This was utterly bizarre.

This was utterly bizarre.

I met with the Chief Business Officer about my organization sponsoring their conference. The rep opens the meeting by talking about they have limited sponsorships because they only partner with organizations that are philosophically aligned and that their conference is somehow unique from all other conferences in our space.

Great, can you tell me about how your conference is unique, I ask? The rep went on for about 10-minutes or so, talking in circles that my colleague who was also on the call messaged me to ask if I understood what this person was talking about.

I asked how the things he described were different than those same things that also happen at other conferences in the space and mentioned a big conference as a reference point. The person couldn't answer.

Okay, great, tell me about your values. Perhaps we align there? Again, another 10-minutes of word salad centered around basically how cool and unique his org is but again, nothing that was coherent.

So, I ask again, what are the values? He asks what about his org made us want to sponsor their conference. To which I ask, well, generally, why do people want to sponsor conferences? Because I feel like the answer is obvious--to market one's product, etc., etc.

Finally, I say, okay, it looks like this isn't a good fit for us but thank you for your time, and the meeting ends. Less than five minutes later, this person emails me apologizing for an unproductive meeting and said he'd love to have me come to one of their events to see what it's all about, but he also understands that everything is not for everyone and wishes me well.

It reminded me quite a bit of negging as one would encounter on a bad date. Like he was deliberately being obtuse to manufacture interest. Is this a new marketing tactic that people are using? If so, eewwww.