Suppliers and Vendors: To market to me—join my tribe!

join my tribe: Image of the cover of Seth Godin's book "Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us"

Join my tribe!

It continues to amaze me how few suppliers of products and services bother to attend educational sessions at conferences. Rather, they restrict themselves to the associated trade show. Folks, you’re making a mistake! You need to join my tribe! Peter Evans-Greenwood explains why:

“To sell to members of a tribe you must be part of the tribe. It’s not enough to be in conversation with the tribe, your identity needs to be interwoven with the tribe.”
Identity is a funny thing, Peter Evans-Greenwood

Is there a better place to join the tribe of the attendees to whom you’re selling than the conference sessions themselves?

I don’t think so.

Even if the sessions are lectures with time for Q&A at the end, you’ll get an opportunity to hear what someone—hopefully with expertise and experience—is sharing that’s relevant to your market. And audience questions may supply useful clues on pain points and selling propositions that you can address (perhaps during the session, if it’s done without a crude pitch).

And if you’re participating in interactive peer-to-peer sessions (like the sessions I facilitated at PCMA EduCon 2015) you are bound to meet and connect with potential clients. Smart suppliers and vendors know the value of building these kinds of relationships, and spend time cultivating them. Paying for a trade show booth but skipping the associated conference sessions? That’s throwing the baby out with the bathwater!

Instead of marketing to the conference tribe, why not join the conference tribe?

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