• Manage Paid Search and Display campaigns within budget and to hit client dictated performance metrics using doublePOSITIVE’s proprietary optimization tools
• Interact with publisher account teams on a regular basis
• Model out campaign objectives and benchmarking analysis reports to present to clients
• Interact with clients on a regular basis presenting performance reporting, optimization reports, and data mining experiments
• Analyze outputs of bid optimization and provide manual support where necessary to achieve clients’ marketing metrics
• Analyze creative and user engagement process and consult clients on how to increase click thru rate and conversion rate to hit marketing goals
• Present case studies/campaign findings to clients and internal groups for training purposes

Qualifications and Experience

• 5+ years of online marketing at an ad network, ad agency, or in a marketing department
• Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing, Economics, Finance, or related
• MBA a plus
• Familiarity in communicating with executive-level clients
• Comfortable in a start-up environment
• Passionately Analytical
• Ability to work on multiple projects simultaneously

Position has full company paid benefits including:

• Family Health
• Family Dental
• Family Vision
• Life Insurance
• Disability Insurance
• Partial Gym Membership

• Manage Paid Search and Display campaigns within budget and to hit client dictated performance metrics using DoublePositive’s proprietary optimization tools.
• Analyze outputs of bid optimization and provide manual support where necessary to achieve client’s marketing metrics.
• Analyze creative and user engagement process to consult clients on how to increase click thru rate and conversion rate to hit marketing goals.
• Model out campaign objectives and benchmarking analysis reports to present to clients
• Interact with clients on a regular basis presenting performance reporting, optimization reports, and data mining experiments.

Qualifications and Experience

• Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing, Economics, Finance, or related experience
• Comfortable in a start-up environment
• Passionately Analytical
• Ability to work on multiple projects simultaneously

Position has full company paid benefits including:

• Family Health
• Family Dental
• Family Vision
• Life Insurance
• Disability Insurance
• Partial Gym Membership

In a nutshell, DoublePositive teamed up with world famous golf course architect P.B. Dye at his signature course, The PB Dye Golf Club, to create the PB Dye DoublePositive Golf Classic (http://www.doublepositive.com/pbdye/).   The event supports The Dominica Orphanage & School.

When I first met P.B Dye, he shared his story.  Living in the Dominican Republic, P.B. and his wife Jean were horrified by the plight of the abandoned and orphaned children of LaUrena.  They felt that by giving their full support to a project called The Dominica Orphanage & School, they could help transform the lives of Dominican children.

Today, the Dominica Orphanage & School provides residential services and coordinates housing, while delivering a first-rate education.  Because students excel academically, school’s innovative instructional techniques are emulated by the public schools of the region.

P.B. and Jean continue to support The Dominica Orphanage & School through their charity, International Circle of Friends.  It makes me proud of DoublePositive and our friends that we can make a difference too.

Great people do great things, guys.  Join us – or help support the effort with your generous donation. http://www.doublepositive.com/pbdye

See you on the golf course!
Your friend, Joey

So that’s what’s happening on Friday, April 27.  We’re hosting a golf tournament with great people.  I’m writing this blog post because I’m hoping YOU will be one of the great ones who come, or lend your generous support.

See, the PB Dye DoublePositive Golf Classic is about more than golfing, meeting a celebrity, lunch and dinner, an open bar and supporting an important cause at an impressively stocked silent auction.

All those things will be cool.  We’ll even have a hole-in-one contest, and a wandering magician for the kids.But the real reason to go is deeper than that.

To me, one of the sorrows of life is that there are so many great people to meet, and not enough time to meet them all.  People with the power to inspire you, and change your life.  People who are devoting their lives to making a difference for others.

P.B. Dye and his wife, Jean, are like that.  A lot of people who have already signed up for the tournament are like that.  And I know most of the people reading these words are like that.

More to come on P.B. and Jean in the next post.  But this is why I’m so passionate about this tournament, guys.  This is why I want you there.  More great people need to meet more great people.  Are you with me?

Register now or make a donation:  http://www.doublepositive.com/pbdye
Check back next Tuesday for more!

Your friend,

Joey

“This tournament gives golfers a chance to play golf with P.B. Dye, at his signature course, The PB Dye Golf Club,” DoublePositive Co-Founder and EVP of Sales, Joey Liner, said. “In addition to meeting great people like P.B. and Jean Dye, folks will be helping a great cause, and having a great time as well.”

The event includes a round of golf on the stunning PB Dye Golf Club course, lunch, dinner, open bar, and an impressively stocked silent auction. Golfers will have an opportunity to challenge Dye to a “beat the architect” contest, and get their picture taken with him. Or they may try for a hole-in-one and win a great prize. Roaming the event, and astounding the players with amazing tricks and sleight-of-hand, will be magician Kevin Dawson.

“We hope to be joined by golfers from Maryland and beyond,” P.B. Dye said. “And if they can’t be with us, we hope they’ll consider supporting our mission to transform the lives of Dominican children. We are currently accepting donations of goods or services to our silent auction – a great way to contribute, whether or not you play!”

The Dominica Orphanage & School is a project supported by P.B and Jean Dye, through their charity, International Circle of Friends.

The golf tournament takes place on Friday, April 27, 2012, at PB Dye Golf Club, on 9526 Doctor Perry Road, in Ijamsville, MD. Player entry fee is $250 per golfer.

Those interested in playing, sponsoring, and/or donating items to the silent auction can visit the registration site (http://www.doublepositive.com/pbdye).

About the Dominica Orphanage & School
The Dominica Orphanage provides residential services and coordinates housing for the abandoned and orphaned children of LaUrena, in the Dominican Republic. Because the students excel academically, the school’s innovative instructional techniques are emulated by the public schools of the region.

About DoublePositive Marketing Group
DoublePositive is a leading provider of performance-based online marketing. Founded in 2004 as a Performance-based Online Marketing Network, DoublePositive deploys proprietary technology and data-rich analytics to optimize the entire online marketing funnel, from display (CPM) to search (CPC) to leads/calls (CPA/CPL) to live transfers (CPT). Dialing tens of millions of consumers a year provides DoublePositive with a unique lead-by-lead insight into the effectiveness of marketing/media spend. This insight is coupled with our real-time optimal pricing and bidding in order to deliver our direct response advertisers with new customers at scale and cost targets that are set by the advertiser. Learn more at http://www.doublepositive.com

You are a highly motivated person in pursuit of a degree in computer science, information technology, or engineering.

The Software Developer Intern position is responsible for building and maintaining DoublePositive’s core systems.  Primary responsibilities include:

1. Talk to Sales and the Business side to figure out how better software design can scale the business more efficiently.
2. Develop faster, more user centric, efficient software in a .NET environment.
3. Challenge and be challenged in a team setting in a constant iterative process to improve existing systems through testing and improvement analysis.
4. Become a leader and expert eventually owning new offshoots of the current system.

For more information, please contact:

Lory Cerato
lory@doublepositive.com
443.278.8571

You are a highly motivated person in pursuit of a degree in computer science, information technology, or engineering. You should have some education in IT infrastructure, LAN management, database management and technologies like MS SQL, Exchange, Access, routing, and VLANs.

You are self-starter, eager to lean from the best and take direction well.  You are open and excited to learn new technologies.  You are a strong communicator (both written and oral) who will support the IT team in the maintenance of hardware, software and other systems, troubleshoot issues with equipment like printers, computers and servers, run software updates/backups when  requested.

You may participate in the building new desktops, servers, research hosting options, report pricing and system options to supervisors, place orders or work with vendors on purchases, may also research unusual bugs or issues the company encounters.

For more information, please contact:

Lory Cerato
lory@doublepositive.com
443.278.8571

This Internship is available for College Credit.

Become part of our team and learn more about Online Lead Generation. This is a great position to hone your career skills in a startup environment. You’ll learn and become proficient in data-driven analysis in a performance based industry. Projects are not limited to, but can include: Data Analysis, Industry Specific Marketing Guidelines relevant to the Department of Education Regulatory environment, Branding Compliance Creative Audits and much more.

You will work with vendors on their campaigns and have the opportunity to provide a case study at the end of your internship.

Send us your resume and check our our team at http://www.doublepositive.com/meet-our-team/

Contact:
Phillip Perlman
Marketing Manager
pperlman@doublepositive.com
480.428.8409

Jodi’s post is a tough act to follow, but I did promise her that would provide a recap of the marquee LeadsCon panel of LeadsCon Las Vegas 2012.  The panel was presented by Doug Valenti, CEO of QuinStreet, and Tom Evans, CEO of Bankrate – the top two publicly-traded companies in the LeadsCon ecosystem.  The panel discussion was moderated by Stewart Barry, a partner with Investment Banking firm Union Square Advisors.  Stewart has represented several buy-side and sell-side clients in the LeadsCon ecosystem, and was a natural fit for the role of moderator between these two high-octane CEOs. 

In the spirit of full-disclosure, I have met Doug Valenti several times and consider him a friend.  I met Stewart Barry after the panel and found him to be incredibly knowledgeable of the LeadsCon ecosystem and also a wonderful person.  However, I have not yet had the opportunity to meet Tom Evans.

Arguably, the premier session of LeadsCon LV 2012, I characterized this as a “must see” to DoublePositive folks and it did not disappoint.  The discussion almost immediately gravitated to the role of mobile in Lead Gen.  Several oft-cited statistics were presented about the rising tidal wave of mobile usage.  Both CEOs acknowledged that they have observed a recent surge in visits to their owned and operated sites via mobile devices.

As a quick sidebar note on the role of mobile, the only other session I was able to attend was presented by Jeff Lawson, CEO of Twilio.  Jeff is an excellent and engaging presenter and really provided a wakeup call particularly to the mobile marketers and media buyers regarding how to adapt and evolve their call-to-actions to better fit the many different mobile environments.  One screen shot was particularly compelling – a screenshot of how most iPad users are typically leaning back or lying down while using their devices, then followed by a screenshot of a typical web-based long-form with several page-steps and dozens of fields right above an iPad touchscreen keyboard (which doesn’t even include a tab key for the user to move between capture fields).  Good luck getting those forms to convert with iPad users. :-S

Tom Evans segued out of the mobile discussion by making the point that it’s just another way to deliver media.  Tom surprised many in the audience by reminding them that Bankrate is a 28-year-old media company and that he joined the company in 2004 with a strong media background.  Bankrate has been positioned and perceived as a media company more so than a media buyer.  Much of Bankrate’s traffic through the years has been organic search traffic to their owned and operated properties including www.bankrate.com proper.  Organic search traffic tends to leave some in the industry unsettled because of the dominant influence that Google plays with its ranking algorithms for valuable search queries.  However, Tom pointed out that the recent Google updates (aka “Panda 1” and “Panda 2”) were ultimately net traffic gains to Bankrate’s sites.

The conversation naturally flowed to online consumer privacy issues after the mention of Google (given the recent uproar regarding Google tracking online consumers across all of their properties).  I believe Doug Valenti echoed the sentiments of all the white hat players in the audience that greater scrutiny and a better developed policy is needed around this topic of privacy.  The challenge here will be educating the policy-makers around how consumer privacy/tracking works in general and then to translate that into what is good and what is bad for consumers.  Most online marketers fear a brute-force Patriot-Act-style legislation that could severely impact many online marketing business models while providing very little additional privacy or control for consumers.  My personal philosophy is that the key is consumer freedom and consumer transparency.  Make what is being tracked very transparent to consumers while describing the benefits, while also providing the freedom to opt-out and otherwise control their own personal tracking settings.

The conversation then led to a conversation regarding online media in general.  Both Doug and Tom consider their respective businesses to be media companies (i.e. sellers of media, albeit most of it on a performance-basis), even though both businesses are also very active media buyers as well.  In that regard, it was refreshing to hear them speak of the consumers that visit their owned and operated sites as their “customers” and they both care deeply about the engagement and experience of those users.  Too often in the world of online performance-based marketing, the consumers are viewed by marketers as clicks and zeroes/ones on a traffic log rather than humans. 

Tom Evans described an interesting challenge for the whole online media ecosystem.  Traffic to online media is dominated by the big portals and players (e.g. Google, MSN, AOL, Yahoo, etc.).  They are all working hard to command the same rates for their premium inventory as offline premium TV could command.  I believe Tom stated the range to be $8-$15 CPMs.  In contrast to that, Tom identifies the massive amounts of non-premium inventory from these same players and other smaller publishers that are being auctioned off through real-time bidding exchanges in the sub-$1 CPM and often even sub-$0.50 CPM range.  On the other end of the spectrum are performance-based media sellers such as Google or Bankrate selling clicks that net an effective $60-$70 eCPM to the publisher.  Thus, Tom identified the big media companies to be stuck in a strange spot in the middle.  I personally view the continuum of eCPM’s as a simple reconciliation of supply and demand, and the continuum becomes more rational as the market gradually becomes more efficient through value-based pricing and real-time bidding.

Both Bankrate and QuinStreet have been highly acquisitive in the LeadsCon ecosystem as a supplement to their organic growth.  Both CEOs agreed that owning the media (as opposed to buying the media – perhaps “renting” the media is a better term here) is a key consideration of value in their M&A strategies.  Doug Valenti used his recent acquisitions of two B2B media companies (Ziff Davis Enterprise and IT Business Edge) as examples.  If the business that is the acquisition target is not a media company, but rather a network or technology company, the key criteria they use to evaluate the strategic fit is whether or not there could be growth “acceleratation” post-acquisition as a result of the larger platform.  Doug Valenti used the acquisition of SureHits as an excellent example of successfully using this approach.  Both CEOs agreed that as publicly-traded businesses, they had a responsibility to obsess about scalability of acquisition targets, but also to enforce best-practices in the industry and accelerate the transition from the Wild West to well-organized and well-governed business practices.  In other words, there seemed to be very little appetite for businesses that utilized incentives or promotions (or good forbid spyware/malware) as part of their interactions with consumers.  My takeaway was that Wall Street tends to reward businesses that are perceived more as media-owners and platforms more so than media-buyers/renters or intermediaries.

The discussion then shifted to the topic of vertical markets.  This has always been a fun topic since 2007 when hundreds of millions of mortgage lead gen dollars simply vanished as a result of the mortgage meltdown.  Many lead gen businesses then began going to great lengths to identify the characteristics and attributes of the best verticals to enter.  Tom and Doug confirmed a few of the most basic desirable attributes – high-value “considered” consumer purchases, sometimes referred to as “chunky.”  It is interesting to note that both QuinStreet and Bankrate share several vertical markets (e.g. Mortgage, Insurance, Credit Cards) but Bankrate does not operate in several other vertical market that QuinStreet does (e.g. Education, Home Services, and B2B).  Verticals that also reflect desirable attributes that I do not believe QuinStreet or Bankrate have entered – at least not yet in a big or meaningful way – include Health, Auto, and Travel.

The topic of the Home Services vertical invoked some interesting disagreements amongst the panelists.  While QuinStreet has a strong presence in Home Services, Tom Evans was sharply skeptical of the opportunity, citing the lack of “any big business in Home Services.”  When the moderator Stewart Barry politely reminded Tom of ServiceMagic as a very big Home Services lead gen company, Tom acknowledged the example but continued to be skeptical of the opportunity because of the noisy/messy long-tail characteristics of the service providers and contractors (who are also the lead buyers).

The conversation then shifted gears away from vertical markets per se and into various pricing models (e.g. clicks vs. leads vs. calls, etc.).  I was thrilled to hear the position of both Tom and Doug on this topic to the extent that it matches the long-held DoublePositive philosophy.  They both held the position that we are all in the customer acquisition business, and that our function is to deliver net new customers at scale and at target cost.  Thus, clicks, leads, calls (and I’ll self-servingly add Hot Transfers to this list), are just various performance-based pricing models at different stages of the funnel, but are designed to achieve the exact same ultimate outcome. 

Amen. 

I will only add one additional observation from the market that I suspect both Tom and Doug would agree with, that the deeper in the funnel that the pricing is determined yields an inverse relationship to scale/volume vs. risk/challenge.  In other words, the challenge/risk of buying clicks and converting them into sales is greater than that of buying leads, calls, or Hot Transfers, but there is a much greater volume of clicks available to buy in market for those that can manage that risk/challenge.

Tom Evans described the evolution of pricing models at Bankrate.  When he arrived in 2004, they sold mostly display ad inventory on a CPM basis.  Their online rate table product allowed them to evolve into a CPC pricing model that sold clicks.  The insurance vertical acquisitions of InsureMe, NetQuote, and InsWeb pushed them into selling leads on a CPA/CPL pricing model.  DoublePositive is happy to be working closely with Bankrate Insurance which allows Hot Transfers as one of the delivery model options, thus a CPT or Cost-per-Transfer may soon follow.  Tom seemed to suggest a bias for the higher pricing models with his colorful comment during the panel that “We’re still asking people to swim through a lot of swamp water to get to the jet fuel… We charge a lot more for the jet fuel.”

The “jet fuel” metaphor is a good one.  Tom mentioned that a $1,500 total marketing cost-per-funded-loan is still the market average in the mortgage industry.  Most buyers would gladly spend $1,500 for a single click, a single lead, or a single call/transfer provided that they had a 100% conversion to funded loan rate, but that is only hypothetical.  It is the “swamp water” that requires lower blended price points.  In Baltimore, we refer to this as crab-cake filler. :-)

As an extension of this principle, both Doug and Tom agreed that it is still difficult to get end-of-funnel sale or transaction feedback from lead buyers.  This has been a common meme at every LeadsCon, and a common frustration of lead sellers for over a decade.  The buy/sell market will never be as efficient as it can be as long as the feedback loop of true value is broken.  Bridging the gap of this broken feedback loop is a key pillar to the DoublePositive media buying and right-pricing strategy.

At the end of the panel discussion, the moderator allowed a few questions from the audience.  An interesting question from an audience member was regarding the roll of affiliates within their supply channels, especially with respect of both CEOs passion to eliminate bad actors.  Tom Evans responded by stating that his affiliate channel was Bankrate’s least-profitable channel.  The most profitable channel was of course organic traffic from owned and operated sites.  However, direct media buying (where there is no fear of bad affiliate behavior) yielded higher margins than the affiliate channel, thus challenging the myth that businesses utilize an affiliate channel (and the noisy risk of bad affiliate behavior) merely for higher margins. 

The next question was a nice segue.  A representative from Progressive Insurance asked “who pays the cost of these bad affiliate actors?”  The answer shared by both CEOs is that both the lead buyer and the lead seller share the cost.  The lead seller bears the cost by having their performance diluted thereby preventing from securing higher rates in market for the rest of their inventory.  The lead buyer bears the cost by working to a lower blended price per lead (thereby reducing their overall volume) but also wasting operating time/money and emotional bank accounts of their sales force.

The final question from the audience was about International expansion opportunities.  Doug Valenti took the lead on the answer and first set the table by stating that the vast majority of the opportunity for lead gen businesses is still in the USA.  He went on to describe QuinStreet’s international strategy and how it fit into Western Europe and Latin America.  Doug confessed that China is a tough nut to crack given the highly-localized and highly-personalized idiosyncrasies of the culture and the market there.  DoublePositive board member Stein Kretsinger has made several investments into online advertising businesses in China and agreed with Doug 100%.

Overall, I found this panel discussion to be one of the most memorable and enjoyable in LeadsCon history.  I’m hoping that Jay is able to make this inspiring State-of-the-Union style panel an annual affair.  Bravo to Doug, Tom, and Stewart, and Cheers to Jay.

 SPF

As a LeadsCon newbie, I wasn’t sure what to expect.  I mean, I’ve been to what feels like one million tradeshows, and managed half as many as a marketing director…so I was curious to find out for myself what all the buzz was about.

As my previous posts indicated, LeadsCon West 2012 was held in Las Vegas, Nevada on February 28 and 29 (with a special buyers only event held on the 27^th).  Vegas is one of the best places to hold tradeshows, so that, by design, is a positive.  The leads ecosystem is forever evolving with new businesses and professionals entering the market all the time, so that’s a positive.  And, since I planned our exhibit (complete with photo booth) and party (with our partner Leads360) I knew those were going to be, if nothing else, fun!  So, positives there, too.

Thus, I came into the show with the following:

• Vegas?  Positive.Evolving industry? Positive.
• Fun booth? Positive.
• Cool parties? Positive.

Seemingly, the basics were covered.  But, what else would make THIS particular LeadsCon stand out?

Well, first, companies in attendance topped 1200 and total attendance topped 2600—a myriad of exhibitors welcomed booth visitors with hospitality and enthusiasm, speakers inspired and challenged audiences, the Mirage excited and delighted (just ask me about my final night’s stay in the penthouse suite),  and the networking was unstoppable.  So unstoppable, in fact, that it stymied my original plan of being a devout LeadsCon student—attending each and every seminar available, soaking up new industry knowledge, every minute completely rapt—graduating with my PhD in “the biz.”  Yeah…not so much.

My team was on FIRE this year!  Booth regulars like Joey Liner, Syed Zaidi, and Brian Ocheltree spent so much time meeting with clients, prospects, and partners that our “while you were out” notebook was nearly full.  At times us DP booth folks were outnumbered by a margin of at least 3:1 by those wanting to chat with us.

DoublePositive/LeadsCon360 party bracelets were so in demand they became near black market items.  And, I was about ready to hang a sandwich board sign on my back that said “To speak with JT Benton, please take a number.”

So, what WAS all the excitement about?  What made this year different?

Well, it started right before the show when we were honored with two LeadsCouncil LEADER™ awards— Best Hot Transfer:Lending and Best Hot Transfer:Technology.

Needless to say, we were thrilled and took that enthusiasm straight to Vegas.

On Monday at 2:30 (the day before the actual show began), the aforementioned Mr. Benton spoke at the first-ever LeadsCon Buyers Summit about performance mobile marketing.  JT, a long standing expert in the field, spoke about why (finally) the time is right for mobile click-to-call, how it impacts marketing and media plans, and strategies for implementing it successfully.  All of this good stuff was promoted well in advance via news releases and blog entries, and a terrific webinar produced by our partners at Ring Revenue.  At the close of the seminar, JT also unveiled DP’s first white paper on the subject.  (SPOILER ALERT: Look out for a webinar in the very near future where you can learn from the master himself and get your own copy of the whitepaper.)

Although I wasn’t able to see it live myself, I would have thought JT was one of the Beatles at the height of their popularity (thus the sandwich board dream).  A big shout out to @LeadsCouncil for their tweet “@DoublePositive JT Benton Doing an amazing job presenting on Mobile Marketing #LeadsCon.”  Thanks guys!

On Tuesday morning, as the team’s official “crazy marketing lady” it was my job to make sure that DoublePositive was ready for the crazy schedules that were ahead of them, that our booth was inviting and fun, and that our head “misfits,” company CEO and EVP, Sean Fenlon and Joey Liner, respectively, were prepped and ready to go for their welcoming address.  Sean and Joey had the priveledge of welcoming the entire conference immediately following the keynote.  The moment was certainly not lost on them as Joey (@joeyliner), so fittingly  tweeted: “This is 1 of those defining moments in life, about to speak to 2500+ in a welcome address for LeadsCon with my partner Sean #DoublePositive.”

Following the welcoming address, it was over to the tradeshow floor where our 10×20 booth was transformed into a comfortable lounge space complete with a photo booth (to capture folks in their tradeshow best)!  We brought our favorite DP website characters with us, we had Viking helmets, sunglasses, and signs promoting Joey for Mayor!

While people shed their inhibitions in the most PG ways possible in photo booth…

…others shed their shoes and kicked up their feet on our couches (including our very own John Nuclo, Stein Kretsinger, and Syed Zaidi—can you feel the love?).

The DoublePositive team was visible on the floor and off Tuesday—most notably with Joey “LeadsCon Mayor” Liner invited to speak during the “Is Lead Gen a Dirty Word?” panel.  He was joined by Jeremy Johnson, Co-Founder and CMO, 2tor, Inc., John Kobs, CEO & Co-Founder, ApartmentList.com, and moderated by Jeff Lawson, CEO & Co-Founder of Twilio. (That’s our guy, second from the left.)

All the while, attendees zoomed from booth to booth making friends and influencing people—and searching for the sacred bracelets for the DoublePositive/LeadsCon360 party later that night at Rhumbar.

So…later that night at Rhumbar…the atmosphere was sumptuous, the drinks were spirited and flowed freely , the staff at the club couldn’t have been more hospitable, the weather was beautiful (albeit a little on the windy side), and everyone relaxed…played some cards,  snapped some shots in the photo booth and all around had a great time.

Thank you to our friends at Leads360 for (once again!) making it a special night, and thank you to Steve Hall for the great photographs (below).

Up early again Wednesday morning…

Day two proved even more exciting as attendees and exhibitors alike knew they had just one final day to meet, greet, and eat.  Our booth was a flurry of folks looking to engage with our team members, learn about our products and services, and snap some shots in our photo booth.

Midway through the afternoon, our very own Rich Dent donned his favorite sombrero and participated in a video interview about the show with VigLink CEO, Oliver Roup.  Go Rich!

After a brief rest and bite to eat, it was off to the LeadsCon VIP after show party at newly opened 1Oak Night Club in the Mirage Hotel and Casino.  Attendees got decked in their show-stopping finest and partied in celebration of another spectacular LeadsCon.  Our team really got into the spirit of the event (thanks again to Steve Hall for the great pic on the left)!

So, let’s review.  Obviously, my expectations were pretty basic and I kept that that way as to not be disappointed:

• Vegas?  Positive.
• Evolving industry? Positive.
• Fun booth? Positive.

What I wasn’t expecting was EVERYTHING ELSE LeadsCon West had to offer.  Although I did not get to attend many seminars (because apparently I was preparing for some kind of cross-country marathon running from one end of the Mirage to the other all day long!) I heard from many teammates, associates, and those through the social networks (just look up #leadscon) how much they learned and enjoyed the material. Personally, I learned a heck of a lot about the industry, how deep my colleagues knowledge is (they fielded questions from every direction!), and how enthusiastic everyone remains about contributing to and shaping the leads ecosystem.    And the networking?  Let’s just say I am happy to have e-copies of all photographs from the booth so I can continue to match names with faces.

Obviously, my expectations were BLOWN AWAY.  We put a lot of work into preparing for LeadsCon, and LeadsCon clearly delivered back so much more.

• Amazing speakers? Positive.
• Super smart people?  Positive.
• Great networking? Positive.

Doing it all again at LeadsCon East? DOUBLE positive.

See y’all in New York City!