A Skeptic Breaks Down the Conference Gurus – Surprise Results

I posted earlier about some of the tidbits I took away from the 2010 Growth 2.0 Conference presented by Entrepreneur Magazine.  It was a great event and there were some really impressive speakers who caused me to take pages of notes.  However, I have a nasty habit.  That habit is that I am a skeptic at heart.  Now, you’ll notice I didn’t say cynic.  The cynic pre-supposes the glass if half full and doesn’t bother to check.  The skeptic, on the other hand, simply wants to know how much fluid is in the glass so he can verify the volume for himself.

Many of the speakers I listened to at the event discussed marketing.  They presented some very good ideas, concepts, and techniques.  So when I got back to the office, I did a quick gut check on each of the sources (just like a god skeptic should).  I queried each of the website addresses of three of the conference speakers into an analytics program at http://www.compete.com. Compete tracks the website usage of more than 2 million people, and then extrapolates the results to estimate how much traffic a specific website is generating.  It is not an exact science and it is subject to the flow of statistics.  However, it is a great tool if you want to analyze who your biggest competitors are or how “big” someone’s site might be.

Compete.com shot back some very interesting stats.

First, I inputted StarrHall.com. This site is operated by none other than -  Starr Hall.  She is the author of “GET CONNECTED-The Social Networking Toolkit for Businesses” and she presented a session at the conference entitled “Internet Power Marketing”.

Next, I put in gmarketing.com, which is owned by Jay Conrad Levinson.  Mr. Levinson has authored several Guerrilla Marketing books.  In fact, I remember buying his first book in the early 90’s.

Last, I entered WomenOnBusiness.com, which is operated by Susan Gunelis.  Ms. Gunelis ran a session called “Build Your Brand, Build Your Business”.  She is the author of 5 books including “Blogging for dummies”.

After entering these websites into Compete.com, I took an average of the website traffic estimates for each site during the last three months.  Here are the results:

1.  Gmarketing.com by Levinson – average 8,284 unique visitors per month

2.  WomenOnBusiness.com by Gunelis – average 2,822 unique visitors per month

3.  StarrHall.com by Hall – average 925 unique visitors per month

The results weren’t terribly surprising.  Levinson has been around for years and is a marketing icon.  However, what was surprising was the lady who surpassed all these speakers.  I listened to her at lunch.  She wasn’t a key note speaker, but was rather one of my lunch mates.  Her name is Valerie Young and she runs a website called http://www.changingcourse.com .  Her business is focused on “living life with a purpose, working at what you love, and following your own road.
Valerie’s website was estimated to attract 8,688 unique visitors per month.

That was more than Levinson. It was also more than the other two speakers combined!

Now, I know that website traffic is just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to  marketing.  I also realize that website traffic does not automatically equate to profits.  However, I took two things away from this quick analysis:

1) Maybe the gap between us and the gurus we admire isn’t as wide as we think.
2) Gurus can indeed be found on stage, but if you look carefully, you might just find one sitting across from you as well.

By the way, the guru behind the camera who took the picture shown above is Valerie Young.