How to Benefit From Attending Seminars

I am one of those people who love seminars. I believe that attending and presenting seminars can bring you many benefits, but a word of warning: without careful planning and taking appropriate actions, seminars can eat into your valuable time.

Here is a quick checklist to run through before attending or leaving a seminar:

Before deciding upon whether you should attend the seminar, ask yourself these questions:

• Is the topic relevant to my needs and goals?
• How will I / my business directly benefit from this seminar?
• How will I recover my investment in terms of time and money?
• Am I impressed with the presenter? In other words - does the presenter have authority on this particular topic?

If you do attend the seminar - make sure you ask yourself the following questions before leaving:

• Have I summarised what I have just learnt?
• What action will I take as a result of this seminar? And when?

By going through this simple checklist - I guarantee you won’t waste your time with seminars that you don't really need to attend. And you will get valuable results from those you do decide to attend. Initially, I created these rules for my own use.

At first, it was hard to discipline myself to follow the structure, although it soon became a habit.

Now I have action lists created for every seminar and meeting that I attend, because I realise how important planning is in order to make sure I am using my time wisely. I hope you will find this useful as well.

Camtu Pham (Mcom, B. Com Sci)
Managing Director,
International Speaker, Author and University Lecture in E-Commerce and Management
Business Woman of the Year 2005, SBR
1300 721 837
http://www.cleverlink.com.au