Some of you guys know that two months ago, Dave Navarro asked me if I’d be his networking assistant. As you’d expect, I was all ‘oh noes I can’t do that.’ Huzzah for excessive modesty.

This has led to a lot of questions – some of which are answered in this post. It’s also the perfect opportunity to talk about this awesome product Catherine Caine and I have created.

So! Onto the awesometasticness!

How did it happen?

In July, after getting denied for a bank loan (thank you, self employment), I made the difficult decision to cancel BlogWorld. For the first time this year I was able to take an honest look at my workload, and budget, and realize that I didn’t have the energy to pull off what was required to attend.

I tweeted about it, had a bit of a cry, and went back to work.

Later that night, Dave Navarro asked to speak with my honestly about what it would take to get to BlogWorld. This conversation was brutal on my end because I am a very proud person. I don’t like mixing personal and business. I won’t get into the content of the conversation however I was pretty adamant that I don’t accept charity. Dave was equally as adamant that this was a business opportunity and it would be win/win.

This was offered to me because my work has proven to be an asset to Dave over the past year. I really want to write about what an honour this is and how I am enjoying the work I do, but that isn’t useful for you guys. Instead, I’ll be blogging about the specific skills that make me stand out as a networker and how you can position yourself as someone that is extremely useful.

My name is Jade Craven and I’m going to Vegas.

The AWESOME news is that Dave will be covering my travel expenses in return for me being his networking assistant. This will require a lot of work before, during, and after the event.

I do want to clarify that this won’t be an easy gig. There is a reason I rock at what I do . We haven’t yet had the chance to formally talk about strategies but I have a fair idea of what I’ll be doing. Networking at a conference is really hard work and a lot of the hard work will be shifted onto me so Dave can do what he rocks as.

I’m really looking forward to it. I’m brilliant at what I do but, because of my obscurity, am unable to see if my theories on a larger scale.

So – what makes me appealing as a networking assistant?

I know who he should be talking to

Dave is busy. Like, really busy. Most of our conversations happen around midnight his time when he’s starting to feel exhausted.

Checking out people takes a lot of time. There are so many tiny aspects of filtering the information. I check who they are talking to, what they are writing about and whether their business style aligns with Dave’s.

Here are some examples of how I made it easier:

• Corbett Barr shows a lot of social proof in the sidebar of Think Traffic. However, I didn’t even have to look there to recommend him. I’d had several friends speak positively of him and he demonstrated his authority via the tone of his email. The week after, they created a podcast.
• Another example is when Srinivas Rao commented on Henri Junttila’s post, and mentioned how he wanted to interview Dave. He was doing a launch and didn’t have the time to go back and check the posts so I sent Dave there and recommended he approach Srinivas. It’s amusing now because Srini approached me shortly after for an interview without knowing the connection.
• I’d recommend people to feature as a Lessons Learned case study. This was awesome because it meant some of the less famous people were featured and was able to show that you don’t need to have a huge empire to have a success launch.

These activities were incredibly easy for me because I have created processes for people to keep me up to date. It saved Dave a significant about of time. This will be beneficial at BlogWorld because:

• I can help set up interviews and testimonials. I know the people that have bought Dave’s content and were able to successfully create a product. I also know of unique interview topics tailored to that persons situation.
• I have a solid idea of the products and launches that are going on in the industry, and in other verticals. This means I can save the chit chat and connect Dave with people that he could really help, and then leave a good impression on.
• I’m going to be doing cheat sheets on some of the people we’ll be talking to. Some of these will include inside information.

I can help facilitate the conversations

When bloggers of two different tiers get together, the initial conversation can be stilted. This is something Catherine and I discussed in our new super-awesome product.

I’m the type of chick that is good friends with bloggers and people at all levels of success. I see them as the person they are, as opposed how much authority they are perceived to have. This makes it easy for me to walk up and have a conversation with them about their kids, hobbies or projects.

Additionally, I encourage people to talk to me about their projects via various backchannels. I’ll ask about ways I can help, and to learn more about what they are doing. This means that when I introduce two people, I can present the information in a way that they’ll be instantly interested in the other person.

This is awesome for me because it means I get to network passively – I’ll be remembered, but I won’t be the centre of attention. I’m really looking forward to attending for this purpose.

It’s also good for Dave and the people that I’m connecting him too. I can bypass the initial ‘get to know you’ stage and encourage conversations that will be memorable.

If you aren’t buddy/buddy with a lot of people like I am, you can make the conversation easier in the following ways:

• Engage with them on twitter beforehand. When I met Jonathan Fields he said “I know that face” which really shocked me.
• Try and figure out what topics make their heart sing. In the case of Dave, if you stalk him on Twitter it’s pretty obvious he loves his Halo music.
• Get something signed. I’m an autograph collector and this a useful way to get someone’s attention for a couple of minutes – AND you get an autographed book!

I’ll help record the conversations

This is the part of conferences that is always a pain in the arse. I kinda love being the photo girl because I get to hang out behind the scenes but will capture the stuff that people remember forever.

I’ll be collecting and uploading interviews, testimonials, photos and other media as part of my job. I’ll even be able to sneak in a few tips on good questions to ask.

This is awesome because Dave doesn’t know all the random stuff that I do. He may not remember the many gushing emails he gets about his product in a weekend challenge. I do, and in many cases will have checked out the product. This is going to make for some brilliant conversations to share with people.

This post is part updating you on some of the awesome stuff that has been happening, and part giving an insight into the stuff that doesn’t fit into my normal blog posts.

This content is somewhat heavy on my mindset as I continue my recovery from anxiety. I really want to kick arse over the next year and to do that, I’m going to have to do some hard work to overcome my insecurities. And the first thing I can do is own them

1. I am going to Blogworld as Dave Navarro’s Networking Assistant.

The flights are now booked. I’m going to Vegas, baby.

Seriously though, this situation happened by accident. I’ve always been a person that makes a decision and assumes they’ll figure out the details later. I’d been planning to go to Blogworld all year but in June I took stock of my finances and it wasn’t pretty. I had just moved and my savings were gone. I decided to sacrifice the ticket cost and just put it down to a lesson learned.

Shortly after tweeting about it, Dave approached me to help out. He would cover my expenses in return for helping him out before, during and after the conference. I’ll be his second brain – taking pictures, uploading interviews and doing the behind the scenes stuff that will help him rock it.

I’m honoured at this opportunity and I’m also terrified. I’m also really uncomfortable with the fact that someone values me skills that much, but it is something I’ll have to overcome if I want to succeed.

2. I don’t like selling because I don’t think I am worth it

Yeah. This has been one of the hardest things to overcome and putting out my first product has been great in this respect. I’ve had so many people buy, and then give positive feedback, when my initial reaction was to refund the money because they were friends and I would have just given a review copy.

I’m doing a joint product and the thing that excites me most is that I can do the creation and my JV partner can do the selling. I wish I could do more projects like this to help me deal with the mental ‘oh noes’ cycle.

3. I love Bill to bits but we are not a couple

This is a question that I have been asked a lot and I feel like it needs addressing. Not because there is anything to hide but because he has been the best friend I’ve ever had. Seriously, I don’t think Bill gets enough praise for what he has done for me.

I have a severe mental illness. I’ve pushed most people out of my life because it is so much easier when you aren’t constantly doubting/hating yourself in social situations. I have tried to ‘ditch’ Bill on multiple occasions but he hasn’t let me. He’s been there through the awful shit during the past year when I was unable to work. He’s talked me through panic attacks. He let me cry on his couch when I stayed up there because I was so burnt out. He has put up with a lot of my crap in the past year and I love him so freakin’ much for just being there and not giving up on me. I logically can’t understand why he hasn’t given up, but I am really appreciative that he has stuck it out because we’ve had some awesome times.

It is not a good idea though to ask him to tone down our public immaturity. He’ll then remind you of how you tweeted about your theory of creating a race of cat people like in Doctor Who. Then, on the same day when someone asks if he is your husband, you’ll get asked if you are cracking onto someone because you are talking to a red head about your desire to create the ultimate ginge (again based on Doctor Who)

4. I really am that obsessed with ice cream

In particular, chocolate paddlepops. Rainbow is rather nice. I’m rather fickle about my flavours and usually eat them before a phone call. No, Annabel, I don’t eat them all the time

5. I feel like I’m living a double life and it makes me really uncomfortable.

Last month, I was really freaking out. I felt detached and weird and it was making me feel ill. I quickly realized that it was because of the dissonance between my online, and offline, lives. Online I kinda kick arse. I’m not as successful as many of my peers but I have a passionate audience and have accomplished some great things. I have some brilliantly, talented people that I am proud to call friends.

Offline, I’m recovering from a debilitating mental illness. I struggle to manage everything in my personal life. My friendships are plagued with self doubt. I have to take time off due to dramas, and to deal with my symptoms. I am poor, by choice, as I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself. It is a total contrast to my blogging career.

I thought there was something wrong with me until I met Jonathan Fields and he confirmed it was normal. It is something I think I will struggle with for some time but will get used to the changes as I prepare to up my game.

6. I don’t care about most of my successes. Seriously.

Last week I paid $200 for a consult with Charlie Gilkey. (Honestly, I think this freaked my parents out more than me. I was like $200? Small change for what Charlie can accomplish)

We were talking about my lack of about page and how I just don’t know what to put on there. I tried to think of cool stuff that I had done but I just couldn’t think of any. Gilkey said that it was noticable that I hide after every success. In his words, an extreme (even when positive) reaction results in an extreme stressor. And it’s true. The reason I don’t feel very successful is because every time I pull of something brilliant, I get a tonne of email and requests for help. Because I care so darn much, I pour everything into helping everyone who asked.

I am proud of what I have accomplished and I plan to work on how to handle success without freaking out.

If anyone can help with stuff to put on that about page though I’d be so gosh darn appreciative.

7. When I get attention (online or offline) it triggers an anxiety reaction.

I have been to two local events where I have received a shout out from an A-List blogger. I dislike it. It feels nice however on both occasions it made me want to vomit. The reaction is worse when I’m already in an anxious state – which I am when in a packed room full of bloggers!

Online it is rather tame. It mostly triggers a negative thought spiral. Fortunately, by hiding online somewhat you can restrict the amount of people that will write about you

8. I am actually rather good at this connecting stuff

I always thought that my skills were just lucky breaks – several lucky breaks. That seemed to happen rather regularly. Oh shush, I was depressed for most of last year.

Anyhoo, I didn’t really know how good I was until I started working for Dave and created my business with Bill. Sometimes clients will go to Bill asking for recommendations. He’ll come to me, and I’ll send a few names, and he’ll sometimes be like ‘woah’ at how I just know so many random people.

With Dave – several of people that have contacted me have somehow entered my, or bills, sales funnel. I’ll tell someone that Dave is unavailable for interview and then offer alternate suggestions. Most people are genuinely happy and I invite them to talk to me about other stuff should they want or need to. It’s kinda surreal.

9. Anxiety makes me a better person but I genuinely do hate myself.

I think I’m worthless. A piece of shit. I don’t see the point in talking about it because to me, this thought cycle is just as real as the grass is green. I can recognize that it is wrong and work with my support team (doctor and psychologist) to get better but it is my reality.

I’m only mentioning it so that people will know that my humility isn’t me talking myself down. It’s me attempting to talk myself out of my cycle of self loathing. And this, I believe, is what makes people resonate with me. They see me for who I am, my flaws, and see that I’m just someone trying to make their mark on this crazy online world.

10. Birds make my heart sing

I’ve been obsessed with birds ever since I was a kid. Specifically, parrots. I can even narrow it down to different genera of parrots but no, Jade. Don’t be a geek.

I’m the type of chick that will travel to the top of the country, at great expense, just to see a palm cockatoo in the wild. My cairns holiday was based around my desire to go to Birdworld again and I chose to stay in Kuranda because of the proximity to Birdworld.

Currently, I’m obsessed with the red tailed black cockatoo. Beautiful markings and call. Bill played a recording of red tails when I crashed at his place during our Holiday and I nearly wet my pants. He fails.

11. I am doing a JV product on networking and it scares the shit out of me.

I was fine with my previous launch being low key because my primary goal was to get over my mental crap, rather then make a huge income. This time, my goal is to blow people away with what I can accomplish in 40 days.

I’m terrified on so many levels. Can I work this hard without getting sick again? Can I put myself, and the product, out there to be judged? Will I make my JV partner proud?

This is worse than going to BlogWorld in terms of fear. It’s a challenge I’m really enjoying though. I know it will make me sick but it many ways, it will force me to grow up when it comes to a lot of business issues. It will help me learn more about myself without the full attention being on me. I also really think I can do the topic justice I’d love to know if you have any ideas or feedback on this.

12. I want to take marketing concepts and apply them to the blogging world.

This has become a recent obsession of mine and one that seems to resonate with a lot of people. I’ll take bits and pieces from my favourite business books and rearrange the principles so that they work from an inbound marketing perspective.

This has been really effective. I’ve noticed that, as a result, a LOT of people are buying the books I recommend. This actually freaks me out because not everyone processes information the same way I do and may not enjoy it as much.

13. I spend way too much time on the Cheezburger blogs.

Bill once said that for someone that has no intention of having a wedding, I sure to think about them a lot. No. Not weddings. Parties where you have a marching band, dress relatives in hilarious clothing and then do bowling with flippers and binoculars.

It may be possible that my two year old nephew can now say fail and that its a permanent fixture in my vocabulary.

14. I’ve increased my med dosage because I want to be able to play a bigger game.

Right now, I’m mentally exhausted. I have to tell Bill to avoid topics because I have no energy to cope. Today, my doctor agreed to trail an increase of Effexor.

This… what I’m doing now isn’t sustainable. My workload (15-20 hours a week) is making me physically sick. This isn’t the time spent listening, and talking. This is the time spent on the stuff that requires a lot of concentration and focus.

I have made a lot of progress in the last year and I’m stoked at how far I have come. However in the past 6 months I have noticed limitations that I haven’t been able to push through using willpower and the techniques I’ve been taught.

This is daunting. There is the risk it will have no effect or that I will suffer from side effects. However I want to kick arse and be able to reach my potential. It is time to try to see if I can get well enough to accomplish everything I want to do over the next 18 months.

Edit: I have kept this post as it shows part of my growth as a blogger. I would like to clarify that I no longer endorse many of the bloggers mentioned and am considerably less naive now.

I’ve got a bit of a reputation as a skilled networker. Just look at my favourites. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and working with many A-Listers and have had many people beg for my secrets.

The truth? There aren’t any. There are strategies. There is hard work and the willingness to accept failure.

Rather than provide yet another tutorial, this post talks about how I managed to go from a blogging nobody to where I am.

Now, I’ve released a cool networking course called ‘How To Network Fast‘. It is way more comprehensive than this post and contains the Twitter and guest post strategies that got me out of poverty. If that sounds like the thing kind of thing you’d dig, click here to check it out.

The beginning

I started out experimenting like everybody else. I did the 30 Day challenge. I signed up for the RSS feeds of all the top blogs. I reviewed a lot of products on my comic book blog. I learned so much but the income was just trickling in.

It was around the end of 2008 that my anxiety disorder got worse. I was unable to work so just hung out on Twitter. I primarily hung out in the Australian blogging community and I made some really good friends. One of my earliest friends and supporters was Darren Rowse. I was always a fan, but wanted to connect with him after the birth of his second son. I had become an aunt for the first time and emotionally connected to the story. I started talking to him on Twitter and occasionally had a Google Talk conversation with him. I also enjoyed talking to WordPress geek Jeff Chandler.

Then I did my first Problogger review

Image by Rail Life

Reviewing Dave Navarro’s How to Launch the **** Out of Your Ebook was a turning point. I wrote about how this happened on Remarkablogger. What I didn’t know was that this one review would lead to so many other opportunities.

I followed up with a review of the The Unlimited Freelancer. I got some negative feedback which scared me off doing a review for a while. However, this one opportunity led to so many more.
The following people are just some of the people I connected with via this review.

Charlie Gilkey.

Dave is friends with Charlie Gilkey. Charlie reached out to Dave about how to get a guest post on Problogger and Dave recommended he get in touch with me.

I sent Charlie a comprehensive email which included a link to his guest bloggers page and details that would help make a personal connection. We had a brief Google chat and have kept in touch since. Iplan to hire Charlie to help with my business.

Naomi Dunford

If you’re going to review a product on a leading blog, do one that is a joint venture. You have two audiences and two different people to network with.

Now, because I’m that awesome, I barely knew who Dave and Naomi where before buying this product. I knew Naomi was a star but she intimidated me.

Naomi tweeted about the review and asked me to do a guest post. I still haven’t done that – I needed to build up the courage.

We haven’t become close working buddies but we’ve been cool. I’ve got review copies of some products and she knows who I am. I know we’ll eventually work together on some project. I’ll hire her for consulting as soon as I have a home phone. I really need a home phone.

Johnny B Truant.

When I initially connected to Naomi, I asked her for advice. Her main recommendation was to play the Problogger review card. This was something I was uncomfortable with but then Johnny release his Zero to One business course. I really wanted it and there was no way I could afford it – not on $200 AU a week. So, I gave it a try.

Darren had given me permission to do this so I asked. I worked with Johnny to create a post based around his success. The response was mixed. Skellie emailed me saying she loved it. Some people got snarky, but it opened the doors for Johnny to post on there more often. I’m going to interviewing him for my podcast this Friday and will be interviewed for the Jam sessions project he has with Charlie Gilkey.

Lessons:

Be willing to leverage previous successes

I was too scared to do this because it felt like bragging. I lost a lot of opportunities to connect and work with new people.

You don’t have to be annoying and spammy to point out why you rock. You just have to point to examples of your work and any relevant social proof. I now try to collect LinkedIn references from my clients so they can speak on my behalf.

Iwas comfortable with losing those opportunities because I was uncomfortable promoting myself and that’s fine. I wasn’t ready to push certain boundaries and doing so may have led to resentment. However, it’s worth knowing when to leave your comfort zone.

Don’t take criticism to heart

I didn’t review products for a long time after my Unlimited Freelancer review was criticized by the readership of a popular copywriting blog. I’ve never been able to distance myself emotionally from my work and that has led to me turning down opportunities because I was scared of the criticism the extra exposure will bring.

Distancing myself from my work is a challenge and it takes a lot of practice to get used to criticism. I now see negative comments as a challenge. I try to see a situation from their perspective and trying to talk back to them as a fellow person. Most people respond to this. Those that don’t aren’t willing to see any other opinion than their own.

Going to tweet ups

After I’d been on my meds a couple of months, I decided I really wanted to meet Darren. We’d been talking for about 6 months and had developed a good rapport. I arranged to catch up with him at a Melbourne Bloggers meetup.

It was awkward. I hadn’t socialized in over a year and just leaving the house was embarrassingly difficult. It was fun to have a chat but I was nothing compared to how I am online.

Days after that, I discovered that there was a new tweetup called Tweetupmellers and sent Darren a DM seeing if he would go. I nearly couldn’t make it due to a random foot injury but did so. It was a rough first tweetup.

I didn’t know anyone so had to embarrassingly introduce myself to everyone with a Seth Godin doll. It certainly broke the ice but I felt embarrassed at future tweetups. It was at this time that I met my future mate and business partner, Bill Journee. I thought he was a goober and still have no idea how we became friends.

I later introduced Sarah Prout to Darren and was able to review her Twitter book on Twitip. I also met Si Dawson, creator of the Twit Cleaner. I reviewed that on Twitip as well.

Tweetupmellers was such a fabulous business opportunity, but also helped with my personal life. I’ve met many people that have become good friends that I’ve since caught up with in Melbourne.

Lesson:

Tweetups are a great place to network

I’m an influencer but I only recommend products from the people I trust. Meeting someone in person is one of the best ways to build trust. I trusted Sarah Prout and Si Dawson because they were friendly, talked to me as an equal and helped me out when I was feeling ill.

Business wise, I don’t get that much out of tweetups. I see it them as a place to meet cool people. I rarely try to help the person that just shoves a business card in my face. I’m looking for people that are smart and take care of their community. One of the best ways to observe how they treat people, including yourself, is at a tweetup.

The 892 bloggers post

I created the first post, about Darren Rowse, before I launched the prolific writer. This had got a bit of attention via Twitter and Stumbleupon so I created a similar one about Shai Coggins. I had always planning to create a huge post called 1000 tips you can learn from 40 bloggers but had been unable to blog for some time. In June, I decided to re-launch my blog with this main concept in mind.

Networking while creating the list

My intention with this post was to create a list of top bloggers and what you could learn from them. I planned to interview each person and review all of their content. It was an epic undertaking and one that was quite stressful.

I published each post as they were completed. This led to a lot of people commenting on the posts and contacting me personally. Many asked for me to tell them when it was up so that they could retweet it. I was able to get some review copies and generally, build some interested.

I ended up launching it in September to coincide with the social media masterclass with David Meerman Scott.

Meeting DM Scott

Meeting David was one of the highlights of last year. He is such a compelling presenter and his book, World Wide Rave, was the best social media book I had read.

I had the pleasure of attending drinks with him, and other prominent social media identities, the night before the conference. Normally, I would have felt out of place at a meetup. I met two fabulous Brisbane women – Anne Sorensen and Jillian Kingsford Smith. I was able to help them both out after the conference. I was glad to, because they were so fascinating.

The list post was a good reason for David to talk to me. He thanked me, and asked about the work that went into it. I talked about his books and was able to get my copies signed by him. We made arrangements for me to interview him the next day via flipcam.

Lessons:

It is worth getting the persons attention prior to their event.

So many awesome people attended the Masterclass. There was a lot of demand for David’s attention and, under normal circumstances, it would have been difficult to reach out to him.

Because I had made the prior connection via the post and the drinks he sought out me to do the video interview and even gave me advice on what I could do. All it took was including him in a crazy launch post.

You can network while creating a blog post

I do a lot of blog posts that feature others and will continue to do so. These resonate with the audience and help me get to know awesome people.

I try to work with someone to create a really awesome post. That means interviewing them, creating relevant promotions and sending them post drafts to see if there is anyway they’d improve it. It means I get to know the blogger better and learn more about their working style.

Getting my job thanks to Twitter.

My work quickly got the attention of Sam Mutimer – the founder of Tweetupmellers and social media strategist of ThinkTank Media. I had offered her help via DM which led to her hiring me for a number of campaigns.

I was able to build my profile thanks to my work there. My blog posts got considerable attention. I became friends with Ali from Caroline Serviced Apartments. Sam also raved to some of her friends about the work I did.

Meeting Iggy Pintado.

One of those friends was Connection Generation author, Iggy Pintado. I did a blog post for Twitip about how I got my job thanks to Twitter which attracted his attention. He seemed interested in my work so I went to a mini tweetup to meet him.

Iggy later told me that my discomfort was very visible during this tweetup, but I was so grateful for the chance to go. It was smaller and less formal than regular tweetups. I was able to meet other local business identities like David Warwick and Luke Grange.

I was able to talk to Iggy about his book and interview him for my blog. This wouldn’t have happened without Sam’s help.

Quitting work

I ended up quitting Think Tank Media late last year due to severe family problems. I took some time off before starting a guest post campaign over the summer.

Lesson:

You can quit your job and still be friends with your ex boss

I felt horrible when I quit ThinkTank Media. I loved the work but I couldn’t handle the family stress and continue to rock the campaigns. I spent some time agonizing over the decision to quit and the hardest part was telling Sam.

It hurts watching the business kick arse and not being part of it, but I am very thankful for my friendship. I’ve gone into the offices to hang out and do work. I meet Sam at tweetups and chat to her on facebook. I even embarrass her at conferences by getting Gary Vaynerchuk to say Hi. This was an awesome lesson that I was really glad to learn.

Writing the Bloggers to Watch list.

Photo by Keith Burtis

I pitched the 30 Bloggers to Watch concept on a whim. I thought it would be a good idea so sent Darren a DM asking if he would be. He was.

I wrote it in 2009 but Darren waited some time until he posted it. It was a bit unpolished, so I was surprised when the post went up. I was also surprised at just how popular the post got.

It received the most comments out of any of my guest posts. Twitter went nuts. It was rather stressful dealing with the comments and fixing some of the issues in the post.

It was a fascinating networking opportunity. All of the people featured on the list were stoked and touched base with me. It was an opportunity for many of my friends, such as Robb Sutton and Ali Hale, to reconnect. Many people reported extra sales, and Twitter followers. Most have used their list status as social proof on their website or sales copy.

Here’s something that many people don’t talk about with these kind of lists: A lot of people got hurt feelings. It’s harder when you are friends with them and have to justify your decision because I was too tired to do more than 30 and wanted a balance of metabloggers.

It also led to so many new people connecting with me. I was able to chat to many of the rising stars and help them kick arse. I also had many established bloggers reach out to me – people like David Risely and Yaro Starak. That was an honour.

Lessons:

I did a summary of the many lessons learned in 3 Essential Lessons and 3 Benefits About Viral Blog Posts. They are still relevant and there was a number of interesting comments.

Launching my small business.

Creating Social Media Solutions was one of the craziest, funnest, stressful and awesome things I’ve done. I’ve written about it on this blog several times. The business itself didn’t lead to an direct networking experiences. It was more of a chronological backdrop to meeting two people that I’m now an even bigger fan of.

Meeting Skellie

It was around this time that I met Skellie. This was a fabulous meeting. I’ve been blog crushing on her from the start. She is the person that made me go ‘Yep. This is what I want to do.’

I’d commented on her blog and tweeted with her but we didn’t make a solid connection until April, 2009. I was in Adelaide for the Easter weekend and was relaxing in the bathroom at the hotel because that was the only place with a free power point.

She put a call out asking for advice for email lists. I replied, offering to collate some of the emails from my swipe file and forwarded them to her. She then asked for my advice on what I wanted from such a product and we corresponded a bit over that first month. 9 months later she was nearing release and contacted me to look over the draft copy.

I did. It was so amazing that I contacted Darren, seeing if he wanted me to review ihttp://jadecraven.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=1325&message=10t for Problogger. I did, and that review will be up shortly.

We met up soon after the launch. It was amazing to meet someone I truly idolized and share stories about guest posting and blogging. She is such a fantastic person and I’m so thankful I got the chance to be part of her launch.

Meeting Fi Bendall

Fi Bendall is the founder of Bendalls Group – a digital agency that works with clients like ANZ and Coles. ANZ created an initiative called Febusave and she put the call out for woman bloggers to participate. She asked Iggy Pintado for help and he recommended me and Kirsty Wilson.

Iggy contacted me initially and recommended that I participate because it could open doors for me – and also offered for me to stay with him and the lovely Kerry when in Sydney. I agreed and Fi called me the next day.

I helped with Febusave, but due to my business course was unable to blog about my journey. Instead, I did a guest post for Iggy’s blog about why I thought it was a fabulous initiative. I have the domain and site ready to participate next year.

Because of his, Fi was willing to meet with me when she came to Melbourne. I ended up travelling for five hours just to have a coffee with her near her hotel.

It was a great opportunity. She is such a savvy and fascinating woman. I really liked talking to her and caught up with her again when I went to Sydney. She has agreed to be interviewed for the Twitter book and I’m sure I’ll eventually be able to work with her – once I’ve reached her level of awesomeness.

Lessons:

People have the same desire to help regardless of how successful they are

I was so surprised at how awesome both Fi and Skellie were. They both offered to help me, which was amazing. They are both intelligent and busy people and I was honored they were willing to help me with my new business.

I didn’t take up the offers. I see both Fi and Skellie as mentors and would rather focus on observing them and learning as much as possible by me helping them. But the fact that they offered, well, that makes them SO much cooler to me.

Having a business makes a great networking point

When I was ‘just a blogger’, I struggled with conversation with a lot of business types. I didn’t feel I was qualified to talk to them about issues. Now that I have my own business, I find it a lot easier to talk about it. I don’t know whether this is a confidence thing, or just that my knowledge has grown, but it has allowed me to have very serious discussions with prominent businesspeople about ways I can specifically help them. It’s been awesome and I suspect it will lead to a whole new level of connecting people.

Going to Connect Now

This is something that I never expected I’d be able to do. I went to an interstate conference and met such amazing people.

I hugged Darren Rowse. (I’ve been mates with him for a while but had never hugged.) I got a pic with Gary Vaynerchuk. I got my copy of Engage signed by Brian Solis. I got to chat with many of the other presenters in the breaks. It was awesome.

The best action happened with those that weren’t ‘famous’. I was able to meet people that I’d spoken to for over a year and really wanted to meet.

I was able to save money that week by staying with Iggy Pintado and his lovely wife Kerry. Staying with them was such a lovely experience and really helped with the accidental networking. Iggy loves connecting so was constantly connecting me with people. He was able to introduce me to a lot of Sydney people I hadn’t had the chance of talking to on Twitter. We went to champagne Fridays and East Side Coffee Mornings and he was able to introduce me to people I wouldn’t have otherwise met. Some of these led to really cool friendships – such as with Nancy Georges and Kristin Rohan.

Connect now was a financial risk. I haven’t gotten any direct business from it. From a networking perspective, it was bloody amazing. Its led to new friendships and possible work opportunities. I’m planning to go to Blog World Expo in October.

Lessons:

Prepare for the conference well in advance.

I wrote about my conference networking techniques previously, but I was nowhere near prepared for Connect Now. I had researched the presenters but hadn’t researched enough of the attendees. I feel a lot calmer around people when I’m familiar with their work. I was able to easily chat to, and hug, those I had already spoken to online. With others, it was rather awkward.

I know what to do for next time and will be following up in a future post.

Stay close to the action.

I stayed with friends about 30 minutes out of Sydney. I loved staying with them because it was comfortable and felt like home. I know that I lost some networking opportunities because I was so far away from the venue.

If I had stayed closer, I would have been able to go out to some of the post event networking drinks. I wouldn’t have lost so much time getting there and back and would have been able to hang around to chat after the speakers had finished.

I wasn’t worried about this at Connect Now, because it was draining and I didn’t have the energy to network. However, I’ll definitely be taking advantage of this at future events.

Other stories:

Not all meetings can form part of a narrative. Even though I’ve actively leveraged my previous work, a lot of my networking has been accidentally.

• Even though I reviewed The Unlimited Freelancer on Problogger the year before, I only started talking to James Chartrand in April, 2010. We bonded over our hatred of planes.
• I started talking to Marko Saric after I bought a copy of his ebook. I later worked with him to get a review on Twitip.
• I met Adam Baker on his trip to Australia. I also met Shai Coggins when I visited Adelaide with my dad.
• I met Yaro Starak when he came to Melbourne for a conference. It was hard not to freak out because his hair was short.

So. We launched the Social Media Solutions website today.

This is awesome. It means one of the major projects is done and I can focus more on blogging and creating products. Both of us are very relieved and excited about what opportunity to pursue next.

As usual, I’ve learned a lot in the process. I’ve decided to turn lessons from the trenches into a regular feature. Whenever I complete a massive project, I’ll blog about it. I’ll talk about the nitty gritty stuff I learn while creating this business. Building a small business has been a fascinating learning curve and a lot of the lessons also apply to blogging and social media.

Now, the first lesson was a doozy. I should have expected and but boy, did it throw me.

There is a natural distrust for the social media industry.

I knew this but I somehow assumed that we’d be immune to it. Both Bill and I work hard to avoid the stereotype. So, when someone made a few negative comments, it really threw us.

I understand why people make such comments as I feel the same way most of the time. Commercializing my online presence has been difficult and was something I struggled with. Sometimes, I think that people forget that there are humans behind every business and those humans can get hurt feelings.

It worked out okay. I had a chat with the person, talked about my insecurities and offered to help. Basically, I did what I always do and try to be really useful. Once I’d calmed down, I was able to see why we were judged and was able to come up with strategies to show our personality and avoid some of the stigma. It also helped me realize that there is a real person behind every negative comment, and you don’t always known why they distrust something.

I feel that this was an important lesson. Now that I’m making money, there will be more people that judge and hate me. It will get worse as my brand grows. I’m rather sensitive so will have to learn how to deal with this. I’d love for you to share any tips.

Metrics matter

We had tried to avoid doing anything with the @smsols account. We didn’t want to make a commitment to our followers when we were pulling long, stressful days to get the website done before Connect Now. As such, we only had about 80 followers upon launch.

I was proud of that. I don’t try to buy or beg for attention. I like to let it happen organically and have people opt in because they are  genuinely interested rather than out of obligation. We did get a comment about our low numbers. The idea was that we mustn’t be good if we had such a low follower count.

I can see that. I would have thought that. We were naive in thinking that the only people that would be interested in us would be familiar with our work elsewhere.

I’ve done some fantastic work on campaigns for my old employer as well as kicked arse when giving free advice. I have to be more open about my experience rather than get embarrassed about bragging.

You need to learn to lose control

Building this business has been terrifying. Bill and I share the responsibilities of the business and have a different skill set. It was very hard to lose control over the design process and just trust that Bill would make it awesome.

This is nothing against Bill. His work is awesome. Seriously, most of the comments we received post launch was about the design. However I find you get a bit protective of a product that has spent months in development. Eventually, I got to a point where Bill would ask my opinion and I would just say that I trusted him and that he could do what he thought was best. This saved a lot of time and meant that the product was a lot better. This was a lesson that was very hard to learn as it is had for me to lose control. I think it is one that will really help my business grow.

Negative copy is bad

I learned this today thanks to the brilliant and helpful Paul Cunningham. He pointed out an example of negative copy and explained how it could inadvertently damage our brand. He was so nice about it and I’ll be addressing it as soon as I hit publish. While I now understand what negative copy is, I haven’t been able to find a useful resource to explain it. I’ll use the example that Paul sent to me via email.

So on that page, you’re giving something great away for free, and adding more later, but instead of selling the awesome-ness of the freebie its got a negative tone in it because of the “Currently we only have one available” bit.

If it were me I’d be talking up the value of the freebie you’re giving away and telling visitors why they should be signing up to be notified when the next one comes out.

This was killer advice and something we hadn’t considered. I hope you can learn from my error and Pauls help.

Over to you.

I’d love to know more about what you have learned during the launch cycle or ways we could have done things better. We decided to make it low key so we could learn on the fly and it has been a fascinating journey so far.