How to Get the Most Out of CRE Networking Events

Just one glance at Bisnow’s events page, and you’ll see dozens of upcoming commercial real estate conferences, workshops, trade shows, and meetups. Attending these events can provide a lot of value for your business, firm, or even for your personal career growth. 

Attendance alone won’t net you the most value, however. Depending on your specific goals, preparing for the occasion before arriving will help you get the most out of each event. What’s the best way to prepare for a CRE networking event? How do you get the most out of attendance once you’re there? 

In this post, we’ll explore networking tips and tricks, as well as how to best spend your time at an event. We’ll also cover important post-event follow-ups, which are just as important as attending the event itself.

Before: How to Prepare for the Networking Event

Before we prepare for a networking event, first answer a key question: Why are you attending the event?

Are you looking for a new position? Are you trying to make more connections in a specific field? Are you prospecting for more leads? Trying to promote your brand or business?

We’ll admit that the purpose of attending a networking event can feel abstract — as in, I want to connect with others in the industry or I want to grow my network — so try to narrow your goals to specific, actionable and quantifiable goals. For example, “My goal is to get 30 people’s business cards” is a goal that has a clear and measurable indicator for success. 

With your goals in mind, preparation for a networking event falls into three main categories: research, supplies and practice.

Research the networking event

Research may include exploring who else might attend the event. Who is going to be there? Who are the speakers? Who are the sponsors? If it’s an expo, who is exhibiting? Who has posted on LinkedIn about their attendance? 

If there’s a person that you’d like to talk with, consider messaging them before the event to set up a time to meet. Chances are, they’ll be pretty busy once the event starts, so reaching out ahead of time is smart. 

With anyone that you’re interested in talking to, spend time researching their background, learning about their business, and trying to understand their potential needs or pain points. You’ll both get a lot more out of the conversation, and you may be able to make an impression, especially if your goal is to generate high-value leads.

At larger events, plan your day around specific speakers and talks that interest you. You can usually talk to these speakers after their presentations. Ensure that these talks relate to your goal, though, as time is valuable. Plan your schedule and ensure you’re balancing meetings with attending talks. 

Supplies to bring to networking events

What should you bring to a networking event? What should you wear to a networking event? We recommend:

• Plenty of business cards (or consider digital business cards such as HiHello or similar)

• Comfortable shoes (you’ll likely do lots of walking and standing) 

• Business casual clothing (dress in layers as event temperatures vary)

• Resumes if your goal is to look for a new position

• A tablet or lightweight laptop

• Chargers for your devices

Practice your elevator speech

We recommend having a short, one-sentence “elevator pitch” about who you are and why it should matter to the people you meet. It’s called an elevator pitch because it should be short enough for an elevator ride, so practice with a few different versions. 

Consider brainstorming questions to ask specific speakers or even conversation starters based on the current CRE market. Generative AI tools can be helpful in practicing these conversations.

Staying up to date on current CRE events can definitely help with this, as you can use these as a springboard for a more valuable conversation. Remember to listen and give plenty of room for the person to respond. Engage with what they’re saying, ask questions based on what they say, and they’ll be more likely to remember the conversation. Don’t lead with self-promotion.

If you know a veteran of the CRE industry, you can potentially practice your pitch with them. Ask them for general event tips and if they know anyone that you should talk to at the event. 

During: How to Network in Person

Once you’re at the event, networking in person can be intimidating or confusing, especially for newbies. We have a few tips for CRE networking to make it a bit less daunting.

Remember your networking goals

We suggested that you set goals early on in this article for a reason. It’s something you should always keep in mind and go back to during the event. It goes both ways: Having fun with connections in CRE can be great, but does it serve your goal? Walking up to people you don’t know can be intimidating, but maybe meeting new connections is part of your goal? 

Be proactive and start conversations

Don’t assume the connections that you want to talk to will just walk up to you — they probably won’t! The best conversations with the most people start with you going out of your comfort zone to talk to people at an event. If you’re familiar with that person’s company, their work, or have researched current CRE events, these can all be good conversation starters. Even if the conversation isn’t immediately serving your goal, odds are that your new connection will eventually ask about you! 

Here are examples of conversation starters:

• “Are you Jane Smith from Good Corp? I just read about that deal you closed in Manhattan…”

• “I saw your panel on adaptive reuse — that’s a huge topic in our market right now. What’s been your biggest challenge with it?”

• “I noticed you’re with Apex Realty — do you focus more on industrial or multifamily? We’ve been seeing a lot of movement in both.”

• “I think we may have a few mutual connections in CRE tech. Mind if I ask what tools your team’s using for prospecting these days?”

Practice good listening

A conversation should be a conversation — not you immediately jumping into your elevator pitch. This can be more difficult to prepare for, as nerves can take over; plus, you never know what that connection is going to say. 

First, listen and remember their name. Make sure you’re maintaining eye contact and actively listening to what they’re saying. If there’s an interesting conversation point or a question you have about what they do, make sure to ask it! Letting the other person talk about themselves is a sure way to build a quick rapport with them. 

Identify the goals of connections

The person you’re talking to has goals for the event, just like you. As you talk to them, those goals will become clearer, and you may even discover that your goals align. You may have previously met someone relevant to their needs, or your business provides a service that’s relevant to theirs. 

If you don’t have shared goals, don’t dismiss a connection. You may not have an immediate shared goal, pain points or interests, but that doesn’t mean you won’t in the future. Likewise, you might know someone who knows someone … networking is not a linear relationship. 

Take notes

You don’t necessarily want to do this during your conversations, but after you speak to a connection, it’s worth jotting down the name of the person you talked to and some notes about them. Exchange business cards as well, as this is a good way to collect all of the contact information of the people you’re interested in following up with. This is where your tablet or lightweight laptop comes in handy; also, consider using the voice-to-text feature on your note-taking apps.

After: Tips for Post-Networking Follow-Up

Lots of great connections can be made at a networking event, but if there’s no follow-through, the value may not be there. Following up is incredibly important no matter what your goal is, so how do you do it? 

If you’ve taken notes and collected business cards, you probably already have an idea of who’s who and how to contact them. LinkedIn, email, and social media posts with a shout-out are all great channels for following up.

Networking is a lot like dating: Showing too much eagerness too soon can be a turnoff. Waiting too long to connect can seem insincere. 

We recommend waiting a few days, usually after the event has ended, to send your follow-up message. Unless a conversation merits an immediate second meeting while you’re both at an event, it can be difficult to sync schedules. Instead, wait until the event has ended so you maximize the chance of the contact seeing your message. 

What does the structure of a follow-up message look like?

• Opener: Introduce yourself with a brief reminder of who you are and what you talked about. If you attended a talk that the connection gave, mention that you got a lot of value out of it. 

• Gratitude: Thank them for speaking with you. If possible, mention something that they said that you got a lot of value out of. 

• Ask: Have a clear call to action. Whether it’s meeting in the future, connecting on LinkedIn, or just opening a conversation about another topic, your message should have a clear next step. 

For more ideas on the post-event email, we invite you to our post, Follow Up Email for CRE Conferences. 

Being brief is important, as you want your message to be easily scannable by the recipient to maximize their chances of reading it. A long message may go overlooked, as the recipient will be overwhelmed and maybe even annoyed by how much information you’re trying to get across.  

And speaking of which, if you’re contacting a person and they don’t respond immediately, don’t worry. They may be busy or working to get through all of the messages. If they don’t respond in a couple of weeks, it’s OK to send a brief reminder email, but don’t persistently message them for a reply. You don’t want to turn a positive interaction into a negative. 

If your goal is sales and you need some email templates for a follow-up, we have a great article about what makes a good B2B prospecting message. Of course, the more personalized the email, the better, and ChatGPT is a great way to personalize outreach messages to several contacts more efficiently.