scale. Look for conferences that offer topics likely to be of use to you. When I attend conferences, I think about what I want to learn and what is most likely to help me better manage my business. At this point, I'm interested in podcasting, marketing my book, getting a better handle on SEO, and affiliate marketing.
I'm also interested in getting over my impostor syndrome issues so that I feel more comfortable asking more for my services.
Think about what would help you grow and improve your home business, whether it's understanding legal stuff, becoming a better blogger, improving your supply chain (if you have an ecommerce store), or updating your website. Pick a conference that can educate you on the most important aspects, and then attend.
Business Connections
Another way to take advantage of a conference is by making business connections. The people you meet at a conference can provide you with insight, resulting in lasting relationships, and even provide you with new opportunities.
As many already know, I met my business partner at the first FinCon. He's been a great help to me and provided a lot of support and good ideas. Meeting someone in person can be a great way to build trust and work out business partnerships.
However, it's not just business partners. You can also network. I meet a lot of great bloggers and network while I attend conferences. The connections you make now can make a big difference later.
You can also meet affiliate representatives. After attending FinCon last year, and meeting an affiliate representative in person, one of my applications, which had been languishing in limbo, was finally pushed forward. That personal connection got things moving and resulted in an improved affiliate situation (not that any affiliate experience has been particularly profitable for me).
The people you meet at a conference and the knowledge you pick up can be valuable for your home business. Plus, you get a tax deduction for your conference-going, as long as it is related to your home business.
Do you attend conferences? What is your favorite conference to attend?
Love this post! FinCon will be my first blogging-related conference. There are so many positives of attending!
Look for me there! 🙂 It’s really a great experience — well worth attending.
My first conference will be fincon this year and I am hoping to learn a lot!
Good post! More knowledge, more power. That’s how I want to call it. Anyway, it’s really about knowing more and applying that knowledge into what you do in your daily life and conferences are exactly that.
Just followed you and shared your post on Google+!
Nice post! FinCon will be my first blogging related conference and am looking forward to it for many of the reasons you listed. They can be such a boost on many levels and looking forward to meeting some of those I’ve met online.
It really is a cool experience. At the first FinCon, when I met many of my clients/online friends for the first time, it was like I already knew them — even though we had never set eyes on each other, or even talked on the phone. But the in-person experience really can’t be replaced, no matter how many Google Hangouts you participate in.
Great post Miranda, I’m soooo looking forward to FinCon, glad to see that you will be there! I’ve never been to a blogger type convention, not sure what to expect, but I am looking forward to meeting people I have communicated with in the past. Hope to hear a podcast from you someday, I am a podcast junkie! See you there!
Attending summits and conferences, whether related to your home business or not, gives you the much needed break from the routine you form when working from home. That’s not really a problem for people working in offices because each day brings along new experiences, conversations, challenges, etc., which you just can’t enjoy when working from home. FinCon seems like a great conferences, and apart from the benefits you’ve mentioned here, I think it offers a way to increase the exposure for your home business. If a blogger could get a chance to speak at one of these events, it would do wonders for the blog itself.