As I slowly recover from my Dad 2.0 Summit adventure this weekend, I’m faced with a stack of business cards a mile high.
Every time I attend a conference or convention I end the weekend with the same anxiety: “When am I going to have time to follow up with all these people?”
Understanding the problem is half the solution.
Instead of wallowing in a pool of anxiety and worry, I’m going to get a better grip on what it means to “follow up with all these people.”
And the way I do that is with a little arithmetic and mathematical modeling.
How long does it take to connect with one person?
To find out how long it takes to follow up with one person, I picked a business card from my stack at random. It happened to be from one of the MilkMustache.com ladies.
It took me 16 minutes to reach out to her. This included the email, researching the site and following her on Twitter.
How many times do I have to do this?
I have 32 more business cards in my stack. I’m going to assume they’re all unique, and that I’ll connect with them in about the same way as I did with Milk.
So to connect with everyone, it will take me
32 people x 16 minutes/person = 512 minutes
I can divide that number by 60 and see that it will take me about 8 1/2 hours to connect with everyone I met at the Dad 2.0 Summit.
Now it’s time to work!
Everyone I met there was pretty amazing. And I’m a lot less anxious now that I know that connecting with all of them will not take forever.
So I’m off to connect!
How about you?
When’s the last time you went to a conference or convention? Were you overwhelmed with the number of contacts you made? Would it have helped to do what I did?
Share your thoughts in the comments. And don’t forget to mention this “convention math” to your kids!
Share your thoughts in the comments or on twitter/x. And don’t forget to pin this on Pinterest!
