Original subtitles

So first of all which type of events are we talking about.

By and large the events can be divided into professional and non-professional events professional events

can also be subdivided.

We'll do that later on.

For now we'll just take it in general and we'll start with professional events and we'll talk a bit

more about how to deal with professional events and what to do with them.

First of all the biggest mistake I see when people attend professional events and look to professional

events to attend is that they try to find things in their own industry.

And this comes natural.

I'm a freelance translator and so if I look for an event I might want to find an event with other translators.

If you're a graphic designer maybe you are trying to find an event with other designers your photographer

you try to find an event with other photographers et cetera et cetera.

And this is very normal.

However I have found at least my experience too for this to be quite a big mistake because the only

other people you're gonna find at these events are other people who are exactly in your shoes.

And while it can be beneficial to talk to other people in your shoes and to kind of share stories which

means I'm not saying necessary to neglect these but it's very unlikely that you can find actual work

actual jobs and actual gigs or whatever might be from these events because you know the people you're

dealing with are like I said in your same shoes and if they come across anything like this chances are

they want to take it for themselves you know.

So at least in my experience finding events in your own industry you can do it but it's a secondary

thing because you'll run into other people who are just like you.

And quite frankly you'll run into other people who are looking for jobs because if they have jobs if

they're in your industry but they already have clients and have jobs and have things that are going

on they most likely are busy working and they're not attending these events.

The main thing to do the best thing to do I find is to find events in your vertical I say your vertical.

This could be your specialization or in other words your clients industry.

So once again if you're a graphic designer but you do a lot of graphic design for people in the I don't

know the music business then you should be attending events that are in the music business that these

music people go to.

If you do a lot of Web sites for real estate companies then you need to be attending realtor events

and real estate events whatever real estate agents and brokers and whatnot whatever they go to that's

what you should be attending.

For example I do translations but I deal mainly with legal and financial translations so I tend to attend

mainly legal or financial events and this means you know legal events law firm events banking events

financial institutions economics events et cetera et cetera.

So try to find events in your vertical find events that your potential clients your current clients

or your potential clients your ideal clients find to attend events that they are attending because this

way you're more likely to find clients and let's face it even if you attend an event of lawyers and

you're the only non lawyer there which has happened to me it's a great way to kind of stand out and

you know people are that much more likely to remember you just because you're not out of the same industry

but you serve that industry.

Another thing that I find beneficial is to find the highest level events that you can find that are

free or that you can afford.

A lot of these events are either free or maybe they don't cost too much at the especially at the beginning

it's not worth it to pay a whole lot of money for any one event because you really don't know what to

expect from the event.

So making a big investment for an event when you're not sure what will come out of it can be a bit iffy

and a bit risky at the beginning.

But what I mean by highest level of events is basically well this can depend on your industry and how

you see it exactly but in essence it's the most professional type of event that there is.

For example if you're comparing say a meet up that's very informal and you know meeting up over drinks

or something that's organized by the Chamber of Commerce that you know is sponsored by some heads of

industry.

Then the one by the Chamber of Commerce sponsored by the head of industry is going to be a higher level

in general than the other ones.

And the reason I do this is the reason I say this I should say is because in general the higher level

of events will have more potential for deals for higher level deals for better deals et cetera et cetera.

On the other hand I can see how it will be more comfortable to go to informal meet ups.

So once again you don't have to neglect the informal ones but try to aim for the higher level and the

higher the better.

And this can be well they're all different types of associations and organizations and we'll talk about

them a bit more later on.

But for now if you see various types of events going on use your judgment because this is very much

a judgment call and try to figure out which one will be a sort of higher level event.

And that's probably the one you should be shooting for also remember that if there is an event that

interests you and say it's run by the Chamber of Commerce very often you don't necessarily need to be

a member of the Chamber of Commerce to attend that event because many times membership for a lot of

these organizations and associations is quite expensive especially if you have to pay a couple hundred

bucks and you end up just going to one or two events.

So very often you can attend these events even if you're not a member.

They might have a bit of a different price.

You know maybe it's like I don't know 30 dollars for a member and 40 dollars for a non-member but if

that's just a ten dollar difference and it's a lot more worth it to attend the event without getting

membership at least for the first couple of times and if you get a feel for it and you think it's worth

it then you can get the membership but just remember that it's not necessarily something you have to

do at the beginning just to attend an event.