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Conferences are worth it for K-12 edtech vendors, but as a way to deepen relationships and build brand, not to cold-prospect. The return comes from the prep and the follow-up more than the days on the floor: pick smaller state and local events where your ICP actually shows up, qualify each conversation in two to three minutes, and have your follow-up sequences built before you leave home. Peter Polygalov and John Faig work through it from the vendor and buyer sides.
Peter opens with a booth encounter at the BOOST Conference that turned into an eight-site pilot with Pomona USD, and John counters that his best conference moments were always the continuation of a relationship he already had, never a cold introduction. That sets the frame for the episode: a conference confirms that your brand building is working, it doesn't replace it.
The middle is practical. They cover choosing events, where small state, district, and niche shows (CTE, STEM, assessment) beat ISTE and FETC for a lean team, and qualifying fast by asking a person's role, their school or district, and their urgency before spending more than a few minutes. From the buyer's chair, John explains that he treats conferences as about 90% validation, rarely stops at a booth cold, and walks out of a vendor session within five minutes if it turns out to be a thinly veiled pitch.
They close on measurement and timing: track meetings booked, demos or trials issued, positive replies, and pipeline created rather than badge scans, and accept that the gap between a conference and a purchase almost never lines up. The throughline is to market steadily so you're top of mind when the buyer is ready, and to treat the event as the next step in a relationship rather than a first date.
"Make the event a continuation of a relationship. Don't treat the event as the first date." — John Faig
"The work you do before the conference and the follow-up after the event is sometimes as important, if not more important, than your actual presence at the event itself." — Peter Polygalov
Are K-12 edtech conferences worth it for vendors?
Yes, but mainly to build brand and continue relationships, not to prospect cold. Buyers tend to treat conferences as roughly 90% validation and 10% discovery.
Should a lean edtech team go to ISTE and FETC or smaller events?
For a small team, two or three smaller state, district, or niche events usually win. You reach local buyers you'll see again, at a fraction of the booth and travel cost of one mega show.
How long should you spend qualifying someone at a booth?
Two to three minutes. Ask their role, their school or district, and their urgency, tag the lead, and keep moving so you don't miss the next twenty people walking by.
How do you measure whether a conference was worth it?
Look past badge scans to meetings booked with decision makers, demos or trials issued, positive replies, and pipeline created in your CRM. Tie traffic back with a conference-only demo code or QR link.
How soon after a conference does a purchase happen?
Rarely on a straight line. Buyers research on their own timeline, so market steadily year-round to stay top of mind, rather than pushing for a deal on the floor.
Welcome to the K-12 EdTech Connection, the podcast where K-12 schools and edtech companies actually talk to each other instead of past each other. I'm Peter Polygalov, founder of EdWave Marketing and a longtime K-12 edtech marketer.
And I'm John Faig, Director of Technology at St. Patrick's Episcopal Day School in Washington, D.C., and the person who is on the other side of those demos, booths, and emails.
On this episode, we pull back the curtain on how districts really evaluate tools and vendors, make purchasing decisions, and build partnerships that work for students and educators.
If you're an educator trying to cut through the noise, or a vendor trying to earn real trust in K-12, then you're in the right place.
Let's get into today's conversation. Today we're talking about how to leverage K-12 edtech conferences as a vendor, and what actually matters to buyers.
Peter, what's one conference moment that made you realize how powerful, or painful, events can be for edtech vendors?
Oh man, it's hard to pick just one. But I remember the first or second time my former company was boothing at the BOOST Conference in Southern California, which is an after-school and extended learning conference. We put all this work into the sales collateral, the backdrop, the booth. I was standing around and I noticed one gentleman stop to look at our banners. I saw a light bulb go off, and he came up, introduced himself, and from the very first minute mentioned he was the Director of Expanded Learning for Pomona USD, a district in Southern California with more than 20,000 students. As soon as I heard that, neural networks started firing off in my brain, and I knew I had to introduce him to the right people. So I made the introduction to my CEO and founder, and from there they kept talking about a potential implementation of our after-school products. A few months later, our product was being piloted in eight sites of Pomona USD's after-school program. It turned out to be one of our biggest customers that year and for years to come.
Nice. That sounds very serendipitous.
From the buyer side, John, what's one vendor interaction at a conference that really stuck with you, good or bad?
I have an example of both. On the positive side, all the positive moments I've experienced were continuations of an existing relationship. It wasn't striking a cold relationship at a conference. That strikes me as somewhat desperate. The most meaningful ones I can remember were sessions where I was learning about something and there was a vendor I knew sitting right next to me. That solidified that they had the same interests I did, and of course that leads to relationships after that. We go out, get a drink. But the relationship always started with something meaningful and trust-building.
A little bit of a right place, right time situation.
For sure. Now, talk to me about conferences in the context of other things. In 2025, marketing involves email, Zoom, LinkedIn, demos. Why would an edtech company still see value in going to a K-12 conference at all?
I really think it's an opportunity to cut through the noise. I was recently interviewing a good friend who was a director of CTE in both Texas and Arizona for over 20 years. She told me she doesn't really look at the emails and doesn't pick up cold calls, her administrative assistant makes sure those never get through, but she does her own research and goes to a lot of industry conferences and events. So if you're a vendor at that conference and your messaging, solutions, and outcomes align with the district's needs or the state's needs, that's where the opportunity to form a relationship and make a connection presents itself. I'm not saying email, cold calling, social, and web are all just noise, but a conference is a way to connect the dots and build the brand awareness that you're a potential solution. When you actually meet them and start the conversation, you're connecting all those dots together.
So when you look back on the 50 events, what are the top two or three outcomes the conferences actually drove?
Great question. The answer might be a little different if it was my CEO or head of sales on the call. But the number one objective for any edtech vendor is to set up meetings and create relationships with potential customers. That's how we measure the success of any event or campaign. A secondary objective we always managed to accomplish was finding potential partners, distributors, and resellers, the expo hall is great for that, especially if you research ahead of time. And last but not least, it's an opportunity to build brand awareness for your company and product. John, from your seat as a director of technology, how often do conferences actually influence what you buy or pilot? Is it discovery, validation, or both?
That's really good. I'd say validation is probably 90% and discovery is only 10%, because it'd be very rare that a conference schedule aligned with a product search I was conducting. Generally it's background building, brand building. I also like to get the pulse of a product segment, and you can do that quickly by looking at a vendor you have and then their competitors, because we review products every few years to make sure they're meeting our needs. Once in a while a new vendor catches my eye, not from the booth or the swag, but maybe I'm at a session with a peer, and my peer networks are incredibly important for product evaluations. If a peer says, hey, you should check out this company, I'll wind my way over to the booth. So in total it's brand building, validation, and nurturing the relationship, not swag, not a glitzy booth, not a great giveaway, really just a continuation of what I already thought about the company.
Oh man, you're saying all those pens I handed out didn't do much for my company?
Okay, so I might be using one now from a conference, but I can neither confirm nor deny it's from yours. What are some bad reasons vendors go to conferences that usually waste time and money and don't have an impact?
A lot of times it's too easy to get caught up in the amazing energy at an education conference. It's very easy to walk away with your sales team just talking about all the great conversations and positive energy. And when you ask them, okay, what are the next steps, who did you talk to, do you have their contact information, can we load them into our email sequence, a lot of times you'll hear, oh, I gave them my business card, we'll hear back from them, don't worry about it. In my marketing brain, that's an opportunity that most likely won't get created, because you didn't do the boots-on-the-ground work to qualify the leads, understand their immediate needs, their buying urgency, their decision-making capacity, all the things that prepare you for the follow-up. As I've said before, and will probably say a few more times, the work you do before the conference and the follow-up after are sometimes as important, if not more important, than your actual presence at the event.
I would underscore that. I view conferences as more of a confirmation that your brand building is working, and not very good at brand building in and of itself. You mentioned qualifying and follow-up. Those are two important keys for conference success.
Absolutely, glad you agree. Moving into the different types of conferences and how K-12 vendors can choose the right ones: I published a blog a few weeks ago called Why Lean EdTech Teams Should Skip Mega Conferences and Own State and District Events. If you have to choose just one, two, or three events, prioritize the smaller local, state, and district events, because those are actual opportunities to build relationships with local customers you'll see time and again. So later, when you call or email them, there's some brand awareness, some recognition. Hey, that's the company I just saw at my local STEM fair, or at my local state ACTE event.
Those smaller conferences are by far the best. Texas alone has 30 principal and superintendent conferences for various constituencies. The ability to get to those, maybe exhibit or buy a sponsorship in the publication to increase brand awareness, is great. I'm also a big fan of the smaller conferences because some of the larger ones are just overwhelming. In specific niches like CTE, STEM, assessments, special ed, aftercare, you're more likely to find your ICPs roaming around than at a larger conference.
Almost every successful brand started out, or continues to stick to, a narrow and well-defined positioning. It helps them understand who their ideal buyer is and where they are. If you go to a mega conference like ISTE or FETC, sure, you might run into buyers for your category, but you'll also meet a lot of people who aren't buyers or aren't looking for what you offer. Like you said, there are a lot of micro-sectors in education, from CTE to STEM to after-school to professional development. John, what's your opinion on more buyer-heavy events versus events that focus on sessions and professional development?
I skew toward learning from my peers, so I skew toward professional sessions. To be honest, I rarely go to vendor-offered sessions, mostly because they tend to craft the world to make it seem like they're the center of my problem. Rarely do I see a vendor session that's well-balanced and actually educational. I'm not saying they don't exist, but if you're going to do a vendor session, get several vendors on a panel or talk about the problem in general. Don't make it a thinly veiled sales pitch.
Absolutely, and I'm glad you highlighted the value of getting teammates to submit proposals and book some of those session and workshop slots.
Peter, how do you categorize conferences when you're building a calendar? What buckets matter most to vendors?
In my previous role, we separated events by level: national, state, or local district and sometimes school. We'd do our homework and figure out if our ICP is represented. Are there actual decision makers there, or influencers? Is this the right audience for us? Are our partners already there so we could team up on the booth or a promotion? Are competitors going? I'm a big believer that if my competitors are there, they've done a certain level of homework and research, so it's probably somewhere I want my company to be too.
You mentioned competitors being there and the nature of the conference, national, state, local. What other filters would you use before saying yes to a show, doing this over a number of years?
Budget was always very important, a limiting factor, but also a way to be smart about where we invest. After making sure our ICP, decision makers, partners, and competitors are represented, we'd analyze the actual costs and potential ROI. How far does the team have to travel? Is it an expensive city like New Orleans, where hotels and travel cost an arm and a leg? Do we have representation in that state, sales reps or account executives already working with customers, or actual customers who might be at the event, so we can extend that relationship, and who become the case studies and testimonials we present to new customers in that state? But John, as an attendee and a buyer, which conferences feel like buyer shows versus PD shows, and how does that change your mindset walking in?
The theme of the show is important. The niches align more closely with a problem than something like ISTE or FETC, which are vendor-created shows to showcase products, with PD sessions added around them. So I tend to be more nichey on the solution side. And I imagine vendors would too, since you mentioned cost, decision makers being there implying ROI, and boots on the ground. I like the smaller ones because you find more peers and fewer vendors trying to hand you swag or a business card. So if you're a founder with budget for only two or three events this year, what criteria do you use to pick them?
Making sure your ICP is represented. Once you understand your brand is narrowly scoped and who your product is for, make sure those potential customers are actually at the event. Beyond that, at the larger names like ISTE or FETC, it's a very competitive landscape. Booth costs are astronomically high, not just sponsorship but travel, lodging, drayage, all of it, and you're competing against giants like Microsoft for Education, Best Buy for Education, and CDW that show up with a 40-by-40 booth, and in some cases a guitar-shredding Elvis next to your 10-by-10. It's really hard to cut through that. I'd much prefer you find two, three, four, or even five local, state, or district events where you can meet customers in your vicinity that you'll see time and again. You can do two or three small events for the cost of one ISTE.
Couple of questions about the booth, the physical incarnation of what your company looks like at a conference. First, at a really successful booth, what pulls people to you? And non-booth-related, what have you done before the show that makes you stand out and increases the chance someone will visit?
Making sure we have enough pens and tchotchkes to give out.
Oh, preach.
All jokes aside, a lot of the work is done before the event. It's not just booth design, collateral, and proof, but the messaging. People walk by and take a cursory glance at your booth and materials, and in that moment you have maybe five, ten, fifteen seconds to grab their attention. So I'd challenge founders and teams to evaluate their current booth collateral: does it speak to the problems your customers are trying to address? Are the pain points and outcomes represented? Because if not, they'll walk past you to the next booth. You only have that small window to grab their attention and speak to their direct needs.
What's your approach to qualifying people quickly so you're not having 20-minute chats with someone who turns out to be an anti-ICP or not a decision maker?
Great question. I generally advise spending two to three minutes with each person at a high-traffic location. If you spend more than five minutes with one person, you might lose the 20, 50, or 100 people walking by. You want to understand: are they a potential buyer, or there just to grab swag? Some of the questions we'd always ask: what is your role, what school or district are you from, and what's your urgency for finding a solution? Even those couple of questions let you add qualifiers in your badge-scanning app, so you have context to prioritize your follow-up. If someone's just grabbing swag and isn't interested, that's apparent in the first two or three minutes, and you mark them low priority. The opposite is true too, if there's a fit, it's clear early. Put a big green flag next to that lead and follow up yesterday.
I'd underscore that too. Thinking back on the conferences I've been to, on those rare times I've walked the floor, most people pulled me over and wanted to show me a demo immediately. I think they over-demo. You mentioned sizing someone up in two or three minutes with background questions, and at least at the last few conferences I've been to, that hasn't been the case. They're not probing to see if I have budget authority, a need, and a timeline. They're just pulling me over for the demo. That underscores maybe greener account execs who don't really know how to probe for the right person and instead go flying through the qualification steps to get to the demo, where they're more comfortable.
Absolutely. You can tell how green someone is if they're really excited to tell you, as their supervisor, how many badge scans they got or how many presentations they delivered. It's almost like they're looking for more real estate to talk and present and be the one leading the conversation, instead of actually listening to the customer and their needs.
They're probably trained poorly and compensated on the number of contacts they collect, which is the exact opposite of what they should be doing. But we talked about laying the groundwork before, and what the booth looks like and how you attract and qualify people. Now, what does the aftermath of a conference look like? What are you doing in the two weeks after you shut down the booth and go home?
That's one of the most important parts, and it separates real outcomes from just good energy and great conversations. A lot depends on the time of year and what educators are doing after. If your event is in early December, like ACTE's CareerTech VISION, you'll have a tough time following up in the next two weeks because everyone's on Christmas break or in a holiday mentality. Ideally, if you did your prep and contextualized every lead, you know the urgency, the priorities, and what context to reference in your follow-up. I always had the follow-up email sequences built before I even went, just waiting for me to upload the list of leads I captured. Then I'd tailor each follow-up to the specific needs of the person, based on the context and qualifiers we captured. So John, we talked about the value of a vendor having a session. When you sit in a session led by a vendor, what makes you trust them more, and what instantly kills that trust?
I go to a session based on how it's described, and I always have a backup session. I'm using the session's stated goal to see if it aligns with my particular problem and is focused on it. For example, I work at an independent school, so we're not the same as a public school, a district, or higher ed. I'm looking for them to really understand me. At the end of the day, sales is about presenting a case and making the buyer more successful, so I'm looking for how they're going to make me more successful. Companies focused on the buyer's jobs to be done are really important to me. And I always have a backup session because a vendor will often pick a topical title but only tangentially dig into it. If I walk into a session and it's been misrepresented to get me there, I'm out the door in five minutes regardless of where I'm sitting, even the front row, because my time is valuable and I really dislike being gotten there under false pretenses.
Talking about your experience at an actual conference, can you walk us through how you do a conference? How do you plan your time between sessions, the expo hall, and networking?
I spend significant time before the conference analyzing the sessions I'll go to, and there's a point where I decide this conference is worth it or it isn't. I'll have my primary sessions, then decide if the cost of getting there is worth it. There need to be a lot of primary sessions and, as I mentioned, quality backup sessions. I want to be looking at a time slot and struggling to pick because I have so many good sessions. That, to me, is a robust conference, not one or two sessions I want but a schedule I'm struggling to build. Then I allocate my time: I'll talk to peers, both in DC and people I know in other parts of the country, to see if they'll be there so I can catch up and network. And vendors, I usually meet with them at a conference if I'm interested in their product, so I don't always rely on the floor. So: session analysis, scheduling, identifying peers to meet, and vendors to meet.
Speaking of vendors, do you do research on them ahead of time, or how do you decide which booths to stop at and which to walk past?
It's point-in-time based. There are two types of vendor stop-bys I'll do. One: I look at the vendor list, and if I find a vendor I haven't heard of, or one I've heard of but don't know enough about, I put them on the list to build up my knowledge, so I have more awareness of the products I might buy. I don't like not knowing about companies. I may not have deep knowledge of all of them, but I like to know the competitive landscape and be conversant in who sells what to schools. There's also a slim possibility that if I've never heard of you, I'll stop, but that really doesn't happen often. It feels very cold, and, I'm sorry to say, a little slimy. The other side is if a company is on my mental checklist and I walk by their booth, I might stop and say, tell me how you're different than this vendor, or what's your call to action and the problem you solve for me. So I have a mental checklist of companies I want to see, and rarely do I pull up to a vendor I've never heard of based on the glitziness of the booth or the swag.
I can relate to that. In those three to five minutes a vendor has to sell you, what are the signals that tell you they really understand school and district needs, and what signals they're just there to push product?
I talked about identifying me and the problem, and that's grounded in language. If they read my badge, most people can tell a school from a district, and usually an independent school from a school, based on the URL or the name. So messaging matters. If someone says this product is perfect for your district, they're not speaking my language, I don't have district problems, I have problems related to one individual school and the grades at our school. We don't have a high school. The person should be aware of me as a buyer, and it's okay if they don't know, but they have to ask. It's not pulling my arm and treating me as your ICP when I'm not, saying come on, look at this. It's, hey, how are you, what problem are you trying to solve, tell me about your school. Language is really important. And then positioning. Choosing products is hard because capabilities overlap, so I have to pick the product with the best features for my school, which is different from other schools, even other independent schools. Clear positioning helps, we do this, we don't do that, not nebulous language that leaves me thinking you do everything, when no product does everything. They check certain subsets, and it's my job to identify the subsets that align with my school's needs.
That makes a lot of sense. You want to see that the vendor is really good at solving one unique problem, instead of being a student of all.
For sure. And again, focusing on me as the ICP and the problem I'm trying to solve and what will make me more successful. Ultimately I'm trying to help my school be more successful, and in the process I'm trying to look good.
Of course. Are there simple things vendors can do that dramatically improve the chance you'll remember them and actually follow up, or pick up their call when they follow up?
Understanding the conversation we had. In-person meetings have a lot of value because the memory of the conversation, at least for me, is more powerful than an email, a phone call, or a social mention. Those are too fleeting and too voluminous. So if you can capture the conversation and jog my memory, that's a home run. I get that it's harder because the people at the booth are interacting with many people. I once helped a friend running a booth for an edtech company. He was there alone, but because I was there I could listen to the conversation and interject a little. The value I provided was that I remembered the conversation, because he was doing the talking. As soon as the person left, we had a 15-second debrief and he bullet-pointed a couple of things. Capturing those fleeting moments is very powerful, I've been on the receiving end. Rarely, and not often enough, but when I do get an email that says, I enjoyed seeing you at X conference, I recall us talking about this, this, and this, are any of these appropriate follow-ups, that's meaningful. Not just buying the attendee list and blasting, hey, we saw you went to Conference X.
Right.
That's basically cold calling.
How can we help vendors decide if an event was worth it and whether they should return?
Hard metrics are the easiest: badge scans, demos, number of people you talked to, number of pens given away and how many are left. Those can justify the cost. But most companies experience brand building at a conference, so except for larger companies with name recognition and a bigger marketing budget, I think companies should think about metrics that capture brand building. Did this accelerate the brand building we primarily do online, in any way, shape, or form? Any way a company can figure that out will speak to the efficacy of the conference. Strictly going on leads, sales, or any hard metric is going to be challenging for smaller companies.
I agree. Brand awareness is one of those huge intangibles that's hard to track. Unless you're a giant with a smart marketing data system that can track how often your hashtag is used across socials, or how many user-generated videos tag your account, you do have to resort to the tangible results that speak to ROI versus money spent. And by tangible results, I don't mean the number of great conversations or even badge scans. The first metric I'd look at is the number of meetings you're able to schedule with potential decision makers, or with educators you met. Even a step before that, the number of positive replies or demos issued in follow-up. If you can sign someone up for a trial or a taste of your software, you've captured their information and put them in a sequence where you have the go-ahead to follow up: have you checked out the demo, what did you think, can I extend your trial to six weeks instead of four? And down the line, the number of opportunities in your CRM that your sales team created from those meetings. Long sales cycles aside, what's the actual impact on annual recurring revenue and pipeline from this event? Those are all important metrics to track.
You could also tie the conference to your brand building. It wouldn't be hard to have a demo unlocked with a code they could only have gotten from the conference, or a QR code to a specific web page, so you know the traffic visiting that page or viewing those demos was sourced from a particular conference.
From the buyer's point of view, how long does it usually take from a conference interaction to an actual pilot or purchase, if it happens at all?
It's very much like threading a needle. Edtech companies would be wise to do brand building and nurturing for the 95% of the time I'm not actually looking for a product, because when I am looking, it won't be aligned, vendors will rarely find me exactly when I'm looking, and it's rare a conference lines up with me wanting to buy. So market your value and positioning all the time in little bite-sized pieces. When I am ready, and I think this is true of a lot of administrators, particularly technical ones at schools, I'll spring into action. I'll research the products, find the competitors, build a matrix of capabilities, and align them with my school's needs. I'm fairly self-service oriented, so by the time I reach out to a vendor, I've done a lot of work already, understanding their product, the competitors, and talking with peers who may already own it. It's not a straight line from conference to purchase. And at independent schools, we buy year-round. There's a little budgetary cycle like public schools, but generally we have the latitude to buy year-round. So my recommendation: don't spend time trying to identify me right when I'm about to press the button on a pilot. Market your value to me so that when I do go to buy, you spring to mind.
That highlights the importance of brand building. It's so hard for vendors to get the timing right and get the attention of buyers. The worst case is when a buyer like you is actually looking for solutions and doesn't remember your brand, just thinking, what's that one company that had the cool pens or the little duck toys on their booth table?
Right.
That's the opportunity for vendors to have multiple touchpoints, not just at a conference but outside of one, tapping into multiple channels like social, website, and email.
One additional point on the swag. It doesn't have to be the same, and I find most swag to have no impact. What would have an impact? A pen with your company slogan on it, number one in this category, or we solve this problem. Or if you're focused on younger students, a cute mascot, so maybe that mascot becomes the swag. There are ways to make better swag than just generic things.
Absolutely. Speak about the outcomes your product brings and the problems you help solve for your customers.
I don't know how many pens I have where I don't know what the company does. There's no indication they're even an edtech company. It's just swag. Even the swag can be more impactful if you think about the problem solved and helping the buyer be successful.
Starting to wrap up: if you had advice for edtech founders deciding on conferences this year, what would you have them focus on?
Number one, are your ICPs there? Number two, do you have enough qualified leads and have you done enough background for this conference to have a chance to be impactful? Number three, think about the work afterwards. Say this conference is a home run, what are you going to do to move the ball down the field? Assume it's going to be successful. What infrastructure do you have on the sales and marketing side to move forward? The conference is not an end in itself, it's just the splash. As we've talked about, what you do in preparation for the splash and after it is paramount.
I'd advise founders and smaller teams to choose and win two or three smaller, local events rather than focusing on one big one. It's cool to say we boothed at ISTE, or FETC, or South by Southwest for Education, but all that tells me is you probably spent $10,000 on the booth and travel. What are the results? And I agree you win or lose not just based on your time at the conference, but on your prep and follow-up, on how well you've done your homework. Having said that, John, what's one tip you'd give vendors so buyers like you are genuinely excited to talk with them at events?
Make the event a continuation of a relationship. Don't treat the event as the first date. I need to know who you are and what you do, and I have to have signaled that I'm interested in your product. We talked about capturing B2B signals, there are a number of mechanisms for that. Make sure not only that I'm an ICP, but that I've signaled interest in your company and product. Don't assume, because of my job title, that I'm interested. So it goes back to qualification. It's a little like dating, when things are going well, we'll both know it, and when they're not, it means there's a lack of communication or misunderstandings. Treat it like you know me and want to continue a long-term relationship and just stay in my orbit, not ask for a deal every two seconds. If you're in my orbit, I'm gaining knowledge about what you do, new features, new capabilities, maybe a new product or a new direction. That's when I'll engage you, because you've been a trusted vendor who hasn't knocked on my door too often. If you're knocking too often, that's not appropriate, and I find a lot of that door-knocking behavior most prevalent at conferences.
Right. It's like, don't invite me over for coffee right after we just met. Let's see how this relationship grows and develops.
That's where B2B marketing is, in edtech and probably all B2B segments. It's nurturing and trust building, not trying to be Johnny-on-the-spot when the person is going to buy. That's just too hard to do.
Very well said. Thanks for listening to K-12 EdTech Connection with me, Peter Polygalov, and my co-host, John Faig. If you've got a conference story, good or bad, message us on LinkedIn, we may share a few in a future episode. We'd love for you to follow the show so you don't miss future conversations about how K-12 schools and edtech vendors can work better together. If this episode was helpful, share it with a colleague, or follow and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.