Okay, so in the previous post, “The Secret Society of Traffic Conversion“, I covered fundamental #1 to making friends with the internet marketing giants and getting them on your side.

Now let’s move on to the next four fundamentals you should adhere to in order to make the best of your marketing seminars.

Lesson #2: Establish yourself as someone of expertise by asking interesting and insightful questions (i.e. don’t be stupid).

Ask intelligent questions or even making helpful (note the operative word being “helpful”) suggestions and not being afraid to be in the spotlight. This is one of the best ways for you to set yourself apart from others in the audience and make people think “oohhh, that person has something of value and I should find out what it is” and want to come talk to you.

In a sense think about others who are less knowledgeable than you are in that particular area – by asking an intelligent question not only are you demonstrating an understanding of the topic but you are also doing them a favor by asking the question they were too afraid to ask themselves.

Lesson #3: Gurus are nice (for the most part) and are more than happy to help you if they deem you are worthy and are genuine.

Let me explain.

At the seminar, I did the unthinkable and the unreasonable. Not only did I initiate contact with the gurus and probed for more details, I also created the possibility of getting them to come online and do interviews with us!

While many of us think that gurus are the “untouchables” and that they couldn’t care less about who’s in the audience since they already make $x bazillions dollars – I‘ve found this to be absolutely false. What you have to realize is that each of these gurus are just like you and me. They all had to start SOMEWHERE.

And odds are, where they started isn’t very far off from where you are at now.

And more importantly, odds are that someone in their lives gave them a helping hand to get them where they are now.

As long as you are authentic and sincere (and friendly), they’d more than happy to chat with you and address your questions and provide advice (within reason of course). This leads to #4…

Lesson #4: Offer something of value to the gurus – how can you help THEM??

You can imagine how some people would take advantage of #3 and just hassle the heck out of the gurus for “favors”. What these newbies are forgetting is one of the cardinal rules of marketing/business/life. The “What’s In It For Me” (W.I.I.F.M.) principle.

Those folks who are pestering the heck out of gurus, chomping at the bits, are basically trying to get something for nothing. Never mind that these gurus just gave their best X minutes on a stage presenting the very knowledge being sought after. Never mind that these noobs didn’t even bother doing some research beforehand (not to mention that they didn’t even bother purchasing the guru’s product)…

You see, we all should learn to stop feeling so entitled. Don’t think “oh, the guru’s already making millions of dollars, he/she SHOULD help me now…”

Balooney. The gurus don’t owe you jack.

Want to know how to get their attention? Offer something of value to them. Ask them how you can help THEM for a change. Give them access to your list for example; promote them on your humble site/list; anything… SOMETHING. At the very least acknowledge that it is only out of their kindness that they are helping you.

Take Fernando and myself for example. It is only through adding value back to Mike Dillard and Tim Erway and doing our best to offer whatever help we can did they take note of us. It was only after we studied their system religiously and sucked in all their teachings did we start separating ourselves from the crowd.

So ask yourself this when you are speaking to gurus – what are YOU doing for THEM?

Lesson #5: Take pictures with the gurus and send it to them so they’ll remember you.

Okay… this is almost cheating but it works. Like they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Be bold and be different… ask a guru for a picture after chatting with them for a bit. Tell them you’ll send them the picture when you get home and do it! After all, who doesn’t like seeing a picture of themselves in their inbox?

Not only will they get a lovely picture of their own face in their inbox, they’ll also get a picture of you and this will help them remember you… This makes it easier getting in touch with them for any other endeavors (see #3 and #4).

Lastly, let your list know! “Hey, look at me! I was at *blankity blank* and met *blankity blank*.” This shows you are active in the field and are constantly learning new things from other gurus.

One last note… do give the guru credit by letting people know who he/she is and linking to his/her site.

And there you have it folks. Next time you get a chance to go to a top caliber seminar… DO IT! You never know what sort of information, ideas, and contacts you can get out of it (odds are, you’ll get TONS)!

Special thanks go out again to Brock and Buck – thanks for creating such an awesome environment and inviting me to the event.

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend a 3-day traffic generation hosted by Brock Felt and Buck Rizvi in Orlando, Florida dubbed “The Secret Society of Traffic Conversion”.

Man, what a trip!

Brock Felt and Yours Truly at “The Secret Society of Traffic Conversion”

There was a ton of good marketing information and strategies. Even though I already knew much of the information presented, from years of study, implementation, and instruction for our customers, I still had a mind blowing time.

There are always golden nuggets of information around every corner, no matter how much you know.

My philosophy is this, as long as you can walk away with at least ONE solid idea, strategy, know-how, piece of information, etc. it was worth it. In my case, I came away from the seminar loaded with tons of ideas so it was definitely worth it. (Attraction Marketing Formula is about to get a major revamp, be on the lookout )

The standout speakers at the convention were hands-down Carlos and Lupe Garcia. The information they presented was astounding. If you don’t know who Carlos and Lupe are, they went from high school dropouts to making millions of dollars online while driving literally 5.8 BILLION visitors to their site over the span of a few months…

Yes, that wasn’t a typo, that was a ‘B’ you saw before ‘illion’.

Another speaker I was very excited to learn from was Michael Cage – the “King of Teleseminar”. He presented some powerful information and tactics using teleseminars to create interest in and generate revenue for your business.

His presentation was so compelling, I even shelled out $2K for one of his programs and I can’t wait to dig into it.

Don’t worry, for those of you who are customers of the Attraction Marketing Formula, I’ll be breaking down some of the strategies I learned in our exclusive “customers only” bonus tele-clinics and webinars. Heck, Michael and several other gurus were even kind enough to make themselves available for exclusive interviews, which we’ll happily invite our customers to listen in!

There was a loot of other speakers as well, which I gathered a ton of lessons and information from.

Our hosts, Brock and Buck gave each speaker ample time to speak, (3-4 hours), so the speakers really tore it up!

The thing that really stuck out for me at this event was the atmosphere. Brock and Buck made sure that while the event was loaded with top-notch presenters, it was also a very friendly environment where it was easy to network with others. I got to rub shoulders and chit-chat with top marketing gurus and other marketers in the crowd and ask lots of questions.

Buck Rizvi and Yours Truly at The Secret Society of Traffic Conversion

While I learned some of those “golden nuggets” of marketing information, the true piece of information I want to share with really has nothing to do with those marketing tips. It has to do with how you network and create powerful alliances and contacts. I came up with 5 tips to help you. Let me share with you the first one:

Lesson #1: You can create powerful contacts.

You are in a place where you are surrounded by dozens if not hundreds or thousands of other marketers. You are also in the presence of a handful or dozens of marketing gurus who found a way to get them to where you’d like to be… You are surrounded by potential leads, prospects, customers, JV partners, affiliates, and like-minded individuals.

What do you do? Do you a) hide in your seat and hope nobody sees you or b) do you bust out your people and marketing skills and create some contacts?

I opted for option b and so should you.

A lot of these seminars are setup such that you get several mini-breaks and a few long breaks. These provide excellent chances for you to mingle with others in the audience. You should adopt an “abundance” mindset and see each of them not as competitors but as potential partners.

Go talk to others. Find out what they are doing. Find out how you can help them and how they, in return, may be able to help you. Leverage the quality of people that seminars attract. You’d be surprised by how many contacts you can create this way and how fruitful this can be for you and your business.

So next time you plan on going to a seminar be sure to first hone your people skills and be positive and energetic. People will be attracted to you like no others.

And it helps when you apply principle #2 which I will share with you next time. So stay tuned until next time when I share with you 4 more powerful networking tips!

To Affinity and Beyond,

Raymond Fong

What do you get when you cross a squid with some sort of action? You get Squid+Do or rather… Squidoo! (Get it? C’mon that was a knee-slapper!)

Seriously though, while Squidoo has nothing to do with “squids” per se (save for the fact that its icon is a squid with a gigantic eyeball…) it does have plenty to do with action in the marketing field.

In case you haven’t been keeping up with the latest trend in Web 2.0 and all the hype surrounding Del.icio.us, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Squidoo, here’s a quick low down on what Squidoo is and why you should implement it into your marketing campaign.

Squidoo is like an organized (this is important) resource site meets social networking. On the “resource site” end, (more…)