A lot of people have asked me how the
UK Intensive went and what else I did
while I was in Europe.
I spent a lot of my free time in Zurich,
Switzerland.
Good place to touch base when you visit Europe.
It's right in the middle of the continent.
Google put its European engineering center
there...and when Starbucks wanted to crack the
European market they made Zurich their "test"
store.
(Starbucks is wildly popular in Europe.)
Ken
Here's some notes from my trip...
"I went over to Europe to do some workshops
and decided to stay a little longer and chill.
I've been to London before. Loved it then,
love it now.
I've been to Germany and the northern cities
of Switzerland (Basel and Zurich) before too.
Truly great places, loads of fun and I'm very
glad to have had a chance to come back for
a visit. (I had a speaking gig in Germany.)
....But now I'm on a train to Italy crossing
the Alps.
...and this is crazy!
I gave up on taking pictures about ten minutes ago.
There isn't enough film in the world...or digital
memory...to even begin to capture it all.
You just have to let it wash over you...
I don't ski and I don't do winter sports, but
I love mountains and lakes and every time
we round a bend, it's another gorgeous,
tree-covered paradise...
Gorges...chasms...lakes...rivers...mountains....
pastures... working farms...villages made of beautiful
handmade wooden houses...
And I'm watching it all from my own private
compartment on the train complete with huge
picture windows, individual climate control
and enough room to lay down and take a nap.
And it only cost me just $35 extra over a normal ticket.
Train travel is the way to go.
No frantic drive to the airport, no lines,
no insane security checks ("Please take
off your shoes, coats, belts and all metal items
and put your lap top, shampoo, and toothpaste
through the x-ray machine.")
None of that junk.
You just WALK to the train station,
buy a ticket and get on the train.
And when you get to the next city, you're
IN the next city, not at an airport 40 miles
away.
*** You gotta go to Switzerland some day
This is a place entrepreneurs can truly
admire.
The people here work hard, save, strive
to be the best at what they do, but are
quiet and calm about their accomplishments.
They let the quality of their work speak for them.
Small, with no natural resources to draw on,
and no colonies to exploit, the Swiss have the
highest per capita income in the world
(among countries with REAL economies...
I don't count the oil countries as real economies)
Educational standards are sky high,
and the infrastructure is in beautiful shape...
And the government doesn't feel the need to join
"clubs."
It's not a member of NATO or the European
Union.
It doesn't get involved in wars, but has the
biggest standing army in Europe, making
sure no one is ever tempted to mess with
them.
Most Swiss men are military trained and
many remain active with government-issued
military grade weapons in their homes
ready to be called up to defend their country
at a moment's notice.
When one of the big banks here got caught
up in financial shenanigans, local shareholders
didn't just whine about it, they showed up at the
annual shareholders meeting by the hundreds
and nearly lynched the CEO.
And, while they have a "president" they rarely
hear from him and don't expect him to solve
their problems, or even make the big decisions.
They don't leave it up to the legislature to look
after them either.
Every quarter - every quarter - they go to the polls
to vote on various citizen-originated proposals.
There's a lot to learn from this beautiful,
hard working, little place.
And, of course, on top of it all, they sure know how
to shake the old money tree.
You won't find a more financially successful
nation on the planet.
Speaking of which...
*** The UK Intensive
It's got to have been one of the very best Internet marketing
seminars ever.
Actually, there are really only two other seminars I can compare
it to:
#1: The 1994 seminar, the first web marketing
seminar ever, in which I advised attendees
to:
a) follow the direct marketing model for their
Internet marketing,
b) go crazy building lists,
c) ignore all the nay-sayers who said that
it was impossible to sell things profitably online.
(Yes, there were really people like that back in
1994 and believe it or not they included Steve Jobs
and Bill Gates.)
Luckily, Marc Andreessen, inventor of the
graphical web browser and co-founder of
Netscape didn't listen.
He was at the 1994 seminar encouraging people
to start web businesses.
Good call Marc.
One of our students from those early days, Rick Boyce,
went on to become the champion of the banner ad.
He was the first guy to sell them in real numbers and
laid the foundation for the business of web publishing
The only other seminar I can compare the UK Intensive
to is this one...
*** The Cleveland System Seminar in 2003
I've lost count of how many Internet millionaires
point to this event as the beginning of their careers.
One of the biggest success stories to come out
of that seminar is Lloyd Irvin who walked in the
door not knowing what an auto-responder was
and just four years later was doing over
$9 million a year in business.
System 2003 Cleveland featured Dan Kennedy
in one of his last appearances before he sold
his company to Bill Glazier.
It also marked the launch of Audio-Generator,
an idea that was "generated" at a previous
System by Mike Stewart and others.
As if that weren't enough, System 2003 in Cleveland
was the first time Perry Marshall emerged from behind
his computer to give the first public talk ever on how
to use Google AdWords according to classic direct
marketing principles.
As good as this and the original 1994 seminar
were, the System UK Intensive gave both of
these landmark events a very SERIOUS run for
their money.
Here's why:
* Drayton Bird...we refer to him as a UK direct marketer...
what a mistake.
After he sold his direct marketing agency to David Ogilvy
he became head of international direct marketing for
Ogilvy and Mather which at the time was one of the
hottest ad agencies on earth.
I've been inspired by Drayton's books and have
always enjoyed any chance to talk with him, but
nothing prepared me for his presentation.
Talk about DEPTH.
This is a guy who has been there and done that
and can pull the actual ads out of his archive and
show you the numbers.
Gary Halbert...Jay Abraham...Gary Bencivenga...
Drayton Bird...same class.
Drayton is in hot demand from companies all over
Europe and rarely (if ever) makes it to the US.
I'm sincerely sorry I didn't push my American
students even harder than I did to make the
trip to the UK.
If you've never experienced Drayton live -
smart, funny, as experienced as hell...and
willing to share it all - you missed out on
a peak experience for direct marketers.
But Drayton was just the tip of the iceberg...
The Internet speakers were off the charts...
* Ben Jesson
* Karl Blanks
* Ben Hunt
* Mark Attwood and
* Mike Mindel (co-founder of Wordtracker)
You may notice that three of the names weren't
advertised.
I guess we over-delivered on this one :-)
It was a huge marketing mistake to call this a "UK"
intensive.
It was a world class intensive that just happened
to be in London and frankly anyone who thinks they
are on the cutting edge of Internet marketing may need
to re-evaluate that based on what I saw and heard
there.
As someone who has been closely tracking Internet
marketing since 1993 and has just about seen and
heard it all, I can't tell you how thrilled I was to see
the state-of-the-art being pushed so brilliantly.
Listening to these guys talk about what they're doing
made me feel for the first time that the Internet has
really grown up...
* No chest beating
* No fluff
* No sales pitches
Just tight, profoundly smart technique based on mountains
of real world experience.
* Mike Mindel gave THE best talk I've ever heard on
keyword research ever. PERIOD.
Makes sense because as co-founder of Wordtracker
he's been at the center of keyword research for over ten
years.
* Ben Jesson and Karl Blanks revealed the methods they
use to radically boost online response rates. Demand for
their know-how is so high, you need to be doing at least
$10,000,000 a year in sales to qualify as a prospective
client.
* Ben Hunt blew away all the smoke about web design.
Ben has a massive following online, but rarely speaks
(until now that is) and like Mike and Karl and Ben Jesson
he knocked the ball out of the park.
* Mark Attwood is a System *home study* grad and a very
shrewd and able businessman who joined us on the panel
(Best panel in Internet marketing history? Probably. I'd
certainly put it up against ANY panel I've ever seen.)
The punch line for me was when I asked Mark how he
was doing..."Oh, over 8 million pounds a year" he replied
nonchalantly.
(To turn that into US dollars, multiply by one and a half.)
And he credits the System with showing him the way.
Speaking of the System...
System 2009 registration is open.
This year, we're holding it much earlier in the year
than usual: March 27 to 29 in Chicago.
SUPER deal for folks who register now.
Details:
http://www.thesystemseminar.com/register.html
Best,
Ken
Ken McCarthy
The System Seminar
---------------------------------------------------------
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