National Achievers Congress 2019

This week I had the pleasure of attending the National Achievers Congress 2019 at Resorts World Birmingham. As part of my role as director of a marketing agency, I try to ensure I get to as many events relative to my sector and when I saw the line up of speakers, there was no way I was going to let this one pass!

There are shed loads of people on social media, suggesting they can help you to make billions, just by doing A,B,C (plus sending them payment of a couple of grand!) and watching a few webinars. But amongst all these people are a handful who have ACTUALLY done what they are suggesting and have made fortunes in the process.

Most tend to be larger than life Americans, which I personally tended to cringe at when watching videos of them etc, but the actual content I have found so interesting and have picked up on bits and pieces of what’s been said and put into action within my own strategies, which have really helped to grow our business.

2 of them were headlining at the NAC19 event, so off to Birmingham I trotted, with the same kind of excitement usually reserved for seeing one of my face bands in concert. 5000+ others packed into the venue, full of anticipation for what we were about to witness.

Grant Cardone and Gary Vaynerchuk were the 2 that I really wanted to see, with a couple of others I was aware of from social media, without ever really watching them in great detail. There are only so many minutes in a day!

Grants’ wife Elena did a slot, just prior to hubby taking the stage. I found her talk fantastic as, amongst other topics, she explained her thoughts on the role of a wife of an (initially) penniless drug addict, who has become worth billions of dollars via marketing and real estate, explaining how she feels that love, is allowing your partner to do what they need to do, without nagging them to be home at a certain time or not working weekends etc.

“People want you to think that love is sitting on a sofa, watching Game of Thrones, putting your phone up and devoting attention to the one sitting next to you and that if you do enough, have gotten enough time of that, that’s love”.

I found this really powerful. Whilst I also believe there needs to be balance in a relationship, at certain times, business needs to be at the forefront, if we are wanting the business to succeed. If this means having to work long hours or having to rearrange a social event to attend a meeting, then this should be allowed, in my mind anyway!!

Grant arrived on stage to an amazing welcome, hardly surprising given his millions of followers worldwide. He is the ultimate showman, really challenging us Brits to keep shouting out HEY and his catchphrase 10X. He did say that he welcomed the lack of ‘whoop whoop’ shown by our Yank brethren, appreciating us listening intently and making lots of notes.

Grant covered many topics from the importance of reinvesting money over and over again, why saving for a rainy day is pathetic and much about real estate.

He was really passionate about the NEED for marketing, to ensure your business stays in people’s minds.

“What is the cost of NOT marketing?
It is the number one reason and the number two reason businesses fail. And it’s got nothing to do with the product or manufacturing or the cost of operations.
Number one, I don’t know you.
And number two, I forgot.”

He was suggesting to utilise the likes of Facebook ads. Spend £1 to make £2 back and keep on repeating whilst increasing the spend.

Last but by NO means least, the star of the show, Gary Vee!! He has single-handedly changed millions of people’s outlook on social media and marketing in general, plus the need to hustle, hustle, hustle to make your business succeed. He doesn’t suffer fools and says it EXACTLY as it is and I find him a real inspiration in both my business and my life in general.

Most of his fans there agree that his talk was the least beneficial, not because the content was poor, but because we consume his content so frequently (me on a daily basis) that much of what he talked about, we have heard many times before. That isn’t to say he didn’t entertain, because he did, and to just be in the same arena as he was a real pleasure!

So, a thoroughly enjoyable time was had by all, capped off by a chance bumping into and a brief chat with Elena and Grant Cardone in a restaurant after the event!