Voicewise, you are the man!

-Ken

But you know who I feel for the most? All of those women that can’t get enough of hearing my voice that were going to Seattle just to meet me. Disappointing them, I think, will be the hardest part of this.

-Vlad

If appearance was a reason to go or not go, I wouldn’t be allowed in the door.

Face it, my friend. It is called the “gaping hole” syndrome. When you are absent, there is a gaping hole. The same when Handy Andy did not come to WWPC. There was a “gaping hole” there to.

Can we get by without you? Sure. Will we lament your absence? Definitely.

-Ken

And I don’t get the disappointment that I won’t be there either. I am not that much to look at and it goes downhill from there so I am not sure what the big deal is. I, however, feel I owe a responsibility to my readers to explain why I am not going to something that I used to go to in the past. In the past I pushed SMB Nation aggressively and when people showed up last year and saw that stuff they openly asked me how much $$ I got to tell them to show up – even considering that I was perhaps the only MVP in the audience that paid for his ticket.

Conferences can happen without “Vlad”, believe me, its been done, and this year I’m just not wasting my time or money.

-Vlad

Also FWIW, I’m not going this year simply because the session content does not appeal to me. I only see about 2 or 3 sessions total that I have any interest in. And while networking is certainly an important component of these conferences, it’s a lot of time and money just to have a drink with the people I “see” online every day.

If I hadn’t gone to New Orleans, maybe I’d go to Seattle. And if they do Islandia again next year — and if it’s not just an SBSC-in-a-weekend camp — I might go to that one, too.

What I don’t understand about the reaction here is why everyone seems to think that a conference without Vlad is somehow less of an event. If I were an up-and-comer in the community and I had the opportunity to meet and hear from all the people who WILL be there in September, I don’t think I’d be disappointed in the slightest.

I know, I’m such a giver….

Seriously Vlad. You have so much to give that I hope you reconsider. It won’t be the same.

Our numbers indicate that our profitable accounts are by a ridiculously large margin very established shops that have been around for a while. The newbie ones are the ones that are around for a quarter or two and they disappear.

I know you guys out there think that just because you’ve made it every single other person that tries is going to make it too. Statistically, that is not the case.

-Vlad

Ben