Some Advice on Prepping for One-On-One Meetings at Industry Conferences

Laura A. Schoppe

I recently had a conversation with my colleagues at the Association of University Technology Managers^® (AUTM) on the topic of preparing for one-on-one company meetings at industry conferences. What we came away with was a solid agreement that a little bit of homework goes a long way. But many tech transfer reps could use some advice about how to come to the table with enough portfolio preparation to maximize licensing/partnership potential.

Based on this conversation, AUTM is holding a free webinar this Thursday, June 16th to help its members prep for the upcoming BIO conference. If you’re going to BIO, definitely sign up for the webinar here. The best news? You don’t have to be a member of AUTM to attend!

For those of you who can’t make it to the AUTM webinar, I’d like to offer some recommendations (based on Fuentek’s practices) that can really help you dive into industry conferences with confidence, knowledge, and ammunition for productive meetings with your prospects.

Visit the company’s Web site. This may seem like a no-brainer, but be sure you know what you’re looking for. A review of the company’s Web site is essential to understanding its business size, markets, history, and other relevant details. Try to find information that will help you understand where your patent portfolio fits with the company’s product line. This will help you identify the key decision-makers that you’ll want to follow up with later.

Conduct patent research on the company. Run a search in a patent database such as Delphion or PatSnap using the company you’ll be meeting with as the assignee. (We’ve talked before about using patent database tools as part of technology screenings.) Then use the database’s analytical tools to:

• See the names of their top inventors. Ask your inventors if they recognize the names from the professional conferences they’ve attended, or—better yet—if they’ve ever crossed paths with them in person. This will give you some valuable relationship background to build upon.
• Uncover keyword clusters for the company’s patents. Compare this to your patent portfolio to find areas of potential matches or technologies that may augment one another.

Research company news. Conduct a Hoover’s™, OneSource, or equivalent search to review recent news articles about the company. This will help you get a feel for the issues the company is dealing with now, hot topics that may be helpful for your discussions, or problems the company is tackling that your patent portfolio may be able to address.

Prepare a preview of your patent portfolio. Bring to the meeting brief descriptions of the technologies you think will be the best match for the company’s needs. Do not bring information about all the patents you have—this will likely overwhelm your prospects, plus they are short on time. Don’t be surprised if they don’t read everything you present and respond on the spot. But what you provide will give them take-away information they can consider later. It also will provide a basis for follow up discussions. Speaking of which…

Follow up 1 week after the conference. Be sure to keep the dialogue you’ve started warm—call your contacts no later than 1 week after the conference to follow up, see if they have any questions or concerns, and respond to any actions that were discussed at the conference.

Do you have other advice for prepping for industry conference meetings? Feel free to share your tips in a comment below or contact us to continue the conversation.

--By Laura Schoppe