I went to my site the other day (the site that you’re looking at right now) and I realized that I haven’t blogged since May. Yikes! And I call myself an Internet Marketer? That must be some kind of sin or something.
So anyways, I’ve committed to blogging on Monday’s, Wednesday’s and Friday’s. Everyone that reads this needs to help me stay committed so I don’t slack off. Okay? 🙂 FYI: This post isn’t going to be about how to blog or anything like that.
Okay… I have tons of new stuff to write about so here’s the first thing on the list. I’m launching a product called The Facebook Ad Formula with Mike Filsaime on February 1st. Mike was having an event for his AffiliateDotCom members in Vegas and he invited me as his guest.
Initially, I wasn’t necessarily thrilled about going to this event. I was really just going to meet Mike “officially”. We had talked a lot on the phone and via email, but we’d never met in person. You see, prior to becoming an Internet Marketer, I was a real estate investor. I went to a few real estate seminars and they were filled with people that would talk a big game about investing in real estate. The problem was, that’s all they were doing was “talking” about doing it. I always assumed that Internet Marketing seminars were the same deal. It turns out I was wrong.
Now, there were people there that just talked about creating a product or doing affiliate stuff, but that wasn’t the entire crowd. I met a lot of “gurus” like myself there. I guess I qualify as a “guru” now… more on that later. I didn’t really go to any of the talks (I would stop in and listen for 10 or 15 minutes of each 90 minute session). I just don’t have the attention span to sit there and listen to someone talk for 90 minutes, unless they are really engaging. I get really fidgety.
I would always try to be around for the break in between talks because that’s where the real power happens… the networking. I made so many great contacts there. Not only did I make friends with a bunch of people that are potential affiliates with big lists, I made contacts with people that I’m going to do projects with in the future. A few people even booked me to speak on one of their teleseminars/webinars right on the spot.
So, how did I become a guru while I was in Vegas? Here’s the story. As I mentioned before, there were speakers everyday for 3 days (Friday, Saturday and Sunday). They had 90 minute time slots. One of the first speakers on Friday only spoke for 25 minutes. Yikes. I was in the speakers room at the time chatting with some of Mike’s people and Mike came in and told us about the need to fill the remaining hour time slot.
He looked at me and said that I may speak today. I thought he was joking. I probably had a deer in headlights look on my face when he said it. He called his staff in and started a brainstorming session on how he could fill the time slot. I started to realize that when he said I might have to speak that he wasn’t joking. There weren’t many good ideas being offered so I said that if he didn’t have any other options, I would do it. He said that he was hoping I would say that.
Honestly, I did it for him. He was in a bind and I wanted to help him out for a change. Mike has really helped me out a lot and taken me under his wing. I really didn’t want to go up there and speak. I had considered myself an expert on Facebook Social Ads… but enough of an expert to speak on stage in front of 250 people? People that paid $2000 to be there? Probably not.
I don’t have a problem speaking in front of a large crowd. I was nervous because I was unprepared. I had no idea what I would be asked. What if I didn’t know the answer to something? I started to think about the Facebook newsletter that came into my inbox a few days ago that I hadn’t read yet. What if someone asked me about one of the new features that was covered in the newsletter? Yikes.
We decided to do it as a panel… so Chris Farrell and Mike went up there with me. Mike and Chris asked me questions and I provided the answers. It worked out well because I obviously didn’t have any slides or content prepared. Then we had a Q&A session. People lined up to ask ME questions. It was an interesting experience to “officially” be an expert or guru. Everything lasted about an hour.
After my talk, I went outside the conference room (in the lobby) and people lined up to talk to me. ME? It’s a good feeling on one hand… to be in demand. But it’s a weird feeling too. People put you up on a pedestal above them. I still don’t quite know how I feel about my new-found stardom but we’ll see how it goes.
I’ll finish telling you about the weekend in my next blog post on Friday and I’ll tie everything together then (you’ll learn what mental mistakes I made so you can avoid them). You’ll get a lot out of this. Promise.
Here’s a pic of me on stage with Mike Filsaime and Chris Farrell:
I thought it was only video cameras that added 10 lbs? 🙂
Until Friday…