Three names

Early in my career I went to a conference and came back with nothing.

Not "a few maybes." Zero. The company paid for the flight, the hotel, the ticket, and three days of my time, and I brought back no leads and no relationships worth the name.

I'd walked the floor. I'd found the sponsors, the companies putting real money in, and I'd stopped at every booth. What I brought to each of those conversations was a pitch. I was junior, I had some confidence, and I believed that showing up and explaining what we did would be enough.

Nobody had a reason to engage with me, because I hadn't given them one.

It still bothers me, and I think that's why the rest of this exists. Business is investing. Time, money, people. You put those in and you're supposed to get something back, and I'd put in all three and gotten nothing.

Run the numbers once and the discipline writes itself.

Flight, call it a thousand. Hotel, another thousand. A booth runs five to ten thousand at the low end. Send three to five people and you're into the tens of thousands before anyone has said a word to a customer.

So what has to come back? I want three to five times the spend, and four inputs tell you what that means for you.

A $100,000 contract at a 50% margin is $50,000 of contribution. That's five times a $10,000 trip, so one customer covers it.

But one customer isn't one conversation. At a 20% conversion rate, closing one takes five qualified conversations. Not five business cards. Five people with a real problem, a budget, and a reason to talk to you again.

Five, over three days, alongside everything else going on. That's a much harder target than "go to the conference," and it's the actual job.

So before I book anything, I answer one question. What has to happen for this trip to have been worth it?

The answer is always three names. Three specific human beings I intend to be in front of. If I get one, it likely paid for itself. If I get all three, it was a great week. If I can't name them before I fly, I'm not going to a conference. I'm going on a trip.

Two filters decide who makes the list. Can I deliver them something real, meaning something I know because of where I've sat rather than something I'm selling. And can they deliver something real back. Plenty of good people pass the first and fail the second, and a travel budget isn't for them.

I also know who I walk away from. Anyone two or three layers removed from the decision, unless they can walk me up the ladder. And anyone who's checked out of their own company or on their way out the door. That's a pleasant conversation that can quietly cost you, because a detractor carrying your story is worse than no conversation at all.

The name on the org chart usually isn't the decision.

A CEO agrees with you in a hallway and nothing happens, because the person who actually decides sits a level down. There's almost always a lieutenant, the operator the executive trusts and doesn't overrule.

So before I go, I work out who that is. I'll message people who used to work there. I'll talk to their salespeople, because salespeople talk, and the person bringing in the most revenue always knows who has the executive's ear.

That's an hour of work, and it changes who I spend three days trying to meet.

Later in my career I showed up at IFT, a food technology conference, knowing nobody and having no idea who mattered.

I did the same thing that had failed me years earlier. I opened the program, found the sponsors, and walked every booth. The difference was what I carried in. Instead of a pitch I had one question: who are you hoping to see this week, and why?

By the end of day one I had a map of the room drawn by people with money at stake.

Same floor, same booths. The posture is what changed.

When I meet one of my three, I ask for a selfie. We smile, I send it, and now I have their number and they have a face attached to mine.

That works for me, and I'll be honest that it works partly because of who I am in a room. I've had reps on my team decline to try it, and they were right to. A move that requires confidence you don't have yet reads as awkward rather than warm.

The part that isn't optional is getting into their phone. Tap phones and swap contacts if that's easier. Then send the text that night:

Put one non-business thing in there. Restaurants, training, dogs, whatever actually came up. You need a reason to reach out that isn't a transaction, and without one you have a lead rather than a relationship.

Sometimes you land the meeting and know inside ten minutes that there's nothing here.

End it. Say the honest version: there may not be a fit right now, and you'd like to stay in touch anyway. That's where the personal thread earns its keep, because "let's swap restaurant recommendations next time you're traveling" is a real relationship and a fake business conversation is not.

Protecting the slot is the whole point of picking three names.

For the last ten years my wife has known what September and October look like. Every other week I'm gone, and the season stacks up right before the holidays.

Conferences are expensive in money and they're expensive in body. Sleep, food, energy, and the time you're not home. I plan for that now the way I plan the target list, because showing up depleted means you're physically present at a five-figure event and functionally not there.

None of this matters without the follow-up, and then the follow-through on whatever you actually said you'd do.

I've watched good conversations die because nobody sent the email on Monday. The conversation isn't the value. The value is what shows up in their inbox two weeks later.

If you have an event or a week of travel coming up, write down the three names now.

Then spend one hour on each finding out who the real decision-maker behind them is.

What's one advantage you could compound from here?

Hit reply and tell me. I read everything, and what you send shapes what I write next.

— Austin

Austin Stevenson is Chief Revenue Officer at ACT LAB and a co-founder of Vertosa. He writes Compound Advantage on his own time.