Next week marks my 15th year at the national AAM Conference. I will share some tips with you that might help you maximize your experience:

1. Have a well-formed outcome that is reasonable.  I would suggest that you decide up front that you will identify 1 or 2 goals/objectives (no more – eve though you will be excited to take on more after all the sessions you will attend) that you would like to bring home and apply to your firm.  If you are not sure what those main initiatives might be (or should be) that’s OK.  That will be your goal – to figure out the TOP 1 or 2 things that you need to focus on and bring to fruition at your firm.

2. Get yourself a butt-kicking buddy.  During the conference, look out for someone who matches your skill level/experience around accounting marketing – someone you would enjoy developing an open, honest, non-competitive relationship with.  Approach them with a clear proposition:  How about we schedule bi-monthly teleconferences so that we can hold ourselves accountable to each other to work toward specific goals that we help each other set?  This person can be in a different market, time zone than you and can be older or younger;  your skill set can reflect different areas of strength so you can educate each other on certain endeavors – a buddy system works – I have found friends for like using this approach.

3. Skip a session and go have FUN!  Shhhh…don’t say I told you to – but they are long conference days out there –so don’t work TOO hard.  100 degrees in Vegas so I’m not sure about a sight-seeing tour on foot during the afternoon but you can find me at the pool on Tuesday afternoon as I have promised myself 90 minutes poolside to relax (my favorite place to be!)

Have a great conference everyone – if you see me, make sure to say “Hi”