ok so rant incoming lol. we sell B2B software to mid-market retailers and i convinced myself that one of the big retail tech conferences in Vegas was worth attending this year. registration alone was $1,800, add flights and 3 nights at the conference hotel and we’re looking at just over $4k total.

i went in with a list of like 20 specific people i wanted to meet. procurement managers, a few VPs of operations at regional chains, that kind of thing. people who would actually buy from us.

tried the conference app beforehand to find them and reach out. the in-app messaging is a joke, maybe 2 people responded out of 15 messages and one of them was just “thanks!” i also went through the linkedin event page and tried connecting with attendees that way. got maybe a 10% acceptance rate and zero actual conversations.

so i get there and instead of meeting any of those people i spent most of the first day wandering the expo floor getting pitched by vendors, sat through 2 panels where nothing actionable was said, and did the awkward small talk thing at the networking cocktail hour.

came home with 6 business cards and zero meetings booked. the cards are on my desk. they will stay there.

i feel like everyone else has some system figured out that i don’t know about. what do you actually do BEFORE a conference to make it worth going? genuinely asking because i can’t justify doing this again next year without changing something