Post DCBKK 2017 Reflection – Ripping Off The Bandaid Again

Another year, another DCBKK conference. Always use this as a time to reflect on what I have accomplished since the previous year, “compare” to others in the conference and challenge myself to do even more before the next conference.

Here’s some of what I learned and recap:

Also it is worth noting – the official conference is only 2 days long – Saturday and Sunday – but really I arrived on Monday and there were meetups and activities starting from Tuesday (as we’ll show below)

Tuesday I went to Michael Smith’s introvert meetup – I think I read the description as a mediation or how to do fast and easy networking but it was a good chance to do some much needed “woo woo” things like forming a circle with about 30 other attendees, not speaking, and rotating 30 second or so intervals of staring in each other’s eyes. For me, it made me realize how superficial life is and we are just walking containers of spirits – of thoughts – of desires.

Then an informal SOP meetup was created and we met in the Conrad hotel bar (Diplomat) and shared our work processes and keeping things running smooth. I realized there are a lot of people using similar systems and have some great new contacts to share strategies on making and optimizing SOPs (standard operating procedures).

Tuesday night was the classic “drinky time” Scott Brills puts together just an easy networking time with others at the conference.

Wednesday morning at 10am I attended the self publishers meetup. A round table where we went around the room for about 2 hours introducing ourselves and what we are working on. What books we have written, what our plans are for the future. Nice to see so many other creators in 1 room and spawned a video blog celebrating cretors and surrounding yourself with them.

Wednesday afternoon I went to a SEO workshop with Brie Moreau where he re-ignited my interest in creating content (well, I am always doing so – but justified it more maybe) and I have a new strategy for creating even more content outside of the typical weekly blog strategy.

Later on Wednesday I went to Coran Woodmass’s buying and selling FBA businesses – he is “the” FBA Broker and I got to hear some strategies about funds getting involved and rolling up various smaller Amazon FBA businesses and increasing the multiple of the business.

Then I squeezed in another session with Ben Dziwulski on creating viral videos for Facebook. I am creating a ton of video content – but this one is pretty interesting for a short and creative video that seems to get naturally shared without having to do paid promotion and a lot of pushing. Excited to test this on various projects.

Wednesday night I caught up on work – skipped out on some of the networking and drinking party events. Think I went to sleep pretty early too 😉

Thursday more “informal” meetups – but really they were action packed and felt like part of the formal conference. So many to choose from, but these are the ones I picked;

Lead Generation by Chris Brooks. This guy is a veteran in the organic SEO world doing it since I believe 2001. Lot of local search for home improvement, he has built a business of selling leads to contractors and shared his experiences. It is making me think – as Global From Asia is getting more and more traffic and leads for services I cannot provide. Thing is Asia lead generation is non existent and really early stage but I do like to be in early and see if I can become the lead exchange even!

Thursday lunch I met Michael from Asia Tech Podcast and we recorded a podcast during lunch! Using my Zoom h6 gear at least I was able to record one show in this intense conference.

After lunch on Thursday I had so much trouble choosing between the E-commerce meetup and the Influencer marketing one, but I ended up picking Alex Jimenez from Travel Fashion Girl as she discussed Influencer marketing (KOL in Asia). She catered it towards the Amazon FBA sellers who are looking for influencer marketing to get more exposure and build their brand beyond Amazon.

I then hosted my Podcaster meetup. I was not as prepared to see everyone ready for a full on presentation, I wanted it to be an informal meetup where we shared ideas and worked with other podcasters. The room was about half newbies to podcasting and the other half was full of experienced podcasters. Attempted to record a podcast with Andres from Boutique Japan Travel Agency but was shot down by the attendees. So we talked about my gear, process, and answered a lot of questions about podcasting.

In the same room, I was lucky enough to be able to experience Sylvia’s presentaiotn from 40plusstyle.com on how she has grown her blog to a six figure business. She is based in Singapore too and I really connected with her discussion on the building of her business.

Then at 5:30pm Chris Reynolds shared on goal setting and production. Andy Warner from rippedbody.com came to this session (it was also a session from the morning) to collect his watch – what happened was Chris challenged Andy to do something he had been putting off in the next 24 hours – for $5000usd. Meaning, if Andy didn’t do it – Chris would keep the money. But Andy did it, and the watch was the deposit.

Thursday night was a DC Junto, a meetup of DC’ers every third thurdsay of the month. I took a break from that and instead had some business meetings and talked deals.

Friday was the mastermind sessions. I was at a table of 6 amazing entrepreneurs who were in the information marketing and online course industry. Intense and I got some very critical feedback and perspectives on my business and how I can do a better job at capturing leads and selling all the various products and services I have (Global From Asia). Masterminds are rough for me – as I hate to be analyzed and reviewed and critiqued – so this is why I love Dan Andrew’s statement when he calls it “ripping the band aid off”. Since ours was 6 people (instead of the typical 8) – we ended around 3pm. That gave me a chance to implement a bunch of what was said – mainly simplifying Global From Asia’s homepage and top menu bar.

Then got to have a quick followup meeting with Brie the SEO expert based in Bali. He’s doing some cool SEO conferences I hope to attend in the future, and also got some amazing advise from him on making the site more user friendly to convert cold traffic into purchasing as an impulse buy.

Friday night was the “opening” party (even though I had been through 3 intense days of the conference as far as I was concerned) at the Conrad Pool. Bangkok, Thailand – I was not experiencing the typical party scene – this is a jam packed party of internet entrepreneurs doing amazing things. Carrying my vlog gear, got to connect with a lot of people. Some even had watched some of the video blogs as well as listened to the Global From Asia podcast. Cool to meet people who consume AND ENJOY what I am creating.

Skipped the salsa afterparty (sorry Tina and crew) and got some shut eye for the “official” day 1 of the conference.

Saturday morning we opened with Tommy Griffith, as he shared how he turned his side hustle, Click Minded, and turned it into a 6 figure business. Very fun, entertaining, and educational – my main takeaway from him was that you just do it – make “bad” deals where you price your course too low – get the exposure, get the users, get the experience. And grow from that . Improve and grow.

Then Dan Andrews finally had a speech at his own conference – this is the sixth DCBKK and first time he had a speech. Dan and I do think alike, and he felt what he says and shares is often on his podcast Tropical MBA – but at the conference he shared some of his private perspectives on what he thought he could have done better or differently when he sold his product business a couple years ago.

Lunch time – and those of you who know my diet know it is cheat day (Saturday is Faturday) and piled high the cheesecakes and noodles (carbs).

The afternoon was workshops and we had to make hard decisions again.

I picked more SEO training, and went to Ajay from Outreach Mama – he had a session on how he scaled up his brand new website in 1 year using white hat SEO back linking. It was true, I checked out his ahrefs and he was dominating in just a year from 0. Learned back linking is similar to sales, need to do outreach.

The second session was Dominic Wells who shared on how he manages 200 online freelancers for his content and affiliate site business. I liked this as it is a goal I have as well – to scale up my online team and manage things better as I grow. The story was real and appreciated.

Saturday night I took off with Martin and his wife and son to the night market and had some fun doing something more touristy.

Sunday was the second and final day- I picked Brennan Dunn’s funnel optimization workshop to start my 9:30am Sunday time getting more ideas on how to optimize the …. Under developed current funnels I have.

The second session was a tough choice but went to Neil Napier from Job Rack .eu on how to hire and manage staff in Eastern Europe. But really it was even better than expected as he discussed even managing any online team member and what tools he used. More data and tactics for me to try and implement.

Lunch again, and then the final afternoon session:

Russ Perry from Design Pickle shared his real story,and some real juicy tidbits about his journey. Then he made me realize, the bigger you get, the more people you are going to piss off. And you just can’t worry about that. My main takeaway there.

The final speech was Brennan talking about an automated sales machine with funnels. His evergreen process. Conditions in funnels, just epic stuff that is a lot of work but I am convinced should be a main focus.

And that was “it” – the after party and hyper networking with 300 or so attendees of amazing internet entrepreneurs. Lots to do, and still digesting this – but always learn more when I write up a summary and just data dumping this on my personal blog. Maybe will inspire some of you to take more action and challenge yourself more.