StomperNet Live 8 Event Recap

As promised, here is my recap of the StomperNet Live 8 event in Atlanta last weekend. It was 4 very full days, but I’ll give you a quick share on why I attended, what had people talking, which speakers I really loved, which one I did not, and what I ultimately walked away with.

This was my 3rd time attending a live StomperNet event. I was at Live 5 and Live 6 in 2008. StomperNet is an elite membership at around $800/month teaching internet business with a strong focus on search marketing. I am not a member, but I do subscribe to their monthly print publication titled The Net Effect, as well as the DVD of the month.

My primary interest in StomperNet is as one of their top JV partners on the launch of The Net Effect, and of course potential affiliation with other StomperNet products. I had a few additional objectives for attending Live 8 as well…

As I mentioned last week, Andy Jenkins resigned from StomperNet and Brad Fallon took over as the new CEO. I was particularly interested in the tone of the Live 8 event following this shocking news, and in getting the scoop on Brad’s plans for StomperNet in the coming year.

Brad vs Andy

I’ve always described Andy Jenkins as a very charismatic man, Brad Fallon as silent but brilliant. Andy has definitely been the face & personality of the company from day one, and his absence was definitely felt at the event.

That plus the news of Andy leaving just prior to the event, and the tone was a little (er, a lot) less upbeat than usual. The show must go on as they say. You could definitely sense some tension in the air, but the staff & faculty did a great job of pulling off a nice event.

Attendance

I was told there were about 400 people in attendance at Live 8, but some said it was 600+. Either way, there were a lot of guests in the crowd who were being introduced to StomperNet for the first time.

StomperNet events are usually reserved for members and special guests only, which makes for a lot more ‘inside talk’. With the number of guests, which I estimated at close to half of total attendance, there was (understandably) very little public talk about the history or future of StomperNet – or specifically the recent changes within the company structure.

That didn’t stop the talk from happening after hours, of course…

The overall feel I got was that the company as a whole has been through major growing pains over the last 4+ years, and is ready to move forward from here and work out the kinks.

Familiar Faces

In addition to my interest in StomperNet as an affiliate & JV partner, their live events are also a great opportunity for me to catch up with friends and peers. To the right is David Bullock who lives about an hour from me here in TN, and Paul Colligan who is one of my co-hosts on the IMTW Podcast.

I had opportunity to meet up with Dan Thies and Jerry West there as well, who both author SEO products outside of StomperNet that I am currently reviewing.

Of course if I continue dropping names we’ll be here all day, but suffice it to say it was a great opportunity to catch up with old friends and follow up on some ongoing projects.

Thursday Night – the PRE Event

Speaking of Jerry West, he held a private pre-event Thursday night at Hotel W – about 6 blocks from the Hyatt where Live 8 was being held. Nicole Dean and I both attended, which lasted for about an hour give or take.

The content was great and I took a few really good notes. Jerry gave an excellent presentation in my book, and it was well worth the $50 entry fee. It did end with a pitch for a new product which ended up causing some buzz throughout the rest of the weekend. Apparently there were a lot of people who weren’t happy about paying to hear a pitch. Understandable – but from my perspective it was a great hour, and the 5 minute mention at the end was a matter of personal choice.

I will say this though: It left me with an odd vibe. And that gut feeling proved itself right. Jerry West resigned from StomperNet following the event.

Jerry is a top-notch SEO and Super Affiliate. Keep an eye out for my review of his guide – I’ll be publishing that here in the next week or so.

Speakers…

Topping my list of speakers that made a huge impression would be: James Schramko, Russell Brunson, Dan Thies, Mike Koenigs, and Paul Colligan (pic to the right).

Paul talked on media formats and content syndication, and really blew me away as both a marketer and a user. I’m sure you’ll hear more about that on our IMTW Podcast in the coming weeks.

I took tons of notes through Mike Koenigs & Russell Brunson’s presentations. I made a note to review Traffic Geyser, but was more interested in the structure of Mike’s video content strategy, and his tips for creating video reviews & video testimonials.

Russell Brunson walked us through “the life line of your lead” which was a fascinating talk on how to frame your offer, how to lead your visitor into and through your funnel, and how to create lifetime loyalty.

Very actionable content, chock full of brilliant tips for increasing stick rate & profit. Two thumbs up for Russell – excellent presentation!

And there was one…

Call me a tough audience, but I had a hard time with the Twitter session with Dan Hollings. I’m not a huge fan of the silly words like Tweople, Tweeps and Twyndication so that was a bit of a turn-off.

But the thing that really got me was the fact that the man teaching everyone how to use Twitter… was also flooding (spamming) the #SNL8 hash tag throughout the event. It was annoying, and made it really difficult to keep up with relevant updates from people I was trying to follow on a 3″ mobile screen all weekend. Not a good example in my book.

I believe I tweeted once “I dont agree with all of this…” during that presentation.

Enough said.

@StomperChris aka Chris Watson

Chris is the man behind The Net Effect, alongside Jayne Hallock, and just an all around super nice guy. I sat in on his session on Sunday afternoon, which was an introduction to the StomperNet portal.

I was particularly interested in this session, as an affiliate and JV partner, and as you can see I was one of the first people to grab a seat.

The Net Effect offer is open again, and apparently has been for awhile (where have I been?!) and I also understood that they would be reopening membership to the StomperNet portal soon as well. There is also a launch/release planned for September 9th, which is currently a big “999 Secret”.

The event was well worth attending on several levels. Certainly for the personal connections, and I got a lot out of a few select presentations throughout the weekend as well. I walked away – er, drove home – feeling inspired and motivated, with dozens of creative ideas jotted into my little black notebook…

I got very solid confirmation on the direction of my business, filled in a few missing pieces of my overall marketing plan, and got a great refresher course on some of the finer points of SEO that I’d been neglecting lately.

As for StomperNet, it will be interesting to see what direction they move in over the next 6-12 months. No doubt they have been through some serious growing pains, and if I had my guess I’d say they’ll pull through and continue on. Time will tell.

Best,

p.s. I’m heading back to Atlanta again this weekend for the NAMS event, which is a hands-on workshop that teaches niche affiliate marketing. I’ll be presenting there, and also meeting up with a large group of Elite Members from SSWT. Should be another awesome weekend!