Introduction
RestartUtah brings in successful business leaders from across Utah who want to revamp their professional network and hear new ideas from their peers. In this community, we go beyond the business cards to find mentors, collaborators, and friends. See what some of Utah’s business leaders think about RestartUtah.
John Wright // Mogul
I have never been to any show or any business-to-business event that was better than this, and I’ve been to hundreds. The reason why it was so effective was the rotation process that kept a flow of people coming through your booth. In regular shows you can run into a problem of someone spending too much time with your booth, but the timer reminded them that the point was to learn and then move on, which created a wonderful format effect.
So many of the connections I made surprised me. I would have never thought that a restaurant would be a valuable connection, but the owner of Bona Vita, Todd Davis, seemed to come to each booth with real interest in building the relationship and finding something we could do to make things better for each other. The four minutes that I had with Todd were quite special because we figured out he would like to have his patrons pay with more millennial means, like with PayPal, Venmo, or Apple Pay because he’s paying 7% for his visa card charges. Even though it’s not something I would’ve come to the show thinking I was going to build, I probably am going to. Funny enough, the week before I had spaghetti and meatballs at his restaurant, and his service was fabulous, but now I actually know who he is.
Kent White // A Child’s Hope Foundation
At Restart Utah last year, I stuck with my own crowd, but this year, I really made the effort to go to everyone’s booth and get to know them. It is so different from a normal tradeshow because people are actually willing to connect and interested in having a conversation instead of just pitching you.
I would say 20%-25% of the time, I made a real connection. It was amazing to have it be so significantly higher than I expected–unprecedented. I made connections with people that could help me in ways that I hadn’t even anticipated.
Nate Spears from Clearsource was doing a giveaway for a Traeger Grill and Landon Hasson from HTS Builders won it, but wasn’t there. I texted him that he had 10 minutes to come get it and he texted back that he was 30 minutes away, and he donated it to A Child’s Hope to use at our upcoming fundraiser. Landon is awesome! I had someone from a resort who resonated with what we were doing because he’s adopted, and he offered to provide us hotel rooms for an auction. We found a potential employee. There was just so much over the top kindness from so many strangers.
Jeff Erickson // DOJO
The number of people we were able to connect with at Restart Utah was really phenomenal. I loved the format of being able to go through and meet 200 companies representing all kinds of businesses in Utah. With a few of the companies that came through, we started talking about potential partnership opportunities, and we’ve already had follow-up calls to put things into motion. We also had people that knew of others who had gone through the DOJO sales training program who were referring people over saying “This would be a perfect fit.” So on both sides, the partners and the customer side, we’ve already seen results.
Cynthia Gambill // The Younique Foundation
The first day I followed the instructions to go to every booth, which was truly a good experience. The whole concept of visiting with everyone there, then taking the afternoon to go back to those we wanted to have a deeper conversation with was a very effective and efficient way to meet people. I met 2-3 people that I am following up as we speak.
For example, there is a big marketing agency that is part of the Silicon Slopes family that I’ve always found intriguing. I knew that they were involved in the community and giving back, but I would’ve never tried to cold call them. Just the person I needed to talk to was part of the rotation. Later, he found me and said, “Hey, we need to talk.” We have a time set up to meet this week.
Conclusion
Whether you’ve been to RestartUtah before, or this is your first time, you’ll be stepping into the most valuable B2B networking event you’ve ever been to. We are passionate about connections. Our format is designed to spark connections and build upon them. Don’t take our word for it — ask any of the hundreds of professionals who have taken the exciting step forward. We’ll see you at RestartUtah.