Napa Trade Show blog #6
Getting ready for Day 2 - Wed, 10 Sep 2025, 10am.
After staying up too late Monday night at the trade show then having to get up really early for a full day yesterday, I was careful last night to pace myself better. It wasn't so much that I made a mistake in pacing Monday night; I didn't. The problem was that I was already running at full speed when a bit of illness tripped me up for 4 hours. It reminded me that I need to under-schedule my day so that, if and when something goes wrong, there's spare time to devote to fixing it.
Thus last night I bowed out of the celebratory dinner, the post-dinner concert, and the post-post-dinner piss-up at the bar. Instead I went out for a quiet dinner offsite by myself, got back before 10pm, and was lights-out at 11pm. Then this morning I slept in until almost 8am. I was able to do that because I don't have any fixed responsibilities until the show at 11:30am. It felt so decadent getting 9 hours of sleep while at a trade show!
So far this morning I've been catching up on work. One of the things about working trade shows in sales is that sales remains the "day job" while the show is also taking up most or all of the day. So we salespeople are always stealing moments here and there to catch up on emails, respond to Slack messages, and keep business moving forward with all of our customers. It's relaxing, though, having only one day job this morning. 🤣 My shift in the booth begins at 11:30am. Update, 10:45am: Today's keynote ended really early, and my colleagues have called me to come to the booth as it's being mobbed.
Getting ready for Day 2 - Wed, 10 Sep 2025, 10am.
After staying up too late Monday night at the trade show then having to get up really early for a full day yesterday, I was careful last night to pace myself better. It wasn't so much that I made a mistake in pacing Monday night; I didn't. The problem was that I was already running at full speed when a bit of illness tripped me up for 4 hours. It reminded me that I need to under-schedule my day so that, if and when something goes wrong, there's spare time to devote to fixing it.
Thus last night I bowed out of the celebratory dinner, the post-dinner concert, and the post-post-dinner piss-up at the bar. Instead I went out for a quiet dinner offsite by myself, got back before 10pm, and was lights-out at 11pm. Then this morning I slept in until almost 8am. I was able to do that because I don't have any fixed responsibilities until the show at 11:30am. It felt so decadent getting 9 hours of sleep while at a trade show!
So far this morning I've been catching up on work. One of the things about working trade shows in sales is that sales remains the "day job" while the show is also taking up most or all of the day. So we salespeople are always stealing moments here and there to catch up on emails, respond to Slack messages, and keep business moving forward with all of our customers. It's relaxing, though, having only one day job this morning. 🤣 My shift in the booth begins at 11:30am. Update, 10:45am: Today's keynote ended really early, and my colleagues have called me to come to the booth as it's being mobbed.