MAKING DEALS AT CONFERENCES "Colin - You're going to have to add an addendum to Building and Empire regarding discussing deals while hot tubbing and throwing back a few cold ones. Great to see you, bro." - RB, CEO - Max Cash I had a little trouble "going to press" with this installment of "Building an Empire" as I had to reveal specific details of deals that were made. I don't think the timing for this could be any better, however. Hot off the CybernetExpo and with ia2000 coming in September. It is a good time to reflect on what you have and CAN accomplish. Spend your money and go to a conference. The time is NOW to network. Why even GO to a conference unless you are planning to make a few deals? The large majority of us have sites that are already ready for a deal or two to help promote it. The structure of the deal is limited only by your ingenuity. Just got back from CybernetExpo in New Orleans and have had a little time to reflect on what I accomplished. Here are a few thoughts: We have a new site, Colins Links, that just launched. We went and spoke with CEN about doing an exclusive deal that we have dubbed "CEN Premier Listings" In exchange for us giving CEN webmasters premier placement in both the new categories and the individual categories, CEN will help promote the site. The strength of the deal is that both parties will gain. They will give us a boost in traffic early on when we need it that will help the site grow and their webmasters will receive traffic immediately upon building a site. We only pursue WIN-WIN deals .. that is, deals in which both parties mutually benefit from the relationship. At the conference I also had the chance to speak to speak with John of InPraise. I have a lot of respect for John and wanted to get a deal done THIS TRIP. I felt that a long-term relationship between his company and mine would benefit us both in the long run. From a mutual contact I knew that John felt likewise. We have a new project launching this summer that has an excellent chance of having a significant effect on the adult web. We're holding a patent for it and believe it will be impossible for competition to come against us on it. John and I discussed a marketing agreement whereas he will promote the new program to his numerous webmasters in exchange for sending a certain % of the clicks generated through his webmaster program. We made similar deals before the conference with Pregnant Pics, Zooted (gay sites), and Centerfold Gold. We were also able to complete a deal with "koko" for his team to program the entire project in exchange for a percentage of the profits. For him, he puts up very little capital/time and gets a percentage of the profits, for us, we get an experienced team that will give us a great product with no cash outflow/wasted time. Even further, we had a chance to speak with a number of major players about marketing agreements for our new site, Colins Thumbs. As of yet we cannot announce details. Currently, we are looking for TGP players to make more deals with. Check out the details at Colins Thumbs - announcement. Making minor announcements like this in the webmaster sections of your sites can sometimes bring surprisingly lucrative deals. In retrospect, I think it is important when you go to a conference, as you meet each webmaster, to think of how their empire fits with your yours. What do you have to offer them, what do they have to offer you? And then .. make the most fair and equitable deal possible. We have never had to haggle over details of an offer. At the start, we offer something that will improve both of our positions. Note: Some of these projects were later abandoned in favor of new more promising ones.