Just back from the 7th Annual MicroCorp One-on-One event in Atlanta this week at Stone Mountain. It's the annual get-together for MicroCorp's agents and vendors. Click here to see an overview of the 2009 event. Over 110 top-producing agents attended this year plus 24 of MicroCorp vendors and MicroCorp's 24 staff employees.
This was the first time I attended and I can say that it was a great show for me personally, from an agent's point of view, in that I met dozens of agent peers who were very receptive to my inquiries about how to work with equipment VARs and systems integrators.
The MicroCorp vendors that attended and helped sponsor the event all seemed very happy as well when I asked them privately. One vendor said they have a very specific formula for deciding whether to invest sponsor money in a master agent "table top" show and that MicroCorp's annual event repeatedly delivered the return they were looking for.
When I pressed about what was the specific value the vendors received they cited the "one-on-one" meetings that were pre-scheduled that put specific agents together with specific vendors to discuss specific customer opportunities. Not all events that vendors and agents are invited to attend allow for such detailed partnering discussions.
The seminar agenda was professional but relaxed. The multiple networking opportunities where peers got to talk with other peers on or off the record about solving agency problems made this one of the best agent shows that I attended this year. No cavernous convention halls to get lost in or Vegas-like carnival distractions. Just me and people like me in a relaxed and cocktail lounge type atmosphere talking about overcoming failures or repeating successes.
If that's the sort of agent interaction you're looking for in 2011 give MicroCorp a call to get on their 2011 One-on-One invitation list. (Or don't. I'm not sure twice as many people next year would make it better than this year's event.)
I'll have a complete show wrap-up next week including photos, videos and my "Top 10 Take-a-Ways".
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