Vendors from across the globe came to the Payroll Congress Expo for face-to-face interactions with their customers and payroll executives.

Dana Daee, Vice President of Product, Innovation, and Strategy for Wyzia, had never been to the Music City, nor had her company. Wyzia, a fintech company offering secure transactions between merchants and users, branched out to Payroll Congress this year to reach new clients and explain what they do. Wyzia offers real-time business-to-business (B2B) payments and has recently begun offering earned wage access (EWA).

“We are very excited to be here at our first Payroll Congress,” Daee said. “We just launched a product about a week ago, and so it coincided really well. Seventy percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck today. So, what we do becomes a very valuable tool.”

Across the aisle in the Expo, Brendan Miller, Head of Marketing at Auris, felt the same way. As a new vendor, he wanted face-to-face interactions with payroll managers, especially as a new product on the scene.

“It’s been really exciting to be here and be part of the payroll community, just interacting with different partners and understanding what the latest trends are happening,” said Miller. “I don’t think people know the Auris brand yet. It’s brand new. We see this as relationship building, focused on payroll providers. So for us, it’s really about the relationships and the other vendors that are here in this room with us.”

Representatives with Chime said they also wanted to connect in person with clients and enjoyed getting to see so many payroll professionals in one spot.

“This is a show for connecting with the best and brightest minds with payroll,” said Jaime McDougall, Director of Marketing and Growth for Chime Enterprise. “You can create deeper connections with people and have real conversations. I think given we are in sort of this attention economy, it’s hard to get people’s attention, and now we can connect with people that we couldn’t otherwise.”

Workday—which has long been at Payroll Congress—said coming back to the conference time and time again still proves valuable.

“We love coming because we have customers and new people that we get to meet and show our products,” said Ashley Moskovitz, Senior Event Marketing Manager at Workday Adaptive Planning. “We love our payroll audience. We have lots of new stuff that we are showing, so it’s great to be able to do that face-to-face.”

For OneSource, they said the biggest reason they will continue coming back is the people.

“Not only are they bringing so much to the world of payroll because they are the reason people get paid, but we want to meet them right where they are at,” said Marykate Waringa, Global Field Marketing Manager for OneSource Virtual. “And this is the perfect opportunity to do that.”

Emily West is a freelance writer in Nashville, Tenn.