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Day 1 of the Ultimate Marketing Seminar saw 4 world class speakers grace the stage here at Brisbane – Siimon Reynolds, Adam Ginsberg, James Schramko and Brad Fallon.

It was fascinating watching them each tackle their topic (basically how to grow your business) from different angles – and how they wove their pitches to buy their seminars throughout their content.

Siimon Reynolds is definitely a showman. His pitch was very fast paced and content rich. His gems from decades in the marketing game were certainly high quality.

I particularly loved his stories of campaigns that worked like Bamboo Lingerie – a local lingerie store in the US that chalk stencilled onto the pavement “From here it look s like you could do with new lingerie. Bamboo Lingerie 200m”. Very clever, funny and cheap as chips to create.

I also liked his analysis of USP/ESP & TSP. USP = unique selling proposition, ESP = emotional selling proposition (the emotion you build your brand about) and TSP = Tribal selling proposition (where you create a tribe around your brand).

His question “Is what you’re doing living up to your marketing of your company” is one all businesses need to ask themselves – as if your marketing is creating one impression, but your company misses the boat on key customer touch-points then you are setting your business up for failure.

Adam Ginsberg is the most successful e-bay seller in history. Unfortunately his session was basically one long pitch – with zero real content. It was entertaining and amusing to watch – but without content to back up the fun, it left me hollow.

James Schramko is one of the truly nice guys in internet marketing. I have been fortunate to see James present a few times and to meet with him socially. He is as my grandma would say “one of nature’s true gentlemen”. He is a doer and not a polished high gloss speaker – what you see is what you get – honest, genuine and real. He spends most of his time happily building his business and and has only recently started presenting after much badgering by his colleagues.

James knows his stuff and went through what was in effect abeginners guide to the world of internet marketing. Showing many possibilities and ideas – and stretching imaginations. Having someone put together a coherent picture of how all the internet marketing pieces fit together and how people can harmonise them into a thriving business is rare. All I can say is if you truly want to succeed in Internet Marketing – James would be one of the ones to learn from. Check out James’s blog and get his e-book to get an idea of the sort of things he can teach you.

Finally Brad Fallon from Stompernet took the stage. Brad is an icon in the internet marketing world and this was the first time I had seen him present. What really stood out for me was how well read Brad was – his speak was littered with references to amazing books to tap into (and as you know my love of books you can imagine Amazon’s joy when I go shopping over the next few days to pick up the main ones).

So here’s a few to look for “Execution”, author Felix Dennis, “Predictably Irrational”, author Ken Fisher, “The Choice”, “It’s not luck”.

Brad’s presentation looked at a whole raft of business blocks that stop people from succeeding drawing from the best business theorists.  The insight that “every business has 1 thing that limits throughput the most”  and our job is to identify and eliminate the one thing is quite powerful. Think about it for a moment – “if you could make a lot more money in the next 6 months if I just (fill in the details about the one constraint)” – what would you do?

Brad demonstrated the power of the word free in campaigns and why the free line has shifted over the years.

He looked at four core limiting things that trip people up:

1. Reality is complex
2. Conflict is inevitable
3. Others are to blame
4. The sky is the limit

Finally he looked at how to create a “Mafia Offer” – one that customers can’t say no to. Very very clever and worth joining Stompernet to learn.

What else did I learn from the seminar – the value of upgrades. I paid for an additional upgrade package – which meant access to a VIP room. So what? Well at the simplest level it meant coffee without queueing, lunch and snacks. It also meant meeting people who were serious about their business (and I booked 2 new clients yesterday during the breaks).

The highlight was access to a cocktail party in the evening to chat with the speakers and other like minded businesses. From my side of things, talking with John Carlton (one of my copywriting heroes) was priceless. Catching up with James with my colleague Donna-Marie Coggins was also brilliant.

Well – off to get ready for Day 2

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter