2008 UK Focus Marketing Seminar Review

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I had looked forward to this for a while, so it was good to get going (even at 5am on Friday morning) to the Radisson Hotel at Heathrow. The hotel was pretty grand and the proceedings kicked off with co-host Internet Entrepeneur, Sean Roach outlining a few house rules -  like mobile phones needing to be OFF - otherwise a donation of £100 to charity was in order. Nothing against charities, but my phone was firmly switched off from that moment on.

Those who’ve seen him know Sean is a highly entertaining speaker and always drives home important points about where we should be going in terms of our online business, asking: what’s your SKOPAS?, a Greek word for target, goal or mark. Explaining how we should choose a niche an inch wide and a mile deep and create a business out of your hobby or something you love. Nothing new to those who know, but it’s always good to see old hat with fresh eyes.

Sean outlined an interesting vision of the near future  Internet with Ebay and Yahoo examples of the bigger picture and lone websites representing unconnected islands on the sea we call the web. People, explained the US entrepreneur, will be drawn to platforms for all their online needs, and examples of this are already evident with social media. This tied in neatly with his social media project GOT ACCESS which looks like becoming a winner, especially with the unique selling points it offers.

Now, how about something completely shocking? We should all know this, and it shouldn’t be a surprise, but I guess it sometimes takes someone to point it out in black and white.

The terms and conditions written by Social Media sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Google and I just read Flickr (owned by Google) stipulates that all content posted on these sites is owned by them…Whooaaah there!..,.think of all those photographers that throw up their works…not only that, but they have the right to syndicate this content:

“By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide licence (with the right to sublicence) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise”

Scared yet? And have you ever sent confidential documents, product blueprints or content through Gmail? Yep, they could own that too…read the terms.

So after recovering with a quick shot of Jack Daniels, we moved on:

GotAccess main pointers:

• Your Information is kept private
• Create Clubs (memberships) which you can charge for up to 10 levels if you wish
• Monetize your content
• Sell your products on a Social Technology Platform
• Two separate parts, social and business, so both are separate initially, but as in life, sometimes friends and business does mix.

I suggest you get the whole story at GotAccess for more info

Speaker highlights of the seminar for me Raymond Arron, Glenn Dietzel and Alan Forrest Smith. Raymond was an extremely funny and inspirational man and quite obviously a heavyweight within his profession. Glenn is someone I’d have no problem buying into, because it would suit my own business plan and Alan also, a great storyteller but most importantly someone who stands by his results – which are DAMNED impressive.

Yes, it was a pitchfest, with low entry fee it was bound to be, but as long as you are not easily swayed by sales patter for something that doesn’t suit your plan you can sit back and appreciate the success stories and techniques employed – which brings me to the tears – I’m not sure about the tears from a couple of the speakers. Was it genuine? or an emotional selling strategy to create empathy with the audience? Am I a cynical b*stard? You decide. Personally, I had to eat my twin sibling as a kid when growing up, whilst living in a match-box in Siberia – but I survived.

I caught up with people from last year and some names that are the new generation in Internet Marketing such as Chris Freville, Matt Garret and Alex Jeffreys - and many a beer was had. One thing though - I had a feeling there was a barrier between some of the speakers and everyone else (I’m talking about the bar networking here, not at the seminar) that wasn’t evident last year. Was this my imagination? I can’t remember which speaker pointed out that millionaires hang out with other millionaires or of the same social status and this rang true. Don’t get me wrong though, I’ll be hanging out with a lot more millionaires when I’m one, for sure.

Conclusion: There was tight organization this year that kept the show running smoothly throughout and breakfast, lunch (very nice) and coffee breaks ensured everyone didn’t have to rely on expensive hotel cuisine, which did annoy me last year. But tightening up the ship lost some of the relaxed feel that was associated with previous Focus seminars, in my experience. But the free stuff! Cruises – Books - T-shirts - Prize Draws – Lunch and Speaker Programmes with upwards to $10k were given away like confetti at the end of the Seminar as well as a  five DVD set to everyone, which you cannot fault.

Focus Marketing Seminars UK Event

I’ve talked about the importance of developing networks and relationships before, especially in the Internet business where we spend so much time in front of the screen!

Attending seminars is, of course, the way to go for meeting other Internet entrepeneurs, potential future business partners as well as getting the low-down from marketers who are pulling in vast sums to their business.

I attended the Britpack event last year, which was my first , and met some great contacts whom I still work with today. I can’t emphasis the importance of actually meeting your contacts as opposed to through the internet ‘cloud’

This year, the Focus Marketing Seminar rolls into the UK on October 17th-19th 2008.

Confirmed so far:

Armand Morin: How to generate a $35 Million dollar business starting from scratch online! (Armand used to sell vacuum cleaners door to door)

Alan Forrest Smith: How to take a failed webpage then re-launch the page as a million dollar best seller!

Adam Ginsberg: Number 1. EBay seller with over $20 MILLION in sales over just 3 years!

Sean Roach: Web 3.0 technology and SEO Latest from the Corporate trenches!

Tim Brocklehurst has enthralled audiences worldwide with his step-by-step approach to setting up automatic businesses on the Internet. He is now known as the ‘James Bond’ of Internet Marketing.

Debra Thompson: Building Residual Income into your Business So You Get Paid Over and Over Again - AUTOMATICALLY!

The event takes place at the Radisson Hotel at Heathrow, London.

Book the event here and start opening the doors for Internet Success. Focus Marketing Seminar

Ringside Seats for Strategic Profits Live

Rich Schefren’s Strategic Profits Live 2008 has kicked off! Take a look at this link for daily updates, videos of the speakers and behind the scenes interviews:

http://www.strategicprofits.com/blog/conference-surprise/

Speakers include: Mike Filsaime, Frank Kern, Jeff Walker, Jay Abraham and many more!

World Internet Summit London

Brett McFall and Tom Hua present the World Internet Summit which rolls into London November 15 - 18 2007

If you can drop everything and get yourself there…

Speakers will include:

Armand Morin is one of the most well known Internet Marketers in the world today. Having started online in 1996, his personal online businesses alone have generated over $25,000,000 in revenue since then. This doesn’t include the millions of dollars his students have produced from his teachings.

Adam Gisberg has established several successful stores on eBay and he has personally sold over £10,000,000 on eBay in the last three years.

Ewen Chia is widely regarded as the “World’s #1 Super Affiliate and his name is synonymous with Affiliate Marketing. If there’s just ONE person who can teach you how to make a fortune online from other people’s products without a website, product or list - it’s Ewen Chia.

Tim Brocklehurst has a background in creative advertising, software development and magazine publishing, Tim hit the ground running as an Internet Marketer in late 2005. Then he quickly earned recognition for his speed in building niche lists and growing online businesses fast.

For more than a decade, Sean Roach has been helping people grow their business, and has built an entrepreneurial empire to include many different areas of expertise - including marketing on the internet, organizational turnaround, and the keys to accessing the right people for success. His endeavors are intended to aid in the development and growth of businesses and individuals at every level.

Tracy Rupchuk was once in the audience of World Internet Summit. She simply applied what she learnt … used her own initiative …and achieved success so quickly that it caught everyone by surprise.

Tracy Rupchuk is now an award-winning writer, bestselling author of “31 Days to Millionaire Marketing Miracles,” and was nominated for awards such as Canadian Entrepreneur of the Year, and Chamber of Commerce Business Woman of the Year, and has become recognized as a “Quantum Leap Specialist.”

http://www.worldinternetsummit.com

There are loads more speakers, also some interesting audio on the blog:
http://www.worldinternetsummit.com/blog/

If you go for the full 4 days you’ll get Worldwide rights to the DVD of the whole Seminar! I urge you to check it out!

http://www.worldinternetsummit.com

Britpack UK 2007 - Good Times!

It was a privilage to finally meet up with a host of Internet Marketers at the Britpack UK Seminar in Coventry last weekend. It couldn’t have been a better way to network and I highly recommend it to anyone in Internet Marketing.

It was an honour to meet and chat with Pat Lovell and Robert Puddy, the organizers as well as Simon Hodgkinson, Jeremy Gislason, Richard Butler, Terry Telford, Scott Paton, Tim Brocklehurst, JP Schoeffel..you see why it’s worth going?…Others I missed John Delavera, Martin Avis, Tracy Repchuk….
There was a posse from my hometown of Bristol as well, the Bristol Mastermind group. I’ll definately be hooking up with Graham Cox and the rest of the group as soon as poss!

Also from the UK it was great to meet Matt Garrett, Alex Jeffreys, Tahir Shah, David Congreave, Trevor D. Greenfield, Adam Jetson, Randolf Smith, Diane Corriette and many many others who I may have missed here (my bar bill on checkout took a serious battering!)

The presentations that I saw were all excellent in content, my notebook has exploded.

looking to catching up again!

UK Internet Marketing Seminar

Internet Marketing is all about meeting people, partnering and setting up joint ventures, making contacts for the future and doing business. You’ll quickly find that it’s a hard slog without these contacts.

http://www.nichecontentmachine.com/britpacklive

Well if you’re based in the UK (and even if you’re not) get on board the UKBritpack Internet Marketing Seminar this October in Coventry.

There are tens of thousands of people in this industry with all the information, and all the pieces of the puzzle either in their brain or on their hard drive. It isn’t the knowledge that’s holding you back, it’s the connections!

Here’s who’ll be there:

Simon Hodgkinson is a UK based Internet Marketer who comes from a background in offline sales. Over the last 15 years Simon has sold in excess of ten million dollars worth of products and services and since moving online full time has ranked up success after success.

Jeremy Gislason launched the flagship site SureFireWealth.com in Jan. 2005 and has been expanding rapidly ever since. He also works with copywriters, video and audio producers, the best programmers and marketers on a day to day basis in order to provide the best services and products possible to you.

Simon Hodgkinson and Jeremy Gislason have also partnered to create a multitude of successful membership based websites and business ventures including: MarketingMainEvent.com, MarketingMainEvent2.com, Audio.MarketingMainEvent2.com, MarketingExplosion.com, and MarketingMainEvent3.com and CoolMarketer.com –

Robert Puddy of AdvertisingKnowHow, HitsConnect and the LaunchFormula Marketing membership script.

Richard Butler is an international Life and Business coach and Practioner of Neuro Linguistic Programming specializing in helping online entrepreneurs set and over reach their goals.

Tim Brocklehurst ran a successful magazine publishing company for ten years before turning to Internet Marketing. An MBA Graduate in 1997, and Royal Mail Award winner, Tim’s products include The Freedom List, List Mission and, most recently, My Viral Spiral (MVS) which exceeded $150,000 in sales.

Look out for Tim’s eye-opening presentation.

Tracy Repchuk is the bestselling author of “31 Days to Millionaire Marketing Miracles” deemed the blueprint for Internet Marketing and the direct path to internet profits. She is the winner of the “Internet Marketing Success of the Year” for 2007 from the World Internet Mega Summit in Singapore, and Canadian Entrepreneur of the Year and Chamber of Commerce Business Woman of the Year nominee, and is the CEO of 4 companies for over 22 years.

Nathan Anderson is the “Guru’s Guru” when it comes to the search engines. Notables that credit him are Kirt Christensen, Brad Fallon, and Brian Keith Voiles. He’s revolutionized SEO for many of the top Internet marketing personalities, as well as thousands of readers of his books on the topic.

John Taylor is a writer, a publisher and a marketing consultant. He lives in a cottage on bank of the River Esk in South West Scotland. John’s first best selling product was “Testing & Tracking” a special report that provides insight into which parts of your sales process should be tested including precise details on how to test over twenty individual variables. John’s other best selling information products include “Blog Traffic Secrets” and “Hot Niche Topics Uncovered

http://www.nichecontentmachine.com/britpacklive