How can you use your personality to make your telesummit stand out? Do you use a gimmick or is it something that’s deep within you? Watch this 3-minute video as Leesa answers this question (don’t mind the big red lips).

Click here to learn more about Telesummit Refresh, a 3-day event taking place in Atlanta, GA, November 3-5, 2010. Price goes up $500 on October 14, 2010 and you can register your spot for as little as $199 (with very generous multi-play options).

I absolutely love hosting virtual events and Virtual Event Boom is no different. Why? Because I get to sit back and be a student as I listen to speaker after speaker share their gems and insights.

I’d like to share with you my big takeaways from Day 1 & Day 2 of Virtual Event Boom.

1. Milana Leshinsky shared her #1 tip on how you you can make your virtual event stand even when there’s so many out there (this gem was so good, I asked those listening not to tweet it out – and no one did).
2. Why using a hybrid event strategy will help you fill both your virtual and non-virtual events with ease (Maria Gamb, Kim Duke & Mary O’Brien).
3. Why it’s okay to use long sales as it creates safety for the person buying (Mark Silver).
4. Tina Forsyth and Cindy Greenway‘s favorite conference bridge line and webinar tool (even I was blown away by their choice).
5. Vocal exercises that will help you confidently tackle even the most intimidating guest in your virtual event series (Susan Bratton had me doing these which prompted an attendee to request a back up orchestra on Twitter).
6. I shared never before heard content from my 2nd book Multiple Streams of Virtual Event Income due out this Fall.
7. The only tool you’ll need to measure how well your virtual event is doing (Andrea Blackwood-Harriott).

Also, attendees received a conference bridge line & webinar platform comparison guide, daily action guides to help them implement what they’re learning and additional resources & handouts from the speakers.

I’m looking forward to Day 3, 4 & 5 in the Virtual Event Boom series. Here are the sessions that I’m excited about on Day 3 of Virtual Event Boom taking place on Wednesday May 12, 2010.

• 12pm Eastern: Alicia Forest will share how to get any speaker to say yes to your virtual event invitation.
• 1pm Eastern: A panel discussion on how to hire the right virtual event help so you’re not doing it all alone.
• 2:15pm Eastern: Helen Graves will teach you Launch Secrets for the Heart-Based Marketer: How to Quickly Sell Out Your Next Virtual Event (Even If It’s Your First!).
• 8pm Eastern: I will debut a new application called the Virtual Event Sales Page Creator. Only Virtual Event Boom attendees will get the beta copy of this new tool.

I’m sharing all this with you in hopes that you’ll make the decision to join me and other attendees behind the walled garden. You can still register and listen to the remaining live sessions, PLUS get access to the recordings of the sessions I mentioned above. Click here to register your spot.

And if you’ve been attending the series so far, please leave your comments below to let me know what you’ve been learning. If you’re still on the fence, follow the conversation on Twitter as attendees tweet their reaction to what they’re hearing.

When I was 30-years old, I had an awakening. I had gone through my 20s very angry about many things. When I finally reached the big 3-0, I was:

• Single after ending a 5-year relationship
• Back in church after not stepping foot in one for over 8-years
• Hopelessly bouncing between periods of wild wealth and abject poverty and wondering how I would break the cycle

It was the summer of my 30th birthday when I attended T. Harv Eker’s 3-day intensive Millionaire Mind seminar. From 8:30am til about 6:30pm on Friday, Saturday and Sunday on a hot, humid and muggy weekend, I crammed into the Metro Convention Centre in downtown Toronto with a couple thousand other people to develop our millionaire mindset.

And what a powerful experience.

I still have the notebook filled with all the notes I copied down from that 3-day event. We did tons of exercises on how to have a better relationship with our money. As I look at my notes, a couple things stood out that changed my destiny for good…

That if I don’t respect my money, it won’t stay where it’s not wanted.

Why Social Media Is No Longer About Marketing

If you haven’t figured it out, people don’t need you in order to talk about your brand. They’ll go to Twitter, Facebook and blogs, meet up with your fans (or foes) and carry on a conversation.

David Meerman Scott

At last year’s Social Media Telesummit, best selling author David Meerman Scott spoke about the need to let your message go. I distinctly remember him saying during his keynote that you need to make your web content available to your fans with no strings attached.

Meaning no opt-in forms. In other words, forget collecting first names and email addresses so that people can download your PDF.

That’s so 2006.

In today’s marketplace, not only do people want to consume your content, but they also want to do so on their own terms and in their own way.

Every Person Is a Centre of Influence

I stumbled upon a blog post written by Paul Chaney, author of The Digital Handshake, called Seven Social Media Mindset Markers. Out of the points made, this is the one that stuck out the most:

“Every participant in social media is a center of influence to some extent, even those far down the long-tail. In social media, the important thing is not how many eyeballs read the content, but who those eyeballs belong to.”

For the 2010 Social Media Telesummit, I decided that I wouldn’t write up promo emails or sample tweets for affiliates to copy and paste and share with their network. I did this for the 2008 & 2009 telesummits, but just couldn’t be bothered for 2010.

(BTW, I’m providing sneak peeks of the 2010 Social Media Telesummit through my preview call series. You can sign up for them on the front page.)

To be honest, I ran out of time and just wasn’t in a creative mood to write up 6-weeks worth of content.

But this turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

You see, if social media is about being transparent and being authentic, then affiliates should create their own promo messages in their own voice.

Lose control of the message and rely on the creativity of others to push the message out.

What have I seen so far? Speakers and affiliates are using the tools that they like to share their message with their networks. For example:

• Nancy Marmolejo, Shannon Cherry & Donna Maria Coles Johnson all blogged about their participation in the 2010 Social Media Telesummit in their own unique voice.
• Other speakers such as Derek Fredrickson and Michele PW tweeted about their participation.
• Still others such as Andrew Ballenthin and Dean Hua have used LinkedIn and Facebook respectively to tell their network about this virtual event.

And while the number of clickthroughs have been less compared to years past, the number of registrants is the same.

Go figure.

Instead of forcing people to take notice, I have given each person the free reign to share news about the 2010 Social Media Telesummit in their own way, in their own voice, using their favourite tool.

What a concept.

And since everyone is a centre of influence, I don’t need to force people to share my marketing message in the way I want them to.

Instead, I provide them with the idea and let them massage it in a way that fits their unique style. Shall we call this authentic marketing? Or transparent marketing? Naw, let’s just call this a mindset and be done with it.

And you’re curious how to cultivate a social media mindset, join me and 14 speakers at the 2010 Social Media Telesummit. I’m hosting preview calls on January 14 & 18, 2010 at 12pm ET to give you a sneak peek of all the great content that the faculty members will share. Click here to get the call-in details (and yes, it’s an opt-in form).

Hello. My name is Scott Tousignant, your guest blogger for the week. Up to this point I have been sharing home office fitness tips that will make a positive impact on your performance during the virtual events that you conduct. Today I would like to share some tips to help your virtual event attendees get the absolute most out of your event.

As a reader of Leesa’s blog I’m sure that you are passionate about the content that you deliver during your virtual events. I’m also certain that you would love to see your attendees absorb all the information that you deliver, immediately put it into practice, and experience great success. You sincerely care about your fans, you want the best for them, and you know that your information will greatly benefit them. But they need to take in the info and apply it in order for them to experience these benefits.

One of the best ways to aid your audience in absorbing the information that you share during your virtual events is to recommend that they perform a fast fun home office fitness session prior to the event.

When your attendees exercise prior to your virtual event they will be more attentive and become better equipped to handle any problem solving tasks that may be necessary during your event. The increase in oxygen flow allows their brain to function optimally so they can easily absorb the content that you are teaching. Their spirits and energy will be high, which makes them more likely to apply the information immediately.

Here’s a quickie cardio session that you can recommend to your virtual event attendees prior to your class. They can perform it right in their home office.

Pre Virtual Event Quickie Cardio

You may download the video above by right clicking and save Quickie Cardio

The benefits of performing this quickie cardio session will carry over for several hours, helping your attendees become super-focused and highly productive.

As I mentioned earlier, I understand that you sincerely care about your fans. When you recommend that they perform a 10-minute home office workout prior to your virtual event they will see just how much you care about them and want them to make full use of your teachings so they can experience great success.

I know that you care about more than just seeing your fans earn more money online. You want them to experience a great quality of life. By recommending that your audience incorporate home office fitness into their workday it’s one more way to show them how much you care about them.

You can also recommend that your virtual event attendees listen to the mp3 recording while they go out for a brisk walk. Once again, the increase in oxygen flow to their brain while they are walking will help them absorb your content better. Plus, because your content is so great they’ll want to continue walking until the recording is done. If your recording is 60 minutes long, chances are pretty good that they’ll be walking 30 minutes longer than they typically would.

Listening to your virtual events can provide great motivation in helping your fans live a healthy and active lifestyle.

You ROCK!

Scott Tousignant

My brand still evolves, but the majority of it is complete. I’m excited that I can now share the Marketing Fit message with you.

For those who don’t know, I’m an award winning blogger, author of a book called Podcasting for Profit and a social media consultant. Over the past 4 years, I’ve been known as a podcasting expert, helping businesses generate leads, make money and open doors using a podcast.

While I’ve had many business successes, my health was another story. Although I’ve been active all my life, there was a period of time when I stopped going to the gym and working out.

I focused on my business full time and my weight climbed to just over 200lbs. I didn’t have the energy to wake up before 10am, I ate horribly and I started to build boundaries around my business to make it difficult for people to reach me.

When my book came out in 2007, I was happy. I told everyone about it and in the first 30 days using a virtual book tour, I sold just under 1000 copies. The bad news is that I weighed 210lbs and I was still feeling sluggish.

I had to do something, so I used social media to be more available and more open to those who needed my help. I also changed my mindset which helped me to change my habits. I started going to the gym again and it’s now a part of my daily schedule.

It hasn’t been easy, but things have picked up. I’m now out of bed by 6:30am every morning (even on weekends). I’ve lost 15lbs in the past 90 days and my business is much more healthy as a result of my approach to active living.

This is what Marketing Fit is all about. It is NOT a fitness program. Instead, I use fitness and active living analogies to help you use social media in a dynamic way.

If you’d like to learn how you can create a more active lifestyle so you too can build a healthy business using social media marketing, stick around. I’m launching a few more items over the next couple of weeks that will help you understand the Marketing Fit message better.

Are you ready?

I was pretty pissed on Sunday after Westjet seemed to “forget” that they had to fly over 120 Canadians from Las Vegas to Toronto. The plane rolled into the gate at the time we were supposed to board it around 11:20pm PST. Then, we had to wait another hour for them to prep and clean the plane, then another 30 minutes to board the plane.

By the time we boarded the plane, I had already been awake for 15 hours straight. I was cranky, my hair needed to be washed and I was in desperate need of a shower.

I was angry and I wanted someone to pay. I was even complaining about this via my Twitter page. But the pilot and the head flight attendant used one thing to diffuse my anger. They used humour.

After I sat down in my seat, the pilot went on the mic to welcome us to the plane. This was his explanation as to why the plane was delayed:

Tired, eh? I apologize for the delay. The other plane broke and we had to steal one from another crew. Please be kind to the flight attendants because it’s really their fault. We’ll return to Las Vegas in the time of 4 hours and 1 second.

Odd, I said to myself. I didn’t know whether to take him seriously or not, especially since we were already in Las Vegas and needed to go 4 hours east.

The head flight attendant then took the mic to introduce himself and the other flight attendants on the plane. This is what he said:

Hi, I’m Mark and I’m here to help you. Take a look at Linda here at the front of the plane. Take a look at Shane towards the rear. Ladies, he’s really worth the look.

I chuckled and no, I didn’t take a look at Shane. As the plane started to taxi out of the gate, Mark got on the mic again, but this time to recite their “world winning safety instructions.”

Huh? I said to myself. Why were their safety instructions world winning? I tend to ignore the safety instructions because I’ve heard them SO MANY TIMES. But I tuned into Mark just to find out what made his instructions so special.

Here’s highlights from what he said:

In the case of an emergency, the oxygen masks will be deployed. Place the oxygen mask over your sniffer and kisser and secure firmly. For those traveling with children, since you’re not listening to me, just put the mask over your head first.

Due to federal legislation, smoking is strictly prohibited on board the flight. If anyone is caught smoking, you will be removed from the plane immediately (at this point, we’re 8000 ft in the air).

Our bathrooms, which are located in the front and rear of the plane, are equipped with nice, scratchy 1 ply toilet paper.

If you had any expectations before boarding this plane, lower them.

It was the first time flying that safety instructions got an applause. The humour certainly lowered my anger (not my expectations since they were already low) and I sat back comfortably in the chair for the 4 hour flight home.

Westjet couldn’t ignore the situation as some companies try to do. They knew they were at fault. Instead, they addressed the flight delay with a bit of humour and I’m happy to say it worked like a charm.

When I got home, all I cared about was getting that shower and catching some sleep, instead of spending hours on the phone with Westjet.

Kudos to the flight team.

Here’s one that came through about the way I say podcast which made me smile. It’s a guy, but he’ll remain nameless for now.

I heard you on Blogger and Podcaster Magazine‘s podcast and really struggled through it. You rarely use “T”s. You often say “podcas”, not “podcast”. Additionally, a pop filter may serve you well. I’m by FAR not perfect either, but I noticed these things and wanted to pass along my thoughts. As far as the content, it was great. I appreciate the info!

Can you spot the irony in this person’s comment? First, he said he struggled through the audio. Then, he ended off by saying that the content was great. Odd. How can you struggle with it and say it’s great all in the same breath?

So, I listened to a few of my recordings and it’s true, I constantly leave off the “t” when I say podcast. What’s even more tragic is that I always will say “podcas.” The only time I pronounce the T is when I say podcasting.

Blame my culture, my nationality, my level of education or where I live geographically. All these things influence how one enunciates certain words and it’s certainly influenced me.

Goodness, there must be bigger things in this world to be concerned about, like, people dying in Burma, or, people losing family members due to an earthquake in China. I guess when an author enunciates a word that’s not to someone’s liking, it’s right up there with rising oil costs and global warming.

This came through the helpdesk about a month ago. Name withheld.

So I did a search on “podcast expert” and there you were. I’ve been teaching myself about RSS and podcasting over the last 2 weeks.

I have tons of information, it’s just not all fitting neatly in my brain. I consider myself a seasoned Internet marketer, and a fast learner, I’m only just getting into podcasting.

Here’s what I’m hoping to achieve, without knowing if it’s possible:

I want to record and upload a mp3 files to my wordpress blog, then link to it in a post. I would like that mp3 automatically submitted to podcast directories… or whatever it does. This is where I get lost.

All these podcasting services say “Post it, then we take it from there.” What does that mean?! Is it included in my RSS feed? Is it submitted somewhere? Once I publish a post, I know its also in my feed, but what happens after that? Am I supposed to submit it somewhere?

I am also curious as to if there are any “podcast blogs” that are designed specifically for podcasters. Upload an mp3 file, title, description, then BOOM… traffic. Is there anything like that?

And FeedBurner. Wow, it really looks like a great service, but to a beginning podcaster, not very clear on whats going on here. What benefit do I have with a feed generated by FeedBurner over the feed I already have with wordpress?

Thanks in advance,
[name withheld] 

Wow! He had alot of time on his hands to type up this ticket. Too bad I don’t have as much time to type up a response.

I could easily point him to my freebie page that lists a whole bunch of plugins and resources to use. If it were that easy, I would’ve responded, but if you read his request, he wants to understand how everything works. That takes time.

Like him, I always want to dig around under the hood to see how things work. Once I “get it,” I can then delegate to someone else. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to answer questions on that minute level.

So, what was our reply?

Leesa no longer conducts one-on-one coaching sessions, but has a coaching club that will answer all of your questions and then some. To find out more about Six-Figure Podcasting, go to http://www.sixfigurepodcasting.com.

You might also be interested in Leesa’s book, Podcasting for Profit. If you go to http://www.leesabarnes.com you can download the first two chapters for free.

This ticket was opened in April. Again, I will withhold the name, but will publish the ticket in its entirety:

Leesa:
Please send me a copy of your various podcasting info products so I can determine the potential for me being an affiliate to promote your work to the nearly 2000 practitioners I’ve trained worldwide. Most want  to increase their business using the internet and I believe podcasting may be one important aspect of their efforts.
God speed
[name withheld] 

(**sigh**) There are many problems with this request:

1. You can only become one of my affiliates after you’ve bought a product. I made this change because I found that the affiliates with top sales were the ones who already used the product personally.
2. I don’t just send out my products at no charge to anyone. Well, not true. I’ve sent out review copies of my book to people who I know are influential in their industry. The factors I use to determine influence are subjective, however, one criteria is that I know who you are and I contact you first.

Our reply?

Our affiliate program is open only to current customers. You will receive an invitation to join our affiliate program after you’ve made a purchase. We recently made this change because we find that the best people to refer our products and services to others are those who have used them personally.

BTW, Leesa’s book, Podcasting for Profit, is an inexpensive way to discover what podcasting can do for your business and those who you trained. You can download 2 free chapters at http://www.podcastingforprofitbook.com to get a taste of all the great content that is waiting for you in her book.

I got a rather interesting ticket via my helpdesk about a couple months ago. I won’t identify the sender, but I will publish the request in its entirety.

My name is [name withheld]. I recently heard your interview and I love your ideas! Can you help me get started with podcasting? We have a very genuine and unique product line. I feel our customers and the world would benefit from our product(s). I really DO NOT have the time to sit and read a book, however, I do have the time to get instructions on how to get going with this adventure. I really feel I could use your help. Can you dedicate a few hours for my project ?

Now, why would I find this particular ticket interesting? It’s this line:

I really DO NOT have the time to sit and read a book, however, I do have the time to get instructions on how to get going with this adventure.

(**sigh**) The problem is that all my tips, tricks and tactics are IN THE BOOK. The time it would take me to get this chap going on this adventure would be equivalent to him just buying the book and reading it.

In essence, he was asking for the coles notes for Podcasting for Profit, only he wanted the coles notes delivered by me over the phone. Unfortunately, the coles notes just doesn’t exist either on paper or via a private 1-to-1 with me.

Our reply?

Thank you for contacting us, but Leesa no longer does one-on-one consultations or coaching sessions. She does have a podcasting membership that might be of value to you. There are monthly training audios, and the blog is full of valuable information about how to make money podcasting. You can get more information about it at http://www.sixfigurepodcasting.com