#smprsrc2023

Dear Gus & Magnus,

At the conference's welcome reception tonight at the Royal Sonesta, there were calls for each chapter to get a picture together in front of the step-and-repeat, so I took a picture with the Southeast Louisiana Chapter, and just like they do every year, half of them say, "Wait, who is that guy?"

At one point, all four Garver people were standing together in the courtyard, so we decided to go up and get our picture together. But somewhere in the 25 steps between where we were standing and where we were going, Whitney and I lost the other two Garver folks and they never showed up to take the picture. The courtyard wasn't even that crowded. Our minds were blown, but we decided to take a picture anyway.

I come to these conferences mostly to network, but in the moment, it feels like a lot of work to build superficial relationships across the industry. Will I really ever reach out to these people? I never think I will, even when I'm trading business cards them. But Whitney is a good example of how we actually did communicate. We met at a welcome reception years ago. Then she put me on her conference programs committee when she chaired it, and then when she chaired the conference, she chose me to chair the programs committee. And then when she had to choose a replacement to chair the conference, she chose me. At some point as I followed in her SRC footsteps we became actual friends and not just people who see each other at conferences. And a couple of years ago when Garver needed to hire a marketer in Alabama, I recruited her to join us and got a referral bonus for it, so... I guess I'll keep looking for opportunities to trade business cards with people.

Dad.