Moments and Milestones from Affiliate Summit East

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Another Affiliate Summit has wrapped up and as usual my suitcase is full of swag and my head is full of ideas. LinkedIn requests have been sent, Gmail is back down to Inbox Zero, and it is finally time to sit back and actually take everything in.

Each trip brings with it so many moments and milestones for me both personally and professionally. Some are about profit and others are just plain fun.

In no particular order, here are some of my favorites from Affiliate Summit East 2013 in Philadelphia.

• Trying to use crutches while carrying bags and wearing dress shoes. I’m a failure. I gave up and just increased the ibuprofen/steroid cocktail. But it was worth it to walk up the Rocky Steps.
• Having both Wil Reynolds and Scott Jangro mention my Venture Beat article in their presentations made me feel more like a Rock Star than even my crazy ShareASale party outfit.
• Speaking of Wil, I really, really loved this–“Is your site the best answer or the best monetized?” I’ll be thinking about that and looking through all of my sites a LOT in the next several weeks.
• I’m not sure I am a Philly Cheese steak kind of girl, but I gave it a shot.
• Brian Littleton is one of the most fantastic people in our industry. Not only was he nice enough to jump in and solve a problem for me in a big way, but he is so smart and insightful that he was able to speak off the top of his head about a topic I prepared months for!
• No matter how well you schedule, there will never be enough time to talk to everyone you want to talk to and do everything you want to do.
• Aweber branded running socks are awesome.
• Talking about how you make more money than other people will ALWAYS be a jerk move. You won’t make people jealous. You’ll make them not like you. That’s a whole post for another day.
• Hand sanitizer probably doesn’t help when you hug everyone you see.
• You can attend just about any session and come away with at least one tip you should be trying. I learned about contests, brand management, SEO, and what time of day I should be working the hardest. Totally random but all useful!
• Just because someone is your “competition” doesn’t mean that you can’t be friends and maybe even be able to help each other.
• Ben Franklin.
• Ask other people what they are up to. Murray Newlands is the king of doing that. It never fails every time I see him he asks what I am doing lately and if there is anything he can help with. When you take an interest in others, they will take an interest in you.
• Build on your connections quickly. Don’t stash away all of those business cards you received. By the end of next week, make sure to have followed up in some way with everyone you can–LinkedIn, Twitter, email, it doesn’t matter.
• Good friends aren’t afraid to tell you when you are being grumpy and need to snap out of it (Thanks, Eric). Conference days are long and it is easy to get worn out!

Lastly, and most importantly:

• Start planning for next time. I asked Shawn Collins when he will start the hard core planning for Affiliate Summit West. He said “tomorrow.” In a way, we all need to be doing that. Where do you want your business to be before you go back and see all of these people again? What do you want to have launched or relaunched in the meantime? How do you want to take what you learned at East and implement it before West? Now is the best time to start planning for tomorrow.

Thanks to everyone who made the show a success for me. If I started naming names, I know I would leave people out. But you know who you are. 🙂 What were your Moments and Milestones from the conference?