Conferences and Expos

I'm off to the Channel Partner Expo in DC on Aug. 23-25. I see very little ROI from these shows. This one in particular galls me because it is session after session of how-to-sell-my-crap. I get enough of that without paying to attend a show for it. I understand the need for Vendors to pitch (I am a vendor too), but the best pitch in the world is to simply put the marketing flack aside and tell me the target audience for your offering, a sales script that works (and why), how it benefits my client base. Not the nifty features, but real benefits like productivity and efficiency. Because so many things sound so similar, the bewildered customer bases his decisions on price. In the sales process, you have to differentiate your service from that of your competitors. Bundling is done to show perceived savings (and increase ARPU). But bundles can not usually be compared apples to apples. (Probably on purpose). [Why am I going to the Expo? A couple of my carriers are announcing stuff at the Expo that I may need to hear. And just to see what the rest of the telecom agents are doing against the industry wide consolidation].