What about booth babes?

By Scott Sambucci | January 16, 2012

Do you spend money on a booth, or should you just do LobbyCon? Go to the events and avoid registration fees at all costs. There is plenty of LobbyCon you can do. It will be painfully obvious when it’s time to actually pay to register. Don’t feel bad about this. Conferences are daunting and expensive, and are mostly a complete waste of time unless you are exceptionally prepared.

If you’re not sure whether you should plunk down the cash for a booth, then you shouldn’t.  Booths do provide a nice meeting place and you will get a few quality leads if you have a clear booth strategy. However, consider the opportunity cost particularly if you are a small company or by yourself. 

Also consider this – booth traffic comes in waves between sessions or during lunch and coffee breaks.  You might get a swarm of people for an hour, then nothing for a couple of hours. If you are a one-man show, you can only talk to one person at a time.  What do you do when you have three people standing there poking their head over the shoulder of the guy to whom your demoing your product, who you know is only marginally interested in your product or isn’t a good fit based on your short conversation? Professional courtesy dictates that you be nice and continue the demo with him, meanwhile you are distracted wondering if the three people that looked interested but walked away were possible you next great customer.  It’s a tough racket.  Think about it before you spend the $5,000.