Hello from Ventura Technology Development Center on the filming set of the Social Media Simplified Web 2.0 Master Class in Ventura, CA!

Social Media Simplified Presenters Mari Smith, Deborah Micek, Linda Taylor, Denise Wakeman, Simon Leung And Nancy Marmolejo

Even though I only had one hour of sleep that I snuck in during my 6am flight from San Jose to Ontario, I was too excited to be tired as my partner Andy Huang and I then made a 2-hour commute to Ventura to take part in Social Media Simplified filming.

As a late addition to the Social Media Simplified team of talented presenters, I was extremely stoked to accept the invitation to join the ranks of Linda Taylor, Deborah Micek (AKA CoachDeb), Mari Smith, Denise Wakeman (one half of the BlogSquad team with Patsi Krakoff) and Nancy Marmolejo to speak on Google Optimization through Social Media.

Throughout the day, we learned a ton of great information about marketing with social media, utilizing Web 2.0 tools such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and CoachDeb’s own Blog i360 system as a blogging platform.

During my time on stage, I was excited not only to share some of the social media tools, widgets, plugins and strategies that I personally use for my own blog to maximize the quality and quantity of traffic coming into my website, but also to have some fun and share some laughs with the great audience, as well.

In fact, we had so much fun that most of the attendees at Social Media Simplified felt that my presentation was more entertaining than it was informative! (Haha… just kidding…)

All joking aside, I’m confident that every one in attendance had a good time and hopefully, have already begun implementing some of the effective social media marketing strategies shared on the Social Media Simplified stage.

Towards the end of the shooting, all the presenters got together on stage to organize an expert panel, where we conducted live critiques of attendees’ blogs and answered questions from the audience.

After the Social Media Simplified event was over, we brought the party over to our VIP dinner at a nearby French restaurant, where we had the opportunity to network more with one another.

Before leaving town the following evening, I spent the day hanging out with CoachDeb, Andy Huang and James Lee, taking advantage of some of the best dim sum in town, as well as organizing our own “working party,” complete with sake and snacks!

Overall, I had a ton of fun and made a bunch of new connections at Social Media Simplified, so I am definitely glad I was able to make it out to Southern California for the one day event before returning to Singapore next week for The SMART Seminar.

If you weren’t able to attend Social Media Simplified, the entire event has been recorded and the DVD set will be made available within the next week, so stay tuned for more information about how you can get your hands on the amazing social marketing content so you don’t miss out!

In the meantime, you can keep up with posts, comments and photos from the Social Media Simplified presenters, attendees and fans on the #SMSV Twitter stream.

Hello from Room 519 of the Monte Lago Village Resort at Ken McArthur’s jvAlert Live in Lake Las Vegas, Nevada!

I actually didn’t arrive into Las Vegas until Sunday morning on an early morning flight from San Jose with Lee Collins, Robin Collins and Eric Farewell (which is why I didn’t have any time at all to take any photos!), and when I stepped into the jvAlert Live room, I was immediately greeted in the presence of greatness…

The Las Vegas jvAlert Family included Dave Lakhani, Dr. Mike Woo-Ming, Paulie Sabol, Donna Fox, Frank Sousa, Mari Smith, Barbara Drazga, Mark Widawer, Erik Stafford, Stephanie Mulac, Jonathan van Clute, Glenn Dietzel, Rick Butts, Carrie Wilkinson, Micheal Savoie, Glen Hopkins, Jason Develvis, Dan Kelly, James Lee, Felicia Slattery and countless others that I can’t remember right now!

It was also Harris Fellman’s birthday this weekend, and he decided to roll out and celebrate Vegas style with his entourage Sam Heyer.

Unfortunately, I could not stay long at jvAlert Live because I also have another obligation with the ViSalus event, Vitality.

With 2000 people filling up the conference with motivation and high energy, we watched inspiration presentations, cash-winning contests and fellow ViSalus business owners take the keys to their brand new BMWs!

It was an exhilarating experience, and I’m glad that I made the trip to Vegas to witness the magic they put on stage.

In the evening, I, along with Lee Collins and Robin Collins, also got the chance to meet up with JP Micek and Deb Micek for dinner.

Even though JP Micek and Deb Micek were exhausted from a long weekend in Vegas, also speaking at another event, we had a nice dinner and great conversation.

In fact, through that conversation, Deb Micek extended me an invitation to become a part of Social Media Simplified, a one day event scheduled for next Monday in Ventura, CA.

Even though it is short notice, I couldn’t miss the chance to share the stage with the best in social media marketing, including Deb Micek, Mari Smith, Linda Taylor, Nancy Marmolejo and the BlogSquad.

So, if you’re in the Southern California area, let me know if you’d like to stop by Social Media Simplified - would definitely enjoy meeting up with you

If Dr. Mike Woo-Ming, Kevin Nations, Mike Morgan, Ross Goldberg, Lee & Robin Collins, Eric Farewell, Rex Wisehart, Nathan Anderson, Alejandro Reyes, Sam Heyer, James Lee and myself asked you for a joint venture, what would you say?

No really, this is a serious question…

Personally, I get dozens of JV proposals every single day - and that’s only the ones that make it through to my email inbox!

Like all the top marketers mentioned above, I probably receive hundreds more on a weekly basis through my support desk, personal instant messenger, SMS text and social media profiles like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

Needless to say, there is simply no way for us to respond to all these JV proposals or even sort through them, much less accept them.

So when I take on a JV partnership, especially when I’m working with the top Internet Marketers in the world mentioned above, you better believe that I am not only serious about, but also very excited about it as well.

The truth is, for the past few months, I’ve been working on building an entirely new business with these marketers that’s definitely going to change my entire business forever, and maybe even yours too (if you decide to partner with us).

It’s something I’ve never done before, and probably never will again…

And today, I am extending you an official invitation not only to become our customer, but to make money and share profits with us as our partner in arguably one of the biggest projects each of us have all been involved in!

There has already been a lot of buzz surrounding over 10,000 people on the social media sites regarding a “secret 12″ launch, and in the next week or so after launch, an additional 300,000 sets of eyeballs are going to learn more about this unique opportunity.

If you are serious about the exclusive opportunity to partner with the top names in Internet Marketing, don’t think about it for too long because when we’ve reached our quota for JV partners, we’ll be closing the doors forever and the only way to partner with us again in the future may be competing against the hundreds of other messages we get every week…

Accept Our JV Invitation At Secret12JV.com

Hello from the Governor D conference room of the Holiday Inn Airport at the 2nd AdWords Workshop in sunny San Jose, CA!

This is my second AdWords Workshop that I’ve organized on my own, and I must say that the support I’ve received from all my friends has hands-down made this better than the last, and will make this one extremely difficult to beat.

First off, the caliber of expert speakers we had at the AdWords Workshop were simply amazing - even *I* was blown away by who I was able to get to grace my stage!

I’m talking about Internet Marketing legends and rockstars like (photos taken from Blackberry Curve and sent to Twitter)…

AdWords Workshop Branding Expert Ben Mack

AdWords Workshop Lead Generation Expert Dr. Mike Woo-Ming

AdWords Workshop Testing And Tracking Expert Mark Widawer

AdWords Workshop Women Marketing Experts Donna Fox

Hybrid Marketing Experts Lee And Robin Collins

AdWords Workshop Conversion Expert James Lee

AdWords Workshop Launch Expert Eric Farewell

AdWords Workshop Social Marketing Expert Alejandro Reyes

AdWords Workshop Profit Expert Kevin Finney

Visit their websites - they are true Internet Marketing rockstars and have just a ton of immense value to bring to the table… I couldn’t help but take pages and pages of notes at my own event!

For the core part of the AdWords Training, we covered specific optimization strategies pertaining to landing pages, keywords, ad text and account structure, followed by hands-on and interactive sessions with not only real-life examples of my best performing campaigns, but we also worked with attendees to review their accounts and even create brand new campaigns from scratch live on stage.

The overall consensus is that the live demonstrations were the most valuable because even though the content was great, they wanted to see the strategies implemented in actual campaigns from which they can learn.

Thus, we did just that, and this has contributed to a large part of the AdWords Workshop’s success for the weekend.

And of course, none of this would have been possible in the first place if it weren’t for the help of my team…

So I’d like to publicly thank Alejandro Reyes - who put together the keynote and set the stage for the weekend, Kevin Finney - who facilitated and helped on stage during the interactive sessions and closing presentation, Andy Huang - who put together the weekend’s outline and took care of all the nitty gritty details, John Guanzon and his lovely wife Jessica - who helped organize the venue for the event, and special thanks to Amanda Swigert, who stepped up unscheduled and helped us out with everything from assistant duties to running the videos.

In this business, it’s not just the knowledge that you learn and apply, but also the relationships that you build.

I honestly had more fun at the AdWords Workshop this past weekend than any organizers should be allowed to have at their own events, and I owe it all to my friends who were able to bring this much value to our small group of awesome attendees.

Throughout the weekend, we had live streaming shows, exquisite meals, masterminds, social marketing experiences and just an overall good time with everyone at restaurants and bars (click here to view all my real-time Twitter updates from the weekend).

A quick note on the power of social marketing - on our live stream, we attracted over 50 viewers including Rich Schefren, Ed Dale, Jason Moffatt, Deborah Micek, Justin Brooke and Donna Fox…

In fact, Donna Fox made her decision to come to San Jose based on witnessing how much fun we were having, and she literally decided on Friday that she was going to come on Saturday!

And as Donna Fox and everyone else in attendance at the AdWords Workshop can attest, it was very well worth the trip…

We literally have raving testimonials from every single person who attended the AdWords Workshop, and even though I don’t know when I’m going to have a next one because I’m booked solid for the next foreseeable future (quite possibly six months or more), I definitely want to re-live the weekend sometime soon.

If you’d like to join us for the next AdWords Workshop and spend a fun and productive weekend learning and creating new relationships, keep up-to-date with any announcements we might have by joining our priority pre-notification list at www.AdWordsWorkshop.com

See You At The Next One!

Hello from Room 424 of the Radisson Hotel at Ken McArthur’s jvAlert Live in Philadelphia, PA!

Ken McArthur And Simon Leung At jvAlert Live

As much of a jvAlert Live regular as I am, I just realized that it has actually been one whole year since I attended my last jvAlert Live or even seen my very good friend, Ken McArthur!

This makes me a little sad because Ken McArthur and I go way back (in Internet years) - I mean, I met the guy on a cruise in June of 2006 when I was still working at Google, and he invited me to attend jvAlert Live in Philadelphia the following week.

That jvAlert Live event changed my life…

I learned so much and made so many new friends that I was inspired to leave my full-time job at Google just six weeks later.

Ken McArthur and I crossed paths again at my first seminar as a full-time Internet Marketer, where he invited me to speak at his next jvAlert Live in San Diego, and then again at jvAlert Live Orlando, and then again at his Get Your Product Done workshop in Atlanta.

The last time I crossed paths with Ken McArthur was jvAlert Live in Philadelphia 2007, so it was definitely a big change going from hanging out with my good friend several times last year to only once this year.

That’s going to change though, because I’ve decided to work much more closely with Ken McArthur as a mentor and a partner.

Now, moving on to the jvAlert Live event itself, you can tell how high Ken McArthur has taken the level of his seminar by looking at the line-up of speakers…

Taking the stage were Internet Marketing rockstars Yanik Silver, Jeff Johnson, Mike Morgan, Stuart Tan, Alan Bechtold, Keith Wellman, Sanyika Calloway Boyce, Brad Semp and yours truly…

As for the VIP line-up, there were no shortage of experts either with panelists Mike Filsaime, Kevin Nations, Frank Sousa, Brian Edmondson, Jason DeVelvis, Rachel Rofe, Jay White, Bob Jenkins, Larry Benet, Warren Whitlock, Jeff Dedrick, Erik Stafford, Ross Goldberg, Jeff Wark, Lori Steffan, Dr. Ron Capps, Michael Angier, Phil Basten, Jane Marks and countless others.

Needless to say, the networking was amazing, and I’d be surprised at anyone who didn’t walk away from jvAlert Live with at least one six figure a year business idea.

Because I’m familiar with the caliber of the events that Ken McArthur puts on, I also saw this as an opportunity to enrich my top trainer, Kevin Finney, and also an up-and-coming copywriting superstar, James Lee, by inviting them to attend the same event that changed my life exactly two years ago.

Kevin Finney and James Lee both graciously accepted, and by the end of the weekend - although evidently wiped out as you can see in the photo below - made the most of the event by networking their butts off and attested that it was a life changing experience for them as well.

Ken McArthur And Simon Leung At jvAlert Live

Quite honestly, if you’ve never been to a jvAlert Live before or haven’t been to one for a while, you don’t know what kind of value you’re missing out on because each and every jvAlert Live is unique, and if you miss one, you’ve missed out on a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

I know I missed out on a lot of opportunities I’ll never be able to get back by not attending jvAlert Live 2007 Long Beach (I was booked for a Mark Hendricks event in Atlanta) and jvAlert Live 2008 Orlando (I was in Asia at the time)…

But I know that from now on, I’m going to try my best to make it to every jvAlert Live - especially the next one - because it’s going to be in Las Vegas!

So mark your calendars for October 17th, 18th and 19th for the next life-changing jvAlert Live, and I look forward to seeing you then in Las Vegas

Hello from Room 108 of the La Casa Del Camino, where we’ve spent the weekend celebrating Karen’s birthday in sunny Laguna Beach, CA!

We began Karen’s birthday Friday evening with friends at the Las Brisas Mexican Restaurant for drinks, then moved on to dine at Javier’s Cantina and Grill, where the wait to be seated itself was a little over 60 minutes…

But as you can see from the photos below, the exquisite quality of every seared-to-perfection entree made every minute of the wait very much worthwhile…

New York Steak

Lobster Enchiladas

Seafood Scallops

Beef Chimichangas

Chicken Fajitas
The next evening, we continued our fun weekend when my good friend “Magic” Ryan Kaltman invited us to the Magic Castle in LA, where I, along with Eric Farewell and James Lee, spent the evening enjoying brilliant illusions by amazing magicians.

On Sunday, I was scheduled to speak at Dr. Mike W00-Ming’s Continuity Cash Cow in San Diego…

So we took the drive down and met up with Dr. Mike Woo-Ming and his crew of fellow experts, Shelby Larson, Mark Ress, and Alex Nghiem.

Later on in the day, I invited Jason Moffatt and Mike Koenigs to join us, and we wrapped up the evening with a nice dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse.

Hello from Gate 7 of the Southwest Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) in Los Angeles, CA!

I just said bade farewell here at the gate with Alejandro Reyes, my former apprentice turned Operations Manager turned business partner.

We were in Los Angeles for the day on business, and decided last minute that we would organize a networking dinner in LA before we went home.

Collectively, we have lots of friends in the LA area, but because it was so last minute, not everyone was able to make it.

Alejandro had the idea of using Twitter to let his followers know that we were in town, and by 7pm, we had a small group of 6 people meeting up for dinner at the Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse, a 5 star restaurant in El Segundo.

Twittering Fools At The Dinner Table: Rachel Rofe, Mark Widawer, Simon Leung, James Lee, Alejandro Reyes And Chuck Yockey

As you can see, all 6 of us were busy twittering away even at the dinner table

We didn’t get to stay too long since Alejandro and I had to catch a flight, but it was fun hanging out with some local marketers for a couple hours.

If you’re interested in meeting up sometime while I’m in your neck of the woods, check out my calendar and feel free to Twitter me to let me know you’re in the area and want to meet up.

Since Alejandro and I both had our flights delayed, we decided to shoot a quick video on the power of networking, and how social media has made it so much more easier to network online with practically anyone you want.

Enjoy the video