Healthcare Is A Harsh Mistress

This week I'm at a conference for one of our largest customers. About 120 medical records directors from hospitals all across the nation gather together for a few days for workshops and to meet with vendors like me.

We look forward to this meeting every year because we know most of those directors and deal with them on a daily basis. It helps to keep a face with the voice over the phone.

Watching the other vendors is very interesting to me. Some come, throw a few brochures on a table and sit in a chair behind the table all day. Those are also the first people to leave when it's over. Given that it's not cheap to attend this event, it seems a huge waste of money to me.

Others come with huge pop-up backdrops and have very polished people staffing the booth. You can tell those people don't actually do any of the things they are there to sell. They are just hired booth bait. They are also normally one of the first to break down their booth and leave.

By contrast, we show up with the Chief Operating Officer, myself the Chief Information Officer and two people who are key in our business process. We set up not one but TWO tables (costs twice as much) and give away bags that everyone then uses to carry around all the other vendor's stuff in.

Directors, regional directors and corporate staff all come specifically to our booth. We get hugs, laughs, and indepth conversation with them all.

I always wonder what must go through the heads of those other vendors as they watch the specticle of our booth for two days. Certainly directors come and talk to all the vendors, but there's not the conversation and recognition that we get.

I tip my hat to our COO, because he's the one most of them come to see. We affectionitely refer to him as our "Booth Bait".

Healthcare, and in particular HIM departments have a huge turnover, so there's always new faces to meet and new contracts to acquire. It just seems to me that most of the other companies really have no clue how to leverage a show like this.

It's kinda an ego booster...