When I was doing research into the area of portable media, my plan basically called for just 5-10% of the universe of exhibitors that have some relationship to the space to exhibit at the first event. This means, of course, that 90-95% of everyone my two sales people and I speak to will say, “no thanks.” Rejection is part of the game and I understand that.

But when a company rejects you before you even get the first sentence out, it is particularly frustrating. I phoned the US office of NHJ Limited this morning because my RSS keyword monitoring service for the term “portable media” picked up an entry on Engadget, one of my favorite tech sites. NHJ Limited manufacturers portable video players and digital portable audio players - about as on-target as you can get in terms of being the exact type of company that should participate at an event called Podcast & Portable Media Expo.

But I didn’t even get past the name of our show.

The conversations went like this:

NHJ: Good morning, NHJ

Me: Hello, This is Tim Bourquin from the Portable Media Expo. Is Ron Davis in?

NHJ: What is this regarding?

Me: It’s about having NHJ participate in our event in November

NHJ: We don’t do trade shows. We only do CES and we don’t like to but the Japanese office makes us [honest to goodness - that was the exact sentence]

Me: Well perhaps this tradeshow is targeted enough to be worthwhile because it is all about portable media and that’s, of course, what NHJ does.

NHJ: We don’t do tradeshows. Goodbye. [click]

Now, perhaps this company gets phone calls all the time from people trying to sell them something. But I’m calling them about a Portable Media Expo and they sell portable media devices. It’s not like I’m trying to sell them a new phone system or something. Is it really good business sense to dismiss an opportunity outright without at least taking three seconds to look at it?

I have a gatekeeper myself, but good heavens, if someone calls me with a way to produce a better event, I’m going to at least have my assistant have them send me an email.