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Conference kit

How to network at a conference without the card stack

Most advice is about what to say. What decides whether anything comes of it is the ten seconds after. Here is the sequence, with a free tool for each step.

All free toolsNo sign-up, no email wall

Step 1 · Two weeks before

Let people find you before they meet you

Attendee lists go up early and people look you up. If your LinkedIn banner, your X header and your email signature all say which event you are at and what you want to talk about, half the introductions happen before you land.

LinkedIn banner maker

Put the event name and your booth number across the top of your profile. Free, sized correctly, downloads as PNG.

Open tool

X / Twitter header maker

The same treatment for the platform where most event chatter actually happens during the week itself.

Open tool

Email signature generator

One line at the bottom of every email you send in the fortnight before: At SaaStr Sept 9–11, booth C14. It books more meetings than a cold sequence.

Open tool

Step 2 · The night before

Have something to hand over that works when the wifi doesn't

Conference halls are the worst network conditions you will meet all year. Set up a card you can show as a QR code, and keep a copy in your phone's wallet so it opens with no signal at all.

Digital business card

Name, role, links, a photo. Build it in a couple of minutes and share it as a link or a QR code from your lock screen.

Create a card

LinkedIn QR code generator

A printable QR for the booth backdrop, a slide, or the back of the paper cards you already had made.

Open tool

vCard / VCF file

Export yourself as a .vcf so anyone can save you in one tap, on any phone, with no app on their side.

Open tool

Step 3 · On the floor

There is no tool for this part. There are three habits.

Everything that goes wrong with conference follow-up goes wrong here, in the ten seconds after a good conversation ends, while you are already shaking the next hand.

01

Write the context, not the contact

Their name is on the badge. What is not recorded anywhere is that they are replacing their CRM in Q1 and the decision sits with a VP called Dan. Say it into a voice note before you walk away.

02

Only scan real conversations

A badge scanned for a tote bag is not a lead, and 400 of them will bury the 30 that were. Scan the people you would recognise in a lift.

03

Put your QR where the camera already is

If any part of the event is hybrid, your card belongs on your video background and in the chat, not only in your pocket.

Step 4 · The week after

The cards in your bag have about five days before they stop meaning anything

You do not have to type them in one by one. Photograph the pile, scan it in one go, and put the organiser's lead export through the same cleanup.

Bulk business card scanner

Photograph the stack, upload the lot, get a spreadsheet. The step that usually never happens, done in a sitting.

Open tool

VCF viewer & converter

Organisers often hand back a .vcf export. Open it, check it, and download a CSV your CRM will take.

Open tool

If you had a booth

The paid app keeps the voice note attached to each contact and syncs it to Salesforce, HubSpot or Zapier, so the context survives the handoff to sales.

Event lead capture

Eleven free tools, no account needed

Banners, signatures, QR codes, card scanning, file conversion. Use the ones you need for this event and ignore the rest.

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