Business Advancement Conference

This past Saturday I attended the Business Advancement Conference in Houston which was planned and coordinated by Kiersten Kindred of Kindred Communications. Kiersten did a fabulous job! For a really great price I had a head shot taken, enjoyed a continental breakfast and box lunch and listened to eight speakers present on their topics of expertise. In addition attendees were able to sign up for a mini-session during lunch with one of several business experts.  The speakers' topics ranged from how to boost your profits to the power of e-mail marketing to public relations to SEO to how to build a website (and more!). I thought the most motivational speaker was Donna Wick of WICKed Publicity.  She spoke about being open and saying yes to business opportunities. I liked her presentation because she told stories about her personal experiences on the road to success and made it real for the audience.

I have planned several conferences since 2009 and so wanted to mention some observations. Registration was a quick process and the head shot area was set up right across from check-in so people could have that done right away. The room was set up comfortably; the tables had enough space to move between them. Breakfast was ready to serve as attendees arrived. I noticed as I read the agenda that no breaks were scheduled during the day. Actually, this is the first conference I've attended that didn't have breaks scheduled. I remember thinking,"I wonder how this is going to work?" I was pleasantly surprised because as far as I could tell, it worked great! When people had to leave the room, they quietly got up and left.  I'd like to try this sometime. I've always felt that it takes too much time to get people back in the room and settled after a break. A 15 minute break can easily stretch to 25 minutes! I also noticed that Kiersten and her team kept a close eye on the time schedule.  Speakers ended on time! The entire conference seemed to run seamlessly. I'm glad I went. It was a great experience and I came home with information I can use!