Burtz said:
unlike any joe and lisa show with speakers or guests with shit and programs to sell too
how much do you have to errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr donate to a sir richard chairty to get a picture taken with him or video shoot to make it look like he really knows you and are friends?
Joe's sponsored a number of trips over the past 4 years to Necker Island with Branson, and has raised more than two million dollars in donations for VIrgin Unite for charitable projects across the world, and here within the US for training homeless teens to get skills to get them back on track.
The interview you're talking about was taken on their trip this year to the island, and Branson is an incredibly humble and very astute business mind to have the opportunity to interact with. And he is an incredibly gracious host. One of the coolest moments of my life to date was sitting at a beachside bar and having Branson walk up and get me a drink and just sit and shoot the shit.
Here's the interview by Joe in case anyone wants to watch it =>
http://bit.ly/joepolish
So... I don't quite get where the comparison is between Joe doing an interview here that he gives away to people for free... and how Cooper gets paid by people like those investment brokers who told cleaners to get a second mortgage to invest it all into the stock market... and how those are the same thing? Joe's not making anything on that interview. He's not pitching anything. And neither is Branson, except to mention Virgin Unite at the end.
We do the same type of "give education away for free" to help raise money for Make A Wish - which we cut a check for $25,000 to them last month.
We are not anti-selling. I certainly am not... or I would not be a business owner. People who get super angry about those who sell tend to be really bad business owners.
My point with the post though is, with hundreds of booths being paid $1,000 - $1,400 a piece for, there IS the budget to just cut the program out, or provide it for free, and play up what people go there for anyway, which is the trade show. The only ones who usually go to the program are the association board members who feel obligated to.
If they did that, made it a trade show only, and cut all those administrative costs - then we would not hear the Connections groups whining about "barely" making any money, because there is a ton of waste on that event program. And that program has always been a way to promote Cooper more than the associations, so it's geared toward his interests and agenda anyway... that's why it's hard to sell cleaners into going to that part of Connections.
We've got more than 125 companies coming to our event with the Pembertons this week on Wednesday in PA. They've already been given products we sell for more than $300 for free because they signed up, and they will get even more on Wednesday too. At the end of the day if they want to also buy the Piranha Marketing kit, they can... but even if they don't, they will have gotten many times more than what they paid to be there. It'll be a win/win.
Hope you like the interview, there are dozens more marketing episodes over at
http://www.ilovemarketing.com all for free also. That show is getting more than 1,000 downloads a day on iTunes. Yours to have for free if you want it. Though... with a lot of people, if they don't pay they don't pay attention... so it's always a crap shoot whether you should charge a higher price to get people to be more serious about valuing and implementing the content.
Anyway - it's yours if you want it. And if any of you are in PA this week, please be sure to track me down and say hello.
Thanks,
Lisa