Dublin, Ireland Updates:
HEAPS OF READING HERE...
Hi Guys, Shane here
Greetings from Dublin.
In the hotel right now and have got time to give you a quick overview of the weekend. I will start with BLOODY FANTASTIC! THANK GOD I CAME!
About 800/1000 people came to the Conference over the weekend from all over the world.
The atmosphere was really upbeat! I was able to put faces to the names i met through the skype rooms. Hello Mary Lewis in Spain!!!!!! hello Gerry Ryan!
Met brand new people. Hello Jim and Ann in Cork, Vincent and Mick in Dublin and Patrick Finnegan!!!!!!!!!
The most significant points that stand out for me where: BB Int management have added NEW guys to their team. This is a real strong and very experienced team and I was extremely impressed.
So you have
Chris Smith CEO
Rajit Dixit COO
Lorenzo Guarini- Forgot his title but he was a straight talking Italian Canadian.
David Hooker- (Sensational speaker and British too) His job is International compliance and PR type job. KEY, KEY GUY!
Grant D'eall- International Corporate Trainer.
Stephanie Schlacht Support Training manager.
Friday Night Raj did the Presentation- He really got across two messages- BB is a BROKER and all money BB pays the affilates comes from the money made from advertising. Basically this is NO PONZI scheme.
Friday night everyone headed to the Hotel pub for a traditional irish music session sprinkled with other ballads from across the world. Katy and I met Chris and execs on the way to bed and managed to get a chat and a photo. Then discovered he was in the room next to us!!!!!!!! But the walls were too thick to evesdrop! Sorry I cant upload photos. Don't have the camera lead with me DOH!
SATURDAY- The highlight of the day and the entire weekend was David Hooker. He joined BB about 10 weeks ago. Chris had approached him from day one but he said come back when you are bigger. He was astounded by the growth in 18 months!
His main job is to improve the image of BB and handle all legal stuff in each country. He was extremely funny and an excellent communicator!
His presentation consisted of filling us in completely on how the Blind Network works and how it has 10 major Brokers running it. How BB linked up with the smaller of these Brokers and how now one of the largest Brokers has given green light to link with them. Chris later said that the linking up of software is almost complete and they will soon be good to go.
He also talked about how he tackled the bloggers that were writing negative stuff. One was a friend of his and wanted BB to pay him £900 to correct his negative story!!!! Another one, when offered the chance to come to BB International to see for himself what BB does, declined, and said he was broke! David was terrific at giving us a clear overview of how we make money. This presentation with slides will soon be available in the back office. But if you want to see it live in the next three days he is in the north of England doing this presentation. Details posted below! I would bend over backwards to see him if I was you. If you do you will be so pumped ( to use an Americanism.)
Another key point was that BB was your Business and you need to get to KNOW it properly. So this is the next step. Providing you with the FULL info so that you can explain it to others in simple terms and handle any false hoods they throw at you from negative sites, etc. (BTW BB are now in the position to hire a legal team to handle blatant falsehoods out there in internet land. So badmouthed bloggers beware!)
Raj and Chris and Lorenzo spoke throughout the weekend. David Hooker gave his talk again on the Sunday to the new guys arriving for just that day. Then announced he will have it in the back office soon! Hippeeeee!
Raj and Chris explained in more depth how the publisher is given a flat fee for a length of time on his site and then the Brokers resell and resell that space and can make a massive mark-up on the site and that's why we can be paid 2x. Raj joked it could be more, but 2x worked.
The thing repeated over and over is that BB is a BROKER. You are a Banners BROKER.
That's why they can pay us a good return guys. This is Brokers money not the money a publisher makes. Its the markup a Broker makes. The publisher gets the flat fee. Its the Broker that knows how to sell the space over and over.
They went into more detail about how ads get placed on sites sometimes changing every minute or 15mins max and then put onto another site. BB is not the advertisier. They don't place the ads. The Advertising-Broker does.
But the future will include us building our own publisher sites and selling advertising on those sites. And Chris talked about his vision of the future to include advertising on all the Ipads, Iphones etc. And also that he wanted to help the little guy make a living and change lives. He also announced we have 265,000 affiliates. Chris also explained that 90% of the money we pay in is used to BUY AD INVENTORY and 10% is used to buy our advertising space for our impressions. This would be corrected based on the following. If an advertisier spent $25 with BB they get 25,000 impressions. So that means $1= 1000 impressions. When we the affiliate spends $10 on a yellow panel we only get 1000 impressions. And if 10% of a $10 yellow panel purchase is used to buy our impressions that = $1 and would fit with the calculation above!!!
Chris also talked about the new Broker offering more to the advertisier. More choices and ad sizes.
He also spoke of the new BB building the bought outright. Its got 24K sqaure feet and will hold the entire BB Int team. The current growing problems of support, and crashing site will soon be thing of the past and to bear with them as they get it all in place.
Sat evening we had a gala dinner and everyone got to dance with Chris. He couldn't get off the dance floor for an hour! LOL and said he had to explain to his wife why he was dancing with 50 women.
It was a totally great night and some got to bed in the wee hours!!!!
There ware also loads of success stories from across the world of how BB has changed peoples lives. In India it has helped the homeless. Others that had lost everything in the recession have built up their lives again.
So to summarize.
Chris, Raj and the whole team were very down to earth approachable people.
Your income comes from the advertisiers NOT each other.
BB is a Broker doing business with other Big Brokers and they make a good markup and can pay well.
BB is expanding and aim to have 1 million BB affiliates this year so they can launch their own platforms and get advertisiers direct!
You own a BB biz and need to get full aware of how it works and are responsible for helping the guy under you.
BB Mission statement:
OUR PROMISE IS TO OPEN THE OPPORTUNITY FOR A NEW WAY TO EARN REVENUE ON-LINE. THIS OPPORTUNITY IS OPEN TO ALL BUSINESSES NO MATTER HOW SMALL AND TO ALL INDIVIDUALS OF ANY INCOME BRACKET.