An assortment of updates for those coming to the very first UpLift Live conference in Birmingham on 21 March 2024. See you there!

TRANSCRIPT

Hi, and welcome back to the UpLift Live podcast.

As we are now less than 2 weeks away from UpLift Live, which is the UK's first LinkedIn-focused conference, here is an update from the recent work that we've done to prepare for the event.

First of all, the LaunchPad Zoom calls, you may have attended some of our pre-conference LaunchPad Zoom calls.

These were for attendees to get to know each other ahead of the big day.

We planned to run 4 of them, but they've been popular enough that we're fitting in an extra one, which will take place at 1pm UK time on Wednesday 13 March.

So, stay tuned for the Zoom link if you have an in-person ticket.

There's no agenda to these calls.

It's just a bit of fun to see the faces that you're going to meet on the day of the conference.

And in fact, you might meet them before then because there's a pre-party.

So, we've organised a pre-party event at The Cosy Club on Bennetts Hill in Birmingham on 20 March 2024, the night before UpLift Live.

And this will be for in-person ticket holders only.

And it starts at 7pm.

It's a really fab venue that's been used to host the popular SMM Meetup events that have gone on in the past couple of years.

I'm having dinner with the conference speakers just before the pre party.

So, I expect most if not all of them, are going to be around for some of the rest of the evening.

So, it's a perfect chance for you to say hi to them.

I've never really liked the "them and us" vibe that you get at some conferences, so we're all going to be together and mix as equals.

I put out a LinkedIn poll in mid February to ask how many people would be coming to the pre-party and that got 76 yeses, but I'm sure many of our attendees will have missed that poll.

So, I expect even more people to be there on the evening.

So, if you've got a ticket to the conference, then you're going to be able to come to that pre-party and get yourself a free drink as well.

The original vision when we started to plan this conference in the middle of 2023 was that we would focus on creating an in-person event.

We've currently issued almost 200 tickets to our conference and all of which, almost all of which, I should say, will be for that in-person experience, which is on Thursday 21 March 2024.

In Birmingham in the United Kingdom.

Everyone with a ticket will be able to watch high quality recordings of all of the talks, and they will be fully captioned and transcribed.

The replays will also be available to people with an on-demand ticket.

We've decided not to livestream the talks on the day just to be sure that we don't have any technical issues that might detract from the experience, but we'll do our best to get the polished replays available to all ticket holders as soon after the event as possible.

We've published our agenda for the day on the UpLift Live website at uplift-live.com but I'll repeat it here.

If you do need to check anything, please do look at the website in the first instance just in case we need to make any late changes.

So, the conference will start at 9.30am and finish at 5pm.

With networking going on until 7pm.

It's going to be a single-track conference where each speaker will take the stage individually throughout the day, followed by a group Q&A featuring all of the speakers together.

So, registration is going to be from 8.45 until 9.30, and then we'll have an intro to the conference between 9.30 and 9.45.

Louise Brogan is taking the stage from 9.45 to 10.15, talking about maximising the impact of your LinkedIn company page.

Nigel Cliffe is next from 10.20 until 10.50.

With advanced ways to search LinkedIn both on and off the platform, including some tips for Sales Navigator.

Then we're taking a break for half an hour.

And then it's Mark Williams from 11.20 to 11.50, talking about how to do good research through "ethical stalking" on LinkedIn.

Then there'll be my turn.

So, John Espirian, from 11.55 through to 12.25, on the topic of how to be influential and memorable on LinkedIn, then we'll take half an hour or rather a full hour for break for lunch.

Then after lunch at 1.25 we have Gillian Whitney talking about live stream tips for creating live videos on LinkedIn.

Then it's Kevin D Turner from 2.00 till 2.30 talking about advanced tips on LinkedIn best practice and look at some of the new LinkedIn features that have come about of late.

Then we'll have another half an hour break.

And then it's time for Tiina Jarvet, who is going to be talking between 3.00 and 3.30 on best practice advice for discoverability on LinkedIn, and the look at how the platform looks from the recruiter's point of view.

And then the last individual talk will be from Richard van der Blom at 3.35, who's going to talk about improving social selling by understanding the algorithms and your data on LinkedIn.

Then we're going to move into the expert Q&A.

So, we're hoping to give about 50 minutes minutes to that.

So, all speakers will be on the stage to finish the day, answer your questions, and it's going to be your chance to really quiz the best of the best.

And then we'll close at 5 o'clock.

But as I say, we'll have a couple of hours for networking as we wind things down.

All of the talks are going to focus on sharing expert insight about best practice for using various bits of LinkedIn.

And that means that we're not going to do any cringey selling from the stage.

Everyone taking the stage has previously been featured in my Friday Shout posts, and they're all good people as well as being highly knowledgeable about their subject matter.

And for what it's worth, based on a quick calculation, the speakers together have a combined 126+ years of experience in using LinkedIn.

And I'm certain that each of them will have something of interest for you to take away from the conference and apply in the way that you show up on LinkedIn.

So, that lunch and refreshments.

So, we've thought about this one, and we've created a healthy menu that includes plenty of vegan and gluten-free options.

We'll also have tea and coffee throughout the day, including some dairy-free options for the drinks, and also some pastries and fruit at the breakfast as well.

As well as the talks, there's going to be a couple of fun extras on the day.

I couldn't in all good conscience put my name to a boring conference.

Plus, I'm going to start rolling out a new benefit for new and existing Espresso+ members.

So, those who have a yearly subscription to our community of small business owners will be getting a nice little bonus that I hope that they find useful.

I must say I didn't know how much effort it would be to put on a conference but I'm really thankful to be supported by my co-organisers, Jeremy Freeman and Gus Bhandal.

So, the 3 of us make up the Mission Control team.

But it doesn't stop there.

Because we will have be having help on the day from a small group of very kind volunteers and we shouldn't forget that the event also has sponsors whose support has meant that we've been able to keep the ticket prices as low as we could for this very first version of the UpLift Live conference.

Our principal sponsors are Flamingo Marketing Strategies, Milico and DOHR, and CRAI Glass are going to be doing our live captioning and auto translation on the day, too.

But big thanks to everyone who's been in our corner.

We're finally close to the big day, and we really can't wait to see you there in person.

So, if you want to get involved with the UK's first independently run event of its type, all about LinkedIn best practice, we've got 8 of the world's best LinkedIn specialists on stage and there will only ever be one first conference.

So, you can be there by grabbing a ticket at uplift-live.com.

And depending on when you listen to this, you might be able to get the best price possible.

Prices are going to go up by £100 on Thursday, 14 March 2024.

So, go and grab your ticket soon.

On behalf of Mission Control, this is John Espirian saying over and out! 

UpLift Live Mission Control

🟦 John Espirian

🟩 Jeremy Freeman

🟧 Gus Bhandal

TICKETS: uplift-live.com

QUESTIONS/FEEDBACK: john@uplift-live.com