So you went to a conference, well done! Now stop going on about it!

*******UPDATE*******

So last year I went to CMA Live and wrote this blog about the experience. Tickets are now available for #CMALive18 and so if you are looking for ways to improve your marketing and grow your business, check out this link:

Get me my tickets to CMA Live 2018!!

If you want to know why I am going back this year, have a read of the blog I wrote after last years event. Also, see if you can spot me in the photo above and in true 'Where's Wally' style, just comment 'Found Wally' in the comments! (no cheating!)

CMA Live 2017 - A Review

If you follow me on Twitter you may or may not have noticed that I went to a conference last week in Edinburgh, it was CMA Live. Now you may be wondering what the Country Music Awards were doing in Edinburgh, well CMA actually stands for the Content Marketing Academy and the conference unsurprisingly is focussed on great content and the difference it can make to businesses around the world. 

I am a member of CMA and have been for a few months, but I have followed them for a while on social media and had spoken to a mate who is also a member (you may know Pete Matthew) about last year’s conference he said it was the best conference he had ever been to, high praise given that we had attended some pretty good IFP conferences together in the past. 

So that was back in June 2016 and that is when I first became aware of The CMA as an organisation and started following the work of Chris Marr, who set CMA up. 

I booked the conference in late 2016 and had been looking forward to finding out what all the fuss was about. I booked flights, hotels and tickets to the socials, I wanted to do this properly and experience as much as I could. 

It was such a good experience I also wanted to share it with you.

The Venue 

I had been to Edinburgh once before, just for a day trip and from what I could remember it seemed a nice city. It is in fact a beautiful city and aside from anything else I shall be taking my better half back there in the not too distant future.

The conference venue was called The Hub and is an old church that has been converted into a proper conference venue. 

From the second you see it you start to appreciate that this might not be ‘just another conference’. 

I was welcomed at the venue by some smiling faces that I had met for the first time (in real life anyway) the night before at one of the socials, more on those later. 

I then moved into the pre-conference waiting area and as one of the first to arrive was able to watch as more people arrived and the buzz and anticipation for the next couple of days grew. 

Rather than those awkward waiting areas where you pretend to be on your phone or stand in closed groups hoping no one speaks to you, there was an immediate feel of community and no stuffy ego’s or clique’s. 

The Speakers

We walked up a sweeping staircase into the main hall, which was a really cool space with a stage and some tables set up, I took a seat and Chris opened the conference by introducing Chris Ducker as the first keynote. 

Rather than run you through each of the speakers and all they had to say I will just summarise the key points I took from each speaker, there are other posts out there with more detail in if you are interested 

Day One

Chris Ducker 

Chris shared a fascinating stat, by the year 2020 90% of content consumed online will be video. I find that staggering and exciting and has definitely prompted me to focus on video as a medium as well as blogging and podcasting. 

The main takeaway from Chris’ talk for me though was that we should be creating content that solves problems and that the quality of our output is really important. Google doesn’t rank crap content!! 

Also #NoWorkFriday! 

Col Gray and Ross Coverdale 

Col and Ross are CMA members and some of the members were asked to give lightening talks of about 15 minutes. 

Col and Ross helped Chris with the recent CMA rebrand and shared their story and some of the details about this, what I took away from this is that your brand should represent who you are and what you stand for, it is so much more than just a logo, it is an identity you can resonate completely with. It is what people say about you when you are not in the room and if you need help in identifying yours using experts like Col and Ross is likely to really help. 

Roger Edwards

I have followed Roger for a while, I listen to his podcast and he has been generous in helping me with some queries about my upcoming podcast. 

Roger hates complexity and yet sees it appearing in so much marketing. He is on a mission to banish it forever more and advocates keeping your marketing strategy really simple. 

Who is your customer? 

What are their problems? 

How do you solve them better than anyone else?

Done! You can’t argue with that 

Yva Yorston 

Yva gave a lightening talk on the importance of support as a business owner, especially if you work alone. 

The road to success is not linear and having people around you to help celebrate the wins but also pick you up when you are feeling low is essential. 

For Yva she has found this through membership of the CMA and shared a story about a recent ‘wobble’ she had and the emotional support she received from several of the members of the CMA community. 

This type of support shouldn’t be underestimated and as someone who quite often works alone, Yva’s story was one I could really relate to. The key takeaway for me is to ask for support when it is needed, it’s OK not to be OK (thanks for the inspiration Jessie J!) 

Stefan Thomas 

Stefan writes books about networking (Business Networking for Dummies) and spoke about the importance of your network during his talk. 

He highlighted the importance of how you keep in touch with your network and how you can show people that they should do business with you. 

A great example of consistency of message is DFS! Ask yourself this, when do DFS have a sale on? The answer is all the rime, right? Now ask yourself this, when do you need to know that DFS have a sale on? When you need a new sofa! 

The issue is DFS don’t know when you will need a new sofa, but they consistently tell you they have a sale on so that when you do need a sofa, you might visit one of their stores.

This lesson can be taken on my us all when we think about when we should keep in touch with the people that we have met, assuming we have been nice to them and not a salesy knob, keeping in touch consistently is great way to remind people of why they should do business with you. 

Back this up with great content that solves problems and good things will happen!  

Sharon Menzies 

Sharon has been embracing the learnings of the CMA and actually implementing it into her business and the results have been staggering. Over 700% growth since a rebrand and going all in 

So if you are thinking about embracing content marketing and need proof of its effectiveness when done well, look no further than Influx Recruitment, As Sharon says ‘Stop dabbling and go all in’

Doug Kessler 

Doug spoke about whether swearing works in marketing and gave a balanced view on this. It can be a good thing, it can grab attention, it can resonate with like-minded potty mouths, and it can add punch to your punchlines and put lead in your pencil. 

But, it can also offend, alienate the consumer and make you look a bit of a dick so the key here is to be authentic. 

If it feels good, do it. 

It needs to be you though as throwing the odd f-word into a blog just for effect will be obvious and is most likely to backfire. 

The key takeaway from Doug’s talk for me was to be authentic and maybe you can get away with saying words like ‘bum’! 

Cara Mackay 

Cara did do a swear (well more than one to be fair) in a blog post here on Linked In. If you haven’t read it, I recommend you do so, its great. (Cara's Article)

Cara’s talk was about the amount of abuse she received from trolls on Linked In as a result and how she dealt with that abuse. Some of it was ridiculous and if you are really that offended by the article perhaps you shouldn’t leave the house, let alone read stuff on the internet. 

People swear, and one thing I can say as a follower and an admirer of Cara’s marketing is that she is being authentic. The swearing wasn’t done to get a reaction, she was simply writing in her ‘voice’. 

She also dealt with the trolls in her own inimitable and hilarious way and didn’t get dragged down by the negativity. 

The reason: She believes in her content and this was a big takeaway for me. If we believe in what we are doing and communicate authentically, we will attract those that want to do business with us. We might not be for everyone, but we don’t need to be!  

Erika Napoletano 

Erika spoke about he importance of showing your human side in what you do and to start being vulnerable. 

If we give up our need to be right all the time we can make a real difference. She also spoke about re-framing fear and to use it as an ally to extend your comfort zone. 

The main takeaway from this talk for me was rather than have an elevator pitch, focus on your ‘big universal question’. As an example, rather than saying ‘I am a financial planner’ when people ask me what I do, I might now say ‘have you ever felt that you want to do something about your succession planning but don’t know where to start? I help you to sort that’ 

Try thinking of your own ‘BUQ’, its an interesting exercise as it really forces you to think about the problem that you solve.  

Day Two

Mark Schaefer

Mark has written a book called ‘Known’, a handbook for building and unleashing your personal brand. 

Now you may think that the only brand that matters is the corporate brand you represent, but research suggests that consumers are increasingly likely to have a negative reaction to a company’s attempt to earn their loyalty. 

As a result personal branding is the future of corporate branding, at least part of it. 

Becoming known in your specific niche means achieving a presence in that market, gaining a reputation and an authority and this is not a quick or easy process, Mark estimates that this would take around 30 months to achieve and requires consistency, resilience and tenacity! 

Andrew & Pete

What can I say about these two! 

I had not come across them before but anyone that photoshops the conference host into various yoga poses and some rather fetching lycra deserves mine and your attention from here on out! 

Andrew and Pete spoke about a ‘Content Stamp’, in other words your unique way of creating content and their suggested starting point is an aspirational message such as 

I’m going to create content for ________ so that they can _________ because ________

They also provided with a really useful discovery table with various brainstorming pivots that we can use to get really specific, relevant and share worthy content.

Pam Laird 

Pam runs an awesome hair salon and she spoke about her fear of turning away business from people she didn’t want to do business with. After all she had staff that needed paying but after becoming frustrated with customers that would arrive at the salon and asking things like ‘if I bring my own hair colour can you put it on for me?’ Pam decided to use content marketing to create better customers. 

She focussed on her ‘Bernie’ a favourite customer of hers and looked at ways she could create more ‘Bernie’s’ 

She did this by creating a client persona using the for P’s. 

• Problems
• Personal 
• Preferences
• Places

This could be a fictional or aspirational customer, or based on your own ‘Bernie’ 

The results that Pam has had since deciding to work only with those that value what she does have been positive and look set to continue. 

Janet Murray 

Janet talked to us about the power of PR and the positive effect it has had on businesses. 

Having created your ideal client persona you will know what publications they read, why not use PR coverage to build your credibility within these publications. 

Journalists are always looking for stories so there is a big opportunity out there, avoid writing pieces that are simply bragging about how great you are and produce articles that are informative and relevant and journalists will love you forever! 

Karen Reyburn 

Karen runs The Profitable Firm, a marketing agency for cool accountants. Now I have worked with some really dull and very boring accountants, but I have also worked with some really cool forward thinking ones. 

Karen’s niche is helping the really cool ones (who may be tarnished with the ‘boring accountant’ label) produce really great marketing material. 

She has picked her niche and is making a great success of that. 

If you are unsure how to pick a niche, have a go at these four steps: 

1. When you think about picking a niche, what’s the one thing that you keep coming back to? 
2. Who or what do you understand the best? 
3. Where do you get great results?
4. Where are you or could you be really profitable?

Once you have found your niche, go deep! Then go deeper!! The more specific you can be the better, saying you serve women is not a niche, it is half the population!

George B Thomas 

This was a brilliant, fast paced talk about the importance of having a growth mindset! Whatever market you are in, the buyer has changed and will continue to change their behaviour. 

If you are not adapting with that you will wither and die and there are a huge amount of tools that will allow you become an effective marketer without having to break the bank! 

George provided us with an overview of some of these tools and how they can be used to increase conversations with your audience. 

He also highlighted the top three stats to focus on when looking at your Google Analytics

1. Mobile Visitors – if your site isn’t optimised for mobile visitors, you are alienating a huge proportion of your potential client base.
2. Frequency and recency – Shows how many people are coming back to your site and not just viewing it once
3. Page Timings – This needs to be fast, people are time poor and won’t tolerate slow loading sites

Danielle Sheridan 

Danielle was a surprise speaker and is the daughter of the main key note speaker Marcus Sheridan. Not even Chris knew that Danielle was speaking. 

Now Danielle is 16 or 17 and I am trying to think back to when I was that age, I am not sure I was speaking to anyone in anything other than grunts let alone a room of 200 or so people. 

Not only did she speak in front of an audience she spoke really well, with emotion in her voice she shared her story and spoke about travelling the world with her Dad, creating a life that is truly yours and the fact she now has an e-commerce business and hired her first employee when she was just 14! 

There is a bright future ahead for Danielle.

Marcus Sheridan 

Marcus is one of the world’s leading authorities on Content Marketing, he runs an organisation called the Sales Lion and shares the story of how he saved his business through the use of content marketing. He uses a simple concept called ‘They ask, you answer’ and has a book of the same title. 

He spoke about how we go from good to great. 

Marcus advocates something I feel strongly about and can be summarised as ‘the only person you should be comparing yourself with is the person you want to be in 10 years’ time.’

He offers the following 8 steps when creating your own content 

1. Don’t marry your goals, marry progress
2. Cling to the metrics that actually matter
3. Embrace the messy 
4. Let go of the 10% (i.e. the haters, doubters, negative Nellies etc.)
5. Seek opportunities for kindness, support those around you
6. Effective communication is the most valuable skill in the world today 
7. Let trust be your compass
8. Own your story

It was a rousing and emotional end to an inspirational event. Attendees feel part of a wider movement and it is a movement that can only be good for all involved. Happier, better informed customers meaning more profitable businesses that are able to grow and prosper. 

It might all sound a bit happy clappy but all I see from Financial Planning conference attendees are people saying they will do stuff and never actually doing it. There are good idea’s shared but very rarely true inspiration. Of course there are exceptions but I have never come away from a conference feeling so motivated, almost overwhelmingly so. 

The opportunities for us have never been so good, irrespective of the current political mess, your views on BREXIT, Trump, North Korea etc. etc. These are all excuses as to why you won’t step outside of your comfort zone, there may be other excuses, your boss won’t let you, you don’t know how to do something, people won’t like your voice, your nose (have you seen the size of mine!), your too fat, too thin, too old or too young.

Whatever insecurities you have that you feel are holding you back, let them go. The real fun happens when you step beyond fear and don’t let it dictate to you. That is what I am going to do. It is easy to say, but not easy to do but I am up for the challenge! 

Are you? 

If so never compromise on your standards, if your boss won’t let you, find another boss, become your own boss! 

If you don’t know how to do something, learn! You couldn’t walk when you were born, it is now second nature because you learned how to do it, driving is the same, typing, speaking into a camera on a smart phone, all things that you can learn. 

The People 

As is often the case the people you share an experience with enhance that experience and that is very true of the CMA community. 

I had previously messaged a few people via Slack and had seen their faces on tiny little screens on Zoom during our weekly calls but I had only met two of the members in real life. 

Having now met many many others face to face I feel even more part of an awesome community. A community that will support you in any way they can. 

I met some brilliant people who I can take so much more from than I can give at the moment as I am new to this and not one of them hesitates to give me the support or help that I need and ask for. 

This is a bold statement but I cannot envisage a set of circumstances where I wouldn’t want to be a member of The CMA! 

The Coffee

I love coffee, I drink large quantities of it every day! However, I hate bad coffee and very rarely drink instant coffee, not because I am a snob, but because I believe that 'no coffee is better than bad coffee'. 

Chris knows that one of the most commonly complained about things at a conference is either the lack of coffee or the fact that it is provided in huge vats that have had god knows what in them for god knows how long. 

So he fixed it, he arranged for the awesome Brew Lab Coffee to make us all fresh, proper coffees. 

These guys weigh every shot of coffee to ensure that their product is consistent, and it was delicious coffee. 

A little touch, but how many conferences have you come away from raving about the coffee? 

The Socials 

As well as organising a conference we also had organised social events in the evening ranging from the Hard Rock Café to an underground Gin Bar and the final nights shenanigans in a bar called Lebowski’s. 

These were great evenings full of banter and chat about the days talks and life in general. Rather than heading back to our hotels and doing our own thing, we were able to get to know each other a bit better, partly through the venue and environment, partly through alcohol!

The MAIN Takeaway

I know I have gone on a bit in this post but please allow me this last bit, I think it is important! 

Gary Vaynerchuk doesn’t just say to listen to what he says, he also says to watch what he does, i.e. his results back up his claims. 

So I have spent some time reflecting on what my main takeaway from the conference was and whilst all of the speakers provided huge amounts of practical advice that I will incorporate into shaping my future and the future success of the business I work within, my biggest takeaway actually comes from the conference organiser Chris Marr. 

As I mentioned at the outset, I had followed Chris and the CMA via social media for a while before I decided it was important, if not essential, to join the CMA. He provided me with value and answered all my questions and doubts before I even joined. Not through direct conversation but through his own content marketing. 

It is said that 70% of buying decisions are made online before any actual personal or physical contact is made. That was certainly true of my decision to join the CMA. I met Chris for the first time at the conference. We had spoken a couple of times via Skype or Slack but when I met him I felt I knew him and trusted him already. This is as a result of his own content marketing and the influence it has had on me is evidence that this stuff works!

I wore a CMA Live t-shirt on the second day of the conference, something I had pre-ordered along with many others attending the conference, I don’t tend to have much brand loyalty other than to Apple and I certainly don’t seek out branded clothes, and yet I spent my money on a t-shirt with his brand on it. 

Chris has managed to create a ‘tribe’, a community of raving fans who will all be advocates for the value that the CMA adds to their lives, this isn’t via voodoo, witchcraft or bribery but by consistently delivering what he says he will. Not by saying he will do something but by actually delivering it and delivering well. 

That can be a lesson to all of us, imagine we could create an organisation that has raving fans who will tell anyone and everyone they meet that they should have us in their lives!

That's an exciting aspiration, isn't it? 

Chris cares about the community and wants everyone to succeed, he knows that for the CMA to succeed, the members need to succeed. Some will fall by the wayside, for whatever reason but the majority will have better businesses now as a result of having access to Chris and the CMA community than they did before they joined. 

Look at the example of the great coffee, that’s what is known as a critical non-essential. No one bought a ticket to the conference because it was serving proper coffee for free, but it added to the experience rather than took away from it, like bad coffee would have done. There were delicious cake pops at the break on day 2 as well, again no one would have left thinking, "great conference, shame there wasn't cake in the breaks', but instead it enhanced the experience. 

Finally, Chris celebrates the successes of those CMA members who are really smashing it through the presentation of awards at the conference. This not only highlights those doing well as ‘Beacons of Brilliance’ but also inspires those just starting on this journey to want to be one of those receiving an award in future years. 

The support of the community is a huge part of its value and it has not got that by accident, it is a testament of the execution of a vision that Chris has had, so if you need any more reason to consider joining the CMA or coming along to CMA Live2018 look no further than the inspiration, impact and success of its founder.

He also has a magnificent beard! 

Peace out! 

If you have read this far and are still not convinced about buying a ticket hit this link to hear from Chris Marr himself about this years Conference (and then buy a ticket!)