Commissioned News Story (Source: Wakefield and Associates)

Accounts Receivable professionals recently gathered at a management seminar in Chicago. ACA International, The Association of Credit and Collection Professionals, hosts a variety of events, including a seminar where credit and accounts receivable professionals can network with peers and learn best practices.

Wakefield and Associates, a nationally licensed accounts receivable management company, has some thoughts about the importance of attending such industry conferences and seminars.

“Without a doubt, you need to fully and comprehensively understand the industry that you’re in if you want to be as successful as possible,” a representative said. “If you decide not to actively pursue new information and resources regarding your industry, you set yourself up to be under-informed and ineffectual in your professional pursuits.”

“At Wakefield and Associates, we encourage our employees to always seek ways to enrich their knowledge base and their understanding of the industry,” they added. “We ask our professional team to attend conferences, seek out industry events, and prioritize networking to maintain a strong understanding of the field, our clients, and our goals for future business development.”

GlobalDMS once highlighted twelve benefits of attending a conference seminar. In addition to learning new information from presenters, networking with people within your field, and getting a chance to share your own ideas and get immediate feedback from credible professionals in your industry, it lists locating possible investors, buying new products/services  at marked-down prices, getting credible answers to your own business questions, collecting presentation materials to take home, and learning about free resources as good reasons to attend.

Other important reasons include learning about facts and stats to help you better understand your industry, increasing your email lists and lead generation, and building traffic to your site by passing out business cards or brochures.

“Attending seminars and conferences and seeking additional information is one of the more important ways that a young professional can become a subject matter expert and become successful in a particular industry,” the Wakefield and Associates representative continued. “There is simply no substitute for networking, learning, and continuing to broaden your understanding of the field that you’re in.”

Moreover, attending industry events is a helpful way to make lucrative contacts and enrich your own knowledge about the subject matter that you deal with on a day-to-day basis, which ultimately can only serve to help your business in the long run. For business owners, it pays off to send your employees for the same reasons.

If you’re unaware of the best conferences in your particular industry, do a little research. It shouldn’t take too much Googling to find the major ones, or at least the ones that are closest to home. Prices will vary, too, so you can keep an eye on these details if that’s a concern. Some companies even pay for employee registration if the conference is particularly relevant or important.

The professionals at Wakefield and Associates strongly advocate for taking the time out of your busy schedule to attend an industry conference. If you want to meaningfully work on your professional development and enrichment, chances it’s completely worth it.

Image via Wakefield & Associates