I’m often told that when I’m at WordCamps I’m “a blur”. I’m told that I am “everywhere”. It’s not completely wrong, but it suggests that what I’m doing is more-random then the actual strategy that’s behind the approach.

I’m not just frantically talking to everyone with a WordCamp tag, I’m coming into WordCamp with a plan to talk to the three types of people that I can expect to run into there.

I’ve found that there’s 3 types of people that you can talk to at a conference. Customers, collaborators, and competitors, and yet many people treat everyone like “customers” because it’s the only offer they’ve prepared when they go to conferences.

The real shame is that “collaborators” are where the real money tends to be, since those people can become one-to-many relationships, especially in B2B.

Before you go into any kind of watering hole, make sure you understand what you have to offer to both customers AND collaborators.

You (hopefully!) know what your offer to your customer is, but have you spent the time to think about what your offer to potential collaborators looks like?

If not, spend some time preparing that before your next excursion. You may be missing out on some of the most amazing opportunities simply because you haven’t thought to ask for it.