Do It! Marketing Blog: Marketing for Smart People™

As you may know, a wonderful team of small business experts and I are organizing the inaugural America Talks Business Conference coming up on July 25. (Conference info is here and you can still register with early bird savings here.)

One of our media partners is Entrepreneur Magazine. When I shared this news with my friend Dan Janal of PRLeads and PressReleaseSender.com, his first comment was, "Looks good. Congrats on getting Entrepreneur magazine. You are one well-connected guy!" 

I sent Dan back a note that said, "Not well-connected. Just fearless in asking."

And he closed out our email conversation with this brilliant observation: "Same thing, I guess!"

YES!!!

It is the same thing indeed.

So here are some questions for YOU: 

1. Who do YOU need to be well-connected to?

2. Who do you need to fearlessly ask for help?

3. What's stopping you from asking? 

4. What's the worst that could happen? 

5. What's the best that could happen? 

6. How much do you care about #4? 

7. How much do you want #5?

8. Is it time for YOU to do some fearless asking? 

p.s. The June 17 deadline is coming up for Entrepreneur Magazine's Entrepreneur of 2013 competition. You can't win if you don't enter. They are accepting applications for Entrepreneur of 2013, Emerging Entrepreneur of 2013 and College Entrepreneur of 2013. See if you qualify to join the ranks of other inspiring entrepreneurs: http://www.entrepreneur.com/e2013 

I go to a fair number of conferences, both as a speaker and as a plain old participant. 

Some conferences are great - and some... well, not so much. 

In my experience, a great conference combines three secret ingredients for success. 

What are they? 

Glad you asked. 

Here they are... 

1. Speaker management - Give me high-energy, high-content speakers who deliver the goods. Strong content delivered with authenticity, enthusiasm, and with a clear point-of-view. I don't want to hear speakers who deliver same-o, lame-o information (i.e. crap that I could just as easily read in a book or find in a Google search). I want to be shaken, stirred, riled up, smacked down, and taken for a ride. No vanilla speakers. I want you to bring the mango gelato, the sriracha sorbet, the oddballs, the freaks, the wild ones. 

2. Engagement management - Don't (please don't) make me sit in a theater, an auditorium, or a meeting room and watch from my seat. I want to interact. I want to engage. I want to collaborate, communicate, and cross-pollinate with the speakers, the audience, the organizers. I want you to put the CONFER back into the word CONFERENCE. I want to strategize, conspire, and confab with all the amazing people in the room. Not just the gal to my left and the guy on my right. Not just during deeply misguided Q&A sessions that ruin even the best talks. All. The. Time. Mix it up - mini-seminars, peer-to-peer jam sessions, strategic mastermind roundtables. Put the intellectual talent of the room on stage and let's REALLY dig in.

3. Time and experience management - Never start late. Let me repeat that - never, EVER start late. No session or panel longer than 20 minutes. Less and faster is the name of the game. Take the sage off the stage and put the guide on the side. Move me around the theater - into the lobby, up on the platform, out in the hall. Mix, mingle, shake up the stale conference format. No more 1-to-many. Make it many-to-many. Or 1-to-1. Manage my time. Manage my experience. Connect me. Inspire me. Fire me up. Let me feel important. Let me plug in to the event and the people you've brought together. Stir my pot. Season my soup. I want to leave your event feeling like I'm a rock star who just played a set with the best musicians on the planet. I want to feel LUCKY to have been part of your event. I don't want to leave with information. I want to leave with insights specifically designed to help me kick some serious ass. I want to leave with my action plan for global domination AND a whole army of new friends whom I can call on to make it happen. 

Can your event do that for me? 

'Cuz if it can't... I won't be there. I'll just stay home. And read a book. Or jump on Google. Or watch videos on TED.com.

I don't need to travel and use up my time, money, effort, and energy going to your old school conference with a string of speakers who talk at me while I sit with a random bunch of strangers who'll never even get to know my name.

The bar has been raised. Those events are so past their expiration date that they're starting to stink like an old bucket of yogurt.   

Want to experience something new and better? 

Join me for the America Talks Business conference in Philadelphia on July 25, 2013. 

The future is here. Now. 

Join us?

What do YOU think? Please use the COMMENTS area below to share your advice, insights and recommendations on this topic and join the conversation... 

Imagine a new and different kind of professional gathering focused on bringing together GOOD people doing GREAT work... to collaborate, cross-pollinate, get connected and get inspired with each other.

The BADASS Conference:

BAD: For Top Dogs in Business | Arts | Digital

ASS: Audience = Speakers = Sponsors

That's the BADASS Conference. And YOU are warmly invited... soon. The Kickstarter campaign is just now getting its finishing touches and we should be ready to launch by Nov. 1... the event itself will be right here in Philadelphia, the Cradle of Liberty. It's a 2.5-day collection of AWESOMENESS happening in March 2013.

Meanwhile, you should know where this is all coming from.

Our foundational curiosity is...

What if we re-invented the conference format using the notion of "theater for business"?

More excitement, more energy, and one hell of an ensemble (starring YOU) giving it their all.

Or what would Comic-Con for business look like?

More possibilities... but the risk is that you won't "get it" or that you'd feel safer with a pre-set agenda filled with talking head keynote speakers and random breakout sessions that 99% of other conferences have. We don't do that. So you might not come.

Our core complaint is...

Most conferences and professional meetings fail to deliver lasting value. Still worse, they leave meaningful connections completely to chance. And they have no significant impact on the lives of attendees... and the role of those attendees is far too passive, too marginalized, and too much like watching bad TV without even the privilege of changing channels.

Perhaps you like watching late night reruns of COPS with the remote buried under those containers of old Chinese food on your sofa. Perhaps you're mouthing your words as you read this.

It's time to shake things up...

Our vision is a new kind of professional gathering: one that is for, by and about YOU, the participant.

Our risks are small, the challenges somewhat greater but certainly manageable.

The BADASS Conference is truly an UN-conference. Take your normal expectations and flip them upside down -- for example:

Most conferences have...

★ Glitzy website: We have www.Unconference.com
★ Overblown session promos: We don't know what'll happen til we get together for the Roundtable and Peer Session Signup.
★ Big name speakers: At our events, every participant is eligible to speak. The group decides. That's why it's called a PEER conference.
★ Ultra-expensive fees ($2,500-$7,500): We like deals so we're between 86%-95% off. Eat that, TED!
★ Elitist feel: Our audience (aka YOU) is always front and center. 'Nuff said.
★ Benefit the lucky: We benefit the Badass (aka YOU!)
★ All talk, no action: We build individual and group reflection and action steps directly into the event.
★ One-off vs. community: The relationships, connections and collaborations you start here will last long after you get home and will become a permanent professional asset.

You want in? If you're up for it, we'd love to have you join us.

Leave a comment in the COMMENTS section below and I'll let you know as soon as the Kickstarter campaign goes live...

And thank you in advance for spreading the word.