I just attended and spoke at the Glazer-Kennedy Inner Circle Info-SUMMIT^SM 2009 in Atlanta, GA. It was a packed event with over 800 attendees and an incredible speaker lineup, including George Foreman, Frank Kern, Master Lloyd Irvin, Mike Koenigs, James Malinchak, Sonia Simone, Chris Cardell, Ron Seaver, and Michael Cage.

[Pic: Frank Kern, Mari Smith, Dan Kennedy]

Main highlight – Frank Kern!

For me, one of the highlights of the Info-SUMMIT^SM was meeting legendary marketer, Frank Kern, whom I’d heard so much about for some time.

I love Frank’s highly entertaining style, having read his blog and watched his videos for awhile. I also recently got a copy of Mass Control at the Engage Today event.

But nothing beats live and in person. Frank blends his super smart marketing brain with a complete no-bull, in-your-face hilarious style. (Of course the no-bull part is Frank’s mentor, Dan Kennedy’s, specialty!)

One of the exercises Frank Kern did during his presentation was about getting super clear on what you want to achieve in life and then creating a foolproof system to pay for it all!

Frank brought up on stage the lovely Maritza Parra and proceeded to take her through this process which consisted of three simple columns: (1) Thing you want, (2) How much it costs per month, and (3) Why you want it.

Once you’ve listed a dozen or more things you want (from houses, cars and horses to travel, personal trainer and nanny!), tally up the monthly cost, multiply by 12 then divide by 365 and you have a daily amount you need to earn. Take that daily amount and divide by the dollar amount of the main product/service you sell and that’s how many sales you need to make per day.

Frank makes it all sound so easy! In fact, I created this downloadable form that you can fill out and it will calculate the numbers for you (once you fill in your three columns!): Your Ideal Lifestyle – Clarity Calculator.

Lessons from my social media presentation

Now, on to my own presentation: I spoke about social media success, particularly using Facebook and Twitter to grow your business. I was on a panel first thing on Day 1 as a quick preview of my presentation that evening and all went well.

However, my actual presentation wasn’t my best. In fact – in total transparency – I feel I let much of the audience down by not providing them sufficient content and value, which is the opposite of what I’ve done in all my other talks.

What happened is I chose to work with several speaking/sales coaches at short notice. The impact this had was I deviated from my own natural presentation style so much so that it was uncomfortable for me… and the audience.

My speaking schedule has been super-intense for most of 2009; I had the Info-SUMMIT^SM engagement booked for about six months, so ought to have given myself more time and practice for such coaching.

As my dear friend and personal trainer, Ashley Mahaffey, said to me, I was like a marathon runner who went out to race with a brand new pair of running shoes and ended up with sore feet and blisters! [Ok, I know this pic is high heels - but imagine running a race in these?!!]

Thing is, much of the Info-SUMMIT^SM audience provided positive feedback to me and I had a reasonable uptake of the training program I offered, which I’m delighted about. But I just know I could’ve done a whole lot better in hindsight.

As we say in the seminar business, “Correct and continue.”

I did watch the Twitter stream like a hawk and was able to connect with a couple of attendees who expressed their experience of my talk – I was grateful for their constructive feedback.

This is also a great lesson for other seminar attendees on the importance of monitoring what Jermiah Owyang calls the back channel.

[I have since put up a page of free social media resources for Info-SUMMIT^SM attendees to view/download here.]

Going forward, here are my key takeaways from this experience:

1. Be more selective about such intense travel and events in 2010 onwards – better to speak at fewer events and do a stellar job than pack in three a week and stress myself out!
2. Allow plenty room in my schedule for proper planning, rehearsal, coaching and logistics – particularly prior to major events.
3. Stay with my natural style and my propensity to over-deliver on content and value – even though some schools of thought differ.
4. Strive to attend the full events I speak at, so as to better compliment the other speakers and provide a more cohesive experience for the audience.
5. Integrate coaching input over time… and practice on smaller audiences!

If you attended the Info-SUMMIT^SM, do leave me your feedback below. I’m always open to constructive criticism. Whether you attended the Info-SUMMIT^SM or not, I’d love to hear your own tales from the trenches about public speaking and selling from the stage in the comments below:

Today is a BIG day: a seven feet tall day! My giant friend, Dave Lakhani, releases his book How To Sell When Nobody’s Buying (And How To Sell Even More When They Are).

This book is a powerful step-by-step guide to generating significantly more sales using many proven techniques, along with tapping into the power of social media, how to be seen to sell, and how to build lasting, prosperous relationships!

I am thrilled and honored to be one of only four contributing authors. My chapter is called, How To Effectively Use Facebook To Find Your Ideal Work, Build Your Brand, and Increase Your Sales.

Hop over to Dave’s book site now and be sure to first order your copy of this awesome new book today. And then enter your name, email address and receipt number on Dave’s amazing bonuses page for lots of free goodies and plenty chances to win BIG!

Today, Dave will be randomly choosing winners each hour to receive free cameras, iPods, products, and private consultations. Plus, three peeps will win Dave’s $10k Grand Prize of a one day in person consultation to transform your business. Whew, that rocks! As the saying goes, you have to be IN to WIN!

As my own special bonus gift, here’s another super-duper special opportunity for you: a chance to WIN a scholarship to attend my Fast Track to Social Marketing Mastery program! (Worth $5k).

It’s an intense six-week program, very limited in size, typically only available via invitation. (See a quick overview of Social Marketing Mastery here). The next program is coming up fast on June 11th. We meet for six consecutive weeks via my private webinar room, plus one-on-one time with me to help you get big and go viral using social media!

Here’s how to enter:

It’s real simple; just write a comment here on this blog post (or in the comments section below if you’re reading this inside Facebook) telling me these THREE things:

1. Where you’re feeling stuck with Facebook/Twitter/social media.
2. How you think your business would benefit most from a rapid immersion in high-level social marketing training.
3. Why I should pick you as the winner of this scholarship.

That’s it! I’ll choose a winner by midnight tonight (June 9th) and will contact you via email. (I will be verifying with Dave that you got a copy of his book!)

NOTE: if you wish your comment/entry to remain private, please include the words “don’t publish” and I will read your comment offline and it won’t be published. (Of course, this only applies on my blog, not on Facebook).

Good luck!! Now, STEP #1: go get your copy of How To Sell When Nobody’s Buying FIRST!

I wanted to give you a glimpse behind the curtains of my business. First, I have to say I feel extremely blessed to be so supported in my community. I’m deeply grateful for all the amazing connections I’ve made over the past two years through Facebook and Twitter.

My business is absolutely exploding through the roof these days. I have a competent team of assistants and project managers. I’m in two powerful masterminds. I have mentors, advisors and role models. Plus, I recently hired a systems expert to help streamline all my processes this year.

And, some time ago, I had the idea to start an international association for social media specialists and to offer certification training programs for both coaches / consultants / marketers and for virtual assistants. I kept waiting for my ducks to be in a row, for everything to be perfect. But that day never comes. As a recovering perfectionist, I figured it was time to take imperfect action.

So, I recently quietly opened up MentorWithMari.com – my new protege program to certify social marketing specialists. The response has been astounding. Truly astounding.

I’m also about to embark on an intense two month speaking tour in the US and UK. I am so honored to speak on the stages of such accomplished leaders as Fabienne Fredrickson, Adam Urbanski, James Malinchak, Bernadette Doyle (in Belfast, Ireland!), Terry Wygal, Mike Lathigee, and more in the fall – Arielle Ford, Bill Glazer, Dan Kennedy and more. [See my public calendar of events here.]

(I should also mention part of my two months on the road includes a wonderful five-day cruise to Mexico with my Mastermind partners!)

[Update from Mari: due to my calendar of events and speaking schedule being uber squeezed, I made the bittersweet decision not to go on the mastermind cruise. I need this one week to laser focus on all the moving parts of my business, my team, and my new systems. I may take my whole team on a cruise in the fall, then!!]

Meantime, for many months, I had this week blocked off for a special retreat for myself, my team and my systems specialist to laser focus on tightening up all my company processes.

So, in order to truly focus, I’m also going to "go dark" on Twitter and Facebook. This will be a first for me in about two years.

[Update from Mari: Ha! Now I see where the misunderstanding came from - many people have been saying to me, "Mari, I thought you were retiring for two years?!" Um, what I mean was I've never once unplugged from Twitter or Facebook in the past two years!! And it was only ONE week that I was unplugging. I lasted a whole 72 hours, you know!]

I have to say, I have a sense of discomfort about unplugging! It’ll be an interesting experiment. But a very worthy and important one.

See, it really troubles me when an important email goes unanswered or direct messages are missed because I simply don’t have enough hours in the day to personally respond to all (even though one of my assistants spends four hours a day reading, managing and replying to much of my email for me).

It bothers me when I’m unable to reply to all @ messages that so many of my wonderful followers on Twitter send to me, or when I’m unable to reply to each friend who emails me on Facebook or writes on my wall… because there are just not enough hours in the day.

Such is the nature of social media. Suddenly, we open ourselves up to a multitude of touch points. There is a new expectation of availability. I love to engage and connect and I know you do too. Yet, where do you draw the line between being available and making sure you have enough focus time and personal time?

In any case, just know that if you’ve ever tried to contact me for any reason through any medium – whether Twitter, Facebook, regular email, Skype or phone – and I have not gotten back to you in a timely manner, it’s not personal. There’s a good chance I’ve read your message but it’s been very late at night or I’m rushing to a commitment so haven’t been able to reply.

Over the coming weeks and months, my systems will be so much more robust that I’ll be able to provide even better service to both my clients and community at large.

I’m happy to share with you what new systems I put in place over the coming weeks as a result of my retreat.

How about you? What do you find most overwhelming about managing a growing business? Are your follow-up systems solid? Where do you most need support? Though social media may have increased your business, have you still been able to maintain plenty time for your personal life? I’d love to know! Please share below:

Online social networking giants like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn and YouTube allow us to expand our community exponentially… without ever leaving the comfort of our home offices.

However, to heighten and accelerate your success, attending live events is equally important. You get to see and be seen. You’ll have meaningful conversations in person. You take photographs and upload them to Facebook, Flickr, Twitpic. Of course, you get to learn valuable tools, strategies and secrets to success.

And, you get to meet some of the most amazing people you may never have been able to connect with otherwise… in person. [Pic R: Les Brown & Mari Smith. I had the honor of sharing the stage with Les Brown at SANG] [Pic below: Stacey Hylen, Dorcy Russell, Yanik Silver, Mari Smith - all dressed up for Yanik's Underground5 Bond night!]

By first connecting with new people via online social networks, it’s easy to create what I call "virtual rapport." Oftentimes, you may feel like you have an incredibly close relationship with a social networking friend… all that remains is to meet them in person and it’s like you’ve known each other for years!

Or, conversely, what’s happened to me a few times too is I have a certain picture in my mind’s eye of how I think someone is like in real life. Then I meet them face to face and there’s this instant chemistry. I suddenly morph the image of who I thought the person was into who they really are, and I’m pleasantly and warmly surprised.

This anchors my point that you simply cannot afford not to attend live events. All the online social networking in the world (even including video conferencing) will never replace face-to-face networking. Everyone has an energy field and you cannot get a true sense of that without physically being in their presence.

I absolutely love to attend, support and speak at live events; personal and professional growth seminars have been a passion of mine for decades. See my calendar of upcoming public events here.

Just in the past couple months, I’ve attended and/or spoken at these amazing events:

• Affiliate Summit West 2009
• David Neagle’s Million Dollar Achievement Award Ceremony
• Your Best Year Yet
• Christian Mickelsen’s Coaching Business Empire
• Conscious Entrepreneur Experience
• Yanik Silver’s Underground Online Seminar 5
• SANG: Speakers and Authors Networking Group [link goes to my blog post with Twitter ID's of attendees!]
• Alex Mandossian’s TeleSeminar Secrets Reunion [page to follow with Twitter ID's of attendees]

I can honestly say attending a variety of events and speaking at events about Facebook/Twitter/social media this past year or so has lead to more and more consulting, training and speaking contracts! Love that.

What events will you be attending this year? What has been your most enjoyable event to date? Do you attend Tweetups in your area? If not, would you consider organizing/hosting one?! Do you think online social networking can ever replace live events? I’d love to hear your thoughts below!

My hubby and I attend a gazillion seminars each year – it’s just what we do. We love personal and professional growth and subscribe to the Kaizen/constant-and-never-ending-improvement approach to life. (We met in ‘99 at the fab Money & You seminar!)

It can take a lot to impress me after attending so many high-end, big-name speakers’ events. I just attended and spoke at Alexandria Brown’s 5th annual – and last ever – Online Success Blueprint Workshop as I wrote about here live from the event.

I’m delighted to say Ali’s event was nothing short of spectacular. Certainly it was a profound honor to be the ONLY female speaker at the 3-day OSBW event and to share my contribution about Facebook and social media marketing. Additionally, the positive vibe of the entire event was palpable!

I tweeted up a storm with the hashtag #OSBW. (Hashtags make it easy to follow and search for tweets from specific events). Here’s the main tweetstream for all #osbw tweets.

My primary takeaways from Ali’s event:

Global effect of women in business:

More women entrepreneurs and business owners will help bring peace to the planet. Amen. And, we heart our guys too of course!! When Ali shared this nugget – there was a chorus of "YESSS" from the few guys in the audience! I love that Ali has claimed her purpose to inspire women business owners around the world.

The importance of self care:

Self care is a vital component of running a successful business. We must take time for ourselves to rest and to re-energize. This is a huge one for me as I continue set up more effective systems to free up more of my time. I appreciated how Ali’s team schedule all her beauty care, for example, at regular intervals far in advance. It’s the small things like this that can make such a big difference – no more stressing about how to fit it all in. Just plan well!

The importance of a TEAM:

Ali emphasizes seeing hiring help as truly helping yourself and helping the service provider. My own team is growing in leaps and bounds: I’m now working with a business manager, project manager and several VA’s (virtual assistants); a graphic artist, marketing expert, platform sales coach, productivity/focus coach (yes, I need help focusing. lol!) and more. Plus, I’m delighted to have on my team two-time Ironman Triathlon finisher, Ashley Mahaffey, as my fitness coach – whom I met on Twitter, I might add! (Ali’s fitness coach is the amazing Laura Mak in LA who I got to meet at OSBW too).

The importance of a supportive environment:

Okay, this isn’t new of course… but when I took a look at my uber flexible, mobile, hybrid lifestyle – I realized I need to make some changes coming up. I just love RVing with my hubby and now that we’re back in SoCal at least for the winter months, I need a bigger space to be more nurtured and productive at the same time. Stay tuned for what we create next!

By the way, Ali talked about having both a supportive emotional and physical environment. Look at your life and see who may not be fully supporting you right now – could be it’s some family members and you may need to limit your contact with them. And with your physical environment, clear out any clutter and make sure your work space is nurturing. (On another note, my money expert friend Joan Sotkin says that the "urge to purge" is a sign that more money is coming your way. Love that!)

The power of mentorship; think big, manifest fast:

If you’re going to be thinking up ideas for your business anyway, you may as well think BIG!! One of the highlights of Ali’s event was meeting her BILLIONAIRE mentor, my fellow Scot, Anne McKevitt. Anne is often referred to as the "Martha Stewart of the UK." She runs 22 businesses, has 1800 employees and is incredibly REAL. Everyone just loved her to bits.

Anne never learned limited thinking: from an early age, she surrounded herself with powerful successful people and, as she says, "by process of osmosis" (say that in a brrrogue!) she became very, very successful herself.

For many years, Ali has been the Ezine Queen. Yet now with Anne’s guidance, Ali is stepping up to a much, much bigger game to fulfill her own powerful life purpose as an international leader of women.

The power of knowing your life purpose… and life lesson:

My life purpose is to be the "Innovative Messenger in the Spotlight" says hand analyst Baeth Davis. I was truly blessed to have a reading with Baeth – when she explained to me my life’s purpose I was moved to tears. I felt SO grokked (gotten). My purpose is to take the complex, simplify it and teach it to my peeps. I’m a leader of leaders. YES! I am SO on track with my career passions as a social media business coach.

Then Baeth shared my life lesson (we all have one): guilt about my gifts. Whew. You know that profound Marianne Williamson quote about how we’re more afraid of our LIGHT than our dark? Well, that’s me to a tee. However, the good news is Baeth encouraged me to simply "feel the feelings and go for it anyway."  LOVE that! And I am – BIG time! Speaking at Ali’s event was a fantastic experience and opportunity for me.

Ali’s EMA model:

You may be familiar with the E-Myth by Michael Gerber. We often get so good at what we do – the technician in us – we get stuck IN our business rather than working ON our business. I love Michael’s book. But I just love the simplicity of Ali’s model more: it’s a three-step pyramid with A at the bottom, M in the center and E at the top.

A stands for Administration – this is where many business owners are stuck; handling all the minutiae of day-to-day admin, running ragged. But when you implement systems, outsource, delegate and hire help – you can free up your energy and attention on the A to then focus on the M which stands for Management.

With your team and systems in place, now you get to manage your business. But management can have it’s mega demands too… and, fortunately, much can be delegated as well freeing you up to focus on the top level. E is for Entrepreneur. You get to be a true entrepreneur with the Admin and Management handled for you.

There were many, many more profound nuggets of wisdom and awesome aha’s. Plus, meeting SO many amazingly successful and powerful women and men too! I could write a blog post about everyone I met! [See party pic: Dr. Cindy Brown, Katrina Sawa, MaryKay Morgan, Kelly O'Neil, Michele PW, Mark Anthony Bates, Fabienne Fredrickson, Melanie Benson Strick, Mari Smith, Lesley Bohm, Erin Thoms Melnick.]

2009 is going to be a mega year for all of us. There is profound change and a huge positive shift in the air now! What is on the horizon for you? I’d love to know – please share below:

Ali Brown is a dynamic, successful business woman and internet marketer that I’ve admired for many, many years.

You may be familiar with Ali’s former brand "The Ezine Queen." Her new brand of Ali has blossomed into an incredible venture, complete with the Ali Magazine and, launching in January, the Ali Boutique! See pic right – taken today at Ali Boutique pre-launch at her mega event. Ali’s line includes clothing, jewelry, fashion accessories, even branded flip cameras! Love it!

I’m writing this post from my hotel room at Ali’s last ever Online Success Blueprint Workshop in LA. I am truly honored to be a guest speaker at the event, teaching about marketing your business on Facebook. 500 attendees will be here – 90% women! I’m launching the next phase of my own brand and product line. Stay tuned!

Though Ali and I had known one another peripherally for years, it wasn’t until (a) we connected further via Facebook and (b) we met face-to-face at a special event with David Neagle earlier this year. (Plus, we discovered that my hubby and I are actually in the same real estate investment club as Ali’s brother and sister-in-law! Neato, small world, eh!)

Pic left: taken at David Neagle’s "Just Believe" event in April.

Ali’s tagline is "Live your good fortune." What would you do if you knew you could truly live your dreams? If money and time were no object, what would you be doing with your life, your business, your brand? I’d love to know. And if there’s any way I can support you, do let me know!