Guest post: Graham Parker, Editor in Chief of MIPIM News
MIPIM can be a confusing place at the best of times. With well over 20,000 people who always seem to have too many meetings in their diaries, too few hotel beds, too few restaurant tables and rapacious taxi drivers it can sometimes be maddeningly frustrating.
But for more than a quarter of a century Europe’s real estate industry has made it the indispensable meeting place. At its best it’s a hotbed of new ideas, of chance meetings, of renewing friendships. It’s as if the spring sunshine of the Cote d’Azur gives everyone an injection of energy.
So how to turn all that into business opportunities? First, you have to let people know you’re there. It’s too easy to meet the same crowd in the same place but property is becoming increasingly fragmented and business can come from unexpected directions. It pays to take a little time out to build your profile with a wider audience.
Regular social media posts and an organised approach to networking are undoubtedly important, but they don’t beat the media when it comes to reaching the whole industry. There will be nearly 500 journalists at MIPIM. Just as you will expect to go home with some new business leads and a stack of business cards to follow up, they expect to go home with copy. So get a couple of press meetings in the diary before you leave for Cannes. Contact details are on the MIPIM website and we don’t bite. Not often, anyway.
And where better than in MIPIM’s own daily paper, MIPIM News? We’re on level 5 of the Palais with a very nice view over the harbour. Come and say Hi.
MAXIMISING MIPIM 