Ep 86: Making the most out of your time at UKREiiF, part II, with Nathan Spencer, Jeremy Brim and Ayo Abbas
Welcome back to The Built Environment Marketing Show.
In this second part of our special two-part episode of the Built Environment Marketing Show, we continue exploring UKREliF (UK Real Estate Investment Forum), the property and real estate show taking place in Leeds from May 20-22, 2025. I'm Ayo Abbas and am joined by Jeremy Brim from Growth Ignition and special guest Nathan Spencer, Managing Director of UKREiiF, to talk about how you can make the most of their time at the event.
In this episode, we go deep into how to prep before, during and after the event with a host of tips on how you can get the maximum bang from your attendee buck.
DOWNLOAD MY UKREiiF PREP CHECKLIST
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The Built Environment Marketing Show is hosted by marketing consultant and content creator Ayo Abbas from Abbas Marketing. It is a show that is unashamedly about marketing for architects and engineers, as well as bringing forward voices that we don't always get to hear.
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Transcript
Ayo Abbas 00:05
Welcome to part two of our episode, all about how to make the most out of UKREiiF. If you've not listened to part one, make sure you listen to that one before this one, enjoy.
Ayo Abbas 00:20
In terms of if someone's coming for the first time, is there any particular advice you would give them? So never been, gonna show up in Leeds on the Tuesday morning. Anything that you think, actually, this is what I would do when you first get there, check
Nathan Spencer 00:34
Check the weather forecast, make sure you don't need a brolly. You don't, it's going to be fine. Yeah. I mean Wayfinding, you need to do that prep, which we talked about earlier. You need to know why you're going and who you want to do and what. So really, you need to be that prepped out. We've got the map, we've tried to make it a little bit more like a theme park style, where you can go in and it's kind of zoned, and it's a bit more obvious as to where things are. I even when I go to places like nipping, even though I've been to mid before, I still go in the day before to walk around to try to just gauge where everything is. I genuinely think it's really important just just to see the site, whether you can attend early or not, just try to get a gauge from the map as to what, where everything is, and when I structure my program for any event, I know how long it's going to take to walk between this place and that place, because you could book something that's in the city center, the city center, some of it's 20 minutes walk away. You don't want to be going to something in Wellington Place in the middle of the conference, because then you have to make your way there and then make your way back, and you've lost an hour. So yeah, it's just be as planned as possible. It's, it's as obvious as that, unfortunately, it's, but it does take time to do that, but you'll save time and make more of it whilst you're there.
Ayo Abbas 01:50
And that familiarisation is a good point, because I familiarised on the Monday last year, and it helped me so much, because I actually didn't get lost. And I think, I think that's the thing is, you're right, it does make it a lot easier, that's for sure. If you can walk around first and just get get what the lay of the land?
Nathan Spencer 02:05
Yeah, 100% and I suppose a key bit, because a lot of people will be wanting to have coffees and meetings. We're going to put up a video in the next within the next week about meeting spaces, because it's quite difficult, because we haven't got a pub on site, it's quite difficult to say, right, here's where to meet. We're going to try and make it really clear as to what spaces are available, because they're the places that you need to put in a diary. You know don't be because there's not that many cafes and restaurants outside the walls of the event. They're in the walls of the event. So we've made sure that we've opened up several more kind of cafe or meeting areas to be able to go and have those chats. And yeah, hopefully the sun's out and you can, you can stand outside enjoy some of the sun, but it but if it's not, there's going to be those inside areas to to congregate, which are quite important. And they're great for those chance meetings as well, you know, if you arrange to have a meeting with someone, know someone else in that room. And yeah, they're the great little networking bits which which come with these events.
Nathan Spencer 02:59
And I think the other thing you can really do is, like, research who's attending. So we've got the delegates directory now you've got the app really actually go through and thinking, right? Actually, for example, if you're looking to connect with developers in London, you know, you can search for that, can't you? And you can actually look for those people. And I think start to kind of build that out in a much more kind of granular way. I think for me, that's one of the things that people can really start to do beforehand. And also, I think there was also the thing about LinkedIn, that post of, I'm going to UKREiiF, do you want to meet? Reach out for coffee. What days are you going and using all those kind of channels to kind of flag that you're going to be there? And I think it's that whole thing of just making people aware. And you will have people who reach out and go, if you're going, oh, can we meet you for coffee and all that kind of stuff. So just using all the channels that are kind of at your disposal
Jeremy Brim 03:45
There is, of course, we've not touched on the fringe stuff or the evening stuff, have we, because there's actually as much of that as there is inside the fence during the day. So, you know, it's worth it. Nathan and the gang do a great job of giving you a list of all of the different events have been made aware of that you can grab a place at, drink drinks, events and things like that. There's a few of them that are closed loop for a particular audience, but there's quite a lot there, actually, that you can get a place at. And you'll end up flitting across the city. Your step count will be good. You'll end up sort of what you'll get. You'll know Leeds, inside and out. Certainly last year it was I did all right on the old step count. So you'll be able to get quite a hectic calendar of, you know, half an hour at this drinks, and half an hour at that one and all of that kind of stuff. So it's well worth again, prepping, who's doing what, trying to prioritise, because obviously you'll get clashes and so and again, as a team, if there's more than one of you going which there probably will be, how do you divide and conquer? Who's going to go to which drinks thing? Because there will be lots of clashes. It's only a three day do two evenings. Maybe you'll get there Monday night. But a lot of the stuff is Tuesday and Wednesday, late afternoon and evening. Things. So in that regard, so what's the plan? How are you going to divide and conquer? To get the best out of that as well, would be good advice.
Ayo Abbas 05:09
Yeah. Is there anything you want to add on that before prep? Nathan,
Nathan Spencer 05:15
On the, particularly on the print stuff, Yeah. I agree. In terms of, yeah, divide and conquer, I find myself booking onto again. I'm probably using it more of a myth in kind of head, because at UKREiiF, I am a little bit more fluid. But, yeah, I would be looking to join everyone for half an hour going there working, but I'm going for a per I know what my purpose is. My purpose to I hate networking, but I have in my head I'm kind of, I'm going in there to meet as many people as possible, and I What's your goal? Really quickly, I will go in, I'll speak to 15 people. I'll have two minute conversations with all and keep making a reason to continue moving on. And then I'll move to the next event. And the next event,
Ayo Abbas 05:59
can I ask you a question on that, how do you move on from a conversation?
Nathan Spencer 06:03
I tell them why am I there. it's really clear.
Jeremy Brim 06:05
Yes, no, I think he's right. You're just honest with people. Everyone knows why they're there. Yeah. And so, you know, make your excuses I need to go. And I've got this list of people I need to go and meet, or things I need to go and do, and, you know, make your your exit, because you kind of do need to stay on the move with this stuff. What do you do? Ayo, do you get? Do you do business cards?
Jeremy Brim 06:29
I do, do business cards. So I do business cards, but I also do QR codes. So like on LinkedIn, for example, on the LinkedIn app, hello, on the LinkedIn app, for example, you can, you know, if you click on the Search bar, you get the QR code coming up. I find that works really, really well. So I either do that or I've got physical business cards or alternatively, I will make a note in my phone, like, met such and such. This is what I need to do to follow up. But you know what I mean? Because my memory is rubbish, and I always kind of forget stuff. So there's like three different ways depending on what I need to do, but I try and keep notes as well, because, yeah, I just won't remember. And if you go to too many events,
Jeremy Brim 07:10
You said something quite quickly there, which is actually a really top tip. So on the LinkedIn app on your phone, yeah, if you put your tap into the search bar at the top, there's that there's a little QR code looking thing that appears if you click on that. It presents a QR code that people can then scan with their phone, and it will automatically then link them with you. So that's quite, quite a useful tool.
Ayo Abbas 07:33
It's a really useful one, and especially when you're out and about, I find. But I think, How can you connect? Can you connect on your app? Nathan,
Nathan Spencer 07:39
Yeah, you can kind of ask to connect with someone and message them, and then I think it sends them an email, kind of needs them to really engage with it. It's less like a LinkedIn, where it's a bit more of a real prompt. Yeah, I would, in fact, the target directories. I think it's great, but actually, I'm one of those where I triple message. I would be I'd message them on the directory, I'd message them on LinkedIn, I'd email them. I'd be doing all three. But that's because I'm quite defined with I probably know that I want to meet 40 people, therefore I'm very defined in what I want to get out of it.
Ayo Abbas 08:12
You are a chief networker. I'm like, good on you. No, because I have to admit my networking approach, I am a bit like, this might surprise you, but I don't actually love networking. It does leave me knackered afterwards. I actually prefer online, right? So for me, I actually go into an event, and I think if I have three decent conversations, that's fine. And I always say I set my bar quite low, because that's the how you get me there, because otherwise I wouldn't go. So I think, you know, and it's just, it's just managing your energy as to what you can do. And I think, yeah, you're there's different ways of doing it, but it's just finding the way that works for you.
Jeremy Brim 08:47
Yeah, I always find a percent. I try to figure out a percentage. So for example, for MIPIM this year, I ended up not going just some some family issues, but my aim was to meet international delegates, because I wanted some of them to come from a thought leadership perspective, how are their cities? So we have actually landed some because I had to cancel MIPIM, but therefore, we've brought them over into teams meetings, and it's worked out that we've, we've attracted some of them anyway, but so yeah, I would be, I literally had 40 people that I wanted to meet. That was it the UK market? The team attending that anyway? And at UKREiiF people are talking about it. It's not a big thing for us so Yeah, I LinkedIn. Message them, I contacted them, and then if they hadn't replied or followed up, I messaged other people, and then I signed up to drink receptions that I'd have turned up to if I hadn't ended up going to MIPIM. And even if I wasn't invited, I'd have tried to turn up, because that's why, if that's why I'm going, there's no point we go to a drinks reception at an Irish bar to meet people. I know is my aim is to meet international and if I'm not invited, try and get in a room. I genuinely, I don't think you get turned away from rooms very often. If things are invited only. Me if you just turn up and pretend you should be there. If I'm honest, I think
Ayo Abbas 10:05
we said this before,
Jeremy Brim 10:10
just pretend you belong there and they let you in.
Nathan Spencer 10:13
I'm really not sure you were meant to say that, mate, but we'll let you off.
Ayo Abbas 10:21
Hi, it's Ayo here, and I just wanted to interrupt the show quickly to say a bit more about what I do. I'm a digitally led marketing consultant, and I specialise in working with built environment firms just like yours. I think there's so much more that AEC firms can do to make the most of the digital marketing an opportunity, and if it's something that you would like to explore working with me how to make the best of online and in person world, then do get in touch. Email me at Ayo, which is Ayo@Abbasmarketing.com, and let's have a chat.
Jeremy Brim 10:53
So how do we start those conversations? Or what should we have prepped in our notes, Ayo, you'd kindly built something here for us around elevator pitch. But one of the things you know, these sorts of events, you can have endless people sort of trying to network that you don't need to talk to. So it's as much about sifting and politely moving on. But when you do end up being engaged with someone who's not, you know, you're not right for us to talk to. One of the things I really notice is quite often, because, because I'm kind of trying to understand them, they just kind of blur at you. They're, they're sort of pre formed proposition. It's kind of like, we do this really well, and it's like, well, that's, that's nice, but so I think you need in the back of your mind, obviously, what your business does and what value it creates for its clients or its customers, a proposition in the back of your mind. But you don't go in there on transmit. You should be going in with two ears, one mouth in that thing in that kind of ratio. So it's about what are your opening questions that start a conversation, and then you can seed into that responses to you know, so if you can ask some questions about not just the weather and the usual sort of stuff, and how you're finding the event, but what's, what's the top three things that your top one or two things that you're that's keeping you awake at night at the moment, what's the stuff that's you're finding a challenge with your business or in your market, and that might start a conversation, and then you're you can find some alignment and take the conversation from there. Because you really shouldn't go into these conversations on that sort of hard transmit. Is my is my view. It needs to be a bit more consultative, and that does require a bit of thought and practice before you go bowling yourself into these things, I would say,
Ayo Abbas 12:41
but also, I think it's what, it's conversations, right? And I think, and it's also curiosity in conversations and being interested in people and and also you don't know where that kind of connection is going to take you. So I think because, I mean, as a marketing person, quite often people just run away from me, if I'm honest, well, they do, right? Not just me,
Jeremy Brim 12:42
it's not because you're a marketing person,
Ayo Abbas 13:05
Damn it. That's why I'm single, no, um, but like, but no, but it is that thing, right, where you kind of have to be but also you that could be a bit naive, because you might not know who my network is, you know. So I think you've kind of got to go in there and actually treat everyone with respect, like and just be curious and still have a conversation. Because I do think there is that balance. Isn't there. Of you've got your you know what you're doing, and I have to admit, some of the worst networking things I go to are when you're going into the hard people are literally just working the room and it's just really cold, which isn't how you do it. Now, I'm not saying that, but you know what I mean. So I think there is that balance as well. You know, I'm giving you that, but there is that thing where I just think it's actually just being honest and curious and having conversations and and a lot of it is about taking it offline afterwards, and that follow up, isn't it?
Jeremy Brim 13:55
So that segways beautifully Ayo, because I was going to raise the point of follow up because obviously the event's lovely, and it's great to hang out with your industry for three days. But what? So what? What's next? And so you need to go prepared with some sort of container for the leads and the conversations, whether you're smart enough to have a CRM platform, like a dynamics or a sales force, and you plug stuff straight in, you know, new contacts, and then hopefully you have some sort of reporting module out of it where you can understand what the group of people that attended have found, and what we should do about that. You know, what's the next step? But certainly, even if it's just that you have an apple note on your phone or whatever, and make those notes. But the key bit is you should put in your calendar for the day after and then the week after, following up with people. Email, great to meet you. I said I'd share this document with you. Here's that benchmarking data. Can we grab a coffee? What's the next step? It's about starting a conversation and momentum. Momentum, because it is so, so easy for even the biggest, most well organised organisations to have an army of people at these things and then actually, in terms of the real ROI out the back of it, you know, they actually carry on a conversation with people they're already talking to. But what's, what's the next, what's the next step, and what's the Can we get some traction? So it should be part of your funnel. This is a key activity in your marketing plan and events plan. That's part of your wider funnel of activity towards delivering against your business plan. And so it should map back to that. There may well be new prospects and leads we pick up from it, but a lot of the conversations should actually map back to the funnel that you're after already. So that action is important.
Ayo Abbas 15:48
But I think there's also that thing where you can kind of turn around, and I always say, do a lot of your follow up prep beforehand. So I actually have the emails ready to go, like, make it as easy as possible, because, like, three days at a show is a lot, and you end up knackered, right? So, so that's why I kind of say, in some ways, you actually, I do a lot of, like, the draft emails and all of that stuff is ready to go, especially when I'm working with clients. And it's just like, then when you get back, it's just you fill in this, you fill in the blanks here, and, you know, and you can just get on and do all of that stuff. Have you got any tips on, like, making it easier? Nathan,
Nathan Spencer 16:18
not really on making easy. I think my side is I always follow up on LinkedIn as soon as all the business cards, or when I've talked to them in person. I always connect on LinkedIn because then it's, it's there and done. I always try to have, if I've got a target list of who I wanted to meet, there'd always be something that I want to follow up about so I'd be less around kind of, you know, let's meet up and have coffee. So, for example, my prep for UK resort already ongoing because we run something called Leaders Group, which, like a monthly event that takes place, a membership thing all year round. The next one that we're hosting after UKREiiF is around coastal communities, because a Member of Parliament is wanting to create a an all parliamentary group focused on realities. So we've got an event booked in Bowers of Commons. So I've got a list of 10 councils or developers that I know might be interested in coastal communities that I can invite. So my follow up is already in my mind, if I need to meet that person, why? And I suppose this is then the question back to you is, yeah, how do you because what I see sometimes is people will do a panel, or they'll do a round table discussion, and then, because there's not much, nothing comes of it. There's no post event marketing. If it was me, I'd be looking at publishing some form of rapport with them, or I'd be looking at, actually, if I did a panel, should we then organize the round table in our office for three months later, whatever it might be. So, yeah, more flip back to you. What would you advise from your clients in terms of if they're doing panels or round tables, or what would you think they should in
Ayo Abbas 17:54
an ideal world record that panel like professionally, if you can, that is what I would do, because you can, then it could turn into a podcast. You could flip it into a live you could use it as a webinar. You know what I mean. So ideally, if you can, if you and there's still time four weeks away, I would say, record it professionally. If that's not possible, you could do as simple as even sometimes I will just use my mobile phone and put it on record, so I've got all the audio. And then I would take that audio and put it into otter, which will give me a full transcript, and that will be for an hour's talk. You are talking, you know, that's probably four or five blog posts there in itself that you can then use post event, you can, you can do what you like with that. And I think that's the bit that people don't do. And I think especially with such a busy, rich show like UK reef, there is going to be stuff that we want to see that we can't make, right? So I think it's like thinking about all these people that wanted to see this piece of content, how else can I use it? And I think as an industry will put so much work into the show itself, but not necessarily how we can use that content and repurpose it going forward. And I think for me, that is what I would do, if I was running a pavilion, I would turn around and I would probably say, look, the themes running across all everything you've got from the from the event. You know, you could do things where you just take comments from the audience, you know, some of those questions, they could be posts. And I think there's lots and lots of kind of different, rich ways that you can kind of, you know, use that content or even just rerun it. You can rerun it online as a webinar next week, you know, and that, I think people don't necessarily do that. I think, Oh no, it's just for this one show. And it's like, that's a huge investment for three days. So how else can you really, really spin that content out, and I think, continue that conversation, and I think that's what people always forget, and that's why people aren't necessarily getting the value that they should out of these events. So for me, that whole kind of repurposing, how can we use this content that story? How can we take the content to the next level? So you might turn around and say, Actually, that's a really good discussion. The follow on discussion would be this, we could re invite people, right? And so I think there's a lot people can do. But. I just don't think people think in that way.
Jeremy Brim 20:03
Yeah, they don't. It's great build. So I have this marketing consultant who works with me called Ayo, and what she what she'd tell me to do, is exactly that, but just to, just to build on it. So, yes, record it, ideally in video, create some content, but bake that into a micro site, micro site of your website, or get yourself a little square space site with an attached URL, and create some thought leadership out the back of it, like you say, because there will be lots of people in your target list that were not at UKREiiF, and so being able to share that thought leadership with them, but getting them to click through the email back to your micro site, you can then track the IP addresses of who's looked at your micro site and understand the intent.
Ayo Abbas 20:48
And also you could do, which is, this is actually a good tip, is, um, on the back what Jeremy's just said is actually LinkedIn now do thought leadership ads. So if you do a post on a particular topic on thoughtleadership, what you can do is actually go in, and you could put money behind that post, and you could target it at job titles, certain types of organisations, all of that kind of stuff. And you could do that, and that cost you a couple 100 quid, but you could actually hit the people that you really want to hit with that, with that content. So I think there's lots you can do, but I don't think people necessarily see it in that way.
Jeremy Brim 21:20
Yeah, my marketing consultant told me to do that as well. It sounds like she knows what she's talking about. Very good.
Ayo Abbas 21:27
So it's planning. Basically, it's a planning framework for,
Nathan Spencer 21:27
One of the things I've thrown as well is making sure that, if your marketing strategy to me, you should kind of have it in the 12 months in advance of knowing the types of things that you're going to jump onto a list of. Bit of a roundabout. If you're at UK, you don't have to just be collecting thought leadership or content that's around there. So if it was me, and actually I had a campaign in two months time, it was around sustainability, there's no reason why UKREiiF you can't be just getting an iPhone out and getting some videos of people who are at the event, who are thought leaders, and getting them to give their views that you can then use in two months time. So yeah, you need to be a bit more sort of, don't just think about what you're doing at that event in one little round table or panel, but think about how UKREiiF can be structured around the whole thing. We've we try and do it well in advance of, yeah, on the Monday UKREiiF, we have interviews in certain areas where I'm talking about, you know, this is happening in this room behind us. I know that that video is not going to come out of six months, but yeah, we've got that in the pipeline, knowing that when it's going to be used, we've got the content for it.
Nathan Spencer 21:31
yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah. Make sure that you and utilise marketers who are creative, get to an ideas. Because, yeah, if you're just doing one time, and if you just you'll always come up with similar ideas. So yeah, push out and get some some thought leadership from other marketers out there as to what you can be doing.
Jeremy Brim 22:50
I've made a note of that one my marketing consultant could have told me about that. It's a great point. Nathan, thank you.
Ayo Abbas 22:57
She's not that good. Danielle said, we've had a lot of success with a series of private round tables around a central theme new communities, which we've then produced content for our website and our social media. You really can take one thing and flip it to use in so many ways. And I think, as well, I think it's that whole compounding effect. When you start to flip it, that story grows and grows, and it gets a lot more traction. And it really does kind of it goes into people's minds a lot more. And I think that's where people kind of don't realise it's like, actually, it's worth saying that same thing in different ways, multiple ways, multiple times, all the time. Yeah, has to be
Ayo Abbas 23:31
so I'm conscious of time here, we're down to our final three minutes. So we should we've had a good and we've covered some ground.
Ayo Abbas 23:39
We've covered tons of ground Thank you, and thank you for everyone who's also commented as well. Where do we find you? Jeremy
Jeremy Brim 23:46
LinkedIn. Jeremy Brim, Growth Ignition on LinkedIn is connect up, follow me and all that kind of stuff, and then I'll relentlessly pump videos to you, some of which might be useful, because I've got this marketing consultant who helps me.
Jeremy Brim 24:01
We know it's fine. Nathan. He's a Nathan he's a Nathan Spencer UK roof. He's running around quite a lot. Thank you both for joining us.
Jeremy Brim 24:06
Have a great rest of the day, everyone. Thank you.
Ayo Abbas 24:14
Thanks so much for listening to the Built Environment Marketing Show. Don't forget to check out the show notes, which will have useful links and resources connected to this episode, you can find that on Abbasmarketing.com, and of course, if you like the show, please do share it with others on social as it helps more people to find us see you soon you
