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Here’s the video footage taken from behind closed doors in the Skyloft at the MGM Grand in Vega, where Jeff Walker hosted the Product Launch Formula top partners networking event. Look for 30 second interviews with Brian Clark, Tom Beal and Michael Cheney, along with scenes from inside the Skyloft.

Back in February I received the fantastic news that I had just scrapped in as a top 25 affiliate for the release of Product Launch Formula (PLF) 2.0 by Jeff Walker (again, a really big thanks to everyone currently studying PLF who purchased through me and I hope you are enjoying the iRiver bonus I sent too!).

Jeff and his brother Jon decided to run a party/networking/mastermind event only for the top affiliates and this was the first time I qualified for such an invitation-only event. I was very excited at the prospect of meeting many of the guys I follow and look to as mentors in the Internet marketing world.

Prior to this event I had only been to one Internet marketing conference, Rich Schefren’s Strategic Profits seminar held February 2007 in Florida. There I met Rich and Mike Filsaime and many people like me, running Internet businesses. I had spoken to Jeff and Jon Walker on teleconference calls and through Skype, but this was my first face-to-face meeting.

Besides Rich, Mike, Jeff and John, I was excited to see that Brian Clark from Copyblogger.com would be coming too (the only other “pure” blogger) as well as Tom Ham, Tom Beal, Colette Marshall, Willie Crawford, Jeff Dedrick, Michael Cheney, John Carlton, Shawn Casey, Ray Edwards, Howie Schwartz and more experts from the Internet marketing world. My only disappointment was that Frank Kern was not making the trip down to Vegas as I’d really like to meet my fellow long haired Internet marketer.

The event started at 1pm and included an afternoon in a Skyloft, which is an uber-expensive ($1,000 a night) apartment style hotel room in the MGM Grand hotel on the Vegas Strip and concluded with dinner at Craftsteak, a fancy steak restaurant located inside the hotel.

I left my hotel room and went down to the VIP area where they have special private elevators to access the Skylofts and immediately bumped into Rich Schefren who was chatting to Colette Marshall, whom I had never met. Rich introduced me and we chatted briefly until Michael Cheney showed up. By then it was nearly 1pm so we headed upstairs to the Skyloft.

Jeff and Jon Walker greeted us at the door and gave us a tour around the Skyloft before we joined the main crowd that had already arrived. I started shaking hands with people I knew, some I didn’t know and some I didn’t realize I did know (don’t you hate it when someone’s Twitter profile photo doesn’t quite match their real life face - Hi Brian!).

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I’ve put together a new video of the footage from around the Vegas strip. In this video I take you for a walk down the main casino and hotel strip, showing all kinds of crazy sites and sounds.

The strip is obviously a very commercial area, probably one of the most commercial places in the entire USA.

Spending time in Vegas is like entering a different world, with airplanes flying low to land in the airport which was in the backyard of my hotel the MGM Grand (almost!). The lights and sounds and visual stimulation makes the place feel very surreal, like you have entered into a movie that features an entirely new theme every 100 meters or so.

There a few interesting observations to make when it came to marketing techniques that I took away and can relate to you now. Obviously a place as commercial as this has to be able to market themselves. Here’s some thoughts -

1. Vegas offers comparatively cheap hotel rates. Even the most fancy hotels can be booked for under a $100 a night if you search the web and you can go much lower than that if you stay at the hotels just off the strip. These are some of the most impressive hotels in the world (the MGM Grand is the second largest hotel in the world) and if you don’t drink or gamble it’s quite possible to have a “cheap” holiday in Vegas, especially if you just want to lounge around the pool and walk up and down the strip.

   As soon as you start spending money on shows or gambling or drinking, that’s when the cost tends to rise up. This is of course a deliberate technique - make the accommodation cheap to get people there and then trust that the will spend up big. There’s no many products that offer as good a profit margin as gambling, so the hotels are quite happy to let people stay cheap.

2. As I pointed out in the video, there’s evidence of social proof and other forms of proof all over Vegas. One casino had a “wall of winners” showing photos of all the normal everyday people who had struck it rich showing off their big checks. Some had even become new millionaires.

   This is a classic technique that creates excitement and most importantly - hope. The whole idea of gambling is to purchase just a little potential for winning big with every bet. It’s this hope that creates the excitement that keeps people gambling away more money, despite fully understanding how bad the odds are in most situations.

3. The whole marketing image Vegas has developed is one of decadence and uninhibited pleasures. The psychology means people who come to Vegas leave their usual self-imposed restrictions at home. It’s okay to eat bad, drink lots, gamble and sleep with strangers in Vegas because that’s what people do. This frame helps the businesses benefit financially since money is spent a lot more frivolously than usual.

In my next post I’ll have the video up from the Jeff Walker Mastermind, including some short interviews with the experts attending. The networking was by far the highlight for me and I think you will enjoy my behind the scenes take of such a high-level meeting of marketing minds.

As always, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed and follow my Twitter profile if you want the latest from Vegas.

Yaro Starak
Not Gambling

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Here’s a video I just edited together of some of the early footage I recorded after arriving in Las Vegas. Please excuse some of the commentary - I was quite tired so I went a bit silly at times.

I’ve been in Vegas for a few days now and finally found some time to string together some of the video footage from my Creative Vado.

It’s an amazing yet bizarre place, and I’ve got lots to share with you including about 15 minutes worth of video footage and some photos. I did some short interviews with people at the Product Launch Formula 2.0 Top Affiliates Networking bash plus some shots from around the hotel strip.

Today is my last full day here so I’m going to venture out now. Over the next few days I’ll publish more video and stories. It’s been an amazing trip so far, especially the networking yesterday with some of the top Internet marketers in the world.

Make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed to catch the videos coming up and I’ve also posted updates to my Twitter Profile, including links to some of the tools I’m using to create and edit the videos and what I’m up to around Vegas.

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Tonight I’m heading to the bright lights of Las Vegas and no, it’s not to gamble and drink since I don’t do either, although I do intend to see a Cirque Du Soleil show.

This is my first trip to Las Vegas and the main reason I’m heading there is for a special invite-only mastermind session with the top affiliates from the recent Product Launch Formula 2.0 release from Jeff Walker.

Normally I’m no where near the top of the affiliate standings but recently I’ve been able to get into the top 30ish area quite consistently, peaking at top 15 for StomperSMARTS and making the cut for the special invite to the mastermind with Jeff and his partners for the PLF 2.0 launch.

Here’s a list of some likely attendees in Vegas -

• Rich Schefren
• Tom Ham
• Mike Filsaime
• Tom Beal
• Joe Jablonski
• Ed Dale
• Colette Marshall
• Mark Widawer
• Brian Clark
• Willie Crawford
• Jeff Dedrick
• Tim Houston
• Michael Cheney
• John Carlton
• Stan Dahl
• Shawn Casey
• Ray Edwards
• Greg Poulos
• Dave Mizrachi

I’m looking forward to meeting some of these people in person, who I only know from names on websites and in emails.

Sedona and Chicago Next

After Vegas I’m renting a car and doing a road trip to Sedona for a brief holiday, then driving on to Phoenix for just long enough to catch a plane to Chicago. I’ve got a couple of days in Chicago then I’m back home to Toronto where I move into new house down at the beaches.

Throughout this trip I’ll have my trusty video camera and hopefully get a chance to do some more wandering entrepreneur posts, so stay tuned.

If you want to keep up with the latest details on this trip, make sure you subscribe to my Twitter feed.

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I arrived in Vancouver last week and thankfully with my nose, ears and throat functioning as they should, I could enjoy all the delights that Vancouver offered - and wow, did it deliver!

Balancing rocks at the beach on Stanley Park

Vancouver is an amazing city and by far my favorite destination on this trip so far. As I demonstrated in a recent video, I rented an inner city apartment on coal harbor, complete with Internet, cable TV, full sized kitchen, great views and close access to everything I could want from Vancouver.

Organic Food Paradise

I’m not the kind of guy to spend money on many frivolous things. I don’t drink and I’m not really into clothes or cars or gadgets (I’ve had the same laptop for over three years now - a good old trusty Asus), however there are two areas I will spend good money on with no regret - food and shelter…err, accommodation.

In Australia I shop organic as much as I can. New organic shops open up regularly in Brisbane, but nothing compares to the full blown grocery store called Capers in Vancouver - devoted entirely to organic produce.

Okay, these aren’t organic but they look tasty

I spent the early part of my first day in Vancouver walking around Capers with wide eyes, shopping for food. This turned out to be the beginning of a trend and I have to say with no hesitation - Vancouver is the best city for good healthy and tasty food I’ve ever been to.

Maybe it’s because of where I was staying (in the West End of Vancouver - strangely enough my favorite suburb in Brisbane is West End too), but I had a lot of trouble finding many overweight people, quite the contrast to Brisbane. Vancouver, the land of healthy eating and healthy living it seems!

One guilty pleasure for me is chocolate and again, Vancouver spoiled me for choice. Australia just doesn’t do dessert the way North America does, which is a good and bad thing.

My favorite place for chocolate in Vancouver is a boutique shop called Mink, where I am presently sitting typing this article (Vancouver has to be one of the best cities for Wi-Fi net access - even laundromats have it!). I just finished consuming a rich dark chocolate Fondue, with cake and fruit pieces. They also have the most amazing rich dark drinking chocolate here that frankly, is better than sex - honestly!

Nature’s Glory

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