So I’ve arrived in Bristol for The Internet Marketing seminar – you can see a pic of me here in my hotel room courtesy of my built in webcam (the netbook not me)
Wonder why all British hotel decorating staff think it’s 1973?
Very friendly people in this part of the world, although with the Bristol accent they all sound like pirates to me.
The taxi driver from the airport told me about how he used to get half a dozen fares a day taking business people to and from meetings at some of the bank headquarters down here, but since the economic downturn he barely gets one a week.
Although when we’re in an industry where talking to people on the other side of the world is commonplace, be it by skype, email, webinar or podcast you have to wonder why they’re spending money flying people up and down the UK. Maybe that’s why they’rel broke.
We’re pretty cutting edge compared to most offline businesses, but then we’ve known that for years.
And the other think I love about meetings like this is how they totally and utterly LEVEL people.
I flew down here in a (scarily) small plane and every single person except me was dressed in a business suit. Some of them – mostly male I’m ashamed to say – thought an awful lot of themselves judging by the way they spoke to the flight attendant.
But in the hotel there are people wearing jeans (me), suits, sandals, t-shirts and every other combination of clothes you can think of.
I’ll bet that some of the suits would wet themselves if they realised the little bloke from some small place in America or the woman with the dreadlocks from some little town in the UK pulled in over a million dollars last year.
I walked through the hotel to try to get my bearings earlier on and I’m pretty sure now that I can recognise an internet marketer at 100 paces.
They’re the ones who don’t make assumptions about sex, clothing, age or any sort of physical appearance, because ANYONE here can be an IM success story. They just casually check each other out, seeing if any faces look familiar.
I think it’s going to be a fun seminar!
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All true again Tony!
Did the taxi driver get your autograph?
Reminds me of the Detroit business convention I mentioned last post. The taxi driver on the way back was discussing places places he’d traveled. I told him, just a few weeks before I’d been to Panama and Colombia.
He then turned around and asked, “Who are you, James Bond?” (I was flying back to London).
Actually, I’d flown from Colombia back to Panama biz class and wore trainers (sneakers in USA), and track suit bottoms and T-Shirt – not quite a chav and not a hippy. I did get a few ‘once over’ looks in the Admiral’s lounge.
So much for being recognised. And not a single autograph signed.
It’s a truism that the rich feel they need to dress up. The very rich just say ‘screw it’ and dress how they like. I’m wearing a 10 year old polo shirt and a pair of ASDA £3 jeans. Draw your own conclusions.
I long ago discovered that suit and tie don’t mean a lot and my standard reply when told that somewhere has a dress code is “I’ve been thrown out of much better places than this”. And, just to let you into a secret, I used to be one of those people who went to a certain building society in Bristol on business once a week. I’m bloody glad I don’t any more!
Tony,
Good intro to the Bristol conference. Please fill us in on what they talked about and what you learned, will you?
Thanks,
Stephen
Thanks for posting guys!
I’ve been a bit slow with reporting from Bristol because I’ve been putting some of the ideas into practise and compiling it to pass onto you.
I’ve got to say that I learned far more from the networking and bar sessions than I did from the speakers although there was overlap too – it was almost like listening to them speak was the ‘freebie’ but when we got chatting in the bar over a few drinks, that’s when the real gold came out.
I’ll be passing on some of the ‘wonder stuff’ to blog readers and subscribers in about a week.
Stay tuned and watch your inbox!
Hi Tony if you come to Bristol again your more than welcome to stay with us..
Cheers Paul – thanks for the invitation – I’ll bring the wine!