I walked into one of the nicest hotels in Chicago carrying a little box, a monitor under my arm, and wheeling behind me another box. I was going to be a vendor at an international marketing conference starting the next day. As I walk down the hallway, I passed other vendors setting up their booths (mine was near the end). I looked at their monster size banners, pretty graphics, and stuff they have all over their tables.

“Um…” I thought to myself, feeling awkward. This was my first conference as a vendor, and I didn’t have fancy banners, pretty graphics, nor tons of stuff.

I humbly walked to my table and began unpacking…there wasn’t much to unpack. I setup and tried to admire it… I have to admit, I felt embarrassed. I soon brushed that off as I knew I wasn’t here to have pretty graphics, I was here to change my business.

I took with me three other businessmen to work the booth with me. Our team of four, over the following three days, CRUSHED it. We ROCKED. We had the busiest booth at the conference. We had people all around constantly coming up and engaging in conversation. We would give them our brochures, tell them about how Facebook can improve their business, and show them examples on our monitor.

The results? My business now has clients coast to coast and in three different countries. And…I’m charging over $1,000 more in each sale than when I started doing fan pages. As of Tuesday I have officially tripled my business in 2011.

I’m a 21-year-old, Kelley School of Business drop-out, with no long track record to talk about. But no one cares about age, degrees or lengthy track records.

You can triple your business and do far more than me. Here are 3 keys as to why I succeeded that YOU can replicate:

1. Project yourself as as THE expert. My sales coach once told me, “To be perceived as an expert means you have to know more about the subject material than the people you’re talking to.” You don’t have to spend 10,000 hours literally becoming an expert, you ARE an expert to some people. What you need to do is find your audience. With that said, you do need to understand what you’re talking about and bring great ideas to the table that will change others’ lives.

2. Be confident. People want to buy from someone who is confident about what they’re selling. People want to know that you’ll lead the way. Focus on what you do know and that you and your team will GET IT DONE. No one knew I had never done a conference before because my team and I were confident. People want to follow people who know what they’re doing and it’s your job to instill that confidence.

3. Focus on the RIGHT things. Don’t get caught up in the pretty, feel-good stuff that everyone says you “need.” I promise you that had I talked to a company that does pretty graphics, they would have told me I had to have a-b-c-d-e-f-g-h-i-j-k-l-m-n-o-p-q-r-s-t-u-v-w-x-y-z stuff to have a successful booth. I had the most successful booth and I had the most simple stuff. It was my team that made the difference. Focus on building your team, on your clients, on growing your business. Don’t get caught up in how pretty things look or what everyone else tells you you should be doing. Identify the key areas on how you can grow your business and income and do THAT. Most people are NOT growing their business like they would like to be. Listen to those who are succeeding.

Luke W Russell
Online Building Blocks – Lead Generation Tools
luke@onlinebuildingblocks.com