Miguel Sanchez 0:05

Welcome to the First Gen 101 Podcast. Today, we have a fantastic episode focused on making the most of professional conferences, and I am excited to welcome Gary Denning. Gary, welcome

Gary Denning 0:21

Thank you, Miguel. Great to be here.

Miguel Sanchez 0:23

For many students and young professionals, attending a conference can be a new and sometimes unfamiliar experience. It's not always something we learn about in college or from friends, yet conferences can play an important role in building your network, developing professionally, and opening doors to new opportunities. And for many of you who have been following the podcast, you'll know that the First Gen 101 podcast birthed out of a conference I attended and the idea developed. But more on that later. today, Gary will share his experiences and practical advice on how to prepare for a conference, make meaningful connections, and get the most out of the experience. before we begin, Gary, tell us about yourself and your career journey.

Gary Denning 1:16

Thank you. It's been about 35 years since I left Duke University. Maybe a little longer than that, but I'll pretend it was only 35 years. In that time I've had probably eight different employers. I've probably had 15 different job titles, you know, within those organizations. And also been on eight different boards of directors, three of them public... Sorry, three of them being nonprofits and the other five being private companies. But one of the themes throughout my career has been to make the most of each experience along the way. And conferences have been part of that as well. But I'll just tell you about my career journey first, and then we'll get more specific into the conferences.

Miguel Sanchez 1:55

Sure. Absolutely.

Gary Denning 1:55

When I went to Duke, I was pre-med- as were many of our peers that went there. But it turned out after about two years that I've realized I didn't have the focus or the dedication to the subject matter that my peers had, even though I was pretty bright and I'd done lots of science classes, et cetera, up to that point. It wasn't just, it wasn't playing to my strengths. And it didn't completely draw me in enough. I, when I stopped doing pre-med stuff, I thought, "What a waste. I will never use those two years of- chemistry and biology classes." 'Cause I was switching over to do more business-oriented things and political science and other subjects that were completely different, so I thought, "This is a total waste." And then five years later, I found myself working as a financial analyst at Chase Manhattan Bank. And one of my first cubicles was outside the office of a guy named Dr. Paul Beckwith, who had a PhD in chemistry from Oxford, and he called on all the billion-dollar chemical companies around the world. And as it turned out, most of the other junior people there were accounting or finance majors, so they had no interest in working with him. They wanted to work on the sexy internet or high-tech deals, that sort of thing. And if I had been great at chemistry, I probably still would've kept going with pre-med. I was okay with it, but I wasn't great. But I was willing to roll up my sleeves, and I really enjoyed the business aspect of it. Don't put me in a laboratory. I've been around the chemical industry for 35 years now. Don't put me in a laboratory. I'm not that useful there. But I can figure out how to make money producing chemicals, understanding the cost of raw materials, the, the various inputs of the energy prices and that sort of thing. So I had just, I had a different strength that didn't come out initially in the pre-med program. So lo and behold, I've now spent most of my career around the chemical industry. I've been a senior executive in two different billion-dollar organizations, and I've been on the board of directors of five different private chemical companies and as well as a few charities. Beyond the banking experience I've had an amazing career, as going into the industry, so to speak, being actually on the inside. And so that was unexpected. When I dropped out of pre-med, I never thought that would happen. So that's the first one. The second example I would give Is when my daughters were young I took time out from my M&A work for a handful of years to teach in the elementary school where they were attending. And I never would've guessed, but it turned out my experience teaching in elementary school made me, later on, a much more effective corporate executive.

Miguel Sanchez 4:26

Wow, okay. Okay.

Gary Denning 4:26

Because I meet the new CEO, and I'm quickly able to assess, oh, he's a visual learner. Ah. So I wanna communicate information to him about the due diligence we're doing on a project. I gotta get up to the whiteboard, and I gotta draw pictures and connect boxes, and that sort of thing. I gotta make it interesting to him visually. There was another executive who was much more of an auditory learner, so I've gotta tell him stories. I gotta create a, an auditory image that, that draws his attention. And then there was another one my general counsel was very much a kinesthetic learner. So just sitting in an office with him, he wasn't that excited about what I was sharing. But if I said to him- "Hey, let's go to lunch," and then after lunch I said, "Hey, let's go for a walk around campus," and we walked around for half an hour, I could convey more information, and he would absorb it much more effectively than if we just sat in his office. So who knew having been an elementary school teacher would much, make me a much better corporate executive? So these are the sort of things, the twists and turns that happened in my career that I would just convey to the younger people, that you don't know what things you're gonna learn that will turn out to really make the difference. So ab- just absorb as much as you can. Take it all with enthusiasm, go after everything, and it'll make a difference in the long run, but we won't know when and, it'll pop up, but it will.

Miguel Sanchez 5:47

a couple things that I wanna just elaborate, because the, the general theme of the podcast is, young people or college students have to make, for the most part, life-changing decisions with their major. Like i- in your case you were thinking pre-med or chemistry at such a young age, but then you might go into the field, like you did in a way, and realize that the actual chemistry, the science of it was not necessarily something that drew you, but the business aspect. there are many college students who find that the major they chose or the passion they had is not what they thought it would turn out to be. But yet you can find an aspect of it that can really put you in the same place. So I thought that was a great insight. Another insight that I'll, that I just wanna point out before we dive into the topic- Use your experiences just like you did with your, teaching experience as a way to make connections and really put them all together. Sometimes I feel when I talk to, to college students is they have this belief that everything has to be linear. But I think you demonstrate that you can go in different paths- Yeah and really use everything together. So that was a great start to this episode.

Gary Denning 7:02

No, I agree with your point right there. Very few things turn out to be as linear as you imagine them to be, right? And the vast majority of my friends from Duke, the people that I graduated with, they were all amazing students. They were brilliant or they wouldn't have gotten in there to begin with. I was impressed by so many of my peers, and yet when I look back now, decades later, most of them are not doing anything remotely related to what their major was at Duke.

Miguel Sanchez 7:27

I think 27% of, I looked at this statistic not too long ago, about 27% of people who go with a specific major actually work directly in that major. So I think you, you've noticed that with your peers.

Gary Denning 7:42

Yes, absolutely.

Miguel Sanchez 7:44

Let's start with the basics.

Gary Denning 7:46

Yes.

Miguel Sanchez 7:46

What is a professional conference? How would you describe that? And why would anyone attend one?

Gary Denning 7:53

So I've been to a lot of business conferences- Yeah so I'm, that's my primary frame of reference, but the reality is, no matter what you do for a living, there are gonna be conferences that come up multiple times a year where you get a chance to get tremendous exposure. So in the business world, there's a wide range of conferences, the attending of which will advance your career tremendously. What makes them valuable? They give you a concentrated exposure to the latest developments and learnings in your industry. In a few days offsite, you can learn a few months' worth of info- information. It's definitely worth the time and effort to go. Sometimes there's a cost to get to them, but- a lot of times your employer will sponsor you to go to conferences. It's well worth it because you're learning so much more in that period of time than you could have otherwise. They're also obviously great for networking. So within whatever company you work for or whatever city you're in, you'll be meeting people constantly trying to learn and grow in your career. But if you go to a conference that's specifically targeted at your industry, there's gonna be sometimes 1,000 people, sometimes 10,000 people there who are potential, some of them will be your peers, some of them will be higher rank than yourself, but they're all useful to have conversations with. You become much more familiar with what the career paths are within your industry. You'll be much more familiar with what enabled certain people to be more effective in their careers. I've taken every chance I can to go to conferences for those reasons.

Miguel Sanchez 9:20

Do you remember the first conference you attended?

Gary Denning 9:24

I can think of one of the first, and this would be, this is the strangest aside, but I'll give you the story anyway- Sure, please just 'cause it's a curious story. So-

Miguel Sanchez 9:32

Of course

Gary Denning 9:32

most of my career has been focused on chemicals, building products, and plastic packaging, so all related to chemistry. But at one point I was helping out a senior banker on a, a wireless transaction, and so he sent me to the wireless industry conference out in Seattle. And I really didn't have any knowledge. I wa- it wasn't useful for me to be there really. I was just a beginner trying to get the basics, much as like you're trying to tell some of your listeners, that you just go out and give it a shot. You don't know what you're gonna learn, you don't know what you're gonna be exposed to, but meet as many people as you can, have lots of conversations, and even if you only absorb 5 to 10% of it, it'll prove to be useful later on. So I went and I spent a couple days there, and honestly, I was mentally exhausted 'cause I was- it was so much effort to try to absorb all these concepts that were well beyond any of my understanding of the industry. So after a couple days somebody told me that there was an opportunity if you wanted to go hiking nearby. So I took the third day off, went hiking, and while I was up hiking on this mountain I ran into a couple people from the conference who were also kinda playing hooky. Okay. And we ended up having a much more in-depth conversation than I would have had I stayed at the conference for a third day in sort of my exhausted state. Instead, I was refreshed, I was enjoying myself, and I made connections with people that I ended up staying in touch with for the next couple years. So you never know exactly how things are gonna twist and turn, but that turned out to be a great outcome.

Miguel Sanchez 10:59

what has been your favorite city for a conf- for a conference that you've attended?

Gary Denning 11:05

for the first 20 years or so that I was a young professional, I almost never got away from the conference itself. I was trapped. They'd be in a giant event hall. There's thousands of people there, and I'd be there from 8:00 AM until 6:00 PM just nonstop, and didn't take the time to get... explore the city, didn't really take the time to get to know people outside of that room very often. As I've gotten older, I've come to appreciate that if I overwhelm myself as a-- I'm a bit of an introvert, so if I overwhelm myself with too many people, too much activity, I'll be exhausted by the second day. So it's good to get out and do other things. So now when I'm going to another city, so like Chicago is one of my favorites, New York is another favorite I'll go out of my way to call my friends in those cities in advance to set up to go out to dinner with them or to have something en- enjoyable or pleasant that I do with after the conference, so I can recharge myself. Most recently, I was in Chicago for an event and it was a conference that it was in a sector that I didn't know much about. But I was trying to make new clients, and I had friends in Chicago as well. So as it happened, in the three d- three evenings that I was there, I had dinner with three different groups of people. In each case, it was one friend maybe a friend from my banking career, a friend from s- school, a friend el- from elsewhere, and one potential new client. So unexpected, but it was a way that the new potential client got to know me in a different manner 'cause they saw one of my friends or peers, saw how I interacted with them, saw how I brought them together and so it helped open the doors a little bit faster and a little more effectively.

Miguel Sanchez 12:46

for someone who's going to a conference for the first time, what should that person do to make the most out of it? How should they prepare? What are some things to keep in mind?

Gary Denning 12:59

And this is another g- one where I can provide contrasting examples.

Miguel Sanchez 13:01

Please.

Gary Denning 13:02

Most of the time, I'm very good about preparing for a conference. What do I do? I go out of my way to figure out who's organizing that conference, and I reach out to them in advance and I say, "I'd like to have a list of the attendees."

Miguel Sanchez 13:14

Okay.

Gary Denning 13:15

Sometimes conferences keep that information guarded 'cause they don't want other people to be able to access who their customers and clients are. And sometimes they're more open to it. But if you don't ask for it, you usually don't get it. Yeah. So I go out of my way to ask for it, and I give them comfortable reasons why, and I assure them I'm not gonna misuse it in some way. I'm not gonna do a blast advertising thing to all these people. I'm not gonna misuse people's email addresses or whatever. But I just wanna know the names and titles so that I can look these people up on LinkedIn. The conference might be three days, eight hours a day, so you're thinking 24 hours. But I might spend a week in advance of that conference preparing for the conference by researching who's gonna be there and what's their role and how can they be useful to me. What do I know that I can share with them- to show them how valuable I could be to them or their company? So I plot out several dozen conversations in advance.

Miguel Sanchez 14:09

And

Gary Denning 14:09

you don't end up necessarily meeting all those people at the conference 'cause it's hard in a giant room. And people are wearing a little name tag, and- unless you're up really close to them, you can't really see the name very effectively, whatever. But if you h- if you're armed well, and you're prepared for 20 conversations, you might end up with g- 10 really good ones, and you might have 10 other random people that you meet that turn out to be good conversations as well. So that, that kind of preparation time- Makes a world of difference because, it's hard to just spontaneously walk up to somebody you've never met before. You don't know much about them. You don't know much about their company. Instead, if you spend 20 mon- minutes pulling up their website and researching what their products are, who they sell those products to and you spend time s- also on their LinkedIn profile to understand, where did they go to college? Who do I know- that also went to college there? What cities did they grow up in? What, who I know from those areas. It gives you a lot more things to talk about that aren't necessarily as stilted as trying to force a business conversation with somebody you don't know that well.

Miguel Sanchez 15:11

this is, in some ways, how marketing is done. It's research. It's looking up people. I really like that piece about looking people up in LinkedIn because, and I've encountered this before, where you meet new people but you don't know what to say to them or how to interact with them. But having, if I understood correctly, having some preset conversations or themes to cover, it makes it easier to interact. Does that sound accurate?

Gary Denning 15:37

That's absolutely what I'm talking about, yes. Again, particularly if you're early in your career and you're not necessarily already an expert on things. Like right now, I can go into a chemical conference and almost no matter who I run into, I know something about their business, and I know something about their competitors, and so it's not that hard for me to engage just out of the blue. But when I was younger, I didn't have that wisdom to fall back on. So planning and plotting out exactly who do I wanna try to reach? What can I say to them? What do I wanna learn from them? Usually when I go to a conference, these days I do mergers and acquisitions, right? So I'm either gonna be selling a business or I'm trying to buy a business. So if I'm working with a client who's in one segment of specialty chemicals, and I know that there's seven other companies from that segment at the event, I can either mention things to them that I know about them to perform this- Client, or I can quiz them about things that will be useful for me to take back to my client in that segment. Either way, I'm trying to extract information and use my knowledge, but if I don't plan it ahead of time, it's a lot harder to actually- get as much value out of it.

Miguel Sanchez 16:42

And that i- in and of itself it's a lot of work. What-- So for people who are going to a conference for the first time, and I know you've been very-- y-you have all this experience and like you mentioned just now, how i- in your specific sector, you have more-- you've ha-had more exposure, and therefore- it's a little bit easier to have those conversations. But- for someone who's actually going for the first time, other than the research, what would be some simple goals? Go to a conference- meet two or three people. What are you-- what would you consider goals and when so that it doesn't seem very overwhelming for the first time- attendee?

Gary Denning 17:19

I mentioned a couple of the big conferences I go to these days, like the International Home Builder Show. So I've done a lot of things in the building product space. But I wouldn't consider myself the ultimate expert in that area. I just have perspective from prior transactions. But what I will do is when I go to the International Home Builder Shows, and I know there's 1,000 people there, and I've researched who some of the companies are. Simple objective, and this is from when I was much younger, I'd go in there saying, "Every day, I wanna get at least the business card from at least 30 people." So I'm gonna be there eight hours, so that means about four people an hour, I need to have a conversation deep enough that I can offer my business card. That's another simple thing If you wanna get contacts of more senior people, if you offer them your card, they don't wanna look rude. They don't wanna refuse to give you their card. They wanna say, "Oh, yes. Thank you, Gary. Here's my card." And so it just by reaching out, extending yourself, you're showing that I really wanna connect with you. Here's my information. Give me yours. And now you have the raw material for sending them a LinkedIn message later on. And even just looking at their card you might not have actually fully absorbed what their title was or what city they were based in or whatever. Now I'm a visual learner, so now that I have that in front of me, it's easier for me to just take 10 seconds, read it quickly, and that'll give me two or three more questions to ask them. So exchanging business cards is definitely a more older generation kinda thing. Younger people, more of it's electronic oriented, right? But still that physical exchange does open the door to extending the conversation a little further rather than them just walking away, right? So that's definitely something I always recommend, whether a young person or even at my stage of my career, I always do that.

Miguel Sanchez 19:02

I wanna s- I wanna bring back something you mentioned because I think it's important to also factoring personalities. And you mentioned, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, that you consider yourself an introvert.

Gary Denning 19:15

Absolutely.

Miguel Sanchez 19:15

And a lot of what you're describing, it's what I would imagine an extrovert to do, to be very what would be the word? Assertive. Yeah. But I think there's something even deeper and more important that I think should be highlighted, and that's the preparation.

Gary Denning 19:30

yeah, for me personally, I was very much an introvert growing up, and my mom forced me to go into public speaking competitions. And I hated it at the time, and I had horrible butterflies in my stomach. But after I'd done it a few times, it got to be normal, acceptable, and then I got to be very good at it, and that- that's helped me tremendously in my banking career, 'cause I've made lots of presentations to boards of directors and such, and I don't get worried anymore. But I was such an introvert as a kid. I would never... A teacher would ask me to read something in front of the class. No way. I couldn't do it. I was too nervous. I know that's true to who I am, but you force yourself to do it enough times, it becomes normal and acceptable. All right? You just gotta keep practicing.

Miguel Sanchez 20:11

I'm gonna share something with you, Gary, and our listeners have heard this story before, but I'll just share it with you quickly because just to drive on that point of understanding your weaknesses or your personalities or your your perspectives and really working on them to strengthen them. So my first language is Spanish. And so learning English was... It took me a little while to- to get it better and to be more comfortable. So one day I decided that the best way that I would conquer or overcome the sense of self-consciousness is to do stand-up comedy. So I did stand-up for about a year and a half, and I didn't care about the actual jokes or whatever was said. I just wanted to be in a room where people would stare at me, and I would just talk to them and overcome the fear. So going back to the conference topic, you mentioned how it's a good idea to research, to be assertive. Have you ever hired, mentored, or recommended someone because you met them at a conference? And if you did, what stood out to you about that person

Gary Denning 21:14

So many years ago, at least two decades ago I met an older business guy. His name was Bill Breen. Met him at a conference, and he was... He's tall and long arms, and he was like, filled a lot of space, and he was so enthusiastic. And I was just some young banker. I wasn't anybody important, but he treated me like I was really important, and we got into a lengthy conversation, and he was just full of so much energy, it made me feel really good, right? And so I took away from that, that kind of personality, if you're open and sharing with other people what you're thinking and feeling and you're complimenting them for whatever they're offering to the conversation it can make a world of difference. I still know him this many years later. He's in his 80s now, and I've stayed in touch with him, and he still goes to a lot of different industry conferences, and he just works the room. He goes around with a giant smile and is as pleasant as can be. He talks to anybody who will talk to him, and he's just happy to chat. And more than 10 years ago, he met a couple leaders from a small chemical company called FloriTech, and FloriTech took the beads from ho-ho plants, and they got-- extracted the oil from those beads, and they made it into the chemical products that were used in lotions and creams and other things that you would, put on your face or whatever to freshen up your skin and that sort of thing. Small company. In my world, a small company is 30 million of sales and a handful million of EBITDA. So good margins, but small. He got to know them well over the course of several conferences, and at some point, they called him out of the blue and they said to him They wanted him to write a strategic plan for them. He said, "That's not my thing," but he remembered me and knew that I had written a strategic plan when I was an executive at Axial Corporation. So he said to them I know this guy, Gary Denning, who's, currently between jobs. He has the skill set to be helpful to you. Can I introduce you?" And they said, "Sure." So we ended up flying. They were based in Arizona. We flew out to Arizona to meet with the leaders and founders of the business. An amazing discussion, and it's gonna sound funny from a business perspective, but I literally fell in love with these people. Because they didn't have a giant company, and I've worked with Exxon and IBM and other giant entities. Their company wasn't giant, but they were incredibly insightful and thoughtful. And they were interested in doing some M&A, but they hadn't really done any. But no matter what suggestion I made to them, they always had three other good ideas of how to do it better. They would share their ideas with me, and then I'd have to go back and reformulate what I was thinking and say what if we did it this way? What if we did it that way?" So his skills at a conference created an opening for me, and years later, after I'd written that strategic plan and various other things had happened, they called me to say, "We're interested in selling the business. Can you help us with that?" Which, of course, was my expertise. But here's the other twist. I coulda just said, "Yeah, I'll do that for you. No problem. I'll take over." But instead I thought, "These people are so darn great." I don't want them to just be represented by me. They deserve to be represented by somebody bigger. Somebody who's gonna have more influence, can help lead to a better end result. what I offered to do to them, for them instead was to run what we call a beauty contest. I'll introduce you to 10 different investment banks, and they'll all send you their credentials, and they'll make presentations to you, and then you can pick whoever you want to actually represent you. In theory, that was taking money outta my pocket, but I was, in the, from the perspective of what's best for the client is what's best. It doesn't need to be about me. And so they ended up choosing a major investment bank and so I thought that was gonna be the end of it, but then they called me up and said Gary, we want you to stay involved. We want you to be the intermediary between us and this giant investment bank because we trust you so much. You know us." "You know our story. They're really good at what they do, but you're the person who can bring this all together." So I ended up essentially still being their M&A advisor, but from, one step slightly removed. I didn't have a brand name to slap on all the materials, but the brand name we put on the materials was a very valuable one. And long story short, we ended up selling the business for a crazy good price because they had a great M&A advisor firm, they had me that was deeply wedded toward getting them the best outcome, and they had incredible minds, incredible understanding of their sector. Again, if you think through things in the right way and you put people's best interests at heart, put their interests first, it can end up being a great outcome. And so this is a piece of business that ended up being very lucrative for myself as well as the other bank that we wouldn't have had if Bill hadn't been great at the conference to begin with. So it's just funny how some-- even though I wasn't even in, at the conference where he met them, I was the beneficiary of how well he worked the room. And since then, a few years ago, I ended up joining a smaller investment bank, and I was really enjoying it. Again, Bill is in his 80s, so he's-- he could be retired, but he likes what he does. So I called him up and I said, "Would you be interested in joining me at the small investment bank?" And he said, "Absolutely." So I introduced him to the founder and he ended up getting hired there as well. So it's it's amazing the connections you can establish if you're just open to them.

Miguel Sanchez 26:39

It's a ripple effect of different things. Yes. A couple things that I wanna highlight. We talk about values. We hear this in different contexts, the importance of values- the importance of relationships. And I think the examples that you demonstrate are demonstrating your values of- Advocating for what's best for people, Really thinking about the long term and doing the right thing, and I think these are values that are really important to stress for young professionals that, they might be thinking, not all of them, but they might be thinking, "I need to make the most money I can make right now and g- make the most out of every opportunity." But it's really important to keep the long game in mind. Yeah. Not so much because you're gonna get something out of it, but because it's the right thing to do. you brought up another topic related to what we're talking about, but, and I've been thinking about this lately, especially for someone like you, Gary, who has many connections, how do you stay in touch with the people you've met? Do you have a mechanism to, check in with people every now and then? Do you just randomly, reach out to people? How do you maintain those relationships and keep that constant communication?

Gary Denning 27:53

Yeah. It's it's challenging, right? So I have several thousand contacts on LinkedIn. And from my early days as a banker, I always maintain a Rolodex, right? Not many people do that anymore, but I still have... but behind me, I've got a couple Rolodexes stuffed with cards from a decade ago. It's impossible to stay in touch with everyone. But by re- regularly going through my contacts, it reminds me of possibilities. Somebody I haven't spoken to in a while. I'm like, "Gee, I haven't spoken to Tom in three years." But I have something that might be useful to his current employer. Let me call him up, and maybe it leads to business for me, and maybe it doesn't. But if-- but regardless, it's a good excuse to just stay in touch. So I don't know that I have the perfect solution to answer your question, is the best way to stay in touch with all these different peoples. At one point in my s- career, I had a little tickler system that re-remind me.

Miguel Sanchez 28:50

Yes.

Gary Denning 28:50

Tickler, yes. I would say when I met somebody, I'm like, "Okay, I wanna meet h-- I wanna speak to him again in three months." And so I would load that into the system, so three months later, it would pop up on my screen and tell me, "You need to speak to Bill Smith." So I had that kind of formal approach at one point, and then at other times, when I've been between jobs, I've thought through, I've gone through everybody in my Rolodex, everybody in LinkedIn, and said, "Okay, which out of the thousands of people, which 50 of these people know me best and are most likely to speak well of me if I'm trying to get a job somewhere else?" Either they would be a reference for me, or they would bring an opportunity to me, and so I focus a lot of energy on those people. So there's different ways to approach it. That's one cha- one way I approached it.

Miguel Sanchez 29:33

I chuckled when you say tickler because when I worked at a legal nonprofit, and we lived off ticklers, and these were paper ticklers. And I ke- I keep one in my office just as a reminder of that, of keeping in touch how we used to use paper, and we used to put them on people's desks as a reminder, and then so it was a physical activity. But now you can do that so much easier online. So take advantage of those tools- Right for those of you who will want to be intentional about keeping in touch with people. I wanna talk about virtual conferences. I think we're seeing fewer virtual, although there are some. What are your thoughts on virtual conferences? Do you think they're as valuable as in-person? Do you a- do you attend those? How would you approach a virtual conference?

Gary Denning 30:19

So we all have different strengths and weaknesses. We all have different preferred approaches. And so my overriding point is figure out what works best for you- And go with it. So virtual conference calls and such, it's not as effective for me- versus actually seeing somebody in person. There's something about being in someone's physical presence, looking them in the eyes, shaking their hands, making the physical contact, that works really well for me and works for my personality. I need that sense of much more meaningful connection. I've got other guys that I work with who w- instead of going out and pitching in the offices of various clients, they will schedule every 30 minutes a different client that they're having this kind of video call with. And so they'll knock out 12 video calls in a day. And so they're getting a lot of exposure, but it doesn't work for me, 'cause at the end of that day, I would feel like I didn't really actually connect with anybody. I spoke to them." "I shared some ideas. They shared some ideas," but I wouldn't feel the same depth of connection. But it works for that particular individual. It works really very well for him. So you gotta figure out what your approach is. And for me, a conference where you're there with them, even though it costs me time and money to get on an airplane, fly to another city, stay in a hotel room, all that sort of thing, just the end result is much more effective for me and my personality.

Miguel Sanchez 31:44

I don't remember who said this, I'm trying to, I'll, maybe I'll remember by the end of the episode, but This person said that we, with the tools we have we've become very efficient, and that's not a bad thing, but I don't know if we've become very effective. And what you mentioned about, you can knock out X amount of calls a day and talk to someone, but did you actually connect? And to me, that's an example of the difference in some cases, in terms of networking, of efficiency and effectiveness, and I think that's a really key thing to keep in mind. And like you said, whatever works for you.

Gary Denning 32:20

Yeah. At the

Miguel Sanchez 32:20

end of the day, you wanna be effec- you wanna be efficient, but m- more importantly, you should be effective.

Gary Denning 32:26

Yeah, I'll give you- What are s- one more example

Miguel Sanchez 32:29

on that point. No, please. Please go ahead.

Gary Denning 32:29

In mergers and acquisitions, if we're selling a business it's a good cash flow generating business, so we know it'll be attractive to private equity groups. But these days there are thousands of private equity groups out there, and I can't go visit them all. I can visit a few of the best, the ones that have given us business in the past or the ones that I have a prior relationship with. But by and large, it's impossible to go visit more than a handful in any given month. And so instead, having these kind of calls is better for those circumstances. 'Cause, by the way, those private equity guys, they're not as interested in getting to know me as a person in many cases. They're, they have the same objective. I have a list of 100 names I gotta get through in the next couple days, and they wanna see 100 different ideas from 100 different people in the next couple days. So the best way for them to do it is to field calls like this. And the best way for me to get to that market is to do this kind of approach. It's all a matter of choosing what works for a given target market or a given deal. Sometimes I may be working on a deal that is very narrowly focused, very much a specialty product, and you know there's only 5 to 10 parties that'd be interested in buying it. So y- you don't wanna just have a half-an-hour call with that CEO or CFO. You wanna have an hour or more. You wanna go to their city and sit with them and have lunch, and mention over lunch, "Oh, by the way, we're gonna be coming to market with a company that has these parameters. Would this be appealing to you?" And now you get much more thoughtful answer from them, and you have something now you can take back to your client and say, "These few parties are ideal for you. These few parties are not. How do I know? 'Cause I sat with them and I talked about it." So it's, again, each person figure out, figures out what works best for them, but also each situation requires a different approach.

Miguel Sanchez 34:13

That's great advice, and it goes back to what you mentioned very early in the episode about understanding learning styles. You really have to know your audience, and that's a key thing.

Gary Denning 34:22

Yeah.

Miguel Sanchez 34:22

What are some of the biggest mistakes people make when attending conferences?

Gary Denning 34:26

Yeah, here's the number one mistake that happens 50 times every time I go to a conference. I'm giving business card to the other person, they go, "Oh, I didn't, I forgot to bring my cards."

Miguel Sanchez 34:34

Ooh.

Gary Denning 34:35

And that happens all the time, and y- obviously the younger generation is not as into business cards as my generation was. But it's, you're missing out on the easiest way to force that person to remember you. 'Cause you're at a conference, even if you're only there for one day, you meet 20 or 40 or 60 people you're not gonna remember the names. You're go- not gonna remember all the companies they're from, that sort of thing. But if you get their cards and just stuff their cards in your pocket, when you get back to your hotel room, you take all the cards out and you spread them out, now you know a whole lot more. You r- can recall the conversations. And the other thing is, usually when I get a paper card from somebody, as soon as they turn their back on me to walk to the next place, I pull out my pen and I write on the back of the card everything they just said to me.

Miguel Sanchez 35:19

Wow,

Gary Denning 35:20

okay. So now I have a living record of that conversation, because I know after 50 conversations, I'm gonna forget more than half of them. A lot of others are just gonna mesh, they're gonna blend together. So by having written down the five or 10 most important things about that person, now I have the record to work on when I get back to my home city the next day or two.

Miguel Sanchez 35:39

And also, I imagine, I would do this, I don't know if you do this, if you're on a plane and you got three or four hours on a plane, you could go through your cards and then, and, plan out the connection. don't miss out on cards. They're really key. I use them a lot when I most of you know that I work for a law school, and I constantly write notes on the people I talk to, and I encourage our recruiters to do the same, to constantly make notes as reminders, because when people hear that you remember something about them, something specific, they do feel appreciated, and that goes a long way. Gary, as we come to the end of the episode- as you see younger professionals in conferences, what are some things that you've noticed, besides the cards and that sort of thing, that you've seen a change that you feel should be addressed? Some... Is it that people are always on their phone? What are some things that shouldn't be happening in your opinion?

Gary Denning 36:35

I'm equally guilty, so I'm not gonna say young people do this wrong." I'm on my phone too often, right? So I'll be walking around at a conference, and I'll get distracted, and I'm staring at my screen for 10 minutes, and I've lost... I'm not living the opportunity that's in front of

Miguel Sanchez 36:49

me.

Gary Denning 36:49

That's so easy to do in our modern world, right? So you need to keep reminding yourself to be present, be in the moment. You're there to meet other human beings, and you can't do that if you're not looking at other human beings, you're not talking to, right? If you wanna be effective, you need to be open, you need to be engaging you need to be smiling. You want that other person to want to talk to you. You want them to want to share with you, and they can't do that if you're closed off in your posture, you're closed off with your phone, or you're closed off just reading a brochure rather than looking around. That's the simplest thing. If I'm walking around at some of these conferences, occasionally I'll go to a conference where I don't know very much, I don't know very many people. And so I wander up to the different tables, and I kinda stand there for a little while and listen in on their conversations with other people. And then I figure, okay here's something I can ask. But then I'm looking at the five people behind the table, and I'm trying to see who makes eye contact with me. Cause if nobody makes eye contact with me, I probably just wander off to the next table. But if somebody looks up and smiles at me, then I immediately move forward and say, "Hey, great to meet you. My name's Gary Denning. I'm here for the first time," or, "I'm here for the third time, and this is what my company does. Can I ask you some questions about your company?" And it just, it's a totally different feel if you look for that opening, and you wait until you find the opening to actually move in. So that's my-

Miguel Sanchez 38:10

There's a book out there, called Presence. And it's a popular book. It was bestseller a few years ago, and it's all about how important it is to be present in the moment, present with yourself, which are, which is not the same thing, but also present with other people. And even just eye contact and smiling and really being attentive, it really goes a long way. I know we've said this many times already in this episode, but this is big advice for those of you who are going to a conference the first time. At the very least, smile, look people in the eye, and really be attentive. if you could go back in time and talk to the Gary who attended his first conference, knowing all you know now, what is one piece of advice you would tell Gary?

Gary Denning 39:03

Be confident. Give yourself an opportunity. Be engaging. It's all about making connections, and, if you're worried or afraid or whatever else, you're not gonna be as effective in making those connections. So that would be in, simplest approach, yes. That's the w- that's what I would've told myself. And I certainly had moments where I went to conferences, and I was very concerned about my ability to project information. I remember probably one of my very first M&A-oriented conferences, and I was a, a rookie. I didn't know anything about mergers and acquisitions. And a VP who was there with me, he suggested to me that the night before I stand on my bed in the hotel room and look into the hotel mirror and just try to carry a conversation with myself. So watch my body posture, force myself to project. And, that's an awkward situation to be in. Yeah. Similar to being awkward and meeting new people. But if I could handle that and said, "Then you'll be fine when you get there." So it was simple advice, and it helped.

Miguel Sanchez 40:10

Gary, before I let you go, is there anything else you would like to share with our listeners?

Gary Denning 40:15

So just that not only am I an introvert by nature who projects as if I'm an extrovert, right? Just 'cause all the practice. A lot of people look at me and say, "Oh you're a white male, you have all the advantages of being in this society." But three out of four of my grandparents were immigrants. And so they all had a lot of challenges when they got here, and they, it was-- they were-- they came in through Ellis Island, and they were in New York City and living in pretty modest quarters. But they never gave up. They stayed confident. They kept pushing forward. And so I'm not an immigrant, I'm not first generation but still in my heart, I still feel like that's part of who I am. And so I always feel like I wanna pay back to other people. Just like I had a lot of great teachers when I was young, and then I took a time out during my career to be a school teacher for a few years because I just wanted to pay back into the system. And I think as long as you have that kind of mentality where you're gaining wonderful advice and guidance from other people, but then you're also finding opportunities to return that advice and guidance to other people that's how you find a good place for yourself in society and in life.

Miguel Sanchez 41:21

No, Gary, that's amazing. in this conversation, I've discovered a Gary who has strong values that are hard to find, especially in a business world. And so I really appreciate you sharing with our listeners today. Gary, thank you for being here today.

Gary Denning 41:36

It was wonderful to spend time with you. Thank you very much.