Conference talks worth giving (most aren’t)

Giving a conference talk is romanticized as marketing, and sometimes it is. Usually it’s a lot of prep, one good night out, and a fuzzy attribution to whatever happens to the company afterward. Picking which to accept matters.

When to say yes

• The audience is genuinely your buyer, not adjacent.
• You have a story only you can tell.
• The talk artifact (video, slides, write-up) will have a long tail.
• The conference itself has a strong reputation in your category.

When to say no

First-year conferences with unclear audiences. Conferences where the speaker list looks like a long tail of vendor pitches. Talks that recycle your existing content without offering something new. The hour matters; spend it deliberately.

A good talk earns its preparation time. Most don’t, and they pay you in fatigue, not pipeline.