Make Your Next Conference Your Most Successful

In today’s environment, it’s hard to make a business work without an international presence. Attending conferences or having booths at them is no longer a perk or indulgence. It’s a standard part of what you need to do to get the attention you need to close more sales.

People respond best to what they see up close and personal. That’s why conferences want you to attend to meet the companies that are displaying, and why you want to be sure to benefit from the wave of attention a conference might gain when it opens.

But whether you are coming to see the displays or to be one of them, it’s important to remember that conferences take significant planning. Even just attending a conference requires making arrangements well in advance or risk high prices and little choice. When it comes to flights, hotel rooms, and meeting spaces, there is no reason to wait until the last minute.

Creating a booth at a conference clearly involves a great deal more effort. For many companies, staff are engaged in building their display sets all year round. They might show at a half dozen conference over a year and need to be ready for many conditions.

The Following tips could help reduce some of the costs, allowing your company to get a better return on the investment it made in regard to the conference.

1. Look for a group rate.

The more you buy, the less you pay per unit. That’s the general rule of thumb when it comes to buying at a bulk rate.

If you begin planning early enough, you can gain leverage in negotiations by grouping your spending into a bigger package. Then you can use that additional bulk to get a better price. Early planning means that the options are as wide as possible and the vendor is most eager to make the sales. The early going is when the best deals are made, and having a group big enough for a bulk rate will get you the lowest price possible.

Of course, groups are not limited to a single company. A collection of companies from a particular region may band together for a better price on flights or accommodations.

2. Prepare marketing materials.

You want to make sure your company gets all of the attention it can throughout the conference and beyond. You also want people to understand what your company is all about and how it can help them achieve their goals. All of that starts with good marketing materials you can hand out to people.

While it is not always necessary to spend a great deal of money on marketing collateral, it certainly would be an investment that could be worth many times what you put if you do it right. You want to leave an impression that people come back to again and again. The impression you can make in person. Marketing materials help them relive the experience.

Make sure your materials all come with a call to action. If your marketing approach is effective enough, your potential clients and customers will feel they have little choice but to use your product or service.

3. Monitor your expenses closely.

When traveling abroad, it’s easy to lose track of how much you are actually spending. There are often unexpected hitches that require unplanned spending, and exchange rates between different currencies could cloud how aware you are of actual costs.

Using an app that tracks expenses by letting you scan all of your receipts right away lets you see reports of the money you are spending in real time. That can help you make important decisions without worrying that you are either overspending or under-spending to the point of making a poor impression. Knowing how you are doing relative to your budget allows you to spend exactly what you intend to spend.

In addition, it makes it easy to file for a return of VAT\GST you pay that is eligible to be returned. VAT\GST returns require documentary evidence of the expenses, and keeping track of all the receipts and payments can be a challenge abroad. A system that keeps track of that for you can help you balance your spending and allow you to get the return that rightfully belongs to you.

Make sure your company gets all of the VAT\GST returns it deserves. For the complete story on recovering VAT\GST in EU countries, download our eBook.

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