Tag Archives: Peter Shankman

Blogging, Photo-A-Day

Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown

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Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown
Photo-A-Day #1607

I listen to a radio station in MA called WROR. It is basically an old fart station. It really is. They play the hits from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s so I get to hear music that I enjoy and that I am familiar with. It is safe radio. The morning guys are older men Loren and Wally. They can be funny but in your be polite to your grandpa’s jokes sort of funny. Sorry grandpa.

So, because it is corporate radio I tend to hear the same songs over and over. When you do that you can actually understand the lyrics to songs and see what is really being said. So for example I noticed that the Jim Croce songs Bad, Bad Leroy Brown goes like this…

“And it’s bad, bad leroy brown,
The baddest man in the whole damn town
Badder than old king kong
And meaner than a junkyard dog

Now Leroy he a gambler
And he like his fancy clothes
And he like to wave his diamond rings
In front of everybody’s nose”

Leroy is a tough guy. He’s someone you shouldn’t mess with and it seems that from the description everyone is afraid of Leroy Brown. So I leave him alone for a moment. Let’s take a look at Big Jim. You Don’t Mess around with Big Jim Walker. According to Croce:

42nd street got big jim walker
He’s a pool-shootin’ son of a gun
Yeah, he big and dumb as a man can come
But he stronger than a country hoss
And when the bad folks all get together at night
You know they all call big jim “boss”, just because
And they say

You don’t tug on superman’s cape
You don’t spit into the wind
You don’t pull the mask off that old lone ranger
And you don’t mess around with jim

So both Leroy Brown and Big Jim Walker are people that seem to be unbeatable, everyone is afraid of them. Leroy is flashy and he’s got a high roller lifestyle going on and Big Jim is just big and mean and dumb. These are guys at the tops of their games and they seem untouchable.

Until…

They both make mistakes, Leroy hits on the wrong woman, one with a jealous husband and Leroy gets his face rearranged… literally.

Well the two men took to fightin
And when they pulled them from the floor
Leroy looked like a jigsaw puzzle
With a couple of pieces gone

Things done work out any better for Big Jim. In fact they end up much, much worse.

Well a hush fell over the pool room
Jimmy come boppin’ in off the street
And when the cuttin’ were done
The only part that wasn’t bloody
Was the soles of the big man’s feet
Yeah he were cut in in bout a hundred places
And he were shot in a couple more
And you better believe
They sung a different kind of story
When big jim hit the floor now they say

You don’t tug on superman’s cape
You don’t spit into the wind
You don’t pull the mask off that old lone ranger
And you don’t mess around with slim

So, what can a couple of Jim Croce songs about Bar Fights tell us about being better bloggers?

First of all I don’t advocate violence but I do think you can dominate the competition. There are always going to be big time people in any space. They are going to seem completely untouchable. Massive powerhouses that you cannot even compete with. That sort of thinking is crap.

No One is Untouchable

Everyone started from nothing and built that into something. Brand recognition, Trust and Influence comes from time, hard work and careful planning. Do you want to own the wine market like Gary Vaynerchuk? Then you have to put in the time learning all you can about wines, eat dirt and hustle your ass off. You also have to be engaging, informative and entertaining.

Can you do it?

That is a question only you can answer. Do you have the drive to be the next big web personality? One thing that the big guys do is that they don’t heed those warnings from the lyrics above. You don’t tug on Superman’s Cape? Are you kidding me! These guys yank on the cape, put Superman in a headlock, and find out just what makes Superman tick. You don’t pull the mask off the old lone ranger? Certainly you do! You’ve got to get in there find out what is behind the mask and learn as much as possible. One guy that gets out there and digs deep on everything to do with web related advertising is Ted Murphy. He is constantly tugging on Superman’s Cape and King Kong? King Kong ‘s got nothing on Murphy. Follow his twitter stream for a while and you will see so many people trying to tear him down and just as many who are in his corner. One thing that Murphy doesn’t do is swat at the airplanes trying to knock him down like Kong. He responds to detractors with an even keeland even wins many over

How can you take on Leroy Brown or Big Jim Walker?

The biggest thing that you can do for yourself is question everything that you know about the niche you want to be a part of. Who are the big players? Who are the up and comers? Who can you learn from, emulate and ultimately surpass? You have to put in the time and the work to become a success. You might make something completely awesome and viral and hit it big, but that often does not happen overnight. Build trust by helping, being an expert and being available. Everyone is an expert in something. That is the premise behind Peter Shankman‘s HARO. Reporters need sources and since people are experts in things they can help the reporters and be those sources of information.

Are you a source for valuable information?

That is what you have to ask yourself as well. Is what you are saying something that people need to hear? Or will your content entertain, inform and motivate your audience to come back. If you regurgitate everything that is already being said then I guarantee that your audience will find the original voice and follow that one. You will never be a Rockstar that way. You MUST have your OWN voice, opinions and ideas. So, Get out there! Tug on Superman’s Cape, Pull the mask off the Old Lone Ranger and go mess around with Jim because he and Leroy Brown may be the baddest men in town right now but there weren’t always and the won’t be forever.

Conferences, Photo-A-Day, Travel

We Were Both Too Tired To Sleep

31 Comments
We Were Both Too Tired To Sleep
Photo-A-Day #1586

My third and final day at Affiliate Summit East was full of blogging, keynotes and networking with some fantastic people. I started off early. I went to the Blogger’s Lounge an hour before it opened. I had written my post from yesterday late into the night on WordPad because I wasn’t going to pay for $18.95 Internet access in my room. The ability to write without distraction of twitter, e-mail and “Oh! Shiny!” is wonderful. I was able to pop on some headphones and just go at it and recall my whole day. I’m presently writing this post on the train bound back for Providence. I have a seat in the back (no one behind me thank God) and the car is nearly empty. Too bad the train was over an hour and a half late leaving. I have about 3 solid hours to write. So brace yourself this post is gonna be epic.

Having the Blogger’s Lounge to myself for the first hour of the morning was great. I was able to catch up on all the tweets I missed because I don’t have an iPhone and constant contact. Which isn’t great all the time but at a conference of this nature it is essential. I was able to post all my photos and write captions for them before posting up my actual post. I was also able to post up the infamous video of Ted Murphy (@TedMurphy), Me and Shawn Collins (@AffiliateTip) singing Milli Vanilli’s Girl You Know It’s True. Just wait, that thing will go crazy viral. I can’t wait to sing with Ted and Shawn again!

The photos were fun because last night I formatted all of them but wasn’t able to write out all the descriptions because it was so late. I hope that people are enjoying the photos that I’ve take with them using my Xshot, or their Xshot. I gave away 12 Xshots throughout the conference and there were many people who were very happy about that. Thank you so much to Michael from Xshot for sending me a case to give away.

I worked on the post and photos solidly until around 9:20am when I realized that I should eat something. I ran downstairs and got something to eat at breakfast and came back up to the Blogger’s Lounge to finish everything up and head off with Tim Jones (@Timothy_Jones) to the Peter Shankman (@Skydiver) Keynote.

Peter Shankman

Peter’s keynote was fantastic. He was funny endearing and brutally honest. He was also introduced by the ever-awesome Jim Kukral (@jimkukral).

Jim Kukral at Peter Shankman Keynote

I loved this keynote mostly because of the content but also because of Tim Jones. Sitting next to Tim Jones in a keynote is amazing. The guy is there on his MacBook, he’s writing notes about the keynote, tweeting, filming and writing most of his post about the keynote never missing a beat about what is being said. Tim put together a 3 minute ADOS (Attention Deficient,… Oh! Shiny!) video of the keynote that is great and since I cannot really remember specifics about the keynote I’m just going to link to some great tweets by Tim and his post: Peter Shankman Keynote Address at Affiliate Summit East 2009

Peter Shankman

During the keynote, towards the end Peter pulled out his Poken, he has a panda I have a Dragon. He explained how the Poken was going to be the next amazing breakthrough in making business and personal connections.I just received my Poken yesterday via FedEx from PokenGirl (PokenGirl). I was excited because I could finally Poken with someone else who got it. I mean, Tim certainly gets it so he counts but we already Pokened yesterday. Peter tossed a couple of Pokens to the crowd, Missy Ward and her son got some. After the keynote I went over with Tim to get some photos of us meeting Peter and exchanging “High 4’s”.

Peter Shankman and Tim Jones

Peter was selling the Pokens there for $20 and there were a bunch of people buying them.

Update: PokenGirl has offered a %15 off code for Affiliate Summit Attendees. Just use ase09 at checkout. Buy Your Poken Today. And if you would I’d love it if you bought it through my affiliate link there. I’ll be sure to High 4 you when next we meet.

@BenSpark and @Skydiver after Keynote with our Pokens

One person who wanted one was Stephanie Lichtenstein (@StephARC). She wasn’t carrying cash so I fronted her the money so she could get one. I don’t want to see someone cool going Pokenless. We had exchanged a few tweets recently and I figured, hey pay it forward. It wasn’t until people were starting to open and play with their Pokens that I realized that PokenGirl really hooked me up. She not only GAVE me a Dragon Poken for free but she got my Poken completely ready to roll. She pre-pokened my Dragon with her info and she also hooked me up with a lanyard. It was really nice of her to do that.

Stephanie and BajaLori (@BajaLori) posed for a few photos for me so I could get some great Poken action shots.

@BajaLori and @StephARC

I’ve posted them to Flickr and will put up my Poken review as soon as I have a moment to do some serious updating and upgrading to my Poken Profile. I will however help anyone who would like to have a custom Poken Card. Basically an image that is unique to your Poken Profile. This is sort of like a custom Twitter Background.

After the keynote I met Missy Ward’s Dad (@MissysDad) and we had a photo taken together by Missy’s sister.

BenSpark and @MissysDad

I also got to meet Jen Goode (@JGoode). We didn’t meet and talk much but I did get to High 4 her.I wanted to tell her that I love her episode of The Spew (Missy Ward’s Geekcast.fm show)

Peter Shankman selling Pokens at Affiliate Summit East

When the Keynote was over I went down and checked out of the hotel, came back up to the Blogger’s Lounge and there were all the IZEA Insiders who were at the conference. I finally got to meet Laurie (@Laurie_Pooh) and Corrin (@CorrinRenee). So we got a bunch of different Group Shots using our Xshots. Sometimes together and sometimes one at a time. Here is one of Heather Mary Smith, Blogger Lounge Mistress (@HeatherinBC, Connie Foggles (@ConnieFoggles), Me, Laurie, Corrin and Brett Bumeter (@BrettBum).

The IZEA Peeps at Affiliate Summit East

We also took one of all the IZEA Insiders Me, Heather, Laurie, Corrin and Brett.

IZEA Insiders at ASE09

I spent pretty much the entire rest of the day in the Blogger Lounge. There wasn’t really any session that I wanted to see and there was my Ultimate IZEAFest Prize Pack contest to work on. I got four great judges. Tim Jones, Famous Blogger Murray Newlands (@MurrayNewlands), Eric Schechter (@EricSchechter and my favorite Life Coach Kim Ann Curtin (@KimAnnCurtin). I know that I made a great choice in picking these judges. They watched each video read each blog post and determined the best choice for the Ultimate IZEAFest Prize Pack Grand Prize Winner. That person will be revealed on MarketLeverage TV on Monday August 17th along with the two runner up winners.

You’d think that being in the Blogger’s Lounge that you would go and miss everything that was going on but that is not the case. I met some wonderful people there and I gave away a bunch of Xshots to those people. I met Michael Pomposello of Content Written. We played a game of Wii Tennis for an Xshot. He smoked me and got his Xshot and we took a photo together.

BenSpark and Michael Pomposello

Michael is a really nice guy who has a great idea and company to help people who need content.

I also got a photo with BajaLori so that I could print her a special business card with my Pogo. She was all amazed at it and had some serious tech envy! That is okay Lori because you have a Poken now. BajaLori has the very special VIP Gorilla Poken. It is very cool.

@BajaLori and @BenSpark

I also got to Meet Connie’s daughter Peanut and her Husband. Peanut was a trip, she is so precocious but in a great way. She loves photos of Eva and cannot wait to meet her. She also liked the videos that Allison sent me of Eva watching Dada make a fool out of himself and dance with Ted Murphy and Shawn Collins. Connie is such a dear woman and her family very nice. I look forward to seeing her again at IZEAFest.

@ConnieFoggles and @BenSpark

The Blogger Lounge was Sponsored by Vemma. Vemma is a company that makes some delicious fruit juice that is full of amazing fruits and vitamins for you. They are starting an affiliate program and I’m going to get in on this. I drank their energy drink all weekend and at the end of the show they left a lot of product int he Blogger Lounge. Well I loaded up with it. I mean Loaded up. I took everything I could. Towards the end of the session. Bonnie Schroader (@BlogBonnieBlog) the Affiliate Manager for Vemma approached me and we chatted about the program. I liked that this a program that I can get behind. I have plenty of product to incorporate into my daily life for a while and give you a really good idea of the benefits to me and hopefully to you as well.

My Vemma Haul!

Yesterday when I met Gary Vaynerchuk (@GaryVee) I also met the head of Vemma, BK. Except at the time I did not know that. BK was pretty impressed with my Xshot as well as with my use of ZINK Paper in my Polaroid Pogo. And to think I could have gotten a photo with BK that night if I had only stopped and asked him who HE was. That is my big problem, I talk too much about me and not enough about other folks. I need to ask people more about what they want or what I can do for them. I have to learn from Affiliate Blogger/Famous Blogger and all around nice guy Murray Newlands. He always asks people, what can he do for them. Such a great question.

@BlogBonnieBlog and @BenSpark

I was also approached by a couple of guys from GTO Management. (Ted they have fantastic cards that are spelled right and everything and they do BOWLING Shirts, forget Hockey Jersey’s Bowling is more my sport anyway.) So Wade Tonkin (@Affile8Warrior) and Joel Garcia (@JoelGarcia) came over and gave me a great bowling shirt from BowlingShirt.com but I was talking to someone at the time and didn’t get photos with the guys, which I should have done.

Bowling Shirt from Wade Tonkin and Joel Garcia

At the time I was talking with a new blogger named Carrie Jaffe-Pickett. She had been talking with Heather and Connie for a while while I worked on photos and other items and then we got to talk. She had a bunch of questions but such a desire to learn and to put up with my complete ADOS was great because I was up down and talking with everyone who came by. I was trying to be everything for everyone and I apologize for not giving my full attention Carrie. I hope I was able to help you out with questions, you can always contact me if you have any further questions. Carrie is a Freelance Writer and she has a blog called CarrieWriterBlog.com

I gave Xshots to Courtenay Bird (@Courtenaybird) and also to Andre Natta (@Acnatta. I tried to give one to their friend but he already had one and was very abrupt with me about it. They must have been late. I have no idea who the guy was either. Oh well, Instead I gave one to Lewis Howes (@LewisHowes) and another to Sean Cohen (Scohen) of Aweber. Lewis was using the Xshot right away with his friend Alex Shalman (AlexShalman). I went over and got a great photo of the two of them using their flip with the Xshot.

Alex Shalman and Lewis Howes

I am looking forward to how that video comes out. Alex is going to hook me up with a great WP plug in too. I’m pretty excited.

Update: Alex hooked me up with the video that he and Lewis made witht he Xshot and the flip. Good Stuff.

Around 4:30 when all the bars were closing John Chow (@JohnChow) went and collected all the free drink tickets that he could find and he cleaned out a bar of all their beer. Then he and Kim Ann Curtin snagged a big rolling cooler full of ice so as to keep them all cold as they blogged. John Chow is one really dedicated blogger, vlogger and affiliate. He’s such a hard working guy, getting out there and producing content all the time. I shot this photo of him deep in concentration on the beer video.

John Chow, Hard at Work

A video of the beer that he just got. John is fast, super fast, that is why he is one of the best. When I left he said that we’d catch up again at Blog World Expo. I’m really seriously considering going. Does anyone have a spare pass?

I forgot to mention earlier that I had a really nice lunch with Murray Newlands and Connie. The menu was a Chinese Food one and there were Fortune Cookies. I love Fortune cookies and am going to bring back Fortunate Fridays. But today I took about six of them and cracked one open every 1/2 hour or so and tweeted the fortune. These were all so appropriate for the weekend and for what I learned about giving more to people and taking less. Listening and seeing what I can do for someone else. Chasing a dream and being grounded in reality. I have to thank once again Missy Ward (@MissyWard) and Shawn Collins @affiliatetip) for creating Affiliate Summit. More importantly I want to thank Missy for giving me a Platinum Pass to the event. She’d never met me before and I asked her what could I do to help, she just gave me the pass and I said I’d blog the event. I wasn’t as great a blogger in real time, like Tim Jones, but I think I did a pretty good time letting you know about what Affiliate Summit was all about. Missy is a class act and a simply amazing woman. I didn’t get a photo with her either. Man I am slipping. Well, there is always IZEAFest or future Affiliate Summits.