Entrepreneurs-Journey.com Down-To-Earth Advice For Bloggers and Internet Marketers

Over the weekend I attended Ed Dale’s 30DC Coming Home three day event in Melbourne.

Ed Dale, if you don’t know him, is one of Australia’s most well known and likable Internet marketers, who adds a uniquely Australian flavour to the industry. Currently he is most well known as one of the founders of the 30 Day Challenge, an introductory program that aims to take any person from absolute beginner to making their first few dollars online, and beyond, within 30 days.

Ed also has a rep for website flipping, having earlier in his career sold his website portfolio for $5 million dollars. He then moved on to teach how to build niche sites with Frank Kern using the “Underachiever Method”, which focused on creating small sites that each earned a few hundred dollars a month, and then pumping out as many of them as you could.

Ed is one of those types of people who likes to keep up to date with everything and anything going on online, with the eyes of a marketer and a geek. He’s constantly talking about the future before it gets here, and it’s clear this is a passion of his more so than a business interest – he just likes to geek out on technology, marketing, social media and the web, but always refers back to how it could be used to make money.

The seminar on the weekend was by far the most relaxed event I’ve been too, led by the TubbyNerd himself (Ed) wearing his sandals, shorts and geeked out shirts. This wasn’t a formal seminar with suits, or people attempting to keep up professional appearance or sell you anything. It was a bunch of experienced guys and girls coming together to teach a bunch of up and comers how to make money online, in the format of a casual conversation. Just how I like it

What Are We Talking About

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Over the last week I attended three very different live events, although they all focused on the same thing – making money.

The first one was Roger Hamilton’s introduction night, a free event he puts on as a feeder to his 3-day workshop and breakfast pitch.

I’ve heard of Roger before, but I had some misconceptions. I thought he was one of the older crowd of “legacy” business folk still doing the speaking circuit. I was surprised when he turned out to be a younger fellow, with a unique accent (he is a strange combination of Hong Kong plus Scotland).

On Friday I attended the Andrew and Daryl Grant Sydney workshop and did my usual two presentations, one on website flipping and the other on blogging. The Grants put on a four day show that is unlike any other event I’ve been to, and is definitely more suited to my style (I’ll explain why in a moment).

On Saturday I popped into a Christopher Howard managed event, that brought together some well known Internet marketers, both locals and overseas speakers, including John Carlton, Brad Fallon, James Schramko and Ari Galper. This event is your typical pitch fest, with two hour sessions for each speaker ending with a sale for a $2,000+ product.

The Psychology Behind The Sale

I’ve been to many business events, some that were free, some I paid money for as part of coaching programs. It’s very interesting to observe the different psychology behind each event, especially when it comes to how they go about making sales.

All three events I attended during the last week were technically free to attend. Although there are pricing structures, in most cases you can score yourself a free ticket in some way. The organizers of these events do not profit from the seminar entry fees, rather it comes from money made when a person orders a product sold at the event.

I noticed three key elements were used as selling tools at each event, however they were applied in different ways. Here is how I observed each of the selling psychologies at the events…

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At the time I did this particular interview I didn’t realize it would become so cool, but Mert Erkal and the team at the new Bloghology blog magazine, which debuts at this weekend’s Blog World Expo conference in Las Vegas, decided to feature me on the front cover.

I’m honored to be featured and I thank head editor Mert for including me in this way, especially for the very first edition.

You can catch my short interview along with interviews with expert bloggers Chris Garret, Guy Kawasaki, John Cow, Garry Conn and Mani Karthik when you get your copy at the expo, or you can go right now and download the digital version from here (you will need to register to read the magazine in entirety) –

Bloghology Magazine Digital Version

The only thing I am disappointed about is that I could not make the expo. I had every intention of going but my new baby brother is coming (along with my dad) all the way from Spain for a brief visit this weekend. This will be the first chance I have to meet him and one of the rare opportunities we are in the same place since we live on opposite sides of the planet. Family before business I’m afraid!

Enjoy the magazine and the expo this weekend everyone!

I’ve put together a new video of the footage from around the Vegas strip. In this video I take you for a walk down the main casino and hotel strip, showing all kinds of crazy sites and sounds.

The strip is obviously a very commercial area, probably one of the most commercial places in the entire USA.

Spending time in Vegas is like entering a different world, with airplanes flying low to land in the airport which was in the backyard of my hotel the MGM Grand (almost!). The lights and sounds and visual stimulation makes the place feel very surreal, like you have entered into a movie that features an entirely new theme every 100 meters or so.

There a few interesting observations to make when it came to marketing techniques that I took away and can relate to you now. Obviously a place as commercial as this has to be able to market themselves. Here’s some thoughts –

1. Vegas offers comparatively cheap hotel rates. Even the most fancy hotels can be booked for under a $100 a night if you search the web and you can go much lower than that if you stay at the hotels just off the strip. These are some of the most impressive hotels in the world (the MGM Grand is the second largest hotel in the world) and if you don’t drink or gamble it’s quite possible to have a “cheap” holiday in Vegas, especially if you just want to lounge around the pool and walk up and down the strip.

   As soon as you start spending money on shows or gambling or drinking, that’s when the cost tends to rise up. This is of course a deliberate technique – make the accommodation cheap to get people there and then trust that the will spend up big. There’s no many products that offer as good a profit margin as gambling, so the hotels are quite happy to let people stay cheap.

2. As I pointed out in the video, there’s evidence of social proof and other forms of proof all over Vegas. One casino had a “wall of winners” showing photos of all the normal everyday people who had struck it rich showing off their big checks. Some had even become new millionaires.

   This is a classic technique that creates excitement and most importantly – hope. The whole idea of gambling is to purchase just a little potential for winning big with every bet. It’s this hope that creates the excitement that keeps people gambling away more money, despite fully understanding how bad the odds are in most situations.

3. The whole marketing image Vegas has developed is one of decadence and uninhibited pleasures. The psychology means people who come to Vegas leave their usual self-imposed restrictions at home. It’s okay to eat bad, drink lots, gamble and sleep with strangers in Vegas because that’s what people do. This frame helps the businesses benefit financially since money is spent a lot more frivolously than usual.

In my next post I’ll have the video up from the Jeff Walker Mastermind, including some short interviews with the experts attending. The networking was by far the highlight for me and I think you will enjoy my behind the scenes take of such a high-level meeting of marketing minds.

As always, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed and follow my Twitter profile if you want the latest from Vegas.

Yaro Starak
Not Gambling

Tonight I’m heading to the bright lights of Las Vegas and no, it’s not to gamble and drink since I don’t do either, although I do intend to see a Cirque Du Soleil show.

This is my first trip to Las Vegas and the main reason I’m heading there is for a special invite-only mastermind session with the top affiliates from the recent Product Launch Formula 2.0 release from Jeff Walker.

Normally I’m no where near the top of the affiliate standings but recently I’ve been able to get into the top 30ish area quite consistently, peaking at top 15 for StomperSMARTS and making the cut for the special invite to the mastermind with Jeff and his partners for the PLF 2.0 launch.

Here’s a list of some likely attendees in Vegas -

• Rich Schefren
• Tom Ham
• Mike Filsaime
• Tom Beal
• Joe Jablonski
• Ed Dale
• Colette Marshall
• Mark Widawer
• Brian Clark
• Willie Crawford
• Jeff Dedrick
• Tim Houston
• Michael Cheney
• John Carlton
• Stan Dahl
• Shawn Casey
• Ray Edwards
• Greg Poulos
• Dave Mizrachi

I’m looking forward to meeting some of these people in person, who I only know from names on websites and in emails.

Sedona and Chicago Next

After Vegas I’m renting a car and doing a road trip to Sedona for a brief holiday, then driving on to Phoenix for just long enough to catch a plane to Chicago. I’ve got a couple of days in Chicago then I’m back home to Toronto where I move into new house down at the beaches.

Throughout this trip I’ll have my trusty video camera and hopefully get a chance to do some more wandering entrepreneur posts, so stay tuned.

If you want to keep up with the latest details on this trip, make sure you subscribe to my Twitter feed.