My strategy for interacting with people at conferences is to not talk about my products until they ask.<p>This keeps my prospects list full of only truly interested people and lets me not waste time on false leads.<p>I do recommend getting a booth, but as long as you are low-key you can get a lot of business done just walking around.<p>Whether the person has a booth or they are just hanging out at an afterparty, we are there for one reason, which is to find business partners, customers, or jobs.<p>My product happens to be ideal for booth staff, so I do pitch them at their booths and at networking parties away from booths, but only if they ask to hear the pitch. I am not at all obnoxious about it.<p>Me: "Hi, I am Leon, please tell me your story"
Them: either tell me their pitch or "Sure, but what do you do?"<p>If they don't pitch me, I say
Me: "I do many things, but I am more interested in learning more about your product because I talk with many people and recommend many products."<p>This is where many people do it wrong. If you launch into a pitch the first time they ask you what you do without learning more about them that will likely result in a very weak relationship and add noise into your system.<p>Them: "We do ..."
Them: "So what do you do?"<p>If they don't ask, then I simply end the conversation and walk away.<p>Me: "It's a product for tradeshow exhibitors like you that helps you get your first 1000 customers"
Them: Either a variation of "how do you do that?" or an expression of disinterest.<p>If they are not interested, I simply end the conversation and walk away. Sometimes, I break that rule, but only where it makes sense and it is obvious that the person is likely to be very interested. Talking to people who are not engaged with you is a great way to hear "Sorry, we are not interested" when you follow up in the future.<p>Me: "I'll show you [go through a quick demo using my own data]"
Them: either ask me for my card or ask to try with their information (about as strong an indicator as it gets) or express disinterest.<p>If they don't ask to try my product with their own information, I end the conversation and walk away.<p>As a result of this strategy, I have 826 highly interested people on my pre-launch list. I also haven't upset anyone because I terminated those conversations without ever pitching the person.<p>===<p>There are other things you can do to be more productive at conferences<p>That attendee to attendee conference networking app that is almost never used for anything except looking at schedules is a good way to create your target list of people you may want to approach. My app actually supports true 1:1 marketing if you wanted to invest that much time into it, but that is usually not necessary.<p>The key to wasting less time is to terminate unproductive conversations early. It's a flow chart. :) Keep your phone charged and carry external batteries. Have an offline demo available and assume you will not have Internet connectivity.