DealMAX Follow Up: 3,500 People in the Room, the 30 That Matter
DealMAX puts 3,500 middle market dealmakers in one Las Vegas resort. Here is how to book it, capture it, and follow up so the right 30 people remember you.
By Brett Kaufman. 8 years using relationships to build sales pipelines, from political fundraising to a 7 figure business to running matchmaking for two communities. Over 1,000 introductions facilitated.
You land back home from Vegas with a full ACG Access calendar behind you, a stack of badge photos, and a notes app that says things like “Mike, lender, unitranche, call re: HVAC.” Which Mike. Which HVAC deal.
DealMAX follow up comes down to this: rank the meetings by what can move a deal, text the top 30 inside 48 hours with one specific detail from the table, and put the rest on a 30 day clock. The event gives you the room. The follow up decides whether anyone remembers you were in it.
I run matchmaking for two communities, so I spend a lot of time on what happens after a room empties. Here is how I would run this one.
What makes DealMAX different
DealMAX is the Association for Corporate Growth’s flagship conference. ACG reported that DealMAX 2026 drew over 3,500 attendees, including nearly 900 private equity professionals, over 900 investment bankers, and more than 1,000 lending and capital markets professionals. The same release says attendees requested more than 140,000 one on one meetings through ACG Access.
That is the point. This is not a keynote conference. People go to sit across a table from capital, intermediaries and corporate development teams, one after another, for two and a half days.
DealMAX 2027 is listed for May 3 to 5, 2027 at ARIA Resort and Casino, Las Vegas. Check the official site for final programming.
The format, per the DealMAX experience page: you book through the ACG Access scheduling platform, which lets you browse the full attendee list and book 1:1 meetings, then you meet at open seating in the Lounges, which ACG calls the central hubs of the event. The 2027 schedule has the Lounge open most of Monday and Tuesday, networking breakfasts and lunches, a Lounge happy hour, and an opening party.
One note if you have been to CapCon or a chapter forum: those run DealSource tables. DealMAX does not list DealSource on its schedule. Its meetings run through ACG Access.
So the crowd is mixed. A sponsor looking for add ons. A banker with a sell side mandate going out in the fall. A lender who wants to be in your next capital stack. A head of corporate development with a buy list. An independent sponsor who needs equity. Each one needs a different follow up.
Before the event: book the 30, not the 300
ACG Access shows you the attendee list. Most people request too many meetings and get a calendar of random fits.
Work backward instead. Write down the deals you want to close or source in the next 12 months. Then book against them:
- Private equity and family offices whose hold periods or theses match what you are selling or sourcing.
- Bankers and intermediaries with live or upcoming mandates in your space.
- Lenders you want in your next deal before you need them.
- Corporate development teams with a stated buy box.
- People you already know but have not seen in a year. The cheapest meeting at DealMAX is the reconnect.
Before each meeting, know one thing about the person beyond their title. A recent close. A fund raise. A post they wrote. That one thing becomes your follow up later.
In the room: capture in 10 seconds
Back to back tables kill memory. By your fourth meeting, the first one is gone.
Between tables, capture one sentence: who, what they need, what you promised. “Sarah, lower middle market lender, wants industrial services deals over $3M EBITDA, I owe her an intro to the Dallas sponsor.” That sentence is worth more than the badge.
Snap the badge or card. Take the photo with the person if it is natural. Tag everything to DealMAX so you can find it in August when you are trying to remember which lender that was.
The open seating in the Lounge means plenty of unscheduled conversations too. Those are the ones that vanish first, because they never touched your calendar.
The 48 hours after: who first
The full triage method is in who to follow up with first after a conference. For DealMAX, the order looks like this:
- Anyone with a live deal or mandate. A banker taking a business to market, a sponsor with an add on search, a corp dev team with a target list.
- Every intro you promised. At DealMAX these stack up fast because every table is a potential match for the next one. I have made over 1,000 introductions, and a promise made at a table is the easiest thing to drop. Send these before the reconnects.
- Lenders and capital partners you want in your next stack.
- Reconnects with people you already knew.
Keep it to a text, short, with one real detail. A few examples, each under 40 words:
Great meeting at the Lounge Tuesday. You mentioned the fall industrial services mandate. We would want a look when it is ready. Who on your team should I stay close to?
Sarah, as promised, connecting you with Dan at the Dallas sponsor. He is looking for a unitranche partner on exactly the deal size you described. I will let you two take it from here.
Good to finally sit down after a year of emails. Still thinking about your point on add on multiples. Want to grab 20 minutes in May once we are both home?
More examples are in follow up texts after a conference.
30 days after: the part everyone skips
Most DealMAX follow up dies in week three. The banker you met was enthusiastic in Vegas. Then they went back to running three processes, and your name slid off their list.
A meeting at DealMAX is not a relationship. It is the start of one. Intermediaries remember whoever was recent when the book goes out, which is why recency beats reputation in deal origination.
Inside 30 days, every top 30 meeting should get a second touch with a new reason. Their firm announced a close. They posted about a sector. A deal crossed your desk that fits their buy box. Then keep the clock running, because the deal they remember you for may show up in the fall.
Say you held 50 meetings and followed up with 15. That leaves 35 conversations you paid for with a flight, a hotel and a registration, then let go. Illustrative math, but you know the feeling.
Run it without a spreadsheet
The system I built to do this automatically is FRONT OF MIND. At the event, you say a name and a sentence out loud, snap the badge, or take a selfie together, and it is filed under DealMAX. The morning after, it opens on your 10 minutes for today: each person with a one line reason why today, like you met at DealMAX two days ago and never followed up, plus a drafted text of 40 words or less. Nothing sends without your tap, and it learns from your edits.
Weeks later, ask Liala out loud, “who do I know that is a lender for industrial services,” and get the right people with why. Intros you promised show up with dated proof on both sides. Your contacts are encrypted. No one on our team looks at them, and you can export or delete anytime.
Start free with your first 25 contacts and see who from Vegas comes up first.