When Your Shins Hurt From The Growing Pains

I've heard of young teens actually feeling pains in their shins from growing so fast.  I know how they feel.  Ever since going full-time in growing my business, I have met so many amazing people, started so many fabulous projects and learned so much that I feel like I'm throbbing from the process.  It's awesome.

I've long known that getting great support is the key to business growth (see an article here that I wrote on the subject for my most recent edition of my ezine, Andreu Marketing Solutions Letter).

So I rarely spare any expense when it comes to augmenting my education, buying the right materials and keeping abreast of the latest in marketing, business and life.  This past weekend, I attended Dan Kennedy's Marketing and Money-Making 2006 conference, and boy did I learn tons!

First, I rarely learn only what they're trying to teach me from the stage.  I listen to words, but I also look for style, technique and methodology.  My philosophy is: "Whether I like ya or can't stand ya, I'm going to learn something from ya."  There were various speakers, some phenomenal (Jim McCann from 1(800)FLOWERS was so endearing in telling his story of taking his business from one flower shop in Queens, NY to $1 billion in sales this year that I don't think I'll ever buy flowers from  anyone else) to others that were, say, less so.

Case in point - I will omit names to protect the guilty, but there was one man who was so aggressive in selling from the stage that he spent the better part of 15 minutes at the end of his speech heavily promoting his $1,500+ product in a loud, bombastic and sometimes (to me) offensive way.  When he finally offered his close ("The first 20 people to line up to get my product will be entitled to..." - I don't know what they were entitled to since I had tuned out his sales pitch) people actually tripped over each other to get to the corner to be one of the first 20.  Ran!  I was fascinated, the way you might be to watch people engaging in public nudity or drunkenness.  Kind of like, "Wow, are these people really doing this?" 

Regardless of my own personal judgement, obviously what he did worked.  Why?  I've spent some time figuring it out.  First, he wasn't interested in being liked by everyone in the crowd.  He was interested in being liked intensely by the people who were going to like him.  He wanted to make a big impression with them (and he did!).

Secondly, he was bold.  He wasn't afraid to make big promises, big statements, say outrageous things.  He had a motto: "Make yourself memorable."  He certainly lived up to it (hey, I'm writing about him, right?)

Thirdly, he wasn't afraid to sell.  While I might not particularly endorse his heavy-sell tactics, he got it right in that he didn't hope the crowd just naturally gravitated to his stuff.  He told them what he wanted them to do.  This is something just about every self employed person could learn to do better.

These are just but a few of the gems I picked up during this intense few days at the conference.  Lessons to you:  keep on learning!  And don't just look at what people are wanting you to learn.  Crawl under the belly of the lessons, look at it from a different angle and draw your own conclusions.