**Update** The BarCamp Sarasota Fall 2011 event takes place October 15-16 at GWIZ. Epiphany Marketing is making presentations there as well. We hope to see you!

I’m writing this from inside an Entrepreneurial Roundtable session being facilitated by locally-based technologist Stan Schultes. The ideas being generated within this “open source” group of people are absolutely stellar. There are folks in the room who have been there, done it, and are looking for an opportunity to share back and forth.

This is just one example of the benefits of having an event like BarCamp Sarasota. This year’s event is being held this weekend at GWIZ, which turns out to be a perfect venue because of their various small rooms that seem ideally suited for sessions like those you’ll find at a BarCamp event. The sessions are on a wide variety of topics — both technology-focused and otherwise. Skimming through upcoming session for today, here are some of the topics on the menu:

• “Leadership and Community Building, Why Now More than Ever?” with Sara Hand
• “The Zen of Building Sustainable Technology” with Lorrie Vervoordt
• “Programming Humans” with  Tracy Ingram
• “Facebook Marketing & SEO” with Thao Tran

At 11am, we’ll be presenting…

Making It All Pay: Growing Your Business with 21st Century Tools

Yes… technology is great! We love it… but without a comprehensive, written, measurable strategy in place, most every business will find themselves floundering in a sea of unfinished initiatives — nearly all of which have failed to produce any significant result from a business standpoint.

For example… how many businesses have websites, blogs, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, etc. but can’t point to any new business that they have produced? Or (perhaps worse) know that some business has been produced, but the metrics aren’t in place to identify how much and from which initiatives.

So… we’ll be talking about the strategy piece of the equation… and lining up all the elements in a way that gets you the result you desire. For most businesses, this means new customers, bigger  market share and long-term profitability.

Hope you join us for our session… More reports from this year’s BarCamp event later!

Sarasota Opera House

It’s widely accepted that Sarasota is a city of the arts. Dating back to the days of John Ringling, the arts are in our DNA. And since we have such a focus on the arts, it stands to reason that some spectacular opportunities exist for our children to be exposed to the stage from an early age.

Julie Rohr Academy’s recent production of “Music Man” is a perfect example.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a little biased. But as I often say when I talk about how gorgeous and talented my wife is, “Just because I’m biased, it doesn’t mean I’m wrong!”

Here’s why I’m biased: my daughter was in the show.

But here’s why I’m not wrong: my daughter (who is just wrapping up Pre-K) has had the most amazing experiences on stage this year in her time at Julie Rohr Academy. The school — the Sarasota private school with a performing arts focus — produces 4 shows each year. Each class is involved in each show in some way. And I’ll admit, most of the shows are parent-pleasers that feature the children singing, dancing, and otherwise enjoying themselves on stage for a production that you may not want to invite your friends and neighbors to… but the grandparents wouldn’t miss for the world!

“Music Man,” however, was quite the opposite.

In fact, aside from their diminutive stature, you’d have never guessed that not one of the kids in the show was yet out of the 8th grade. The school did cast a handful of adults in some parts — mostly as “extras” and members of the barbershop-style singing group. But all of the lead parts were played by the school’s students. And they were absolutely stellar.

Heading up the cast, and handling an enormous volume of lines, singing parts & stage time, were the young Bryce Vokus as Harold Hill and Kristina LePage in the role of Marian Paroo. Keep an eye out for the two of them — as well as many of the other young performers — they’ve got a future! Every last young man and lady in the production demonstrated a tremendous amount of poise and excellence in their work.

In addition to the excellent performances from the school’s students, the Center for Musical Theater at Julie Rohr Academy ponied up for a fantastic venue (the gorgeous Sarasota Opera House) and some amazing sets in order to produce this year’s big final show.

The school has a tradition of putting on one big show like this at the end of the year. And I’ll admit, never having previously had a child enrolled at the school… I would have been unlikely to attend one of them. But after what I witnessed this year, I’d go back any time for one of this school’s productions… regardless of whether I have a child of my own in the show or not.

Big kudos to Julie Rohr McHugh, the Center for Musical Theater at Julie Rohr Academy, and the family of teachers, faculty, staff, and parents for doing something that Sarasota can truly be proud of… and something the kids who were involved will never forget. It was no small undertaking.

Yes… I’m a proud papa. My daughter was (of course) the cutest 5-year-old who ever existed on stage in her period costume… bellowing out “76 Trombones” at the top of her lungs. But it brings tears to my eyes to think about all those kids who have learned so much from their experiences putting on shows like this one with Julie Rohr Academy. The school is truly an asset to our great city.

I have no idea what’s on tap for next year’s production. But I can’t wait!

Just in case you haven’t heard about this yet, I wanted to make you aware that the venue for the Get Motivated Seminar in Sarasota on May 14th, 2009 has been changed. Our previous post mentioned the originally-scheduled location (which was Robarts Arena on Fruitville Road.)

The event is now officially taking place at the Sarasota-Bradenton International Convention Center at 8005 15th Street East, Sarasota.

That location is on the east side of the Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport on the road known as “Old 301.” Since it’s North of University Parkway, the site is technically in Manatee County.  And since I’m not connected in any official capacity with this event or with its promoters, I can tell you what they can’t: the building is the former location of Sam’s Club. For those of us who have been in the area for a little while, that can certainly help!

Here’s a map for you.

The official schedule says the event runs on Thursday, May 14th from 8:00am – 5:00pm. Doors open at 6:45am. I’m guessing that you’ll still be able to get in if you haven’t already purchased a ticket, but it may be worth a call to the Peter Lowe organization just to be certain: (800) 248-7640.

See you there!

**UPDATE** The Get Motivated Seminar in Sarasota on May 14th, 2009 has moved to a new location. The event will be held at the Sarasota-Bradenton International Convention Center. Details here.

World-famous motivational speaker Zig Ziglar is coming to Sarasota on May 14th

No matter what your business or occupation, getting ahead and being successful requires a steady diet of good mental and emotional fuel. Having a great attitude — something so critical, especially in a tough economic environment — isn’t something most of us are going to be consistently good at without some outside input.

So… I’m looking forward to next week’s “Get Motivated” seminar. Formerly known as the Peter Lowe Success Seminar, this event has begun making the rounds to smaller venues in the last several years. And it’s great to see the whole crew coming to Robarts Arena the Sarasota-Bradenton International Convention Center in Sarasota on May 14th.

In particular, I’m excited to see one of our clients, Zig Ziglar. Zig will be focusing on “How To Stay Motivated,” which is one of his all-time most impactful messages. Since his head injury a couple of years ago, Zig’s short-term memory has been affected. So, expect him to be onstage with his daughter, Julie, for an interview-style presentation. This configuration has been extremely well-received by audiences all over the nation since they started doing it, and it should be the highlight of the day.

Also in the lineup:

• Sarasota’s own Dick Vitale
• Dr. Robert Schuller
• Governor Rudy Giuliani
• Dr. Earl Mindell,
• and, Tamara Lowe (wife of Peter Lowe), who is speaking in support of her new book, Get Motivated, which she co-authored with Giuliani

Should be a great day. According to the literature that came in the mail, admission can be had for only $4.95 for an individual, or you can bring “the whole office” for $19. The registration number is (800) 248-7640. Tell ‘em we sent you!

See you on Thursday, May 14th!

Gary Keesee at the Now Revolution Conference

Just flew back in yesterday from this weekend’s “Now Revolution Conference” in Columbus, Ohio, where it was my honor to have the opportunity meet with quite a few entrepreneurs, business owners, and future business owners to talk about marketing in the 21st Century.

My wife and I met Gary and Drenda Keesee last year when they were in town for the Sarasota Financial Revolution Conference. Since that time, they’ve completely revamped the conference, giving it a new name and a new focus. They’ve also completed construction on “The Now Center” in New Albany, Ohio — just outside of Columbus. This past weekend, they hosted the first major conference in that facility and it was absolutely stellar.

Gary’s message is targeted at helping individuals discover and pursue their God-given destiny and to unashamedly achieve financial freedom in the process. These are issues that I’m personally very passionate about, which is the reason that we created our Christian entrepreneurship and business excellence events.

I was honored this weekend to share the platform with not just Gary, but the others who had impactful things to share:

• Drenda Keesee — powerhouse in her on right, having journeyed with, encouraged and motivated Gary in their journey from enslavement to financial freedom. Arguably some of the biggest testaments to her own giftings are their children, whom she home-schooled and developed into some significant young people.  After briefly meeting their daughter, Amy, and son, Tom, I can tell you first-hand that they and their siblings are showing signs of greatness.
• Johnny Hocott — a key player in the Forward Financial Group who I met several months ago when he spent some time here in Sarasota. Johnny is focused on developing and training new leaders and I’ve seen firsthand some of the fruit of his labors in some of the people here in our city.
• Mike Healy — a dynamic and compelling motivator and trainer who is clearly out to win! Mike enjoys cagefighting, which I must confess is something I don’t much about… but it sounds, shall we say… violent? Mike and his wife went from getting eviction notices to a 6-figure income in a 12-month time span and has plenty of important things to share with anyone looking to achieve success.

I couldn’t say enough good things about the event staff, from Jason Freudiger and Amy Taylor to the media staff all the way through to the volunteers. The event ran smoothly despite the inevitable last-minute changes and adjustments. Everyone made the experience a pleasant one.

Did We Meet?

If you’re one of the many people I met this past weekend, I have something for you. Leave a quick comment here and let me know who you are so I can e-mail it to you. Also, if you missed the chance to take advantage of the conference specials, I’ll give you a way to do that.

I recently learned that I’d made a bit of a faux pas. I used the word “recession” in an article I was asked to write for the newsletter that Zig Ziglar sends out every week.

It was an honest mistake. I wasn’t aware of his personal — and consequently, their corporate — policy to simply not use that word. It really got me thinking. After all, Zig has been responsible for mentoring and coaching thousands (tens of thousands? more?) of successful people to the top of their game.

So… from here on out, I’m dropping the word. It might seem like a silly or symbolic move, but I had already decided months ago that we — that is me (David Johnson) and my company (Epiphany Marketing) — weren’t participating in it.

So… we officially renamed the event that I’m privileged to be a part of next week with my good friend, Tom Ziglar. It’s new title is:

How to Attract Customers at Low Cost in this Tough Economy

Ziglar Webinar: How to Attract Customers at Low Cost in this Tough Economy

And perhaps a better title would be, “in any economy.” The fact of the matter is that we’ve systemized some processes that any business can use — after all, it’s the very process we’ve used an honed for years in our consulting work — to bring in a steady stream of new prospects, clients and customers.

Sound good? You can do it.

In fact, the Ziglar organization has been kind enough to permit me to invite you to next week’s event.

Go watch the video clip of Zig Ziglar, Tom Ziglar and yours truly, then register. But do it quickly — the space won’t last long!

I’ll see you there next week!

Once question I’ve been asked frequently by friends and business associates is this: “How are you able to help your clients increase revenues when none of our marketing efforts seem to be working as well as they used to work?”

There’s no short, simple answer to this question. And about a year ago, I sat down and tried to figure out the best way to help show our clients, colleagues and friends with small businesses how to put all of this into practice. What resulted was a 12-week marketing training program that we implemented for the first time early this year.

Before getting into more detail, I want to mention that we’re taking the major highlights of this process and presenting them in Sarasota in a half-day seminar on September 27th. Visit Results Now Marketing to find out all about it.

The results have been nothing short of mind-boggling.  Instead of us actually providing services to these businesspeople, we’re simply showing them the process we use. It’s a strategic process, which means that it is transferable and can be adapted to just about any business.

One company put the techniques to work for them and, after having a website for 7 years that never made it anywhere near the top of the search engines, they put a brand new website on the front page of Google (for actual searches that their potential customers would run) in just a matter of a couple of weeks!

(They did it!  We simply showed them how!)

That’s just the beginning… some of the strategies we show have multiplied the revenues in some of our clients within a matter of a few months.

I want to show you how as well. Join us on September 27th for Results Now Marketing in Sarasota.

After this week’s emotional round on American Idol, it’s official, Syesha is in the AI Season 7 Top 3!!  Congratulations, Syesha!!

We’ve already posted our support for this hometown Sarasota girl, but the exciting news this week is that local residents will have a chance to see Syesha tomorrow (Friday, May 9th) when she blazes through on a whirlwind visit to the Gulf Coast of Florida.

Evidently, she’ll be making some stops in the morning on Tampa TV & Radio, but she visits Bradenton (where she’ll receive a key to the city) and then comes to Sarasota for a concert on the gorgeous grounds of the John & Mable Ringling Museum!

According to the Sarasota Convention & Visitors Bureau, the concert is FREE and open to the public!  Park nearby on the New College Campus.  I’d get there early (parking is available at 1pm) for the 3:30PM concert.  It’ll most likely be brief, as she’s got to get back to Hollywood!

If previous seasons are any indication, we should see footage of Syesha’s Homecoming Visit on next week’s American Idol!

*Update (May, 2011): Unfortunately, the downloads we originally linked to are no longer available as The Kingdom Alliance website (see below) has been taken down. We have located this downloadable product available for purchase directly from Gary Keesee’s ministry that can serve as an update to / replacement for the materials we originally recommended here.

This week’s Financial Revolution Conference in Sarasota got underway last night with a powerful kickoff meeting.  Gary and Drenda Keesee shared the emotional story about how they turned the tide on their drastic financial situation — credit cards, finance company loans, IRS debt, medical bills, personal loans from family, mortgages, etc. – and began creating wealth instead.  Gary pointed out that the “switch” for this about face was in their hearts.

The Kingdom Alliance has posted the audio from Gary’s talk (*Update: 5/11/2011, the Kingdom Alliance website is unfortunately no longer available) last night for all to hear at no cost.  It is definitely worth the time to listen to it.  Those who came to the event last night expecting to hear a talk on better money management, budgets and numbers were surprised at what Gary had to say.  Not only did he address the issues of the heart, but he also dealt with what he characterizes as misconceptions that have been perpetuated by church teachings regarding money.  Based upon the content of last night’s talk, the remainder of the conference promises to be significant.

The conference continues with meetings tonight (Friday) at 7pm and Saturday at 9am.  The meetings are being held at the facility belonging to the First Church of the Nazarene, 3375 Fruitville Road in Sarasota.

If you’re not familiar with who they are, The Kingdom Alliance is a group of 5 congregations who have joined forces to increase their impact on the communities of Sarasota & Bradenton.  This type of cooperation among church leadership is quite rare in a landscape filled with competition over what some experts would describe as a dwindling pool of potential congregants.  This is the first community event that they have publicized, and it’s a good taste of things to come!

As most of our faithful readers know, this company was founded as a marketing consultancy. Marketing strategy is and always been our core competency. And, although we’ve done quite a bit of strategic work over the years that has been focused more at leadership and overall performance, in the last 24 months or so, we’ve been doing more strategic marketing work than ever before.

In fact, the work we’ve been doing has been so effective and is in such high demand — particularly among small business owners — that we’ve been forced to bring a shift to our business. Here’s an idea of what I mean:

“When David told me that I could start using the internet as a primary method for marketing my Neurology practice and obtaining new patients, I didn’t believe him. I did not understand the power of the Internet in reaching thousands of people daily with information about my business and services we provide. However, having prior experience of working with Dave, where he made outrageous claims that I didn’t believe, I proceeded with designing a completely new website and blog site.

His predictions came true, where now my Internet presence is responsible for a large number of new referrals. The initial investment cost of the project was rapidly recouped and as an ongoing service, my website has added significant revenue to my annual bottom line. Within 6 months of implementation, I was ranked on the top four pages of Google. Almost 50% of my new patients were (and are) coming in after finding me on the web. I was a busy physician when I started down this road – but I was able to use the techniques he showed me to make my business even more successful. With the excellent response to the website, I have been able to cut our yellow pages advertising budget by fifty percent. David is a skilled IT person and is very knowledgeable about marketing and creative uses of the Internet.”

- V. Daniel Kassicieh, D.O., founder of Sarasota Neurology, P.A.

One client (with a well-established business) multiplied revenues by a factor of 5 just last year alone!

We’re having such tremendous results that we recognize the need to share what we know. The good news is that any business person can implement these strategies right away.

So… I have 2 critical announcements to make.

1. Effective January 1, 2008, we have no longer been offering any consulting services not related to marketing. The epiphanyconsulting.net site will be redesigned (when we have time) to reflect that change.
2. We are formally announcing that we are not accepting new Epiphany Marketing clients at this time. The EpiphanyMarketing.com site has already been changed to reflect this fact. We will continue to evaluate new strategic marketing projects only from existing clients and Epiphany Marketing subscribers on a first-come, first-served basis.
3. This means that the best way to access what we know is to participate in one of our training programs. A new round of these is starting up shortly.

Consider this your personal invitation to join me and my good friend (and client) Michael Pink on a conference call this Thursday or Friday. There are currently 4 time slots to choose from, but a couple of them are already nearly full (we can only accommodate 200 callers on each call), because Michael has been inviting people through his blog. We will consider adding additional slots if these fill up completely.

Here’s where to go sign up for these important calls.

I look forward to talking with you very soon!