Matt: Tell me whenever you're ready. 

Lauren: I am ready when you are. 

Matt: Welcome back everyone -

Lauren: You don't have your headphones on. 

[Intro]

Matt: Welcome back to another episode of Publish and Prosper. This is episode number 46. 

Lauren: Yes, it is. 

Matt: And today we're going to be talking about how content entrepreneurs can maximize their ROI on in-person events. 

Lauren: Yes, we are. 

Matt: We love in-person events. 

Lauren: We really do. 

Matt: We own an in-person. 

Lauren: We own an in-person event. 

Matt: But we love them anyways. 

Lauren: We go to several. 

Matt: That's right. 

Lauren: At the time that we are recording this, I am just coming - this is my first day back in the office from being at an in-person event. And at the time this episode comes out, we will be getting ready to leave to go to another in-person event. Clearly, we are big fans of them. We go quite often. 

Matt: When this episode comes out, what event are we going to? 

Lauren: Author Nation. 

Matt: Oh, that's right. That's right. 

Lauren: This comes out the Wednesday before we leave for Vegas. 

Matt: Yeah. You're just flexing all over the place. 

Lauren: I really am. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: I just want everybody to know that I'm going to Vegas for a week. 

Matt: I don't - I don't feel like Vegas is a flex. 

Lauren: I mean, not really to me either. 

Matt: In fact, I absolutely hate Vegas. If it wasn't for that show, I wouldn't go. 

Lauren: I know. 

Matt: Except for, now they also do F1 racing in Vegas, which is right after Author Nation. And I wish I could stay for the week after and watch F1 racing. That would actually be a bucket list thing for me. 

Lauren: You know - 

Matt: So maybe one year, if they keep doing Author Nation in Vegas, maybe one year I'll stay after and watch F1. 

Lauren: That's fair.

Matt: Otherwise, I hate Vegas. 

Lauren: I was actually just in Vegas, and - 

Matt: You went to Emo Fest 2024. 

Lauren: I - and tt was great. It was so good. Yes, I did go to Emo Fest 2024. 

Matt: That's not what it's really. 

Lauren: No, it's called When We Were Young. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: But yeah, the co-headliners were Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance, so it was definitely just Emo Fest 2024. But I actually texted my best friend while I was walking around Vegas, and I was like, you know, I - in case I just ever needed the confirmation that my brain is really and truly broken, I'm walking around this city that is like everyone's favorite adult playground, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm just walking around going, God, I wish this was Disney. 

Matt: Yeah. I can't stand Vegas. Although they have an In-n-Out there, so that helps. 

Lauren: They do, they do. And I didn't go and I, I, I intended to, but it's fine. It's okay.

Matt: Man, you were really blowing it. 

Lauren: I know. 

Matt: Too many tears, you couldn't see where you were walking. Is that what it was? Hey, what do your bracelets say today before we jump into this? 

Lauren: That's a great question. Also, you know you didn't ask me in the last episode. 

Matt: Shut up. 

Lauren: You didn't. 

Matt: Yes I did. 

Lauren: You did not, it's okay. They say, Born in 1989, You'll Be Fine, and Right Through Me, which are all Taylor Swift song lyrics and or references. 

Matt: I didn't ask you in the last, wait, write through you? 

Lauren: Yeah. It’s from - 

Matt: Write like write?

Lauren: No. Like they see right through me. 

Matt: Oh, oh, oh. 

Lauren: Yeah, from a song called The Archer. It's a great song.

Matt: Okay, so the last episode I didn't ask you about your bracelets? 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: I don't believe that. What was the last episode?

Lauren: The irony is that it was the AMA episode. So the quest - the episode where questions were the topic of the episode, you didn’t ask. And I didn't notice it either until I was editing the episode. 

Matt: Man. That's cold-blooded. Next time you should just message me on the laptop.

Lauren: I didn't - I genuinely - it didn't occur to me until I was going back and listening to it and I was like shoot. 

Matt: I can't believe I forgot. I mean normally I genuinely want to know and I usually don't ask you ahead of time because I want to know, so I wait til we're recording.

Lauren: To be fair, you were - 

Matt: To be fair 

Lauren: - ill. 

Matt: Do you ever watch Letterkenny? 

Lauren: No.

Matt: You haven’t?

Lauren: Not my vibe. 

Matt: Oh. Every time somebody says to be fair they all repeat it like a Shakespearean voice - to be fair.

Lauren: Okay. Maybe slightly my vibe. Cause that's a good - that's a good bit. 

Matt: You should watch Letterkenny. 

Lauren: Alright

Matt: At least the first three or four seasons. 

Lauren: All right, maybe I'll give it a shot. 

Matt: Yeah. What were you saying? 

Lauren: Oh, well, you were like, super sick when we were recording that episode you were on Dayquil. 

Matt: Oh. Come on, see?

Lauren: For sure, and I was wearing a long sleeve sweater. So you wouldn't have seen them as a reminder.

Matt: I mean, come on. 

Lauren: I’m giving you a pass. 

Matt: It doesn't get worse than that. Yeah. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: That's - that's still on me. Yeah. 

Lauren: That's okay. 

Matt: All right. 

Lauren: All right. 

Matt: How content entrepreneurs can maximize their ROI on in-person events. 

Lauren: Yeah. If you didn't get this from our extreme immediate tangent in this intro here, we do love in-person events, like we said, and we think they're very valuable to authors, entrepreneurs, anybody. We've done episodes in the past - we've done at least two other episodes talking about different elements of attending events. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Whether you're attending it as an attendee or attending it as an exhibiting author or whatever it is. But, I don’t know, maybe this is an attempt to further convince you that it's worth it. It's worth your time. It's worth the effort. And here's what you can do to make sure that you are getting the most out of the time and expense that you're putting into it. 

Matt: Yeah. I think that that latter part, I would say more. At this point, trying to convince somebody to go to an in-person events, probably pointless. For those that do enjoy going like we do, or, you know, are considering it, these are some ways that you can try to extract some ROI. Cause I mean, most of them are not cheap these days. 

Lauren: No. 

Matt: You know, and not everybody has the luxury of working for a company or brand that will send them to some of these events, especially some of the marketing ones or business events or things like that, but. 

Lauren: Thanks Matt. 

Matt: You know, extracting ROI out of that, especially if you're paying out of your own pocket for your event ticket, for your flights, for your hotel, for your meals. It is important that you're able to get some, if not all, and then some of your money back on what you spend, so.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: We're very cognizant of that. Yeah.

Lauren: Yeah. Absolutely. So let’s get into it. 

[6:20]

Matt: Well, this first one is - is like a bit… For me it's one of the most important ones because it's - we're gonna talk about taking notes at an event. And I'm literally the worst note-taker on the planet. If it weren't for several people on my team that go to events with me I wouldn't have notes from most of the events we go to. 

So, we're gonna talk about notes and how you take them and what you do with them, but I think upfront it's really important to note that it might not be at the top of your head when you sit down into one of the sessions that you've decided you want to sit on. For others, that's the only thing they're thinking about. Their, you know, notepad is out or their laptop or whatever, and they're ready to start. 

Sometimes you just get in there and you just kind of feel like you just want to listen and go with the flow. But you really should try to take down some sort of notes any way that you can. And we're going to talk about some ways to make it a lot easier for you to do that, especially if you're like me, where you're just terrible at it so you don't even bother. And you hope that all of the main points that are valuable will stick in your brain until you get home and they usually don't. 

Lauren: I was going to say, how does that work out for you? 

Matt: It doesn't at all. I might remember like, one thing and then that's like the one thing that I'll post on social media when I'm at the event. And then I got to wait till we get back and I get your notes and Lali’s notes and Haley's notes and everybody else's. 

Lauren: Yeah, I feel like that's famous last words right there. I'm not going to write this down because I'm going to remember it. 

Matt: Yeah, but now I have a new way to take notes. 

Lauren: Oh, yeah? What's that?

Matt: So I use an AI note-taking tool. 

Lauren: Oh. 

Matt: Yeah. It's called Otter. 

Lauren: Okay. 

Matt: Yeah. But there's lots of them. You don't have to use that one, but.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: That's just the one I started using. I think Katie Brinkley uses Otter, and I was on a video call with her one time as we were working through publishing her book, which everybody should go get, right? 

Lauren: Absolutely. We've linked it in the show notes before, for sure. 

Matt: Yeah. Anyways, so we were on a call and I saw this thing pop up, like somebody wanted to log into the video call and it said Katie Brinkley's note taker and it was this little Otter. And I was like, what is that? She told me about it. I was like, oh my God, this is amazing. I knew there were AI note taking tools out there, but when she talked about that one and what it could do, I was like, man, this is great. I immediately signed up for it and I've been using it. It's great. 

So if you're going to an event or events or you're a regular at events and you're terrible at taking notes and you don't have the luxury or privilege that I do of having coworkers who are great at taking notes, then you can do this other thing, which is get yourself an AI note-taker. They're not expensive at all, and they're great. 

Lauren: I’ve seen people using Ecamm as well, which is also what we're using now to record this episode.

Matt: Right. 

Lauren: This is brand new, this is our first time using Ecamm, so I can't really speak to how specifically they were using Ecamm during a session. But I was very impressed sitting next to somebody at the end of the session - it was Caleb Dempsey - at CEX last year and seeing the output of transcript and notes and audio and summaries. And it was Robbie Fitzwater's session - somebody that we work with - and we were all kind of engaging with Robbie during the session. So Caleb turned to me at the end and was like, hey, you seem to know him. Like, do you want these, like, do you think he wants these sessions? 

Matt: No, we just do that to everybody. 

Lauren: No, we just heckle all the speakers. 

Matt: Just know if you get up on a stage at a session to talk and there's a bunch of Lulu people in the crowd. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: You're gonna get heckled. 

Lauren: Yeah, for sure. 

Matt: No, just kidding. 

Lauren: No, absolutely not.

Matt: You're going to be really well supported. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: This is what I truly believe - and we've said this before - what people should be using AI for.

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Making your life easier. As we primarily talk to authors and creators most of the time, there's still this big fear that AI is going to take their job as it pertains to writing content or creating graphic content, things like that. And of course, AI can do that stuff, but we should be using it and we should be using it for things like this to make your life easier. 

That's ROI returned already. If you spent, let's say the ticket price to an event was $700 - which is not uncommon, in many cases it's often more - but anyways, you get back and you've got, you know, a laptop full of notes from ten different sessions and a bunch of other things that were taken for you with an AI note taker tool. Where you can then turn around and have the tool itself summarize every one of those transcripts. And like, in the case of Otter, what I use and most of them, probably you can literally tell it to not only summarize those notes for you, but hey like, tell me what the top five highlights of that session were. It basically does all the work for you.

Lauren: Oh yeah.

Matt: So that you can come home and really focus in on what was important. 

Lauren: That's always something that I think would be really helpful, especially for sessions like these where people are moving so fast through these sessions. I, this is actually what I was doing before we were recording this episode was trying to go through my notes from Content Marketing World and make them like, coherent enough that I could share them with the rest of the team. And there are a lot of things in there that I'm seeing that I'm like, okay, first of all, you know, a half finished thought. Clearly the speaker like, moved on to the next slide and I didn't finish typing out what was on the slide or whatever. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Or I was typing so fast that just straight gibberish came out and I can't even tell what I was trying to say or, you know, whatever it is. And I'm really looking back at some of these things and going like, oh man, I really wish I had some kind of transcript of the session. Or you know, a lot of times the speakers at these sessions will say, hey, if you want this deck, I'm happy to share it with you. Here's a QR code to scan it and download it directly. Or sign up for my newsletter and the next email that goes out is going to have a downloadable deck and all of my notes from this session, add me on LinkedIn and I'll send it to you directly on there. It's a great networking opportunity for them and for you, but it's also a good way to kind of get these resources from people. And I do always try to go back through that and add those into my notes. 

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: So that I have those linked in there so that I can go back and look and say like, oh… I went to a session at Content Marketing World last week that was AJ Wilcox. Who’s wonderful. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: If you have any reason to, if you're interested in paid LinkedIn ads at any point, AJ is just such an engaging and charismatic speaker that he makes me excited about something that I can't stand. I don't actually want anything to do with LinkedIn ads, but his sessions are so like…

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Like, he has such energy while talking about it that it makes me feel like, oh, maybe I don't hate this, but I had been to a session at a different conference a year or two ago that he did on LinkedIn ads. And I immediately just went back through my notes, went into my Google Drive, searched his name, pulled up the notes from the last session and linked those into my notes for this session. So now I've got a little - 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: - thread of different AJ Wilcox LinkedIn ads wisdom.

Matt: I highlighted a lot of what you just said in bright green in our outline here, because I love that. I often forget to do that, get the slide decks from the speakers and then link it in my notes - 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: - or in the notes. But I can tell you as somebody who's been to a lot of conferences and also somebody who speaks at conferences, most speakers have zero problems giving you their slide deck, or a version of the slide deck - 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: - that they're comfortable with being out there in the public. Most of the time these days they'll proactively say, hey, if you want this slide deck, just scan this QR code at the end and I'll send it to you. I think that is super valuable. So you combine the speaker slide deck with some well-crafted notes. And I mean, again, you're just stacking the value already, the return on that investment. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: If you think about what you could come away from an event with in terms of notes and speaker decks, and let's just say out of all the sessions there, you found value in five of them. If each of those five were an online course that you were going to pay to take, they would easily out total the amount of money you spent at that event. 

Lauren: Oh yeah. 

Matt: So just coming back with really well-crafted notes, some speaker decks, and some other things, you're already really close to getting some ROI back on that event that you paid to go to, so. I love that idea and I think that that stuff again, that you can use throughout the rest of the year to help guide your career path or your content creation path or whatever it is that you're working on.

Lauren: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that's - I mean, to me, I would argue that's the most valuable thing that you're going to get out of going to a conference. You know, we can debate that as we go through the rest of this episode. But that to me… I'm a nerd. We know that, this isn't news to anybody. It's fine. One of the things that I always like to do at conferences is make notes to myself about things I want to remember for future conferences. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: So if I see somebody using a really cool tablet. There's a… it's Remarkable, I think? Have you heard of this tablet?

Matt: Yes. 

Lauren: Looks really cool. I saw someone using one at a conference recently and was like, I have a lot of questions about that. Or even just like, oh man, like I totally didn't think about bringing a hotspot or setting up my phone as a hotspot ahead of this conference. I thought I was going to be able to rely on the wifi and it's not working out. 

Matt: That conference center, by the way, is notorious for the worst wifi. 

Lauren: I know. 

Matt: The one in San Diego. 

Lauren: Which is insane considering it's literally where the - where the biggest comic con in the world is. And also like a bunch of other - like, San Diego Convention Center is famous. Like, I don’t…

Matt: Yeah. It must just be that to have the good wifi at your event costs so much money that it's prohibitive. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: It's a barrier or it's just garbage period. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Cause we've been to other events there and all commented like, how is this even possible? 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: I have a feeling that the good wifi is just too pricey. So most events are just, ah, give them the free wifi, which is garbage. 

Lauren: Sounds about right.

Matt: That's wild. 

Lauren: Oh, well, just things to keep in mind. Maybe set your tools up ahead of time and keep in mind things that you're going to want to remember for future events. 

Matt: Yeah. That's a good point too though. Like again - side note, sorry - with Google Docs, you can set it to work offline. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: So that's probably something to think about too. I don't know what the options are like, if you're using a note taker tool like I do - I don't know if there's a work offline option because it doesn't live natively on my, my laptop, it's cloud-based. So. That might be something to think about actually. 

[16:00]

Matt: All right, so what do we do with these notes? 

Lauren: That's a great question. Having all these notes are great. Things that you learned are great… except that you then have to do things with them. You know, learning a bunch of new practices and learning a bunch of like, tips and strategies and here’s - here are the trends in the industry and here's how we did this and here's how we did that. It's great, it's great, but if you don't actually implement any of those things that you learned, then what did you learn?

Matt: Then you just wasted your boss's money, if this was a company trip, that's what you did.

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: No, I think that's the point, right? I've taken really good notes. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: But you know, whatever it is that you're, you're doing - turning those into actionable items, right? And like, I think you said this earlier, when you are taking notes, highlighting those things that you think later on should be some of those things that you're going to take action on. Or like you said too, you know, you come back through and little notes to yourself for specific things that were said or pointed out in that session that you can turn into something actionable when you get back home, back to work, back to your home office - whatever it is that you do, the most important part about these events is how you turn that into actionable takeaways that are going to further, your business, your brand, your career, whatever it is you're trying to influence there, so.

Lauren: Yeah, I mean, I think it's really important to recognize that if you're choosing these conferences correctly, if you are actually like… attending ones that you've done the research and you can tell that they are like, valuable resources and the people that are speaking at them really are thought leaders in your industry and in your community, they know what they're talking about and you should trust them. 

Like I really, I think about this all the time. I went to Social Media Marketing World in March of 2020. It was the last thing I did before everything shut down. And I have session notes from that, that talk about how TikTok was going to change the landscape of social media and marketing forever. I can remember coming back from that and being like, we should talk about TikTok and whether or not we wanna start like a Lulu account on TikTok or whatever. 

And you were like, eh, I don't know about that. And then a week later we were in lockdown and TikTok took off. I mean, obviously no one was predicting a global pandemic, but people were at this conference talking about like, this - 

Matt: Yeah, that would have been good notes if somebody at the conference was like, hey, by the way, when you guys leave here, prepare to be locked down for two years in your house. Hope you like your partner, by the way. 

Lauren: Stock up on N95 masks and hand sanitizer right now. 

Matt: You just made me think of something. I think when you're at these events and in these sessions, remaining really open to what you're hearing, what you're taking down as notes, and just trying to take everything in because you actually don't know what could be useful to you until after the fact. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: So you just brought up the TikTok example. At that time, March of 2020, yeah, TikTok was a thing, but it wasn't the thing yet. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: And so a lot of people, including myself, would hear something like that and be like, eh, we'll wait and we'll see or whatever. Like, you know. And then other people like you would hear that and go, I don't know, that was pretty compelling. And I highlighted it. I must've highlighted it for a reason. We really should look into this. You know, you just don't know until after the fact. 

You know, there are a lot of times where I look at somebody's notes from an event and I might skim through the first two paragraphs and get to just one little thing that sticks out at me. And I go back and talk to that person and they're like, oh, I didn't even think about that. Or vice versa, I'll go through it and I'll pick something out, but then I'll talk to you or, or Lali, or somebody else and they'll go, yeah, but what about this? And I'll go, oh, I didn't even realize it. Yeah, okay, that makes more sense for sure. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: You just never know what you're gonna find helpful or useful in your situation, especially in the moment, because you're just trying to take it all in. And then when you get home and you start sifting through this stuff, I think that's when some of it becomes a little more clear and readily apparent. Remaining really open when you're in that experience to just taking it all in and not filtering things out in the moment, which I think is what a lot of people tend to do. 

I think when you're processing information that's coming in and you're writing it down or typing it, I think sometimes we have this tendency to pre-filter. Like, oh, that doesn't apply to me, I don't need that. But if you just take everything in, or again, if you're using a tool so you don't have to worry about it, you can decide later what's going to be impactful to your business, to your brand, to your, you know, whatever it is you're doing, versus pre-filtering that stuff as you take it in, because you may end up doing yourself a disservice, and more than likely you will.

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: That was a really good point, I think, in a roundabout way, when you brought up the TikTok thing. That again, I came away from that or those notes, we just like, yeah, TikTok, whatever. Who cares? 

Lauren: Yeah. I mean, we, we were not interested in video at all at that point. 

Matt: Yeah. But I mean, still though, I mean, you to this day, that's one of the things you remember about those notes and that event - 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: - is this whole TikTok thing. I mean, you just never know what's going to come out of it. So take everything in and decide later.

Lauren: Yeah, I mean, like I said earlier with AJ Wilcox’ session that I went to, I still reference session notes from sessions that I went to at conferences years ago. And I'm doing that now I - sometimes I'm looking back on at notes from sessions that I went to that were social media based that I'm no longer the social media manager, but there were still things within there that I took notes on that I am thinking about now in a different capacity. That I'm like, oh, you know, I would love to go back and see what this take - I like, I remember somebody talking about this and I'd love to go back and like, refresh my memory on what that take was. 

Matt: Yeah, I've done that too, inadvertently. 

Lauren: Yeah?

Matt: Years and years ago, I went to an SEO conference in New York. It was called C3. Conductor was the brand. I think they've since been acquired, but either way. They had an SEO conference. There was a guy on stage and he was using Star Wars themes in his deck. I have the picture somewhere. I won't search for it now, but I just remember that one slide in his deck. He was using some Star Wars references and he was explaining a point related to SEO and content marketing. And I was just like, man, that's like, I get that. That really makes sense. 

And again, I'm terrible at taking notes, but I snapped a picture of that slide and he also happened to be standing in front of that slide. And then I think I scribbled something in my notebook and then put: see Star Wars picture, you know what I mean? So I would know later. And then after the fact, like it was very helpful for me, the point this gentleman was trying to make. Well, fast forward to a couple of years ago, turns out that guy was Joe Pulizzi.

Lauren: I knew this was going to be - I knew it was going to be somebody, but that I didn't expect. Okay. 

Matt: And I never connected the two until a good year into Joe and I becoming friends and then obviously doing business together. And it dawned on me, I was like, oh my God, wait a second, that was Joe Pulizzi. And to this day, I would still use the concept that he was talking about. So I hit him up, I was like, hey, and I sent him that picture. I'm like, do you remember this? And he just kind of laughed. Stay open - 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: - because you never know what you're going to use after the fact. But like you said, and like I just talked about, there are times where you'll go back to that information years later, because there are some things that they'll just stand true through time. They're concepts that they hold true regardless of the tech that's emerging or things like that. I mean, no matter what tech is coming out there, if you're in the world of marketing, marketing should be human-centric no matter what. And if it's not, you're losing out. So there's going to be concepts that are relative to that, that will stand true five years from now, through the AI storm and everything else. 

And again, if you have great notes from one of these sessions that, I mean, that's just a great library you're building that you can go back to again and again and again. So yeah, I love that point you made. 

Lauren: Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. Also I want to point out something that Matt said in there about taking pictures of slides during sessions and making notes in his notes to see those pictures. That's a great time-saving little tip that I see people doing all the time. Or I also see people if you're taking notes on your iPad, they'll just hold their iPad up, immediately snap the picture and then go right back to taking notes and I'm like, man, if only I wasn't using my iPad as a glorified ereader. 

Matt: Gross. 

Lauren: I know, I know you hate it so much. It's okay. 

Matt: A glorified romance ereader. 

Lauren: I actually mostly use it for reading fanfiction, but I guess that's the same thing. 

Matt: Six in one half dozen in the other. 

Lauren: Yeah, pretty much. But yeah, no, I think that you really are creating this just like, long-term repository of educational information and resources for yourself. 

Matt: Which, again, is ROI on your spend. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: So right now, not having gone to that event, if you needed some really good information for this next project you're working on or the next campaign you're creating or product that you're trying to develop and bring to market, that's less you have in your library of useful information, of helpful and impactful resources. But the more you can add to that library by bringing these things back from these conferences and these sessions that you sit in, I mean, you're just building that library, that ROI on your spend. 

Lauren: Yeah. That's also one of the things that I do for every session that I attend that I liked. So I don't do this for every session because it, you know, sometimes, sometimes you go to a session and it doesn't hit. 

Matt: It's a dumpster fire.

Lauren: You know, that's a nicer - that's a nicer way of saying what I was trying to say. 

Matt: Why didn't you just say that? 

Lauren: That's okay. 

Matt: You don't have to call anybody out - 

Lauren: No I’m not, but - 

Matt: But let's be real. 

Lauren: Yes, yes. Sometimes you go and you're like, oh man, somebody pulled like the short straw at work and they had to do this session that they didn't really want to do. But if it's a session that I really liked, that I liked the person, that I liked the topic, that I felt like I learned something, in addition to making note of that - I still remember people that I went to their sessions in 2020 and 2019, some of the first conferences that I went to, and I still go to their sessions to this day. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Ann Handley. 

Matt: Yep. 

Lauren: I will make a note of if the person has a newsletter and if they have a book or multiple books and I have - and a podcast, actually I've started adding podcasts in there now too. And when I go back through my conference notes for all the conferences that I've been to, I can see like, okay, these are books I'm adding to my TBR. 

Matt: Who are your - who are three of your favorites? 

Lauren: Well, Ann Handley for sure. I love Andrew Davis. 

Matt: Give me one more. 

Lauren: Which just feels like such a plug. 

Matt: He is awesome. 

Lauren: Actually, I have a new one from this. Can I give you a new one? Or does it have to be a repeat? 

Matt: I mean, I didn't give you any criteria, so yeah. 

Lauren: Well, okay. So I really liked at Content Marketing World this year, his session, the name he introduced himself at with the session was Joe Lazer, but it's a shortened version of his, oh my goodness, um…

Matt: Joe Lazer?

Lauren: Joe... 

Matt: What did he talk about? 

Lauren: Joe Lazauskas, maybe? I don't know. He talked about the storytelling economy. But he was also just, he was very relatable. He was very clearly very knowledgeable. I liked the topic. I liked what he was talking about. He has a book that I'm definitely going to check out, and I immediately just like mentally put him on the list of if I see this name on a conference list, I will do my best to attend his session. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Actually, and fourth one you didn't ask for four, but Tamsen Webster is on that list too. And I did go to her session. 

Matt: See, if I'm anywhere where Jay Schwedelson is speaking - 

Lauren: Okay.

Matt: - about email, I will make sure I see his session because they're always super helpful and he's so funny. 

Lauren: Okay. 

Matt: Ann Handley’s one of mine as well. 

Lauren: Oh. Absolutely. 

Matt: I really enjoyed watching Austin Church speak at CEX this year. 

Lauren: I missed that session and I'm really bummed about it. I had a conflict. 

Matt: Justin Welsh. 

Lauren: Oh yes. 

Matt: And Jay Clouse. 

Lauren: Yeah. Oh, you're right about, yes. Justin and Jay are both sessions that I've seen several times. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And would go again. Also, I mean, you're great too. I never had a bad time at one of your sessions. I will say if anyone has ever -

Matt: That’s cause I’m usually stumbling through something. 

Lauren: Well, no, they’re, I find them to be the opposite. No, if you have, if you're ever attending a conference and Matt is giving a session at it, I highly recommend going to it. And that's not a plug because I think you should go learn about why you should publish a book or - if you're already listening to this podcast, you're probably already interested, but I genuinely think that you’re a very good speaker.

Matt: Well, thank you. 

Lauren: You’re welcome.

Matt: I hope you like cuss words. If you come listen to me speak. 

Lauren: Yeah, we don't. There's none of that limitations that - 

Matt: You remember that time at CEX that I was speaking and that lady stood up and it was time for questions. And she's like, you don't look like your headshot. You're much grayer. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: I didn't know. I was just standing there like, yeah, that's what working at Lulu will do. It's just like, are you kidding me? Wow. All right. But actually. 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: To be fair to her, I guess my headshot was an older one where my beard wasn't quite as gray. It was like when I first started working at Lulu. 

Lauren: You didn't have the anchor tattoo either. 

Matt: That's true. 

Lauren: So that might've been a surprise. 

Matt: So I have switched to an updated headshot that is more reflective of my age and my time here in the publishing industry, which will definitely put some grays on you for sure. But thank you for those nice words. 

Lauren: You're welcome. 

Matt: And it was interesting to hear who your top four or five were. 

Lauren: I mean, I could keep going, but - 

Matt: I'm sure we would. That's why I only asked for three. 

Lauren: Those are just the ones off the top of the head.

Matt: I was just curious. I don't think I'd ever asked you that before. 

Lauren: No, that's fair. 

[28:40]

Matt: Alright, so - 

Lauren: I don’t - yeah.

Matt: Again, your notes, taking action on those notes, what you're going to do with them. Obviously, you want to chunk those things up. It's a lot of stuff to go through. This is also, though, why I like having a tool. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: I can just tell it, go extract out the top three highlights of this session. You know, what were the three most important things that the speaker touched on. I can determine whether or not I agree with those three things and then I can take action on some of them if I want, if it applies to my business or whatever I'm doing or… point is, finding some actionable takeaways from those notes. 

You want to find something you can put in place again, that's going to help you in one way or another. If you can't easily pick out one or two things from your notes that you can put into action almost immediately, then maybe you didn't take good enough notes or maybe you should find a different conference to go to next year. 

Lauren: Yeah, yeah.

Matt: But I would also say, you know, look for some, some long-term things you can put in place too. I mean, a lot of people speak on things that are, they're more long-term plays. It's going to take a little while. You put something in place and you might not see the benefits from that really, or start reaping those benefits for six months to a year, sometimes longer. So taking those notes and kind of chunking them up and then saying, okay, these couple of things, this is low-hanging fruit. I can put those in place right now. 

Whether that's a new tool you learned about - which is a lot more common these days - some other type of way to potentially maybe craft social media content, or different way to do your newsletters to encourage more forwards, to get more signups in the end, short-term things, but then also what are some long-term things you can pull out of there? I think that's really important. So creating, kind of, an implementation strategy around those things and then working on that throughout the year. 

Lauren: Yeah, I think that's a great way of putting it actually is having that short-term, medium term, long term strategy things to implement. You know, most of the conferences that I'm going to that aren't author events that we are exhibiting at are social media or marketing or social media marketing conferences. Every conference that I have been to, at least one person in one session has issued a challenge of here is one thing you can try today. And honestly, try it.

It's one thing, even if it doesn't fit into your content strategy, even if it's something that like, feels weird or out of sync for you, like it feels good to capitalize on the inspiration and momentum that you get from attending these conferences. And like that's a great opportunity to just say like, okay, somebody challenged me to make a 30 second Reel today and post it on Instagram and I'm going to do that. Okay. You can always delete it later if you decide you don't like it.

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Just try it. But I think that's really important to have that, is to have those like implementation ideas in your notes and not just looking at those long-term like, okay, when I write my next book, I'm going to try outlining it instead of just like, flying by the seat of my pants through it. 

Matt: I’m going to try outlining it. 

Lauren: You know, like that's a pretty big, big change to implement. Finding small, actionable and immediately actionable items that you can try, I think is absolutely worth it. 

Matt: Yeah. Yeah. You need those quick wins sometimes too. 

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: To keep you energized. Yeah. 

Lauren: It’s that dopamine hit. That instant gratification. Just remember why you're doing that. Like, as you are getting things from this conference, whatever you're taking out of it, don't try too many new things at once because you won't be able to track the success of them. 

Matt: For sure.

Lauren: If you're implementing five changes to your website on the same day, you will not be able to tell which change had a positive or negative impact. 

Matt: Yeah, or your social media channels - 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: - or whatever that might be. But yeah, absolutely. And again, that's why I think creating kind of an implementation strategy. What are the few things you want to try immediately, immediately being in the next 30 to 45 days and space them out? And then what are some more long-term things that you want to try? And then tracking them, like you said, and making sure that you're treating it as a true experimentation of those concepts to make sure that it does work, because otherwise what's the point? 

Lauren: Yeah. 

[32:27] 

Matt: What are some other things we can do with these notes and this content from these? 

Lauren: Well, turn it into content that you can share.

Matt: On what? 

Lauren: Everywhere. 

Matt: TikTok. I gave you the perfect opening - 

Lauren: TikTok?

Matt: - to keep rubbing it in. 

Lauren: What if people don't want to use TikTok? 

Matt: Well, apparently everybody does. That's what they told you back in March of 2020, and it was right. 

Lauren: Well, it was not wrong. 

Matt: At the date of this episode, the government is still actively trying to shut it down. And I think it’s probably going to have some success to a degree. 

Lauren: Don't they have bigger fish to fry right now? 

Matt: You would think. 

Lauren: Like don't okay. 

Matt: You would think. 

Lauren: It is October 28th of 2024. Don't they have bigger problems? It’s fine.

Matt: Listen, TikTok is the biggest problem. It's either a problem because you're spending all your money on it with TikTok Shop, or it's a problem because you're spending all of your attention on it - 

Lauren: Guilty. 

Matt: - with the funny videos of parents playing pranks on their kids, which are my favorite, or French bulldog videos, which are my second favorite. 

Lauren: Of course they are.

Matt: Or it's a problem because depending on who you believe, they're probably pumping all your information into the Chinese government.

Lauren: Great. 

Matt: As if these governments outside of the US don't already have all our information anyways.

Lauren: That’s like when people when people say to me that like, Disney is stealing your identity because they have photos, like they have - 

Matt: Take it 

Lauren: Right? Like first of all take it, second of all like, you know who else has my photo ID? The government? 

Matt: Yeah, and newsflash Disney's got your fingerprint as well as an ocular scan as well. 

Lauren: Again, take it. They can have it.

Matt: Can I have a discount Disney cuz you got all my biometrics, please?

Lauren: It’s fine. 

Matt: Yeah, it's - whatever, so in the interest of time we're gonna move - you're gonna take this content and you're gonna turn it into social media content, right? 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Everybody already struggles for new social media content, right? You feel like you're creating the same old crap - or you're not like me, you just give up and you don't post anything, you just lurk. Notes from sessions at these in-person events are great for social media content. 

Lauren: Yeah, absolutely. They make great content. It's great content in two different ways because you're not just - so okay, so two approaches to this. First of all, it's great content for you because it is helping you establish yourself as a thought leader to your audience. You are an expert in something you are attempting to establish that you are an expert in something to an audience of people, and you are doing that by delivering valuable information to them. 

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Probably all of your fans and followers that are interested in the type of content that you're speaking about were not able to go to this conference that you did. Chances are that your entire audience base was not also just at this conference. So you are able to impart valuable information on them by being able to say hey, I just went to this conference. Here are five key takeaways that I got from it, here like two things that I want to try, here's a book recommendation that I got that I'm really excited to read, or a person whose newsletter I signed up for, like…

Whatever it is, this is an opportunity for you to share something with your audience that further establishes you as somebody who knows what they're talking about. 

Matt: Yeah, it's a great way to, again, take this content, chop it up. If you're using a tool like we've talked about, like Otter or Ecamm or some of these others where it'll take the notes for you, it'll give you a transcription - many of these tools like Otter, you can actually tell it, give me the top five highlights from this session. Or give me the top two highlights from all five sessions that I attended. And then you turn that into social media content. 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: And what you want to do is not just pass this off as your own information, by the way, we're not saying become a thought leader on the back of somebody else's hard work. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: We're saying use that as an opportunity for you to come in as a commentator. So again, the content is, Hey, here's one of the things I learned in this session by… whatever Jay Clouse, right? Jay was talking about social media and how sometimes it feels like you're screaming into the void. Here's my take on what he said. Here's how I see this playing out and you can add into that and really make yourself a commentator on some of that stuff. 

Again, don't take somebody else's content and pass it off as yours. But the fact that you were there at this event, like you alluded to, that most of your audience probably did not go to and may not have even known about. They're living vicariously through you. Now they wanna know like, okay, well what was so great about that event? What did you learn? What did this person talk about? And what did Ann Handley wear this time? Or, you know, or whatever 

Lauren: Ugh, the best suit. It was such a cool suit. She always wears cool suits. 

Matt: The point is, I think that when you're talking about how to take this information and create social media content from it in a way that, again, does justice to whoever you got the content from, but really helps you further position yourself as a thought leader or an expert on the subject. Or at the very least, somebody trustworthy to bring that information back to your audience and show them how they can make use of it too. You can have this content stretch out for months and months after that event. 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: You know what I mean? 

Lauren: Absolutely. 

Matt: I love the session notes for this alone. 

Lauren: Yes. To add to that, one thing I'm going to add to that, again, like you're not establishing yourself on the backs of somebody else's work. You're also not going to share verbatim. Like, do not just post a transcript from a session or a video from a session. Most - 

Matt: - the whole thing. Yeah. 

Lauren: Yeah. Like, most conferences have specific rules against that. Many, if not all conferences these days will give you access, as an attendee, will give you access to session recordings after the fact. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Which again, you are not going to post those publicly because that's not they're not yours to turn around and say, hey, I'm going to send this to my entire email list. But you can absolutely go through that and say, like, I just rewatched this session and here are three notes from it that I'm going to add my own commentary. And obviously this is not just for social media content. You can also do this with your email newsletter. This can also be great email newsletter content. 

But also I did say two different angles that you can approach this with and two different ways that you can use repurposing event content as like, an adding value to yourself. It's also a great way to network with the people that you are speaking about. So this is an opportunity for you to, you know, if you're if you're saying I just attended Ann Handley's incredible session and here are my key takeaways from it. Tag Ann Handley in the post. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Like, you know? She's a little busy, she might not get back to you, but some of the other people that you're going to tag in it, like this might've been their first time speaking, or this might've been their fifth time speaking, and they're still growing their network, and they're still looking for connections and validation from the people attending their sessions. And they might be really excited that you tagged them in it and that might strike up a conversation that leads to a long-term connection with somebody newly added to your network. 

Matt: Yeah, more importantly, that's just a staple of audience growth though too, is again, if you were gonna make a post on whatever channel of choice, let's say it's LinkedIn, and you're gonna talk about one of these concepts that you learned about in a session, and you're gonna add your commentary and do your thing, and… 

Of course you wanna add whoever the speaker was, and of course you wanna add a few other people that might have been involved, because to your point, you never know when one of them will actually respond and or repost it, and that's one of the best ways to grow your audience and grow your follower counts too. From credible non-bot human beings that you can then also hopefully get them over to an owned channel like your newsletter or something like that. 

Lauren: Yep, absolutely. 

Matt: Yeah. Networking alone is probably one of the other main benefits of an in-person conference, right? 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Even for an introvert like me, potentially you, there's networking that happens where I may have come away from an event where maybe I didn't come away with notes that led to anything actionable in such a way where it moved the needle incrementally for revenue. But I may have came away with an introduction to somebody or somebody I met where six months later we were able to work together on something that did turn into something revenue producing. 

Lauren: Yep.

Matt: Or, you know, an acquisition or something like that. Like you just never know, so again remaining open to not only the information you're taking in in those sessions, but also the people that you might meet and come across at these events is… is almost invaluable.

Lauren: I watched this play out firsthand this year. Where we went to a conference in January that was a podcast conference that Lou Mongello was one of the speakers at it. And then, you know, we spoke with him very briefly there. And then a few months later, he was actually at CEX, which is our conference and, you know, reconnected with him there and talked to him there. And then a few months after that, Matt wound up being a speaker at his conference.

Matt: Yes.

Lauren: People that literally only interacted with each other like by way of crossing paths at conferences several times and went from not knowing each other to attending and speaking at respective conferences. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: So yeah, absolutely. All right. 

[40:50]

Matt: Let's summarize real quick. 

Lauren: All right. Summarize, or…?

Matt: Let's summarize and wrap it up for everybody. 

Lauren: All right. Well, you summarize. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: Turn your Otter AI on and have it summarize for us.

Matt: I should have had that thing running this whole time. 

Lauren: By the way, this episode is not sponsored by Otter AI. 

Matt: No. And we are recording this episode using Ecamm. 

Lauren: Yes, we are. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Which is also not a sponsor. 

Matt: No, but we love Ecamm. 

Lauren: We do. 

Matt: Yeah. They're a sponsor of CEX. 

Lauren: That's true. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: But they're not sponsoring this episode. We paid for this subscription. 

Matt: That's true. We happily paid for this subscription. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: By the way, Katie from Ecamm, I met at Momentum, Lou Mongello's event, where I spoke after meeting Lou at Podfest -

Lauren: Yep.

Matt: - and CEX. 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: Yeah, see? 

Lauren: See? It all, it all goes together. 

Matt: Six degrees of Kevin Bacon or separation or whatever you call it. There you go. 

Lauren: Both of them.

Matt: Yeah. All right. Getting ROI out of your in-person events again, just to wrap it up. Take good notes. That's the whole point you're there is to get information, to bank some new knowledge, to come away with some, some actionable takeaways to help you grow your business, help further position you as a thought leader, some of those things. What we talked about was, you know, not everybody's a great note taker or sometimes you're doing this whole pre-filter thing where you're not taking in everything because you're only taking notes on what you think will help you or what you could use. 

Using tools like Otter AI or Ecamm or some of these other tools where they can take the notes for you and then go a step further afterwards and potentially not only summarize those notes but help you pull out the highlights and the most actionable takeaways. So… really important to make sure that you're set up for success with your note taking out of the gate, or you have a friend that's with you or a coworker that's really good at taking notes doesn't really matter, but you got to have those for the rest of this to even work. 

Secondarily, again, taking those notes and turning those into actionable takeaways, pulling those out a couple of like, low hanging fruit. I can do some of these things now and really test the return on them. And then maybe some long-term things too that you can put in place that you'll be able to see the benefits from six months down the road, twelve months down the road, year and a half down the road.

And then lastly, taking those notes and some of those actionable takeaways that you've tried to put in place and work around and creating social media content from that. Again to help further you as an expert, as a thought leader, really just to share kind of your experiences with your audience and really hope that they - they're able to, to see the value in that and see you as a thought leader and help you continue growing that audience. Right?

Lauren: That was an incredibly impressive summary. I can't believe you remembered everything that we just talked about for the last hour. 

Matt: Because I wasn't busy taking notes.

Lauren: Wow. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Schooled. Okay. 

Matt: Now, if you asked me what I had for lunch, I couldn't tell you. 

Lauren: That's fair. 

Matt: Yeah. I mean. 

Lauren: That's fair. I couldn't either. 

Matt: Anything you want to add to that? 

Lauren: No, actually, although I do really like this example that we just provided of, you know, when in doubt, buddy up at conferences and have one person be the note taker and one person be the…

Matt: It’s like the designated driver, right? 

Lauren: …the processor. Yes. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: But which one of us is the designated driver in this scenario, the note taker or the person that's not taking notes and paying attention? 

Matt: The note taker.

Lauren: I think you're right. 

Matt: That's the point. 

Lauren: The more responsible one. 

Matt: That's right. Yeah. I mean, that's the best friend to have is somebody who takes good notes. 

Lauren: That's true. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: That's true. And then you can always just borrow mine, but you can't copy off me for the exam. I'm not that kind of nerd. 

Matt: Shameless plug - CEX. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Content Entrepreneur Expo is our event. It's an amazing event. New dates are set August 24th through the 26th of 2025. 

Lauren: I'm so excited. 

Matt: Lauren's favorite Ann Handley was this year at CEX. Hopefully we'll see her in 2025 there, as well as Andrew Davis and lots of other greats. So if any of this episode resonates with you and you would like to learn some really cool stuff and you're ready to try your note-taking skills, hopefully we'll see you in August. 

Lauren: Yeah, and until then, I mean, I think by the time this episode comes out, it'll probably be too late for anyone to join us at Author Nation, but, you know, we've already got some 2025 conferences lined up. I'm sure there will be more that we hear about, learn about, people get excited about. So if you have any conferences that you're attending in 2025 that you think we should know about, that you think are going to be really cool, that are excited about, let us know. We always love learning about new events. 

Matt: Don't send over like Taylor Fest 2025 or something like that, or When We Were Elder Emos 2025. 

Lauren: Sorry, next year is Warped Tour returning, don't you know? 

Matt: Oh my god. 

Lauren: There's going to be one in Orlando and it took a lot of self-restraint to not buy a ticket. Disney and Warped Tour at the same time, like I would have simply keeled over dead. 

Matt: I don't even like the fact that you just put those two in the same breath of air. 

Lauren: I have nothing to say to that. 

Matt: You should get your annual pass holder revoked. 

Lauren: I haven't bought it yet. 

Matt: So you should not get one because of that. 

Lauren: Well, that's just not going to happen, sorry. 

Matt: Lou, pull some strings, buddy. 

Lauren: Get me blacklisted?

Matt: That's right. Lauren Vassallo, no annual pass holder status. Talk to your people.

Lauren: I'd - I - literally would rather you fire me. 

Matt: I'm just kidding. Lou doesn't even listen to this podcast. 

Lauren: I know, but genuinely I would rather you fire me than get me blacklisted from Disney, so. 

Matt: Yeah, same. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: All right. 

Lauren: All right. So no threats. 

Matt: No. 

Lauren: We're just going to move on. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Thanks for listening, everyone. As always, you can find us on Lulu's social. You can email us at podcast@lulu.com. Ask questions. Let us know what you thought about whatever just happened in this episode. I don't know. Let us know what conferences you're attending too. And if you do hear this right before you're heading to Author Nation, make sure that you stop by the Lulu booth and say hi, because we would love to see you. 

Matt: And you know we'll have all the best swag. 

Lauren: And friendship bracelets. 

Matt: And that. 

Lauren: All right. Thanks for listening, everyone. 

Matt: Later.