Hey Vendors, The Show isn't about us!

Day 2  at the HR Tech Expo.

The Product Expo at HR Tech reminds me of Times Square in New York.

There are vendors everywhere you look; one after the other, and they’re all clamoring to catch your attention.  They do it with flashy booths, they do it with giveaways, they do it with superlative statements like “ The #1 Cloud-based solution used by 110% of the Fortune 500.”  And some of them do it costumes for that extra attention-grabbing advantage. 

We vendors can too easily become inward-focused as we develop our marketing and messaging for events like these.  We talk a lot about who we are, what we offer, and the success we’ve had. Despite all this inward focus, it’s not about us.  Not at all.

The Talk

I was standing next to a sales rep at one of the booths, and heard him talking to an HR VP from a large transportation company.  The sales rep gave an overview of his solution including an impressive list of benefits.  He then named 3 or 4 other large transportation companies that he had as customers.

The VP stopped him, and said, “I don’t care what you’ve done for other companies – I only care about what you can do for mine.”

Bingo.

The Takeaway

Despite all the resources that we vendors invest in crafting our messages, designing our booths and refining our sales pitches, it’s not about us.  The most important person in the room is that one prospective customer that has decided to stop and talk to us.

The best conversations at these big expos are the ones that focus on that single customer, their business and their challenges. And only after that, how we might be able to help them.

Customer empathy and customer focus is something that we can all use a little more of, particularly during these Times Square expos.