So I am back from the Focus marketing seminar in DC, and I now own like 168 shares of GotAccess.com, maybe .0005% of the company. So hopefully when GotAccess goes big and sells for billions of dollars to Google or someone I will be able to cash in and make several thousand dollars, but for now I can only dream.
GotAccess is currently in Beta until October 31, 2008, however once there are more people on the platform and they start adding all kind of new features GotAccess could easily be positioned to surpass many of the social networking sites currently on the web. In fact Sean Roach, the Chairman and founder, envisions GotAccess as a whole new way of using the Internet; a web 3.0 platform if you will. The best thing about GotAccess is that since they have a number of premium levels of membership which they charge for they had no need to sell your data and say so in their terms of service. They also have clubs you can setup with 10 levels of access so you can have a lot more flexibility in deciding what to keep private from whom.
Sean is an incredibly energetic person, and yet still very down to earth. He spoke to my friend Tim Linden and I about the elections and a number of other topics. From what he told us along with the many of the other concepts he discussed from the stage I can tell he is very actively thinking about many things and is a very insightful person. Some of the things he taught us were concepts such as own nothing and control everything, and that you need to have a can do attitude.
Accordingly, his favorite phrase this past weekend I would say was “shameful bronze”, although he did use his trademark phrase “get off your duff” a few times. He had a very good point with shameful bronze. It had to do with the fact that Michael Phelps is known by everyone, but very few people know the names of the other swimmers who have come in second and especially third behind him. They are basically forgotten, however if they were able to get a Gold medal in one of those races they would be remembered as the person that beat Michael Phelps. Essentially this means there is no middle ground you either win or you lose.
I met a ton of people in DC from all over the world; most are actively involved in Internet marketing and other financial fields. So hopefully someone will need photography services, and be willing to pay a little bit of money for my services. Even if I do not get some new clients just getting some great ideas on Internet marketing should also help me to have better financial success.
I saw a lot of people pay good money for many of the programs that the various speakers were selling. Many of them were indeed very enticing, although as I said before I was able to resist the deals because I simply did not have the money to spend on the program.
It was really a different experience for me, since I do not come from a marketing background; and my experience with seminars is more collegiate in nature. The main difference that kind of bothered me was the speakers were unable to reference some basic information, either because of a contractual agreement, or because it was proprietary or some kind of a trade secret. Some of the things that they could not mention was in one case a person’s last name and in another where leads were being generated from; there were also other various details about their products that some of them could not mention. Now this does not mean their products were bad or anything. In fact, I believe most of them genuinely had good products to offer. What does it mean then? It just means that if you are like me you will be dying to know the details, and it will be hard for you to sit there guessing, as I know it was hard for me to tell exactly what they were offering sometimes. If you cannot afford the product you feel sort of like a horse having a carrot dangled in front of you only being allowed a few nibbles of it. There were of course some good nuggets of wisdom that almost every speaker sprinkled in, but there was clearly a major focus on building up a reputation and an anticipation for their products.
Most of the speakers were amazing orators, and were good at presenting just enough information to tickle your appetite for the product, and I am sure most of them did have good products. If not learning form their presentations is valuable in itself. However, for me when someone tells me they are making a lot of money from their product it leads me think that they will be charging a lot of money for their product and their time and be out of my reach more than I want that too, especially when they are selling things such as coaching sessions too.
Overall, I believe the seminar was beneficial, although I was disappointed with some of the content, such as large number of speakers that mentioned the book “The Secret”, and even some that mentioned working with the movie. I have looked at the book and find some of the concepts presented in “The Secret” are flat out wrong. For example the book claims that people who suffer tragedy such as the Holocaust victims are somewhat responsible, because they are on the same wavelength or something of that nature. I cannot accept that bad things only happen to people because they are thinking wrong. Sometimes bad things do happen to people, because someone else was doing wrong. However, I think I can see what the speakers were geting at and agree with them on the point that even though something bad might have happened to you you in the past you cannot hold a victim mentality; you must move on and forgive. Your focus has to keep coming back to positive things, even when addressing negatives you got to keep coming back to a positive and uplifting mindset.
So now that I have probably violated all the rules of marketing, which I just learned, and laid it all out reveling almost everything to you. I have to say that if you go to their next seminar it will certainly surpass your expectations, and that I believe the positives are far higher than the negatives. Nonetheless, you do to a large extent get out what you put into to it. For example if you do not take the initiative to meet with and talk to people your benefit may not be as great. You will learn the importance taking action, and steping out or miss out.
Hopefully you can now see I am not trying to push this seminar on you and not trying to hard sell it. If you have been thinking about going I really think you should, and I recommend that you do go to the next one if at all possible.
Despite the focus on selling their products they will not be down on you if you don’t buy. They will still talk to you and share their knowledge, and will even still give you the VIP treatment. When the speakers are not trying to sell their products you get a unique opportunity to pick their minds and really get some insider knowledge. Also it is an amazing opportunity to form new friendships and connections, you may even get a chance to win some of the speakers products, and even if you buy nothing you most certainly will leave with a bunch of free material, books, business cards, and maybe even some cash; making the event well worth your time and money.
You sign up by following the link below.
