General Consultant Discussion

Avalara pinged me about sponsoring MOTM - I told them what I've been telling everyone that we are not having sponsors this year. Maybe going forward we can raise some money with either web sponsors or group sponsorship outside of MOTM. If anyone things we should approach this differently let me know and we can line up sponsors.

Maybe next year, we can have the first hour for vendors.

Agree with @RobertWood and I'd add when I've worked on the SPEA Linked!n group meetings the sponsors wanted about 20 minutes each.

We had sponsors last year and the problem is that it's very difficult to get them off stage when it's mid-day. For the $100-$150 that some of them paid I'd rather just have free time to talk to other 90 Minders during lunch than sit and listen to a pitch. I'd be open to a before or after session that was outside of our meeting. And I would think about raising the fees substantially to let the vendors self-screen themselves as to who participates. We just won't have enough time for a lot of speeches.

Oh, not having attended a MOTM yet, didn't know the history. Agree the free time at lunch is important for all the reasons stated. I misunderstood, and thought they'd actually sponsored, i.e., were not attendees. How about setting it around $500-$1000 in value, next year, and allow them to sponsor a pre/post event where we can be captive to their pitch while eat/drink/be merry?

Altec sponsored a dinner last year. I think they are going to do so again this year. Yes - I think we need to plan any sponsor activities around the start or end of the day to minimize potential disruption.