These days, conferences are everywhere, on every topic you could image. We are extremely careful about the events our team attends to make sure they are bringing the maximum benefit to our clients, our company, and our families.
I had the privilege of attending the LessMoney Conference last week. It’s hosted by Steve & Allan from LessEverything. This was a two day event held in St. Petersburg, Florida.
This is NOT your typical conference. Most conferences you show up, get a name badge, grab a snack and get comfortable listening to a speaker preach from a stage. LessMoney totally blows that format out of the water. The format was casual but still highly informative.
While they did have some terrific “speakers” lined up, including Geoff DiMasi from p’unkave, Carl Smith from ngen works, Chad Pytel from Thoughtbot, and Steve & Allan from LessEverything, the focus was not on listening to them stand up on stage and talk. Instead, the room was setup with chairs all around the edges (probably around 50 total). Steve and Allan would help kick off discussions that were led by the speakers. The biggest part of the event was attendees being able to ask questions and get involved. No question was left unanswered.
The limited size of the event gave attendees more access to the speakers for questions.
The other thing I loved was that the speakers didn’t always agree on certain topics. That showed there are many ways down a successful path. (Or… ‘more than one way to skin a cat’ as they would say ‘back home’) The biggest disagreement point was probably over how pricing was handled. From the four speaking companies, there were three different ways they handled billing: Hourly, Weekly, and Flat/Value based pricing. Attendees got to hear pros and cons for each of the billing styles. We have always been a flat/value based pricing setup and think it works best for us and our clients.
Other topics included team time management, marketing vs. selling, hiring, prospecting, web design, graphic design, Internet marketing, app development, and much more.
This event was all about getting questions asked, kicking around ideas, and learning how other very successful business owners handle things. The crowd was a mix of programmers, business owners, & designers for the most part.
Event after 13 years of business, we have a LOT still to learn and LessMoney conference was a great resource of varied information that will help us grow.
If you can’t handle a kicked back, casual event, it’s probably not a good fit for you, but if you want to be around a lot of smart, funny, and engaging personalities who have proven success, be there next year.
