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.

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.

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.

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.

Saskatchewan Bound

LRS Consulting's Sean Stefan and his wife Katlyn were featured in the Calgary Sun on Saturday. You can view the slideshow that went along with the article on the Calgary Sun website here, featuring Premier Lorne Calvert and other Saskatchewan residents, including Sean.

The article is reproduced below, as written by Bill Kaufmann of the Calgary Sun. You can also read it at the Sun website.

Duo moves on to greener greens
UPDATED: 2007-10-06 03:56:05 MST

By BILL KAUFMANN, CALGARY SUN


REGINA -- He's a billboard boy for Regina's prodigal sons and doesn't regret the face time.

Even leading the good life in Calgary's backyard mountain playground wasn't enough to keep Sean Stefan from heading back to his Saskatchewan home town and urging others to do the same in larger-than-life fashion.

A job emceeing a Think Regina event targeting his province's ex-pats in Calgary last May drew the attention of provincial officials seeking a human face for its headhunting forays in Alberta and other provinces.

On billboards posted all over Calgary and Edmonton, a beaming Stefan reaches for a putter amid the come-on "the morning drive in Saskatchewan," mocking the commuting headaches in the Alberta cities.

"I've grown up around golf my whole life," says Stefan, 22, a member of the Regina Regional Economic Development Authority. He was told to be at a Regina golf course at 6 a.m. to exploit the soft natural lighting that graces the Saskjobs.com billboard.

"Now I get Facebook messages and e-mails and phone calls just about every second day from people who see me on their drive ... but we like it here so I don't mind it."

In 2005, Regina native Stefan worked in the pro shop of the Kananaskis Country Golf Course while living near the slopes of Mt. Nakiska.


But he and wife Katlyn -- who was attending college in her hometown of Red Deer -- had come to a crossroads, wondering about their futures while resisting the notion of living in Alberta's bigger cities.

They were living in Regina after Katlyn had transferred to that city's university "and we had to decide whether we'd go back to Alberta or stay here," says Sean.

Added Katlyn: "There's no way I wanted to go to Calgary or Edmonton -- it's too big for me.

"I didn't know anyone in Regina but they convinced me." Last February, the couple was able to purchase a mid-1970s-vintage, 1,100 sq.-ft. bungalow in Regina's northwest Normanview West area for $169,000 -- about half the price they'd pay in Calgary.

At that time, friends thought they'd made a mistake in paying the asking price for the home, but since Regina's real-estate market has taken off, the sentiment's reversed to the incredulous 'you got your house for the asking price?' " says Sean, while relaxing on his backyard deck.

Sean is now employed by his father's marketing firm, working with restaurant clients as far away as Hamilton, while Katlyn majors in accounting at the University of Regina.

"For that job, I get paid in Toronto dollars but pay Saskatchewan bills," he says.

"It's not too expensive here that you have to be part of the elite to do things."

Regina, he says, is small enough that young people like him are able to make a difference they couldn't in a place like Calgary.

"I'm able to work on boards with the mayor, to have a real impact," he says.

While there's "no replacing the mountains," the couple realized during their stay in Alberta they were too busy working to fully enjoy the Rockies' splendour.

"When we visited the mountains, we saw more and did more in six days than we did in all our time living there," he says.

Sean said he has no illusions about the ultimate power of billboards and headhunting sessions.

"You can't pull the wool over peoples' eyes and talk people into coming back to Saskatchewan," he says. "What we do will make people want to know more about it."

When asked about Reginians' perception of Calgary, Katlyn says some views die hard at her adopted city's expense.

"It seems the place where everyone wants to go to make more money -- some of the kids think Regina is a bit of a dead end," she says.

But her husband insists a revival of Regina pride and economic fortune is real.

And the cost of playing a beloved round of golf at the province's best courses is only about $60, he adds.

"Compared to Alberta, that's basically a two-for-one special every day," he says.