Affiliate Summit is a big convention gathering all the affiliates, merchants, advertisers, etc all in one location. This special event creates a great interaction with so many other bloggers, affiliate marketers and even advertisers. This was no different from Affiliate Summit West.
I went and finally met up with Charles Ngo and I am rooming with him at the Seaport. Very smart guy! I have also met up with a lot of my affiliate friends from online, twitters, other blogs, and even from past affiliate summit. I have met up with John Chow, John Hasson, Benny, Jonathan Volk, Jonathan Royal, Samantha from NeverBlueAds, Mark from 45n5, Tracking202, Brendon CEO of Motive Interactive, and so many others. I also met up with all my affiliate managers from all the networks I am part of even the ones I do not do too much traffic with.
Another surprise to me was I was being surprised by other bloggers and affiliate marketers about my blog. A lot came up to me to talk about my videos on excel and keywords, while some came up to me to ask how to optimize and start a blog. I actually lost my voice the second day because of all the talking I was doing. usually I would lose my voice due to asking, but I was teaching.
I also met up with Teresa and all my mentorees. I lost more of my voice when I showed my mentorees how to create a successful campaign in 30 days. They asked the questions I gave them answers. Amit and Sunil are family related and are great entrepreneurs. I am actually happy to see a family run affiliate systems type business. A younger person teaching his uncle, I just love seeing this type of sharing and relationship building happening. Our industry is just hard as is to teach someone without having that solid trust.
The first day also I hosted my IANteract Dinner and treated all my friends to dinner. I love networking and helping out. Simply just having a small private dinner with great friends and new friends is a great start to a good affiliate friendship. At the IANteract dinner we all ate and had a good time. I got to talk to new friends which my friends have recommended. This was way better networking than trying to network in big groups and loud music. I found this to be more intimate and more interesting because later the Share a Sale hosted a boat party which was a blast as well.
More post to come on the way - I apologize that I didn't blog too much while I was at the Summit. Topics on the way:
- Advaliant Fishing Trip and CAMA Cruise
- IANteract Dinner and Share a Sale Party
- My Speaking Panel and other sessions plus keynote
- My $30 Salmon and Other Misc stuff