Ode to Gary Vay-ner-chuk

So I'm swamped. Haven't posted to the blog for a while. I've got a backlog (if that's a word) of videos that need to be posted and we're trying to get about 5 or 6 different projects going right now. To top it all off, my wife Katlyn and I are off to Mexico on Saturday for just over a week to take in a friend's wedding and to take in some sun (I know, boo hoo, you're swamped and you're taking a vacation).

But all of that aside, I wanted to dedicate a post to a guy that everyone who reads this should make part of their day. Even if you don't care about wine, business, or the tech world, you need Gary Vaynerchuk in your life. If I'm feeling sluggish I just push the play button on one of his videos and his energy just picks me right up.

Red Bull's got nothing on Gary Vee.

I occasionally watch the Thunder Show, but was more interested in the whole idea of Gary through Rich Schefren. I was fasicnated with the idea that anyone with enough passion and smarts can use all the free tools available to broadcast that passion to millions of people and make a difference. That's why I was pumped to stumble upon http://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/ (Mott, link it up) where Gary has created a video blog to talk about business, and how technology can have a huge impact on it.

The best part about all the tools out there, whether it be a blog, YouTube, Facebook, or whatever is that they can be used in absolutely any industry, not just web based stuff. Heck, it's even better if it's not a web based business. There's less of a chance that there's an established competitor.

So bottom line - get to know Gary Vaynerchuk. He might be the catalyst to your pending success.

Here's a video below to get you started. It really resonated with me because I find myself doing a whole bunch of seemingly unrelated stuff (we have a marketing consulting company that runs a wedding website, helps small businesses with internet marketing, has an arm dedicated to restaurant marketing and we're starting a sprinkler business), but it's all stuff that I'm passionate about. I'm tired of people telling me I can only be known for one thing. I'm an entrepreneur, I'll get involved with as many different things as I want. I'll let you decide what you want to know me as.

Many people think of Gary as a wine guy. I prefer to think of him as an entrepreneur that's got a ton of passion and good ideas. Thanks to Gary for kickstarting my day. Enjoy.

If Santa was an Internet Marketer He'd Love Rich Schefren

Wow, Rich Schefren has really been flooding our inbox with free stuff! I can't keep up.

In the last little while he has put up his complete marketing and launch model, an interview from Jay Abraham with real people that have used Rich's teaching methods, a swipe file of attention getting phrases, the Attention Age Doctrine 2, an interview with Wine Library TV's Gary Vaynerchuk, and so much more. All the while he's been able to answer the direct questions people have for him on his blog (I'm sure he's got a hard working team helping him out too).

All this is to capture your attention in an attempt to build his reputation with the Internet Marketing community (as if he needed any more) to demonstrate the value in his Business Acceleration Program. Well, congratulations Rich, you've managed to provide obscene value to everyone.

Santa wishes he could be so giving.

Vote for me video - Thanks Katlyn!

My wife Katlyn put together this video to show people how to vote for me. I need your Diggs by the end of the day Friday December 14. Your Diggs could send me to Florida with $1000 cash for an Internet Marketing seminar that would kick-start our business. So watch the video and follow these instructions:

Digg Signup Process
1. Sign up for your free Digg account at: http://digg.com/register/
2. Check for an email from Digg and confirm your account by clicking the link in the email
3. Click “No Thanks. I’ll do this later.”
4. Go to http://www.strategicprofits.com/66-seconds-compelling/sean-stefan and vote for my video by clicking the Digg button next to it.

66 Seconds Video Contest - Vote For Sean Stefan's Video!

The 66 seconds video contest is finally into the voting stages and I need your help! Please visit this link http://www.strategicprofits.com/66-seconds-compelling/sean-stefan/ and vote for my video by Digging and Sphinning it.

The winner gets (among other things) a trip to Florida to attend a huge Internet marketing seminar that I know would help our business grow leaps and bounds.

So if you know me, or if you don't, I'd really appreciate your votes.

http://www.strategicprofits.com/66-seconds-compelling/sean-stefan/

Thank you!

First Page Google Results in Days - Not Months!

The online conversation lately has revolved around Rich Schefren's Attention Age Doctrine 2. As you know if you've been to this blog lately, I've been trying to borrow the attention of Rich's audience to promote our free e-book, Changing the Way You Market Your Small Business.

Well, we've turned up on the first page of Google for the search term "Attention Age Doctrine 2" for one of our videos. I got this Google ranking in a couple of days, not the months that it usually takes to get highly competitive search engine listings. Check out the results in the video below.

Rich Schefren is watching you watching him

Rich Schefren is eavesdropping on the Internet.

Rich Schefren and his Strategic Profits team have come up with a neat tool for monitoring the online conversation going on about you, your company, your competitors, or anything else for that matter. You can read more about it at the Strategic Profit's Blog.

I'm still sorting it out.

My Dad the Restaurant Marketing Maven

My Dad Randy Stefan and I are in business together. He actually started this business long before I got involved, but brought me on board when I got close to finishing my B.B.A and no one else would hire me. I just get to be the face of our company's online presence most of the time because I've taken it upon myself to become the Internet guy. But that's all about to change.

After reading the Attention Age Doctrine 2 and listening to the interview Rich Schefren did with wine guru Gary Vaynerchuk, both my Dad and I were captivated by the possibilities of becoming mavens. My quest has been to turn our LRS Consulting operation into the place that traditional small business owners turn when they realize that they need to take advantage of the Internet to promote their businesses, products, and services. Randy took the idea and applied it to one of the niche's we operate in - restaurant marketing for high end, special occassion, independently owned restaurants.

Taking the model Gary Vaynerchuk uses to help wine drinkers everywhere, my Dad has started his own video blog for our Restaurant Marketing.ca operation. Our goal with this aspect of our company is to help independent restaurant owners compete with national chain restaurants by communicating directly with their customers, building relationships, and giving people a reason to visit more often. His first video installment is below. I think he's got something good here, and restaurant owners around the world will benefit from the ideas he will share in his video blog.

P.S. The site might not be live yet, but his video blogs will all be hosted at http://www.restaurantmarketingblog.ca/.

Why I've been promoting Rich Schefren's Attention Age Doctrine 2

Hopefully this video clears it up for anyone wondering why I've been promoting Rich Schefren's Attention Age Doctrine 2 so much.

P.S. This video comes up on the first page of Google for the search term "Attention Age Doctrine 2" and "Borrowing Attention".

More Attention for Sean Stefan's Doctrine 2 Promo Video

Linked-inEntrepreneurs.com thought enough of my Doctrine 2 promo video that they included it in their list of top 25 Rich Schefren Attention Age Doctrine 2 videos. Thanks for the comment on my video and for including me in the list V. Consider this link back to your post my way of saying thanks.

If you haven't seen my snowman Doctrine 2 promotional video yet, you can watch it below. I'd love to hear your comments, and when it comes time to vote - vote for me!

My Attention Age Doctrine 2 Video Results on Tube Mogul

The nice folks at Strategic Profits led me to a relatively new (I think) video uploading tool - Tube Mogul. It's a great tool that allows you to upload your video once to a bunch of different video hosting sites. Not only does it save you time in the uploading process, it provides an analytics dashboard for you to track views of your videos on all the different hosting services.

As you know if you've seen my last few posts, I'm plugging Rich Schefren's Attention Age Doctrine 2 through his 66 seconds video contest. I'm monitoring the progress as kind of a case study of how the whole Web 2.0 platform can capture attention. Rich's Doctrine 2 has really made me think about how all the tools on the Internet can be used together to create powerful promotions.

The video below demonstrates the results I've got for my Doctrine 2 promo video, simply by borrowing the attention Rich has right now in the online conversation. Check out the views (151 in 2 days).

I challenge you to think of ways you can use video and Web 2.0 applications to borrow attention or create it for yourself.

Rich Schefren's Doctrine 2 Google Search Results

I've been promoting Rich Schefren's Attention Age Doctrine 2 through his 66 Seconds Video Contest "Become an Internet Video Maven". I uploaded my video for the contest on Saturday, December 8th just after lunch sometime. I recorded the video below at about 11 am on Monday. It shows how fast video gets indexed in the search engines.

If these simple results don't get you the least be interested in finding out what video can do for your business, I don't know what will. My videos and blog even out rank Joel Comm's website for the term "Rich Schefren's Doctrine 2" (no quotes necessary).

All this promotion I'm doing is to share the free report Rich is offering, The Attention Age Doctrine 2, with as many people as possible. If you are at all interested in marketing, the Doctrine 2 is a must read. The document and a phone call recording Rich did with Gary Vaynerchuk motivated me to change the way we approach using the Internet to promote our business and our client's businesses, so I feel obligated to promote his free report so others can be motivated just like me.

I'm also trying to put Rich's techniques into practice by borrowing attention from people that have it - and Rich certainly has it. Watch the screen capture video below to see my Google results, or watch it at YouTube.

Rich Schefren's Attention Age Doctrine 2 Video Promotion

Rich Schefren's Attention Age Doctrine 2 is a free report out just a few weeks ago and is receiving huge attention in the online marketing community. Rich Schefren is the guy internet marketers turn to when they need advice. He has built his business Strategic Profits into a multi million dollar company in a few short years by distributing great free online content.

To promote The Attention Age Doctrine 2, Rich and his team have put together a video contest asking his subscribers to create a 66 second video talking about the things they took away from reading Doctrine 2, and what they are going to do with the information. The video is also intended to get others to download The Attention Age Doctrine 2.

I thought this was a great idea on a number of different levels. First, Strategic Profits really gets how valuable viral video can be for publicity and to gain links to their website. Second, I thought it was a great idea to put to use what Rich was talking about in the Doctrine 2 - borrowing attention from people that have it. So that's exactly what I'm doing.

I created a video to enter the contest. Of course I'll try to get tons of votes to win this thing because it's -30 degrees celcius here today and one of the prizes is the chance to attend an amazing marketing seminar in Florida. But I'm also using the attention this video will generate to promote my own free products at our website www.lrsconsulting.ca. I have a ton of ideas that I think are great, but unless others get to hear them those ideas are useless.

So I'm doing what Rich said, find out who has the attention and leverage it to help your own ventures. Well, right now Rich Schefren has everyone's attention online so I'm going to borrow some. I'll have more to say in the coming days about this whole experience. It's been a lot of fun.

The video I submitted appears below. Please visit it at YouTube and leave your comments, or simply comment on this blog post.

Rich Schefren's Doctrine 2 is finally here

We've been waiting for it since June. Read it. It's a must read for any business owner, online or off.

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