The No Excuses Summit was the brainchild of Ferny Ceballos and Raymond Fong over at SEO Networker. It started out as an incentive for people that signed up for Mike Dillard’s new e-Magazine “What Works Now.” The spiel was – Buy the WWN subscription through us and we will give you a free ticket to a live event in Las Vegas where we will teach you a lot about SEO.
The concept grew rapidly. By early May, Ferny and Ray had successfully invited a host of other marketing friends to speak at their event. They gave the event a powerful name, The No Excuses Summit saying that,
Seriously! All The Excuses You Had for the Lack of Success in Your Business Have Now Been Eliminated. Our Goal is To Have You Leave Las Vegas with a Completed Lead Generating and Money Converting System.
Truthfully, unless I’m missing something, that’s a lot of hype that will not be able to be fulfilled. In order to leave with a completed system, either (a) one of the gurus will be building a website for everyone, or (b) they will be setting everyone up at tables with laptops, extending the conference for another 3-30 days, and maintaining a maximum enrollment of 100-200 to maintain good student/teacher rations. Neither scenario will happen. There are conferences that do exactly what I listed under (b). Check out NAMS4.
Don’t misunderstand! I think it will be a fun conference and most people will go home with some great and useful information. Many will enjoy hearing favorite marketing gurus L-I-V-E ! The conference filled up quickly, then yesterday, Ferny reported that they had obtained a bigger venue at the Venetian Hotel and that 250 more seats would become available (presumably for sale). What started as a fun give-away incentive had grown to a large event.
Speaker Stars of the No Excuses Summit
Here is a list of the gurus listed in the No Excuses Summit letter and updated by Ferny’s latest announcement.
- Mike Dillard – originator of the Magnetic Sponsoring System, and so much more.
- Brian Fanale – originator of MLMLeadSystemPRO.
- Jonathan Budd – 25 year old multi-millionaire network marketer.
- Todd Falcone – successful in four network marketing companies.
- Mark Hoverson – rising master of direct marketing.
- Jim Yaghi – PPC Domination instructor; originator of 8 Days to Cash Flow.
- Ferny Ceballos – Leading SEO expert.
- Raymond Fong – Aerospace engineer turned SEO Networker mastermind.
- Katie Freiling – Massive MLM leader and creator of The Unified Tribe.
- David Schwind – $150K a day as persuasion expert.
- Howie Schwartz – Specialist in Google domination.
- Cedrick Howard – 17 year veteran of network marketing with offline strategies.
- Justin Christianson – Formerly Dillard biz partner, now a systems consultant.
- Joe O’Day – Expert in analysis and use of outsourcing.
- Adam Holland – Quick learner and rising star network marketer.
- Jeff Learner – Making business profitable.
- Jairek Robbins – Professional speaker, son of Tony Robbins.
- Tim Erway – Black belt copywriter and conversion expert.
- Jimmy Davis – Creator of MLM Goldmine. He will be the program MC.
In many ways, Dillard is the glue of the event. The star of the stars. He has partnered with many of the other speakers, including Ferny and Ray.
What to Do at the No Excuses Summit
There will be a lot of people who will go for the autographs and pictures of the star marketers. Most will go to learn valuable information. But if you really want to leverage this event (or any Live Event) you will also go with the expectation of making new friends.
In short, you will go to network.
Today’s friends can be tomorrows valued partner. The person you meet at the Summit that is starting to work in a niche similar to your own may be someone with whom you can collaborate on a business, a web site, an e-book, a tangible product, and so on.
Suggestions for Networking at the No Excuses Summit
Keep in mind there will be a lot of people there! On the other hand, you only need to network with a few other attendees to have a satisfying networking experience. Get to know the people you do meet.
You might meet a potential partner, potential customer, potential mentor and not realize it while you are at the Summit.
The key is to take your time. Do not be what Michelle Donovan calls a hummingbird.
By taking your time, you may be able to collaborate on the spot by doing some mini-brainstorming. Do it to help someone else, if they wish.
With so many people, others will have trouble remembering you unless you are memorable. My friend John Balbach wears a cowboy hat (“Oh, the man with the hat!”) You can put your picture on your business card – that can help others.
And remember, your real goal with business cards is to collect them from the few friends you make; it is not to give out as many as you can!
Want some networking help? Listen to this recorded webinar from June 22, 2010 where I interview two expert networkers.
Go and make friends!
And yes, I will be there at the Summit – See you there!
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lofty goal indeed! but with the stuff we’ll be teaching people, there’s nothing stopping them from working at night time implementing them. Will they be able to implement EVERYTHING? Doubtful, but they can get a website setup pretty darn quickly with some of the resources we’ll provide people. Then they can start putting together their capture page, do a video salespage if they want, and choose one or two traffic generation methods to do.
Yes, in that weekend, if they are ambitious and hungry enough, they can get a system up and running.
Raymond
Hi Richard,
That’s an excellent article you put together and great suggestions on how to network at events. Especially liked the advice on business cards.
Thanks for sharing!
Ilka Flood
The Enlightened Networker
.-= Ilka Flood´s last blog ..Break Loose, Change Your “Employee” Mindset Through Personal Development =-.
@Ray – I’m honored that you stopped by! Well, I do stay up late on my business at times but, it’s harder after a long day at a conference, at least for me. Now you young ‘uns…. well sure! I guess I make such observations because I have been a “train the trainer” workshop leader for over 15 years and think pretty carefully about human performance and what it takes to create competence, never mind expertise. As I wrote, I don’t mean to take anything away from the great thing that will be happening. Going to this will be memorable and worthwhile.
@Ilka – Thanks for taking time to comment! When it comes to what should be ON a business card, I have no strong view, although I personally like seeing a face on a card. But as to the use of the card, I think the research is pretty solid.
Hey Richard, well put! Human performance does suffer after a long day, but then adrenaline and Red Bull help
I don’t think people should seek to create “expertise” from just 3 days of being there, they should seek to “take action”. Will what they create after just one weekend be perfect and final? Possible but probably unlikely.
But the problem with most folks has never been “perfection”, it has more to do with just believing in themselves, empowering themselves, and taking action – ANY action. And we hope to do exactly that for them.
We plan on supplying more than enough knowledge for them to do something… ANYTHING. There will be plenty of info there to get them rocking on their sales funnel – all they gotta do is add some elbow grease
Looking forward to meeting you at the event as well. Talk to you soon!
Raymond
Let’s hope this is an annual event.
I cannot go this year because of my day job. I am involved in an audit that weekend. Next year no excuses
.-= Peter Fuller MBA´s last blog ..Why I started my own Home Business =-.
Richard, great meeting you! Hope you had as much fun as I did. Keep on rocking
Raymond
Ray, it was fantastic in so many ways and in different ways for different people. I am in awe of the magnitude of the event and the professionalism of organization throughout — and all accomplished within just a few weeks! Incredible work and congratulations. If you remember from my original article above, one of the “little” things I said that could make a big difference was providing tables. In hotel lingo – a classroom arrangement as opposed to a theater arrangement. The problem is that classroom means the need for many more square feet of seating space. But you guys did it anyway, just one of the ways that I saw your giving spirit come through. I will say more about the event in another post. Thanks for stopping by again! It was a pleasure meeting you.
No Excuses was freaking epic. Props to Ferny and Ray, and everyone there really. It was life-changing.
Garrett
.-= Garrett Miller´s last blog ..The No Excuses Summit and Garrett Miller’s Life Story =-.
Epic is a big little word Garrett – but applicable.