Conferences and mixers · 3 min read
Working a room with a code
How to swap details with forty people in an evening without running out of cards or typing anything.
The exchange
The usual failure is symmetrical: you hand over a card, they hand over a card, and neither of you enters the other into a phone. Two weeks later you both have a stack of cardboard and no contacts.
A code fixes your half of that. It does not fix theirs, and you should plan for that rather than hope.
How to run it
- 1Put your card on your phone's lock screen as a wallpaper with the code on it. You will always have it, and it survives a dead room with no signal — a code is just an image.
- 2When you meet someone, open your card and hand them your phone to scan. Handing someone your phone is a small act of trust and it lands.
- 3Immediately ask for their number and text them something — one line, with your name. Now they have you in their messages, which is where people actually look.
- 4Do not ask them to scan and then walk away expecting a follow-up. You have made yourself savable; you have not made them a lead.
Before the event
- Add a note block
- Name the event. "At AZ REALTORS® Convention — say hello." It gives a stranger a reason to place you when they open it later.
- Move your booking link up
- Conference conversations that end in a calendar entry are the only ones that survive the drive home.
- Take the note off afterwards
- The same rule as open houses. Nobody will tell you it is still there in March.
Make a card, free
Your details, your colours, your own link and a code you can print. Change it any time and every code you have already handed out shows the new version.
Start mine