I came home from Boise with receipts

Reader,

I'm back from Boise, where Kit's Craft + Commerce put several hundred entrepreneurs in one room for three days, and every single one of them was making a brand impression whether they meant to or not.

I watched all of it, experimented myself, and I'm breaking it down with receipts.

1. Signature brands show up. Generic ones fade.

👆 I said that AD NAUSEUM. There wasn't a single new person I met that didn't hear that line.

And every time, people leaned in. They wanted to hear more.

Those that simply said an equivalent of "I do brand strategy" faded into the background and lost the opportunity to connect further.

2. Bold wins every time over waiting for a moment to arrive.

Right after I said my 👆 "what i do" line, I followed it up with: "I just launched a YouTube channel and have a goal of hitting 150 subscribers. Will you subscribe?"

Did I hit 150 during the conference? No. Did every single person I ask happily subscribe? Yes.

But you can help me hit 150 by the end of June! Subscribe here on all your YouTube accounts!

My friend Ashley Brasseaux told one of the conference organizers that she wanted to be on stage speaking next year. And what happened? They brought her on stage this year and interviewed her live!

I heard so many stories of people having a delusional ask or shooting their shot. No one regretted it.

I did an 8am breakfast meet up after dancing till midnight that will likely lead to a big newsletter feature. I sat next to someone and asked to be on their podcast. I had a big ask of someone that may lead to my Dossiers in a series of events.

3. You can lose trust faster than you can earn it.

95% of conference attendees were awesome. They were excited to talk to you, share their expertise, encourage and support you.

But those 5% lost trust and brand credibility so fast.

Someone who most of my friends have hyped up so much I assumed I'd also be jumping at the opportunity to work with, snubbed some of us one night at dinner. Within 30 seconds, I had lost all respect for them. The brand credibility they had built with me without even knowing me had completely vanished.

4. When you lean in and have fun, people remember you.

I said yes. Over and over. Even when I was absolutely exhausted and I never regretted it once.

🍾 Getting dragged to Karaoke at 10pm at the dive-iest dive bar I've ever been to was not only a highlight but the next day, I was able to connect with more people from that shared experience

🍾 Dancing till midnight turned conference acquaintances into real friendships faster than anything else could have.

🍾 Attending a dinner that Kit arranged with 4 other strangers was such a great way to go deep with new-to-me people.

🍾 Bonding over riding a zipline in someone's backyard was an experience I didn't expect.

5. Being strategic is the money move.

The smartest people in the room aren't the ones on stage. They are the ones sitting next to you in the keynote, walking back from the networking event, sitting across the table from you over Aperol Spritzes while waiting on your flight, in your peer-to-peer group during the mastermind.

My main goal was to build genuine connections with people I already didn't know. And I did that. But I also had a few things to pull out of my back pocket to workshop when the moment showed up

And because of that, my newly run ads were reworked and are already more profitable; new features are coming to The Brand Bar and soo many other ideas that i cannot wait to implement.

🤔And interestingly, none of those ideas came from the workshops.

👆But that's some feedback for Kit. It won't stop me from attending next year. I've already booked the Airbnb!

Cheers,
Kristin

P.S. Remember section two? I'm still 60 subscribers away from my goal and you're holding the low-lift way to help. Tap here. It takes eleven seconds, I counted.