By Adam Turteltaub

You’re all signed up for the Compliance & Ethics Institute or another SCCE or HCCA conference. Now, how do you make the most out of your time there?

Kristy Grant-Hart CEO of Spark Compliance Consulting and a former compliance officer, herself, shares in this podcast several excellent tips for making your conference time truly valuable.

Her recommendations:

Plan out which sessions you want to attend before you arrive. It makes for a much more strategic and less stressful approach than picking sessions hurriedly at the breaks.

Pick the sessions based on both the topic and the speakers you want to listen to and meet.

Map out time to do work and answer email. It’s a lot easier to sit and listen to a session when you have a defined times to work and a defined time to be fully present at the conference.

Start your networking before you go. Announce on LinkedIn that you’ll be there and try to connect with others who will be attending.

Take advantage of vendor receptions and dinners to meet more people.

When you connect onsite, also connect on LinkedIn right then and there.

If you promise you’ll send someone a follow up email, do it that night before you forget.

Don’t be afraid to approach people you don’t know. They’re probably there to meet new people, too.

Put your follow-ups for once you’re back in the office into a list that you can easily find.

Listen in to hear more great ideas for getting the most out of your time at the conference.