Do you attend several trade conferences each year but feel you are not getting your money's worth? These tips will help you to advance your goals, create new opportunities, gain more knowledge and walk away with more contacts.

Plan to be successful.

Being successful at trade conferences starts with choosing the right conferences to attend. Choose conferences that fit into your larger company goals or plans. For example, if your company has a marketing plan, perhaps you can advance that plan by attending a particular conference. You may be able to see key attendees capable of helping you make strides on your plan. Expert speakers at the conference may be able shed some light on particular marketing issues you are facing. You may be able to meet key people with whom your firm can transact business. Other potential areas where conferences can pay off include operations, financing, personnel, and of course, personal development.

Set goals for attending.

Before you attend a conference, focus on what you want to accomplish. Write down your goals and objectives. Be very specific. For example, you may decide that a particular conference will attract lots of dealers and distributors for products like yours. If you want to meet two or three good distributors capable of distributing your company's product in a particular region, you might set that as a goal in attending. Another goal might be to learn how competitors use certain distribution channels to move their product more effectively. By attending certain workshops and/or pursuing the topic with people that you meet or see at the conference, you may be able to gather this information.

In sizing up a conference, try to envision all the ways that the conference can deliver on various goals and objectives that your company might have. Proceed from writing down these goals to setting specific objectives. Then develop a conference strategy to achieve these objectives.

Develop a conference action plan.

An effective plan starts with reading the conference agenda carefully. Pick sessions to attend that will advance your goals and objectives. If an advance list of attendees is available, identify the people that you want to see. For key people, call them before the conference and schedule a specific time and place to meet. If there are people that you want to be introduced to, perhaps you can identify an attending colleague to make the introduction.

Another strategy that works well for some is to organize a social gathering. A dinner, an entertainment event or a mixer in one of the hotel's suites can be ideal for this purpose. The idea is to invite a select group with common interests capable of creating opportunities for your firm and with one another.

For each day of the conference, create a preliminary plan of things to accomplish, people to see and sessions to attend. The best time to review your daily plan is usually the night before. At that time you can review the present day's accomplishments and make any adjustments for the upcoming day.

Now that you have developed specific goals and plans for your next conference, you are in the best position to realize success. You know what you want to accomplish and you have an excellent plan for reaching your goals. You may not realize it, but by doing this preliminary work you may have created far greater value for you company than the money that will be spent on the conference. You have set the stage for advancing the company's goals, creating new and exciting opportunities and gaining new knowledge and business contacts.