That 'exclusive' partner dinner in Chicago cost me 2 grand in client work

Last spring I flew out for a so-called VIP networking dinner hosted by a platform we were thinking of partnering with, and spent the whole night listening to their sales pitch while my normal client emails piled up. Between the flight, the hotel, and three follow-up calls that went nowhere, I lost about 2 grand of billable time and got zero actual leads from the 40 people in the room. Has anyone else found these premium meetups are just a way to upsell you on their own tools instead of building real partnerships?

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patriciap529d ago

Did you actually get a chance to talk to any of the other 40 people there, or was it all just them shuffling you from one sales rep to the next? Because I've been to two of these things and the only useful conversations I had were with other annoyed business owners in the bathroom line, and even that was just swapping war stories. The whole setup feels like they're counting on you being too polite to walk away, so they can just drone on about their platform's features. I'm curious if the people who were actually paying for the partnership tier got any real face time with each other, or if it's all just theater for the folks who already signed up. I almost feel like the ticket price is the filter, they want people desperate enough to pay for access that they'll also pay for the upgrade later. So yeah, what was the actual mix of people in the room, were there any real decision makers or just other people like you who got roped in?