Eric Siu debates whether marquee conferences are worth attending. Speaker A skips them unless speaking or guaranteed high quality. Speaker B argues deals come through mid-level contacts like CMOs and procurement, not CEOs, making networking events valuable despite the time cost.
I don't care what I pay for the conference. My time is valuable. If it's not good, I'm going to leave. And here's the thing, we were just walking and then the founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, was just walking around. So this is like a very high-caliber group. But after going last year, a lot of people asked if I was going this year. I'm like, you know what, I think I'd rather just focus on my business this year. What's your take on it? Because you don't go to a lot of marquee events. I probably spend more money on events than you do. I don't think I really go to any events unless I'm speaking.
But when you speak, some are marquee events. Sure. Yeah. The main reason being is These events provide value. The networking is amazing to meet some of these people. What I've learned in my business is it doesn't matter if I meet the CEO of McDonald's or Coca-Cola or see some multi-billion dollar company. The person who gives me my contract isn't the CEO. I have to go through procurement. I have to go through CMOs, marketing managers, VPs of marketing, right? And eventually convince the department that's in charge of the budget to work with me.
