Amazon Conferences with Kevin King

Amazon Conferences with Kevin King 00:00:00 This show is brought to you by DataBrill, the scalable Amazon PPC management for large Amazon sellers and brands. Visit selleressions. com forward slash agency for more details. Hey guys, welcome back to Seller Sessions. Again, we bring back Kevin King. Hey Kevin, how you doing? I'm doing good. How are you doing, Danny? Yeah, good, good, good. So today, let's have a little chat. About uh, conferences, I mean, I speak at a few, but blimey, you've done what 19 or so this year already, I think it is, yeah, something crazy, crazy like that. So why don't we kick off with January this year talk about a conference that you know only too well, yeah? So uh, like you said, I've done I think about 19 or 20 this year and a few more coming up, but the first one, uh. 00:00:47 Let me start before we talk about the conference: why you should actually go to a conference. I know a lot of people in this business, you know, that you're stuck behind your computer all the time and you're working and you're like, 'I don't have time to go to a conference' or 'I can't afford to go to a conference.' And there's conferences of all different types. There's conferences that are basically free, there's conferences that cost a few hundred quid or a few hundred dollars, and then there's the ones that are, you know, ten thousand dollar masterminds. And each type of conference is not for everybody, so you've got to kind of pick and choose. But the value of going to a conference is not only do you learn usually in the courses and the speakers and stuff that are talking, and a lot of times that's stuff that you don't see online on YouTube or in other courses. 00:01:30 It's new, fresh material. But you meet other sellers. It's the networking that's the most valuable. So you can go and you can speak the language of other people. If you're sitting around the dinner table talking to your wife or your husband. Boyfriend, girlfriend, you know, sometimes they roll their eyes when you start talking about Amazon and like, okay, that's enough; let's talk about you know something else. These people eat and breathe it. Yeah, so it's great to be able to talk to somebody else that understands you, the language that we speak, and you can oftentimes get a lot of cool tips and strategies from other people that you meet there, you know, having lunch with them or at the networking parties afterwards or sitting at the bar, you know, sometimes till three in the morning, you know, and things are just spilling out of people's mouths. 00:02:14 Oh, have you tried this? Have you done this thing? Or you can get a lot of really cool strategies and tactics for that. So always think about, you know, Put it in your budget if you can to at least attend one conference a year somewhere near you or make a vacation out of it. And the good thing is it's a business conference. So, you know, I'm not a tax advisor or an accountant. But you can typically write most of that off. The expense is to do that as long as you're doing business on the trip. So like you're saying, the first one I went to this year was our Illuminati Mastermind, which was in January. And that's an expensive. Expensive conference, it's a small group about 75 people. 00:02:56 We did that in Hawaii and what we do with the Illuminati I'm part of that, I'm one of the main mentors in Illuminati Mastermind. It's training for people who are already selling typically about $25, 000 a month or more. It's training to help you uh advance those sales to 2x, 3x, 10x your business. And so what we do at our live conferences is not only is the training really good and we don't record it, so it's not a made available to the public or anything afterwards. We have a lot of built-in, but we also try to make it an experience, so it's not just hey let's go and talk business, but we do cool stuff like in Hawaii, you know? We took everybody. On a helicopter, not everybody... 00:03:33 uh, we took a lot of people on a helicopter tour of, uh, of the Island of Kauai and we do stuff like go out, go canoeing, uh, in the rivers and and we have a, it's really cool bonding, uh, and cool experience. So when you walk away from that, it's not just did you learn something and meet some other cool people, but you had a great time. So a lot of people brought their families or their wife or husband. So it was cool. And so we're doing another one next year. We haven't announced it yet, but it'll be sometime probably in the mid to late spring of next year. But that's a high-end Mastermind. So, that one's an expensive ticket. And the reason we do it so expensive is, It's not a moneymaker for us. 00:04:16 It's kind of a break-even type of deal. But people will think, well, you're paying that kind of money. It must be a huge profit. It's really not. It's more about creating the atmosphere and creating the bonding, and bringing high levels. It's kind of a bet; it's to make sure that most of the people there are selling over six figures a month. So that's that type of conference. Go ahead, Daddy, yep, so and so that was January. Was there any other conferences that you were speaking at attending not in January? No, um... So let's move on to February. What was in the diary for them and the diary for February? Uh, in February I went out to a non-Amazon conference uh traffic and conversion it's a big conference in San Diego it's about 6, 000 people or so it does have a few things that are Amazon-related but for the most part it's put on by Digital Marketer every year. 00:05:10 And for the most part, that conference is more like Facebook and Instagram and social media and just digital marketing, email marketing, digital marketing in general. So those types of conferences I've done a few of those this year as well. Those are good too because those get you thinking about different things. If you're going to be running on Amazon, you're – PPC, I mean your Facebook ads to drive sales to do launches or doing stuff with ManiChat that everybody's talking about now, those kinds of things. They were talking about ManiChat two years ago at Traffic and Conversion. Now it's just become – you're starting to see it really pop up everywhere in the Amazon space, but I knew about it two years ago. So that's an advantage is going to those things. 00:05:52 You're on the cutting edge, and you can get ahead of everybody else. And also in February I did another conference as a private mastermind – uh, I named uh Tyrone, put it on as a group of like 20 people; I was a speaker at uh that, so that was also uh in San Diego and that was a really good little event. He's a UK seller isn't he, Tyrone? Yeah, yeah, he's from the UK, sorry, but he serves in the US and he does masterminds and stuff – yeah, yeah. So that was a close-knit one, was it? Yeah, that's like 20 people. Those are cool too. I like the big ones and I also like the small ones, the small little intimate ones. You can get a lot out of it. 00:06:32 I mean, there are different things you can get out of each one, but it's good to do both if you can. Yeah, and March is a big one, isn't it? Because you've got Prosper and a few others. What did you do in March? Prosper is one of the bigger shows for the Amazon space. It's not official. I wouldn't say it's an official show, but it's more of a – You get a lot of the wholesale people. You get a good cross-section of people that come to the Prosper show. It's typically the last couple of them in Vegas. It's got a lot of booths there, a ton of people exhibiting at that show. It's one of the ones that has the most exhibitors, so you can find different types of people that support Amazon sellers. 00:07:13 Then it's got a lot of more corporate type of speaking. It's a good event. About 1,500 sellers or something like that over a couple of days. Um, so I was at that one. There was another one called Just One Dime that was going on in Las Vegas. Uh, that was, uh, put on by another guy who, uh, you know, four or 500 people, isn't it? Yes. Uh, Seth, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Seth, he has like a four or 500 people at that one. It was his first one. So it was a little bit different crowd. Some people were the same. Um, and then, uh, from there, uh, I went straight to Orlando and I did, uh, Onyx Seagal had a, had one called From Learn, I think. 00:07:50 And that was more of like an SEO conference. That wasn't really Amazon. That was, uh, it was like I said, it's kind of like the traffic and conversion where it's, you know, you learn something outside of Amazon, but it's SEO stuff. Like how, how did your links and stuff or your Shopify site on the page one of Google and that type of stuff. So that, that was cool. And then one of the best conferences that non-Amazon conferences I think is the ClickFunnels conference. I went to that right after that. That was in Orlando also March. ClickFunnels if you're not aware it's a software that a lot of internet marketers use to drive their sales and everything. But their conference has about 3,000 people and it's a really good cross-section. 00:08:32 In my opinion, if you had to pick one or two conferences to go to a year, and one of those was a non-Amazon conference, I would probably recommend ClickFunnels. Because ClickFunnels, you get all the very high-end Facebook people, the very high-end Instagram, the very high-end YouTube. Top Amazon seller so it's a very good cross-section uh of people and the speakers there and everything from motivational to really tactical type of people, so that was over four days, it's a little bit longer uh conference uh but that one's a a really good one, cool. And so we're moving on from March, moving into April, May time, what was going on then for you? Let's see, what did I do in April? In April, we had the SellerCon, which is amazing. 00:09:18 com, one of the biggest course sellers in the space. They rebranded their conference and called it SellerCon. That one was in Orlando, and that's probably the biggest conference as of right now in the U. S., probably in the world, actually, for Amazon sellers. It's pretty good because the networking there is top-notch because you get a lot of high-end sellers, a lot of guys that have been selling for four or five years that really know their business and going out to dinner with them or hanging out at the bar or whatever. It gives you some really valuable tips. I walk away from there with a lot of nuggets. And then the conference speakers are typically a little bit more practical, more tactical versus something like Prosper, which is more general theory. 00:10:06 corporate higher-level type of teaching typically uh so so that was uh that was really good cool so and then rolling into May now let's see what I do in May and May uh Steve Chu has an event uh in uh Florida yeah the first part of May um It's a smaller event, but it's a whole different crowd. See, what happens in this Amazon space is you get pockets of people. So you have some crossover, but there's little pockets of people. So depending on which course somebody took or how they learned or which YouTube people they follow, you kind of get little groups. So that's another reason I've been to so many is because I can go to like Steve Choski in early May, and it's primarily a completely different crowd than who was at – the SellerCon events in April. 00:10:53 Um, and so, um, his was a, a good little, a two-day event, uh, over in Florida. Um, and, uh, what did I do after that one? And may I did, Oh, I went to, uh, another private mastermind, Steve Simonson. It's called Catalyst 88. That's right. It's a, it's a, about $25,000 per year, uh, to be in this. And then what they do is they meet four times a year. Uh, so it's about 25 or so sellers. It's an invitation-only uh, but then you pay $25,000 for the year, which a lot of people like, 'Holy cow, 25 grand! Plus, you gotta pay there and pay for your hotel-it's like what the hell man, that's a lot of freaking money! But that's like, that's for a different crowd, you know? 00:11:35 That's for people that are already doing really well. Yeah, they can justify a weekend, a three-day weekend with 25 other high-level sellers because the the ideas and the concepts you get-just one little thing can make a $50,000 or $100,000 a month difference in your business that you learn there. That was a really good event. I spoke at that one. There's something else in May that I'm forgetting about right now. You were in Europe by the end of May because we see each other in June. I came to Europe in June. I was in Europe for three weeks in June. So let's cover June. Beginning of June, I was with you at Private Label Days over in Germany, wasn't it? Yeah. 00:12:23 Yeah, Private Label Days is a German one put on by Gil, and you and I were both speakers there. That was interesting-about 450 people or so. It's a one-day event over in Hamburg. I think this was his third one. And so it was a predominantly German crowd. They had a German track, so they had 14 speakers, I believe it was, seven speaking German and seven speaking English. So you and I, of course, were on the German side. Uh, no, uh, so yeah, that was uh, that was good too. Um, so that I wish that one went on a second day, the uh little mixer and party afterwards uh, was was nice, yeah. I missed the party because I couldn't get a flight back later um, so I was like, 'that was a flying visit', I was there for like 16 hours, I came in late night before slept and then at the event but I couldn't get a flight out um, so I missed that evening, so yeah. 00:13:20 No, I've done the last year as well, there was a few of us who went over which was like two or three days were over which was brilliant, but yeah, overall still a good event. And then you were over at Scale for Retail, Richard and Shelly in the UK, wouldn't you? Yeah, yeah. Then I did uh, three days, I was uh with Shelly and Richard uh, we did one day was uh, uh, one Alfred Place there in London, one day was for beginners uh, one uh, one day was a little bit more advanced. And then we did a private Mastermind day for about five hours or so on the third day. And that was real good too. I enjoyed my time there and meeting some good people over in the UK. 00:13:58 And then I popped over from the UK after that for an event in Romania. And Romania was a two-day event. And that event was really good, really good people, really good crowd. I was actually surprised. Some people are like, what are you doing at an Amazon event in Romania? A lot of people are like, Romania? An Amazon event? I was like, yeah. I was shocked. There's about 3,000 or so sellers that have taken a course in Romania to sell on the European and Amazon. It's a pretty good crowd, and they do a really good job over there. So it's a two-day event with little mixers and parties and dinners and stuff. So that was really good. A lot of English-speaking people I was surprised in Romania. 00:14:48 I've been to Europe a lot, all over Europe. I've never been to Romania, and I was actually surprised at how many billboards and advertisements are on the street and everything were in English. So English is pretty predominant there, at least in the younger crowds. Yeah. And then there was, where did you go? Was it Prague? No, where was the other place? After that, I went over to, the next weekend was an event in Ukraine. Ukraine, that's it, yeah. Yeah, so that was a one-day event, but that one was a really nicely done, really nicely produced event. Igor does that event. I actually had met him at Tyrone's event back in. February, that we mentioned 00:15:28 talked about earlier and he invited he saw me speak there and he invited me over, and so it was a seven uh seven western speakers, six Americans and one European, um, that we spoke, uh, and gave a lot of tactics and strategies and stuff, and then afterwards, you know, he had a live band, he had go-go dancers, he had, uh, massage chairs, he had, like, you know, it was over the top, it was uh very well produced, fun, fun event, so that was cool too, uh, you were there, we who was there, you had Will, was over, Will Churlin was over, who else was over with you, yeah, Will was there and Ryan, Ryan, yeah, Corn and Casey Goss, and um, who am I forgetting? Gil was there; he spoke. 00:16:18 There's one or two others. While doing the show notes, I'll put a list of all of these events and how people can look them up to going over next year. There's a great website if you're looking for events. Our friend Augustus has a site. I think it's called amzsummit. com. Yeah, amzsummit with an S or no S. I can't remember. I can't remember if it's an S or a Z, but it's . com. Yeah, so if you do a search for a Google search, you'll find it. But I will put this all in the show notes as well. That would be a good reference point for all these, for the other events that people should check out. Where did you go after June? So where are we now? We're just coming in. 00:16:59 We're in July now. So July has been – I'm actually leaving next – in a few days for an event in Las Vegas. There's an event that's put on by Ecom Elite people, Elena Saris. It's got like a little mastermind event in Vegas. I'm speaking at that. And at the same time, the guys from – uh launch pad I have an event uh Ben Cummings has an event in uh Vegas too for I guess everybody that bought that ten thousand dollar piece of software um that uh it's at the same time so I'm gonna maybe pop over there as well uh and then right after that uh I come back for about a week and then I'm heading over back across the pond to uh to Amsterdam there's a The guys from Amazing, the CellarCon guys, they have an event in Amsterdam. 00:17:50 That's about 300 people or so, so it's not as huge, but it's a little bit more high-level cellars. So that should be good. I'll be over there for a week. And then at the end of August, Ryan Moran has an event here in my backyard here in Austin, which is a – I think it's called the Brand Builder Summit. It's two or three days. I'll be at that one. And then there's one in New York in early September. Is it the Accelerate with Chad Rubin's event? No, it's a different one from Chad's. I don't know if I'm going to make the one in September. I've got quite a bit going on. But my next one after that for sure is in October. 00:18:36 I'll be over at – during the Canton Fair at Global Sources, which I know you've spoken at before. Yes. I'll be speaking there. And then after that, I'm not sure. The fall, typically there's not quite as many conferences. The conferences tend to be more in the spring. And early summer seems to be where they're heavily weighted. I know Capitalism. com, that's another one that's not an Amazon conference, but it has a lot of Amazon people. It's usually in December here in Austin, but he moved it to January in Dallas for next year. So I'll be at that. And then we'll have our next Illuminati and possibly even a Freedom Ticket conference potentially next year. Tyrone is working on a big conference for the UK about a thousand people or so, he's trying to put together over for the spring, so I'm sure I'll be over there for that. 00:19:31 Yeah, I mean, there are a few more things starting to pop up in the UK now, um, and in Europe, so it's good. It's like the infrastructure is starting to build a bit more because, obviously, I've always said to you that there's always been it's never been short on events in the US but there's been less going on in the EU, so it's good that Tyrone's back in an event of that size, like 1,000 people. You have a bunch of other ones we didn't even mention here. A lot of software people. Feedvisor puts on an event. You just mentioned Chad Rubin from Scubana does an event. Then the guys over at Cellar Labs, they do one called Resonate or something like that. I went to it last year. 00:20:10 I couldn't make it this year, but I went to it last year. Yeah, I'm speaking at Limworks, another software. I'm speaking at their event in... where is it? It's in Birmingham, at the Birmingham Academy, I think it is. That's in September. They've got, as their guest of honor, I'm doing the keynote and panels and stuff. Their guest of honor is Deborah Meadham, who is one of the Dragon's Den. I'm sure you've heard of the Dragon's Den over in the U. S. I know you've got your own kind of. Yeah, we call it Shark Tank here, but yeah, it's Canada and the U. K. It's called Dragon's Den. Exactly. Cool. Right. So how can people reach you? How can they reach me? AMZ, as you say in England, AMZ, or I would say AMZmarketer. 00:20:56 com. AMZmarketer. com is probably the best way to find out more or to reach me or freedomticket. Com or illuminatimastermind. com. Sounds good. Kevin, thank you so much for joining us. You're probably going to need a break from all these conferences. I'll take you to take a year off next year. Next year, I won't do as many conferences. Yeah, this is the year of conferences. And next year, I'll be a little bit more picky and choosy. And yeah, so it depends on, you know, some of them I attend and a lot of them I speak at. But oh, there's one. You know what? We missed one. Well, a good one. And back in February, I totally forgot it. ASGTG, which is Ed Rosenberg does that conference in New York. 00:21:42 And it's a really good one. It's aimed at the Jewish seller crowd. It's not just for Jews, but it's aimed at the Jewish seller crowd. And that's a really cool one-day conference too. Totally spaced that one out. I'm sure there's some others I missed in that list. I was doing it from memory. Yeah, it's done quite a few. No worries. Guys, we'll put all of this in the show notes. We'll get it all listed down. We'll put Augustus' site in the show notes as well. So then people can obviously take a look and pick and choose their conferences in their local area for next year. Kevin, again, thank you for joining us, guys. Thank you for joining us. If this is your first time, don't forget to hit the subscribe button. I'll see you again in a few days. Take care.