Affiliate Summit West is an affiliate marketing conference that was started back in 2003. This was my first Affiliate Summit and my first conference that was focused on just affiliate marketing. Last year I went to Blog World Expo and SMX Advanced which indirectly may cover affiliate marketing, but I wanted to meet a new crowd of people.
The Networking
I went to breakfast with Shane Pike who I’d been talking to via email since early 2008 and it was a lot of fun to finally meet him in person. He’s a brilliant guy and does very well online, I just wish he blogged more about what he was up to. After meeting up with Shane I met up with Logan Thompson, Ian Fernando and Brian Evans.
Brian and I went to DK’s $100 buy in poker tourney and I got to meet a ton of new people along with some old faces (Jonathan Volk). The tourney started at 8:00 PM and what followed was some of my worst poker ever; however, I managed to get lucky on several all in’s and ended up taking 3rd place out of 77 players and won $983. I also happened to sit next to Jeremiah (owner of Wolf Storm Media) and who also used to be a former Halo 2 professional gamer like me we both competed back at a tournament in 2005 (small world)! The event was a blast (thanks DK) and whenever I’m in Vegas I try to play at least one poker tournament. I’m happy that this time it worked out better than they normally do. We also stopped by the Gold & Pawn Shop where they film the show Pawn Stars; however, they were filming an episode so we couldn’t go in unfortunately.
One night I went to the affiliate ball to see Three 6 Mafia perform which was pretty disappointing because I heard that Sir Mix A Lot would be there and when I left at 1:45 AM he still hadn’t shown up; however, I did get to roll in a sweet Hummer limo to the party along with Andrew and the Amped Media team (thanks again!).
Overall I met dozens of people that I had very solid conversations with and plan to follow up with to work together on some projects.
The Sessions
I rarely attend more than a couple of the sessions at any conference I go to because I have more fun meeting new people and hanging out. That being said, I’m going to go back and watch some of the recordings of the sessions I missed because I heard a few were really good.
I went to one session on the first day on how to monetize websites with data feeds which was really good. It gave me some great info that I’m going to try implementing on some brand new websites I’m building. This session was put on by Eric Nagel and Joe Sousa and I’m glad I attended it.
I went to a few other sessions briefly and every morning I intended to go to the opening keynotes but I kept sleeping in (I was generally up to 3 or 4 AM each morning for poker, parties or just brainstorming biz ideas).
The closing keynote was put on by Dave Taylor and covered achieving work / life balance. I think it was great to hear his perspective. He opened his presentation covering with the number 275 and at the end came back to it by showing how $275 x 365 = $100,375 per year and talked about how $100k is a significant amount of money and if instead of adjusting your lifestyle as you make more money (buy expensive cars etc.) that you should focus on making the same money but working less and less (aka 4 hour work week). I think that’s alright for some people, but I enjoy what I do for a living and I’m not going to be buying the Guthrie Castle by slacking off. I should also add that although you can donate a nice chunk of your income if you’re making $100k per year think about how many lives you could help making $1MM+ per year?
Overall:
I would attend another Affiliate Summit because as always the people you meet can help more than pay for the time you’ve invested in the conference and in this instance I won $983 in a poker tourney so I was paid to go! Fortunately the sessions I did attend were also really good as well which is (unfortunately) a rarity at other conferences I’ve attended.
See you at the next Affiliate Summit!
Chris..I just read and blogger Lynn talk about the affiliate summit..the work they do to provide great content and and experience for people is amazing..hope to make it next year..
BTW Chris..Can you can contact me on my contact page..Its very important..I need your help.
“Black Seo Guy “Signing Off”
Confused – why don’t you just contact me through mine? ๐
Yes, ASW was a blast though
Glad to see you had fun. I can’t wait till I get to attend. I couldn’t this year because I won’t turn 21 until Feb. Maybe I’ll make it to ASE.
Do you plan to attend ASE later this year Chris?
Maybe. I try to do different conferences so instead of ASE maybe I’d do Ad Tech but we’ll see.
Sounds like you had a blast, Chris. Nice job taking third place. I’ll have to get in on that tourney next year! ๐
Yah and taking 3rd was not something I usually do hah hah. In either case I had a blast.
The one thing that nobody has mentioned was how much it costs to attend these events and how much it costs to stay around for the duration of it. ๐
Hi Chris,
Looks like it was a really fun event. I wish I could have made it to Vegas this year!
It seems like you go to a few conferences. ASW is a pretty big one, but how to hear about all these events? It seems like whenever I look for them, I can never find any upcoming conferences.
There are a couple websites out there that try to update the conferences but they don’t get updated that often. I think ASW, BlogWorld, SMX Advanced and EliteRetreat were all good though and worth going to if only for the people that I got to meet.
Hey Chris, Thanks for the shout. The Limo was pretty awesome, this was the first time I was able to see the entire strip. I was looking forward to Sir Mix A Lot too…
Hopefully we can meetup next time!
Chris,
Enjoyed reading your post. Thanks for sharing your Affiliate Summit experience with us.
All the best!
JR
Congrats on your poker tourney win. I also love poker, but I’m afraid to play it for money. I tend to become a little to addicted and eventually I lose all my money…
One think love of these conferences is potentially making new partners and friends. To be honest I have never assisted to any of those conferences but if I have a chance I will do it. I have assisted to conferences related to electronics and technology development but I had the same experience as you had, I met a lot of people around the world and made some good deals and friends. I enjoyed reading your experience. Thanks for sharing.
What a great, thorough overview of the Summit. I haven’t been since 2008 so I was wondering how it’s changed. The last time I went the sessions seemed to be catered more toward beginners so I got more out of the networking and meeting people.
Congrats on your poker win! ๐
Yah exactly, of the 3 or 4 conferences I’ve gone to in the past 12 months I’ve probably attended only a handful of the sessions. Instead, I spend much more time meeting others and networking. The networking always pays off and in this case while at the poker networking event it also paid for my trip too hah hah ๐
I enjoy visiting daily to see your writings. I have your page bookmarked on my daily read list!
you just proved that you are a nice guy chris (charity and big income). John Chow was present at that event, it looked like real nice stuff! Keep up the good work!
Yah, John Chow lives in the same city as me too so I occasionally go eat lunch with him – he’s a funny guy
My favorite aspect is probably the diversity in the affiliate marketing world. It really is a world-wide, multi-cultural industry that continues to grow as more people learn about how to make money online with their sites and blogs. I will continue to try to help people with their affiliate marketing and traffic generating strategies, and look forward to working with more people everyday! I’d love to know what your favorite aspect of affiliate marketing may be. Thanks
IMO not worth the time and not worht the money.
Hey Adam, I think it really depends on what you plan ahead of time though as well…