SIMPLE Takeaways

The Top 10 Things I Learned at SIMPLE 3 with Bob the Teacher Jenkins

10. It’s like family. Going to more than one live event in the same series is like meeting up with cousins you only get to see a few times each year. These cousins really “get” you, understand business tactics and are seriously engaged in helping you succeed.

9. Camtasia is awesome. I have shied away from doing my own video editing, but when Lon Naylor showed us some inside stuff with Camtasia, I threw caution to the wind and buried myself in learning its tricks. The result was about two hours of sleep and a killer video that won the grand prize in SIMPLE Video Idol!

8. The instructors are top-notch. I already knew most of the instructors, and those I did not know prior I friended on Facebook and got to know before attending. But what makes SIMPLE truly different than any other live event is the amount of workshop time with the instructors. Thanks to James Wedmore, my little Camtasia/live action video was given a bit of extra pizzazz which I am sure aided in the competition results.

7. YouTube Annotations. You’ve probably seen them in action, those little text boxes that pop up telling you to click something or “like” a video. Well at SIMPLE 3 I learned how to do them, even though they were not taught. Why? Because I asked. At SIMPLE we are encouraged to ask the instructors for help. And they are more than willing to share.

6. PowerPoint to Camtasia to video. I already mentioned Camtasia is awesome. But PowerPoint 2010 has some great little features in it, too. And in less than 45 minutes most of us in the room had a video like this created – and that was with learning from scratch! Imagine what we can do now that we know the “how.”

5. Dinner is where it’s at. Thanks to dinner with Bob, the instructors and a couple other geeks, we came up with SIMPLE Video Idol, the SuperMoon deal and a few other crazy fun things that were unveiled the last day. Besides the fun, the brainstorming was helpful for our businesses.

4. Knowledge is meant to be shared. One of the reasons my video won the contest was because I shared a valuable tip for my audience. Now of course I hope this nets some revenue, but sharing tips should come naturally. Your knowledge is meant to be shared with others. Even one small tip is helpful. If you think everyone already knows it, all the more reason to share. Because guess what? They don’t and they will thank you repeatedly for sharing! Then who will they remember when they need your services?

3. Take time to decompress. Every live event I attend, especially when traveling, I now build in 1-2 days of “decompression.” To take advantage of California, I stayed an extra two days brainstorming with friends and spent my last day enjoying Sea World. And of course I shot a few more videos as well!

2. Niche live events are best. SIMPLE 1 was great for the overall picture of affiliate marketing, and the information did help me in my business. SIMPLE 2 was very much a recap and I was able to pick up on some things I hadn’t learned before, but I went more for the relationships than anything else. But SIMPLE 3 was in a category by itself. There are so many business building events available, but because SIMPLE 3 was a niche event – all about video – the takeaways were huge. And yes, I’ll be at SIMPLE 4 even if it’s about video again. There is so much to learn!

1. Drumroll please… My absolute favorite part of SIMPLE 3 was the new and refreshed relationships. Even if I did not learn one thing, the relationships were worth the cross-country trip. Social media has impacted how we spend time in person. It’s more a time of catching up and brainstorming like we’re long-lost friends. I even stayed an extra couple of nights in San Diego with a friend I’d only met prior in person for 10 minutes. But the time spent online getting to know each other made it feel like we were sisters. And I truly miss spending the morning with our computers at her dining room table!