Everyone knows that Sex Sells but has sex ever offered a discount?

On July 20th in NYC I will be delivering a talk on "How to create brilliant Word of Mouth with no budget". You can see I'm excited to be speaking at the Word of Mouth SuperGenius conference and as a way to get the word out (using no budget) I asked one of the neighbourhood moms to let me take a picture of her in a partially wet shirt designed by Hugh Macleod (@gapingvoid on twitter).

You see by knocking on the door of a a neighbour that I don't really know and ask the lady of the house to pose for a picture (and ignore the super gorgeous 21 year old daughter) I created a story worth sharing, made a new friend, probably ruined the self image of the daughter and proved yet again I am very charming...so by my calculations this family alone will be telling this story forever.

Ruining family dynamics is only one way to get stories to spread and to learn other ways I hope you will join me at the conference and listen to not only from me but Tony Hsieh, Spike Jones, Olivier Blanchard, Lane Becker, Virginia Miracle and Kira Wampler (just to name a few).

...and hey since I am in a good mood and still tingling from the photo shoot I am going to share a discount code to the conference. Sign up and use the code Saulismyhero for a savings of $101

Disclaimer: you realize I was kidding about the whole ruining family dynamics but serious about being charming....right?

Paying to Speak at Conferences ain't a bad thing.

I speak at a lot of conferences and I like to think I am being invited because my talks are a mix of interesting and informative with just a dash of southern charm that you only get from being Canadian.

Because I speak so much I think I understand the conference scene pretty good and found a recent blog post by Scott Stratten interesting because he was saying that a certain conference was charging to speak at their event and he didn't like it.

Now I don't and wont pay to speak anywhere. I will waive my fee for friends or a great opportunity but paying to speak is not something I would do so he and I are similar in that way but I don't share the same passion as Scott on this subject because paying to speak at a conference isn't such a bad thing under certain circumstances.

If I was a freelance consultant offering my services to a specific industry I would absolutely pay to speak at very targeted conference because it would be an investment the same way as advertising is but this would be laser targeted and probably reap a financial return right away. There is no better way to develop new business then to stand on a stage and prove to people through your own work examples how great working with you would benefit them.

There are plenty other sides to this argument but on a whole it is just about opportunities matching your personal or professional goals...and if you don't want to pay to speak because it doesn't match your goals then do what I do....I delete those offers.

What says you?

How to Create Offline Word of Mouth Marketing.

I am lucky because I get invited to speak at conferences all over North America. I speak on a couple topics (Entrepreneurship, Customer Service, and Social Media) but my favorite is always creating Word of Mouth Marketing. Here is a little talk I gave at the Word of Mouth SuperGenius Conference brought to you by the good folks at Gaspedal.

How to Create Offline Word of Mouth -- presented by Saul Colt from GasPedal on Vimeo.

If you found this interesting you can do one of three things.

1- Tell a friend or post it somewhere.

2- Invite me to speak somewhere...you won't be disappointed!

3- Buy a ticket to the next SuperGenius conference in New York City in July and hear me deliver a brand new talk (since I can't do this one again) about creating "WOM With No Budget!"

I am not a Rock Star.

I am not a rock star.

Sure I wear tight pants every once in a while, and yes I have been growing my hair and practicing my stare (thanks for noticing) but this doesn't make me a rock star and here is why.

A Rock Star can live a long time on old material.

As a speaker sharing ideas and such, I can't.

Because of this I have been building a new (fascinating) 60 minute presentation around the concept of "What Marketing will look like in 2011". I've been walking around with this concept in my head for a few weeks and last night I had a Jerry Macguire moment...no not the "you complete me" part but rather the "come to Moses" moment where everything becomes clear.

This is the future (imho...and yes I work almost exclusively in colored Sharpie)



...and this is the foundation of the next two talks I will be giving:

Atlantic Internet Marketing Conference - May 13-14th in Halifax, NS

LessConf 3010 - May 21-22nd in Atlanta, GA (I have a crazy surprise planned for this event)

Anyway, Agree, Disagree.

What says you?

(my apologies to Jess Eddy for asking if I could include her in this post but changed the tone and couldn't fit her in. Go check out her links cause she is cool.)

Now my Mom isn't the only one who thinks I am a genius.

Most people know that I am a HUGE fan of cool Word of Mouth marketing.

There are bunch of people who do it very well and a big chunk of them will be speaking (with myself) at the World of Mouth Supergenius event in Chicago on December 16.

Shameless plug aside this post isn't bout the conference and more about what the organizers did to promote the event...you see they mailed a t-shirt to all the speakers with a customized discount code as an incentive to promote your appearance. I love this idea, I love free t-shirts and I love offering discounts to people who read my blog and perhaps like to follow what I am up to.

It makes perfect sense that a conference about Word of Mouth marketing would do something Word of Mouth worthy so for that I am getting on the bandwagon and joining folks like Jason Falls and writing a post about my shirt...but unlike Jason I can't show you a photo cause my shirt is being held at Canadian Customs or something so I just made my own :)

Here is a video of Andy Sernovitz explaining the idea behind the shirts and if you are interesting in attending please use the discount code SAULISMYHERO for a $101 off the cost of the conference.

Ted Williams, Frozen Heads, Colt45 Malt Liquor, My Speaking Tour. Confused? You wont be after reading this...

When I was much younger I used to live and breath all things baseball. I connected with baseball because I loved the stories and the personalities of the game and now as I get older I realize I have a lot in common with Ted Williams.

Ted hit over .400 for the Red Sox, I hit over .400 for my High School Baseball Team

Ted wore #9, I wore #45 (still wondering why I never got a Colt45 endorsement deal)

Ted has been decapitated and cryogenically frozen somewhere in Arizona....OK so maybe we are not that alike except for one thing.

I always loved the story about Ted Williams and his lifelong dream to have people say to themselves as he left any room....

"There goes the greatest hitter in the world"

I feel the same way as Teddy Ballgame on this one but my years of playing professional baseball are behind me so instead of that I am hoping people will come see me speak and say to themselves as I leave the room

"There goes the best speaker on the topics of Maketing, Social Media, Customer Service, Entrepreneurship and Community Building in the world and I don't mind if he was looking at me from the stage like I was a plate of delicious BBQ because I got so much information from his talk that I am now inspired to do something great"

But to make this happen you are going to have to come and see me speak....and lucky for you I am going to be in the following cities between now and the end of the year. Montreal, Toronto, New York, Boston and Chicago. See below for more info and please please please support the fine people who have invited me to come and be with all of you!


Sproutup Montreal
November 17th at Brutopia in Montreal

The amazing folks at Sprouter.com have invited me to speak in three cities with them in the next month with the first being in Montreal. If you are not familiar with Sprouter.com you should take a look as they are doing events geared to helping entrepreneurs as well as thier online collaberative tool that was just written up on Mashable.com Please RSVP if you can come out!



Impact National Conference

November 20-21st at the Westin Harbour Castle Hilton (Toronto)

I am super excited to speak at this conference as the majority of the attendees will be students either finishing up college/university or entering their last years. I will be speaking about Entrepreneurship and ask the students to look inside themselves and see if they have entrepreneurship characteristics in them and if they do I will advise them to drop out of school and start a company. Should be an interesting day!

Canadian Women in Communications

November 25th, 2009 - Webcast

Details on this are still being worked out as far as content of my talk but I said yes without hesitation because I thing this will be an interesting group of folks to pal around with.

Media Bistro Panel - Social Media and the Customer: Focus on Community Management
December 8th at Comix in New York City

Exactly a year (and a day) earlier than this talk I had the pleasure of speaking for MediaBistro on a Social Media panel with Tony Hsieh, Craig Newmark, Lynn Johnson, Jeff Howe and Thor Muller and I am overjoyed to be invited back for the sequel to that original talk. This time around the all female panel will be made up of myself, Valeria Maltoni, Amber Nasland and Shirley Bradley and I guarantee it will be informative and talked about to till at least the end of the year!
Rsvp to attend here!


Word of Mouth Supergenius Conference

December 16 - Chicago

I will be talking to a group of Supergenius' to be on how to create offline chatter and unlike many talks I give where I rely on my good looks and charm and speak about how wonderful I am and what I have done in the past I have been asked to speak here about the future and create a step by step formula that people will take away with them so there can be a "little Saul" in a whole new group of offices all over America. This is going to be a great event and if you are interested in coming you can use the secret code "Saulismyhero" to get a $101 discount on the cost of the course and a hug and kiss from me on the day of the event. For more information on this event please click here

I hope to see some of you at these events and as always I appreciate you sharing your time to read my blog.

I have a distinctive voice...come hear it!

I really need to spruce up my blog and make it more of an info portal instead of just blog posts. The reason I have been thinking about this is 'cause I am getting asked more and more to speak at conferences and infect young minds with my ideas and would love to have a place to tell you all about these appearances without writing a blog post about them.

But until I find some time to do that (or to breath) I am just going to have to fill you in here about my speaking stuff and hope you will come and support the fine folks who see me as a big shot.

So without any further buildup, here are the next 4 opportunities to come out and hear me speak, teach and try to get pretty girls phone numbers.

Canada Post - Think Inside The Box Conference

October 7th at the Toronto Board of Trade

I will be talking in front of Canada Post folks as well as invited guest and the general public about customer service, social media and why making out with your customers is something every company should make a goal in their outreach.

Impact National Conference

November 20-21st at the Westin Harbour Castle Hilton (Toronto)

I am super excited to speak at this conference as the majority of the attendees will be students either finishing up college/university or entering their last years. I will be speaking about Entrepreneurship and ask the students to look inside themselves and see if they have entrepreneurship characteristics in them and if they do I will advise them to drop out of school and start a company. Should be an interesting day!

Canadian Women in Communications

November 25th, 2009

Details on this are still being worked out as far as content of my talk but I said yes without hesitation because I thing this will be an interesting group of folks to pal around with.

Word of Mouth Supergenius Conference

December 16 - Chicago

I will be talking to a group of Supergenius' to be on how to create offline chatter and unlike many talks I give where I rely on my good looks and charm and speak about how wonderful I am and what I have done in the past I have been asked to speak here about the future and create a step by step formula that people will take away with them so there can be a "little Saul" in a whole new group of offices all over America.

Please come to any or all of these events if you can and it goes without saying that I am available to speak just about anywhere (including prisons, schools, conferences, weddings and funerals) on the topics of Social Media, Customer Service, Entrepreneurship, Office Culture, Dating and Community Building so please invite me places and I will preform feats of amazement for you and your crowd.

Please take a moment and Vote for my SXSW panels!

It's that time of the year again.

The time of year when people start counting the days till they have to put away their white pants and those with kids start getting ready for back to school.

It is also the time of year that thousands and thousands of the smartest, most fun and best looking technology enthusiasts and teachers learn whether or not their speaking applications will be voted in to being a full fledged panel at the SXSW Interactive Festival in March. (South By SouthWest)

I have been very fortunate to have spoken at the last two years festivals and would like to keep my streak going since this year I feel I have submitted two very interesting and timely speaking topics.

Part of the reason I am telling you all this is because to be selected as a speaker you need the support of the festival organizers as well as the community attending (and not attending). So I am asking you to please look at my panel topics and please give me your vote. Even if you have no intention of attending the festival you can still feel the "rush" of democracy as you click on the Thumbs up button to propel my topics into a higher voting category.

I appreciate all of my readers and I hope you guys will consider helping me with this.

Below are my speaking topics and I could love to not only have your votes but also your comments so please let me know what you think of my ideas!

(click on the panel titles to vote.)

Community Management: Future Skills you need to know

Community Management is a key role in any startups but with any new role in a company they need to evolve over time to survive and prosper. Come listen to what the future of community management will look like because the future role is more than just drinking with customers!

and

Tweet Your Way to Your Next Job

Obviously, we all know that Twitter is more than having a sandwich. Learn from two savvy marketers who used Twitter to further their careers. Saul Colt and Warren Sukernek have each used Twitter effectively to find new positions.

Thanks for your support and remember you need to vote now and vote often to really appreciate the freedom we share and not take advantage of it. <-----ok that was maybe a little too much :)

Reminder: Come see me talk tomorrow or I will cry!

Yes you read that correctly.

I am speaking tomorow night at the Indoor Playground and am pretty excited about it since I have put together a pretty interesting presentation on building an online/offline community but since I am all about honesty on the here blog I have to admit that the advanced attendance numbers are pretty small.

So to make things more interesting I am making this promise........If you come to see my little chat tomorrow night I can promise you a few things.

-You will learn something
-You may see nudity
-I may Cry more then once
-Someone may leave pregnant

So if you happen to be in the Toronto area tomorrow night (Thursday the 29th) why not swing by the Indoor Playground (364 Richmond Street West, Suite 503) and listen to me go on and on about stuff!

Here is where you can get all the info! Or you can just show up!

-saul

If you like how I type....you should hear me talk!

People always find it hard to believe that I am sorta introverted.

Sure I type away here on an almost daily basis and yes when I enter a room everyone knows I am there (because of my awesome shoe collection) but a little known fact about me is that in a one on one setting I don't always have much to say.

Now put me in a situation where I can talk to room full of people at once and you may have a hard time shutting me up.

I love to speak to crowds and think I do a pretty entertaining job of it (especially the Q&A's) so if you happen to be in the Toronto area next Thursday night (the 29th) why not swing by the Indoor Playground (364 Richmond Street West, Suite 503) and listen to me go on and on about building online and offline communities. I promise it will be entertaining because like this blog, if I have noting more to say I will just start playing YouTube videos!

All the information is available on the Facebook Event page.......and if you mention you are a loyal reader of the blog I will be giving out free hugs....unless you are really hot and then you get kisses.....unless you don't want them.....then just hugs!

Hope to see you there!

-saul