Behind the Scenes

Entrepreneurs Ladies Night: Behind the Scenes at Marketing Impact Live!

by Ezra Firestone



There’s just no other event quite like Chalene Johnson’s Marketing Impact Live.

Because in addition to being some of the most driven entrepreneurs I’ve ever met, 90% of her community is female.

And in the 9 years I’ve been speaking at events, I’ve never experienced a group as energized as this one.

Most of the folks here are creating their first business — and I forgot how exciting that is!

When 1,000 entrepreneurs come together to change their lives for the better, you can’t help but get inspired.

And in this video, I want to share some of that entrepreneurial energy with you and take you behind the scenes to interview some of the experts.

Video Highlights:
2:14 If you are going to get involved in a business today, ecommence is the way to go
3:34 No matter where you are, make sure you are taking advantage of the social media opportunities
4:47 Inspiration and motivation are unbelievably important
6:01 Video content allows a brand to connect with their audience
8:00 Get out to an event


Click Here For Video Transcript

Ezra: It’s ladies night, and it feels all right. I don’t know how that song goes. But I do know that it’s Entrepreneur Ladies Night right now. I’m at Chalene Johnson’s Marketing Impact Live and I try to get in on Ladies Night any chance I can. Anytime Kerry will let me. Obviously, you’ve got to respect Ladies Night. And not be trying to be a dude in Ladies Night when you’re not welcome. But sometimes you are welcome and it’s great. This event is like 95% women, which is really uncommon in our industry, to have a marketing event that’s mostly women. It’s super cool.
I’ve been speaking at these events for eight or nine years now, and generally, it’s mostly dudes. And so, it’s really nice to see so many switched on, hungry, enthusiastic women going for it with entrepreneurship.

One of the other things about this event, it’s like 70% people who are just getting their start, just looking for an opportunity. I speak mostly at events that are…with big people that already have businesses. And you forget, or at least I forgot, the energy that comes with that desire for something new. That motivation to change your situation and become an entrepreneur or find a business opportunity that you can be a part of. It’s super infectious. You feel it. It’s real. People are dancing, it’s a whole thing. And it’s reminded me of what it felt like to get started.

And I see this thing happen, with people, where it’s like the first content that you engage with. This event is a lot of inspiration and motivation. It’s also tactics and strategy. But a lot of it is inspiring people. Showing them what’s possible. Motivating them and letting them know they can change their situation. They could have something drastically different. Something drastically more than what they currently have. And it starts with a mindset shift. It starts with changing your mind about what’s possible. And for me, it’s infectious.It’s really awesome. And I’d forgotten about that energy. So, I’m gonna take you around and I’m going to show you some footage of it. Hopefully, interview some people. Maybe give you a chance to feel a little bit of the motivational energy that comes from 1000 people, coming out and saying, “This is what we want. This is our desire.” It’s really powerful.

So, I’m excited to be here. I’ll get to speak and talk a little bit about e-commerce and what I’m doing and hopefully inspire some folks to choose that path. Because my viewpoint is that, if you’re gonna get involved in a business today, right now, starting from scratch, e-commerce is the way to go for a number of reasons. It’s the best business model, I think. As someone who sells informational products and sells software and does speaking, e-commerce is my baby. I love it. It’s my favorite business model. It’s the easiest one I find to scale and grow and build a real system around. So, let’s go take a look.

I’m here with the natural Nicole Walters. Inside joke. Nicole just gave me some advice, which…I offered her the mic and she said…

Nicole: Never give your mic away.

Ezra: Never give it away. Because why?

Nicole: Why? Because you’re in control. It’s your show.

Ezra: It’s my show. All right. Let’s remember that. So, Nicole is the emcee here at this event and I was really impressed with… When you see someone presenting, you can immediately tell how comfortable they are. And you are extremely comfortable. Aside from your whole schtick, you’re funny, you’ve got a whole thing but you’re comfortable. And that is hard to achieve. So, I’m wondering, how did you get there, for one, and what is your advice if someone is not comfortable presenting?

Nicole: Sure. Absolutely. So, it’s two-fold. The first thing is, practice makes perfect. So, if you go live from home, it’ll prepare you to go live from stage. So, no matter where you are, just make sure that you’re taking advantage of the social media opportunities to be engaged, to talk to people. To get feedback and then practice, practice, practice. So, that’s the first part. The second part is, I believe that I have a mission, a calling, and a purpose. And there’s nothing that scares me more than keeping that inside. And the fear of keeping that inside is a whole lot worse than the fear of getting on stage in front of a bunch of people. So, no matter what, I get up there, sweaty pits, all the nerves and I make it happen.

Ezra: Natural Nicole Walters. The one take wonder. That was just, bam! Thank you so much.

Nicole: Thanks. You’re the best.

Ezra: I’m here with jumping Bret Johnson, ladies, and gentlemen, one of the creators of Marketing Impact Live. Number one, why did you create this event and number two, what are you hoping that people will get out of it?

Bret: So, the first reason why we do the event is because it’s an online course, but we also feel that there’s something powerful about putting 800, 1000 people in a room for 3 straight days. It’s something about being here kinda jump starts people. And we know that. We’ve heard that.

Ezra: It gives you that focus.

Bret: Yeah. And just maybe that last little push. Maybe the confidence to actually implement what they’ve learned inside the academy, inside the modules.

Ezra: As cheesy as this might sound, motivation and inspiration, they’re unbelievably important.

Bret: Yes.

Ezra: You need that. You need that push.

Bret: They hear something in somebody else’s story that makes them go, “That can be me.” I think that’s probably another reason why you get this many people together. Because they might not just relate with Chalene on camera and go, “Well, of course, it was easy for you. You created this.” But to see somebody else stand up, and then that person that’s sitting back there that was in their chair goes, “I can do that.” And it just gives them that little push they need.

Ezra: Jumping Bret Johnson, ladies, and gentlemen.

Bret: Thank you so much. You’re gonna kill it today. The guru when it comes to e-commerce and products and I can just keep going on and on about him but he’s got an amazing sizzle reel and I want you to check it out. Ezra Price.

Ezra: I’m here with awesome Alexis Dela Cruz who manages social media for this brand. And social media strategy. When you were thinking about 2018 and what you’re doing for social, what’s your plan?

Alexis: Definitely with 2018, video content is continuing to boost even more. It allows a brand to connect better with their audience. That way, you’re not having these super long copy. People don’t wanna read all of that. hey just kinda wanna scroll through their feed, see something that catches their eye, then automatically wanna be engaged to video. You want it to tell a good story. First of all, storytelling through video, second of all, just really focusing on developing a brand voice.So, when your brand has a pretty solid brand voice, that allows you to connect with your audience a lot better. You’re not talking at them, you’re talking with them. You’re inspiring engagement and conversation and being relatable, and then with that, when you build that connection, then you have…it’s not necessarily just like a follower, you have a friend.

It’s kind of giving your brand a personality. You know most kind of want to think of a celebrity or public figure. You’re like, “Okay. If my brand is gonna be represented by someone, what would they talk like? What would their interests be?” Kinda giving it a persona. If I find a brand I really like, a restaurant I really like, I don’t Google it, I look up their Instagram. I wanna see what other people are capturing there and how they’re receiving it. How they’re experience this brand or product or restaurant. That’s user-generated content, which is also huge for 2018. Always has been.

Ezra: Really cool. You know, if you go to BOOM by Cindy Joseph’s Instagram, you can see that we’ve been putting a lot of attention on this. It’s like people know that you think you’re awesome. But what do other people think about you? I mean, it’s really interesting that’s how you look at brands. Awesome Alexis Dela Cruz. Thank you so much.

Alexis: No problem. Thanks for having me.

Ezra: Chalene Johnson. Not Chaylene Johnson. Don’t get it twisted. Chalene’s husband made sure that I knew that because I was pronouncing it wrong. So, I want you to know that as well, since I pronounced it wrong in the beginning of this video, which I apologize for.

What a great event. So cool. So many people, so inspired. Interesting conversations about ranking videos on YouTube. You know, picking really super long tail keywords and getting videos to rank on YouTube. Conversations about chatbot and messenger marketing. Obviously, I was talking about e-commerce stuff. I think the thesis is get out to an event. If you haven’t been to an event recently, you’re forgetting the inspiration and motivation, and connection and all the good stuff that can come from events. I love coming to these things. And it was super fun to speak here.

Hope to see you. I’ll be at Traffic and Conversion Summit. I’ll be at Ten-X . I’ll be at Conversion Excel and a number of other events that apparently all have ‘X’ in the name. I look forward to seeing you soon. Thanks for your watching this video.