Review of EFactor.com Miami Event on social media for entrepreneurs

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EFactor.com invited me to be one of four presenters at an entrepreneur event in Miami earlier this month. They had found out about me via social media and I was the first Caribbean entrepreneur they have ever presented, having had over 100 events around the world. The website currently has just over 1 million registered users from over 180 countries. The presentations were to answer some specific questions they had sent to us, including how we use social media to promote ourselves, how we use the channels for business, why we started our business and key lessons along the way.

Once I completed my presentation I realized that I could easily convert the information, combined with my many digital marketing presentations, and turn it into a short book, then list it in the Amazon Kindle Store and Apple iBooks store for sale, promoting it at the event just like what other speakers do. Random Media, one of my ventures, does distribute eBooks so it would be easy to execute. The day before the event I wrote the book, had my wife, Kathryn, design the cover (I co-founded Kaizen Interactive with her and she has a Bachelor’s in Digital Arts). I uploaded the book at 4pm, set the price at US$2.99 and by midnight a friend posted on Facebook that he had bought it and loved it.

You can check out the book here –

The event itself had an excellent turnout. A full room at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, about 45 people, and 4 presenters ready to share their knowledge. The first presenter was Ron Williams, CEO of SnapGoods (snapgoods.com). He made excellent points about being real in the social media space, focusing on conversation and not simply promoting your own goods and services or talking at people. One thing he said stuck out the most for me, “hate on haters but high five skeptics”, explaining that haters will never be converted so don’t worry about them. Skeptics however can be converted and when they switch, they become your biggest evangelists so don’t ignore, high five them and say thanks. Find Ron on Twitter at @ronjdub.

I went second and had to keep telling the audience that even though my presentation was extremely similar, I had never met Ron before and we did not collaborate on the presentations. We shared the same ideas and beliefs about social media, marketing in general and entrepreneurship. My presentation can be found here –

Next up was Murray Izenwasser from BizTegra, a digital marketing agency based in Florida. His presentation was quite interesting and shared many of the same concepts as well. His path to entrepreneurship was different from mine and helped to show the attendees how many different paths exist to become an entrepreneur. Ron and I did exchange some quizzical looks when Murray asked the audience if they had a favourite tv show and then proceeded to tell them that they shouldn’t have a favourite show because they don’t have time to be watching tv. He said tv is a time-suck and I definitely disagreed with that. I became an entrepreneur so that I would have time to do what I enjoyed when I wanted to, not to work 20-hour days and have no life. Many audience members clearly felt the same way.

He also said he doesn’t believe in competition and that you should ignore your competitors. Again, I disagree about ignoring anyone. Looking at MySpace, Yahoo, Nokia and RIM, all of which ignored competition and coming competition, there is no way I could recommend any entrepreneur ignore competition and if they feel there is none, make up a competitor. I do think that there is no competition in the sense of a pie can be grown instead of fought over. Murray is right that “business isn’t a zero-sum game. If you are 2nd in the market you are still making a pretty penny”. I don’t mind 2nd, 3rd or 4th either, as long as I am meeting my goals of what I am building. However, there is a difference between being content with not being the market leader and thinking there is no such thing as competition.

The last presenter was Sebastian Rusk of SocialBuzz.com and the level of excitement that he brought was just insane. He was literally bouncing of walls and the room was energized. I can see why he landed an interview with Gary Vaynerchuck of WineLibrary.tv, passion and persistence bar none. His pathway to entrepreneurship reminded me of Mike Michalowicz, author of Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, the book I endorsed. It came out of necessity and involved a child.

When you are put in a situation of survive or die, you will always try to find a way to survive. Sebastian impressed me so much that Random Media has since inked a deal with him to add him to the YouTube Partner Program so that he can now make money from his YouTube channel and have more incentive to shoot and promote his videos.

Overall the event was excellent, 10 students from my alma mater, University of Miami, attended and you can check out some pics from the event here

Once I received the invitation I decided to leverage it for more than just one night, I wrote the book to promote and did one other thing that I think all speakers/future speakers reading this blog post should do; I used it for PR. I had a press release written, got a quote from the marketing manager of EFactor.com and then sent it to media contacts for publication. In that press release I purposely included the fact that I was a University of Miami alumnus since the presentation was taking place near to UM because I wanted the Alumni Center to reach out to me (it was an experiment).

The South Florida Caribbean News posted a story based on the release (as did SiliconCaribe) and the next day I received an email invitation from UM to get a personal tour of the new alumni center on the campus the day of the speaking engagement. I already had a good relationship with UM and the alumni newsletter but now I have an even stronger relationship with them which will definitely lead to more opportunities down the line.

The lesson is that sharing your knowledge can only lead to good things and you must always be thinking about marketing and pr when you have something newsworthy. There most be a post-event plan in place.

I consider that par for the serious entrepreneur.