Keeping up with the relationships, friends, contacts and leads
Game Conference Guide Insights - September 2024
This year I started to give a lecture on how to create relationships that lasts. In it I am using mostly my personal journey to describe how butterfly effect can create opportunities and lead to career change, and potentially turning leads into clients. I might dissect the main talking point in one of the future blog posts. Today, I want to focus on questions brought forward by the audience after the session ended.
The questions varied from conference to conference, but they do shared some similarities. I have put them into three brackets: Build the network, Stay in touch & Deepen the relationships.
Since early days in my career, I could spot people in the crowds, connect them to a studio, recent project and position. I was a journalist, and this helped me to meet some interesting people while they were on the break, or they thought they are hidden and no one could notice them. My memory is far from perfect, and I tend to forget. For example, names of my colleagues I am struggling till this day. It is impossible to remember all the names, birthdays, or recent developments. You can track it, but you will hit a certain number or will be updating your CRM all day all week.
How to maintain the network? Was one of the questions coming from the audience. The reason I write this paragraph was a silly accident. I was about to do something else, but during my break I noticed an interview with my friend and former Reboot Develop colleague Tobias Kopka about Gamescom congress he and his team organized. And I immediately send him a message. And we have chatted for a few minutes afterwards.
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Our brains are easily distracted and when things like this happens to me, I tend to send a message, call or remind someone that I just played their game and it was awesome, or that we haven’t talked to each other in a while, and we should schedule something. I do live far from few of my best friends, and even if we don’t talk to each other as much as I would like to, I call them whenever they come to mind. They usually reply “what has happened?”, because no one is using phones these days to have a conversation.
Different smells, sounds, music tracks, visual stimulus can make our memory race and lead to unexpected people, events, or conversations. Snapping a photo of physical games in an obscure store in Japan and sending it back to developers with a note ”look what I have found” is a nice gesture but also reminder, that you care and you are a good friend. There doesn’t have to be intention behind each message, just a thought of you, you might like this, or hey, do you remember that time?
Again, it is impossible to do this with each contact. You would end up on a treadmill and instead of sending a friendly message, you would be spamming people.
But where you do begin? It is tough for newcomers and those that are trying to get in or secure a meeting with publisher or investor. This question is coming back like a boomerang, and the easiest answer is, look around you. Since we are meeting at event / conference, look to your left, or right and see if you know the person sitting next to you. And if you do, come meet me.
Breaking an ice is the hardest thing, especially when you are introverted like I am. What would you ask Tony Hawk or someone famous? You don’t know immediately. I asked him, if he needs help, as he was standing in front of E3 hall looking confused and everyone was passing by him. And we had a chat afterwards.
When attending events, it is nice to have a few icebreakers prepared (sports, newest development, announcement, weather, or questions related to the event: have you been here before? Can you compare it to the last edition?) Plus pay attention to little things; t-shirt, colours, nail polish, accessories, these can easily give away a tribe affiliation and then you can geek out about Destiny, or any other game. Events are stressful for everyone. If you can make my brain think about my favourite TV show, or hobby, I will be more relaxed.
And how do you push the relationships to the next level? How do you deepen them? You must spend time with people, which is a huge investment. In some cases, the connections are immediate. We could talk about work, and private life like we have been doing this since childhood, but instead we have met for the first time. These are very rare.
What I like to do is opening myself to the people I like to hang out with / know more by doing something that stands out a little bit. Mixers and dinners are fine, but when you have more than 6 people, you can hardly talk to them or connect with the rest. Just think about with how many you can have a conversation while sitting. If I would be organizing a mixer, people would be standing for a certain period time, so I can work the crowd, but I am not organizing traditional mixers.
At GDC I invited friends and their friends to have a donut in between meetings. And we ate all of them. At Reboot Develop as per tradition I am hosting painting mini figures with the help of amazing partners. I steal away people and their minds from loud environments and give them a piece of quiet. And they remember it. Some even found new friends because of it.
These things are done with heart, they are not done with “I need to collect 50 emails, so I can spam them after the event and offer services”. I really do not know if I will work with them, I would love to, but it is not up to me. I surround myself with people that I would like to hang out with and make new friends, professionaly. They might help me, or I will help them. It is not transactional, which is super important.
There are others who are doing similar things: bike rides, picnics (I did one during Gamescom and I will repeat it next year), walking around the town, basketball games, bar hopping, ice cream tasting. There are tons of ways how you can spin-it and bring people together. It must be genuine, and it has to make sense, it has to come out of you personally. It can happen during an event, or when you are visiting a region or a city. And it always works. But remember, it takes time to develop relationships. There are no shortcuts.
And maybe your next one will be at Pocket Gamer Helsinki, where I am heading as well. You can still grab a discount (GACOGU20) and register. See you there.
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Pavol Buday, curator @ GCG