Wondering why?

I attended Ali Brown’s 2009 Shine Event in Las Vegas and well, let’s just say it didn’t completely live up to my expectations. I had attended amazing events by Ali in the past and this one, other than the fabulous networking,  just didn’t cut it.

Here’s the low down on my Ali Brown 2009 Shine Event experience:

• BAD: The event didn’t really deliver what I was expecting from the sales materials and recycled the same content from past events.
• BAD: Some of the presentations seemed out of touch with the everyday entrepreneur. The business model content simply glossed over and generalized.
• BAD: There was way too much wanna-be celebrity hype. The sales pitch fest and promotions for Ali’s Millionaire Prodigy Club Mastermind was really, really long and took up quite a bit of the event.
• GOOD: Ali always draws an incredible crowd of success-focused women entrepreneurs (and a few smart guys too).
• GOOD: The networking was incredible and the opportunities to meet talented individuals to work with, partner with, and joint venture with were everywhere.
• GOOD: Real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran and Academy Award-winning actress Marlee Matlin were two of the guest speakers and they were not only inspiring, but they rocked the house!
• GOOD: There was a lot of audience interaction and participation and Ali threw a great party at the Tao night club!
• GOOD: I left feeling motivated, empowered, and completely validated that I really do kick butt!

Interested in hearing more about my Ali Brown 2009 Shine Event experience? Check out these blog posts:

• Ali Brown’s Shine Event: I Didn’t Really Come For All The “Woo Woo” Junk
• Ali Brown Shine Event: Billionaire Entrepreneur Coach Makes Social Media Blunder
• Ali Brown Shine Event: A Smart Entrepreneur’s Networking Dream
• Ali Brown Shine Event: Golden Nuggets of Wisdom for the Entrepreneur Mindset
• Ali Brown Shine Event: Why I Said No to Advice From a Billionaire Entrepreneur Coach

Now with that said, I’ll share with you why I registered for Ali’s 2010 Shine Event during her first early bird special.

I know most of the basic “teach-it-at-an-event” online marketing stuff already – It’s what I do. Will I learn new nuggets of information, new insights, and new ideas? YES. Will I learn a new approach or way to think about the strategies I am already using? It’s highly likely. But honestly, that isn’t why I registered.

I registered because I am looking forward to another great opportunity to meet and network with powerful women entrepreneurs from around the world. Some of my most cherished friendships and business partnerships have blossomed from initial meetings at conferences just like this one.

I also knew that Ali loves her audience and her business. Last year’s Shine event wasn’t as great as it could have been and I think they did make some mistakes… but I knew that would push Ali to make this year’s Shine event bigger and better than ever.

And I was right. Recently Ali’s team updated the Shine website with the details for the 2010 Shine Event happening November 2-4 at the Wynn in Las Vegas and the event has definitely been upgraded.

Here’s why I am happy I have already secured my spot.

1. Candace Bushnell, the critically acclaimed, international best-selling author of Sex and the City – the basis for the HBO hit series and two subsequent blockbuster movies is one of the featured speakers!
2. Liz Lange, founder and president of Liz Lange Maternity, a fashion and retail pioneer who has single-handedly revolutionized maternity style and society’s perception of pregnant women in nine short years is one of the speakers!
3. This year I can choose from multiple concurrent sessions. This strategy is super smart on Ali’s part because whether you’re a new business owner or a seasoned entrepreneur, you can choose the sessions you want to attend based on your level of experience and what information is most relevant to you and your business right now.

What about you? What do you think? Did you attend Shine last year? Will I see you there this year? I’d love to hear from you!

*Just for the FTC: From time to time I do choose to be an affiliate for certain events or products that I use or attend myself. I am an affiliate of Ali’s and I’m sure you can tell, that I am always honest and never sugar coat my opinion to make a sale or get a commission. If you want to check it out and not go through an affiliate link, check it out here: www.shineevent.com

At the end of the Ali Brown Shine event, I was speaking with some ladies in the lobby area and one asked me if I had my brand/business card evaluated by Ali’s billionaire business coach during one of the breaks.

No way.

I have to say they were a little surprised. You see, they had assumed that as a branding/marketing expert that I would love to get advice from someone so important.

When they asked why I wasn’t one of the women huddled around this billionaire business coach for jockeying for a few words critiquing my business card, my answer was simple.

I don’t care.

Yep. That’s right. I said it. I don’t care.

Let me explain… I’m a graphic designer. I actually have my Bachelor of Science in Graphic Design. I have been designing brands, websites, logos, and sales materials since 1997 and I’d like to think I get design.

I spent a lot of time designing my logo and developing my own brand – a brand that is totally and completely representative of me. I love it and almost everyone who sees my logo or visits my site comments about how much they love it.

Plus, my brand is consistently represented both online and off and nothing anyone says will convince me to change my brand.

Why? Because it IS my brand.

I am sure that some of the biggest brands in the world have people that criticize their logo or their marketing from time to time. But do you see them changing their brand because of one person’s opinion? No. They know who they are. They know what their business represents. They are confident in their position.

So my message to you today is to stay true to your brand and what represents you. Let anyone who criticizes your brand have their say and just let it go.

Have confidence in yourself and confidence in your business. Stand firm in your brand both now, and in the years to come. Soon you’ll see that others will be attracted to your brand and advocate for your band right alongside you.

This past week I have been blogging about my experiences at the Ali Brown Shine event in Las Vegas, which I have to say, attracts a phenomenal group of entrepreneurial business women (and some men) from around the globe. In fact, the networking at Ali’s events is fantastic and if you attend, you are guaranteed to meet and be inspired by women who are stepping into their own power and truly rocking the business world.

What also amazes me is the genuine desire to give that these women have. Almost every woman I met was genuinely interested in my business and how they could help me. How awesome is that?! Likewise, they were so excited to share about their business and passion that just meeting them gave me a boost of energy and inspiration.

Today I want to share with you just a few of the entrepreneurs I met:

Lisa Rickwood, Creative Virtual Assistant
I met Lisa at the VIP party Thursday night at Tao night club. Lisa is a fun and dynamic woman with a creative talent that she dedicates to helping other entrepreneurs look good. Lisa can help with writing, editing, transcription, audio editing, voice-overs, and more. Check out her website at www.escapethepace.com.

Dr. Megan Harris, The Chiropractic Wellness Studio
I actually first met Megan in line at the Venetian to register and check in! Megan is a smart, savvy chiropractor who offers healthy solutions and lifestyle choices for her clients. When it comes to the chiropractic world, I am a total skeptic, but Megan is the total opposite of any chiropractor I have ever met, and she has a head for business. Check out her site at www.drmeganharris.com.

Amy Hillenbrand-Brock
I sat next to Amy on the first day at Shine and was delighted to meet another artist. Amy, a former interior designer is now pursuing fine art and painting full time (she is awesome by the way!) and is using her love of interiors as the subject for her fine art. Check out Amy’s website at http://amyhillenbrand.blogspot.com.

Tom Buford
I first found Tom on facebook and then interviewed him on a teleseries I did in early 2009. I was so excited to meet him in person at Shine. Tom is a business success mentor and helps entrepreneurs like you see the value in yourself and charge what you deserve. Check out his website at www.chargewhatyoudeserve.com.

Erin Kurt
I also met Erin at Tao! She is warm and friendly and had on a dress that was just awesome. Erin is a parenting coach and helps families and working moms juggle their to-dos and find the so-desired work-life balance. Check out Erin’s website at www.erinparenting.com.

Kelly O’Neil
I met Kelly at Ali’s 2008 Online Success Blueprint Workshop and have kept in touch through Facebook and Twitter since. Shine allowed me to reconnect with Kelly and talk shop. Kelly is the marketing to the affluent expert and hosts the Marketing to Millionaires event. Check out Kelly’s website at www.marketingtomillionaires.com.

Tina Forsyth
I was checking out Tina’s website the week before Shine and was amazed when she ended up sitting across from me at lunch one day! Thank you universe. Tina works with coaches, consultants and online business managers who are looking for guidance and support on business systems, building their teams or product development. Check out her website www.onlinebusinessmanager.com.

Nika Stewart
Nika and I met at Ali’s 2008 event and since then have worked together on a couple projects. Ali’s event was a great opportunity to meet up again in person! Nika is a fabulous interior designer and coach to other interior designers, helping them build businesses that support their dream lives. Check out her website www.nikastewart.com.

As I mentioned earlier, these are just a few of the fabulous women and men that I met and hob-knobbed with at Ali Brown’s Shine event in Las Vegas. I am so grateful to all of the amazing entrepreneurs I met and I look forward to building long-lasting relationships with many of them.

If you’re looking for an event that will feed your business mindset and provide top-quality networking opportunities, I highly recommend you head to Ali’s next event.

One of my favorite things to do after I attend live events, conferences, and seminars is to read through all of my notes from the event and write down all of the most important ones in my journal.

Rewriting those notes and positive words of encouragement helps me remember them. It also helps me reflect a little further on what they meant to me and why I wrote them down.

Today I’d like to share with you some of the nuggets of wisdom I jotted down at the Ali Brown Shine Event, where I not only got to hear from Ali and her team speak, but from Real Estate Mogul & Business Consultant Barbara Corcoran and Academy-Award Winning Actress & Activist Marlee Matlin!

Here are some of my golden nuggets:

• Be true to you and make decisions based from where you want to be.
• There is no magic pill, but there can be magic as long as you do the right things.
• Your purpose is your big vision. Your business’s purpose is to make money.
• Know what you suck at and delegate it.
• Do what you love. Know whats important. Give back when you can.
• Bad marketers blame failures ont he economy.
• When you have an idea, look at the competition. If there is competition, find a niche not being served. If there is no competition, evaluate if there is really a need.
• How you position yourself determines what people think of you and how much they will pay.
• Stay open. Influences can come from anywhere.
• Why would the universe give you more if you are not taking care of what you already have?
• How do you know what product to develop? It s what you get asked for over and over again. It may not be exactly what you want to do, but it is what they want and it will get your audience into your funnel.
• The hole you give through is the hole you receive through.
• Organization and systematization are the two most important tools in business.
• Quick decision making under pressure is the key to turning failures into successes.
• There are two types of people, expanders and containers. Every business needs one of each.
• Marketing = Communications and relationships with people who need your solution.
• Only focus on and take the next step. Master it fully before taking another step.
• Never stop believing. You have no reason to doubt.
• If you want to grow, you need to make time for growth.
• When you want it bad enough, you’ll make it happen.

I hope at least one or two of these golden nuggets resonated with you. Shine was a great few days to allow me to focus more on my business mindset. If you are looking for support with your business mindset, I highly recommend you check out Ali Brown and Shine for 2010.

The Shine event was a mix of Ali and several others speakers. There was a buzz humming through the room on the first day of the event and everyone was looking forward to hearing Ali’s billionaire entrepreneur coach speak.

I was especially looking forward to the presentation because it was on branding. As a trained graphic designer, former corporate branding instructor, and current brand strategist for entrepreneurs, I was interested to hear her insights on branding.

I wanted to hear her thoughts on branding a business versus branding an individual person. I wanted to hear some strategies about building a strong brand and brand equity. I wanted to hear how she would communicate to the room how much your brand can do for your business and what a difference it can make.

A special packet just for notes was passed out for the talk, so I was thinking this is going to be good! But what I wanted to hear and what I did hear were two completely different things.

What I heard was:

• How much the Ali brand has changed over the years.
• Examples of Ali’s design and some brainstorming.
• What the Ali brand is becoming.

While that information and the examples shown were great in promoting the Ali Brand and showing her growth, not a whole lot of that would help a non-branding expert in developing their brand.

I heard several people around me whispering something along the lines of, “That’s great but how do I apply that to my business,” and “Yeah, but how do I do that.”

Seeing the progression of the Ali brand was interesting, but I was getting a little bummed at the lack of content and we were already over halfway through the presentation!

Finally we started to get to some content – not all on branding, but at least it was content. We covered things like:

• Map it out and actually do the doing.
• When you want it, make it happen.
• Start somewhere. Start small. Make a Sh!t load of money.
• Be a brand guardian. Make sure your essence is true and present in all you do.
• A brand has a consistent look through every piece of marketing and representation.
• Stay open. Influences can come from anywhere.
• Don’t use many different designers. Stick with one who truly understands your brand essence.
• Make sure your brand clearly communicates what you do.
• Your identity is the verbal and visual expression of your brand.

Then I threw down my pen, I stopped taking notes,
and I said, “Oh no she didn’t!”

This billionaire entrepreneur coach then stood on that stage a told everyone in the room that having their photo on their business cards is stupid. This is ironic because last year Ali told people putting their photo on their cards was a good idea.

We were also told that our logo stinks if it doesn’t communicate exactly what we do all by itself, with no tagline. This I also disagree with. There are huge brands that are extremely successful that have logos that in no way communicate what the business does or what products they sell. And, what about the people who are their business, and their business name is their name. Heck, even Ali’s logo doesn’t say much alone.

She then told everyone that including social media profile links on your card is stupid and that no one cares. She said social media links have no place on a business card and that we’re all just wasting our time with social media and clearly our businesses aren’t successful because too many of us screwing around on Twitter all day which is irrelevant.

WHAT? Are you kidding me?

Um, Ali used both to promote her event and she used a Facebook event page to encourage networking on the site prior to the event.

These blanket statements, in my opinion, were a very bad move. Clearly she didn’t research her audience that well and clearly she doesn’t “get” the social media revolution that is taking place.

I don’t know about you, but I get a lot of business from my endeavors on Facebook and Twitter and a lot of speaking invitations from my LinkedIn profile. These social media sites have also allowed to me connect with people pre- and post-event to share photos, info, and stay in touch.

I’d have to say that statements like these make me wonder if this billionaire is out of touch. Maybe when you get that rich you can completely ignore social media and social networking – I get it.

What I don’t get it being so frank and sort of snarky about it on stage in a room full of women who are looking to you for advice and looking up to you as a successful woman business owner, especially when most of the room has their photo and their social media profile links on their cards!

What a way to make a lot of fabulous women feel really insecure about handing out their business cards.

How do I know people were self-conscious about it? Easy, almost every time I was handed a card at the event, the giver made excuses for having their photo on it or for including their social media links.

I for one say don’t make excuses. I have my photo and my social media links on the back of my business card and I am dang proud of my card.

That billionaire entrepreneur coach is wrong.

I love cards with photos and social media profile links because I remember you after the event and can find you to connect online. Those links help me to build relationships with those I meet and continue the conversations we had.

Elizabeth Potts Weinstein wrote a blog post on this same topic that I love.

So, with that said, I have to wonder, was the standing ovation she received because of the amazing things she has done for the Ali Brown brand (which are impressive), or for her presentation? I’ll leave that up to you.

As many others I ran into this weekend would say, “This is my second Ali Event” and I have to say it was an amazing event.

In 2008, I attended Ali’s Online Success Blueprint Workshop (OSBW) and while there experienced some big Ah-Ha moments in regards to my business.

I knew where I wanted to go, what I wanted to achieve, and the things I needed to do to get there. But what I wasn’t sure about was the order in which to do them and the details that tied them all together in a logical sequence. At OSBW all of the pieces fell neatly into place, the right place, and in the airport on the way home I mapped out my entire business plan for 2009.

Even in what the media continues to label as the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, 2009 has been a great year. I am extremely thankful that my business has continued to grow and flourish.

Naturally, when the announcements went out this year for Ali Brown’s 2009 Shine event in Las Vegas, I immediately signed up for two reasons.

1. Attending an “Ali event” means surrounding yourself with and networking with powerful, like-minded, success-driven, women entrepreneurs who are taking serious action to uplevel their businesses.
2. I knew I would be inspired to take the next step with my business and learn some new strategies or ideas to apply in my business. Plus, conferences in general seem to light the proverbial fire under your butt to get started.

This year the event was much more “Woo Woo” than expected, with quite a bit of time spent on personal or inner work, and not quite as much time spent on actual how to business strategies.

I’ll be honest. At first I was a little put off by the touchy-feely inner work junk. Most people know that I am not super big on all that stuff.

I was there for business. I didn’t come for the “Woo Woo” junk.

• What I didn’t anticipate, was how much that “Woo Woo” junk would affect me personally.
• What I didn’t anticipate was the powerful realizations I would come to in regards to myself and my relationship with my business. Yes, I am in a red-hot love affair with my business and I think I have been cheating on my social life!
• What I didn’t anticipate was how much the “Woo Woo” junk and inner work would change the way I do and look at my business. I am raising expectations for myself and for my clients and I am finally admitting to myself just how great I am and how much I have accomplished so far.

OSBW may have been great for my business, but Shine was great for my mindset and as a result, my business.

So with that said, it is time for action. After all, what’s the point of going to conferences and events like this if you don’t take action on what you learn and experience?

I’m curious, what’s your take on the “Woo Woo” junk and your business?