I just spent the past two days at the Inbound Marketing Summit in Dallas and heard a lot of great 
information. The summit is put on by Chris Brogan’s New Marketing Labs and is two full days of presentations covering all aspects of Internet marketing to some degree with a sharper focus on social media. Regardless of your skill level there is value here and even if you don’t read another paragraph I suggest you seriously consider the next event in Boston in September.
The first person I met was Merilee Elliott from Chicago. Merilee does interior design and has for some time. She admittedly knew nothing about Internet marketing but she knew marketing. Despite her marketing knowledge she was in Dallas on her time ready to learn because she knew there was more. Oh and she had the stones to put herself in a place where she had to admit that she was a novice and trust that it would be a good thing. That can’t be coached. You either have that one or you don’t.
To her credit, she is inquisitive. I would say that she probably felt like she was trying to take a drink from a fire hose during the rapid paced delivery of the content for the two days but afterward she was changed. She now knows more about social media than 99% of the interior designers in Chicago. I have no evidence of that 99% claim but there would be few who could challenge her knowledge after this 2 day social media boot camp.
Last thing. She was willing to listen. She listened to me try to pass my limited knowledge along. She trusted me enough to seriously consider working with HubSpot so she could have a real shot at actually executing much of what she heard.
I think Merilee embodies the small business person that will embrace Internet marketing after shying away for all this time. She will have experiences and successes that she would have never considered if she just stuck with business as usual. Oh, and I think she will experience a positive ROI on her investment in this conference, her time invested in travel etc. and the journey she is readying to undertake.
I encourage all small business folks to adopt Merilee’s attitude about Internet marketing. It’s a big Internet but it’s an open Internet. Don’t keep doing business as usual. Small business Internet marketing has truly arrived and it will help you…if you let it.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Attitude, or mindset, makes a world of difference. In fact, it is the difference between success and failure, all other things equal (they never are, but the economist in me insists that I say that).
You hit it right on the nail; I am looking for a good, if not great, BASIC internet marketing course. I get very frustrated as not knowing how to market also overlaps into how I advertise, and thus, I know very little about advertising too. I feel if I could at least learn and use the basic concepts of internet marketing, that would set the groundwork for then proceeding on to learning everything I can about advertising. If you don’t advertise, you’re dead in the water, but with so many offers slamming me every day, I have no idea which advertising resources or sites can truly take my ad and help me convert prospects into buyers. I never realized such a simple thing as a basic internet marketing course would be so hard to find. I feel like most people assume you already know the basics of IM, but I don’t, and that is why I’m spinning my wheels despite all the hard work I’ve put in. I know I’m working hard, but I also know I’m not working smart.
C. Larimore