Sep

30

Inside Green Room | 100 Top Internet Marketers Exposed

Filed Under Internet Marketing, Social and Political | 79 Comments

I recently had the pleasure of attending Eben Pagan’s "Green Room" a secret gathering of 100 elite among the top internet marketing movers and shakers.  As I rubbed elbows with my old friends like Mike Filsaime, Stephen Pierce, Ben Mack, Alex Mandossian, Dave Lakhani, Jeff Walker, Jason Moffatt, Ryan Kaltman, Joel Comm, Harris Fellman, Tom Beal, Keith Wellman, Gary Ambrose, Brad Fallon, Tellman and others you’ll no doubt recognize…

…and even more people who I’ve never heard of, like one guy who’s spending $150,000 a DAY on his adwords ads (so I think he probably knows a thing or two)… or a call center owner who has an amazing close ratio…

something became glaringly obvious to me…

I was the only girl there.

Yep, in a rush to get 100 of the top marketers to the event, Eben had forgotten the women. 

it’s important to note, I wasn’t originally invited by Eben directly, my friend Ben Mack weaseled me in with some strong words of suggestion.

Ok, before I go further,I’ll confess to two things.  First, I don’t know if Eben invited any women that chose not to attend.  If so, big mistake on their part.  Second, I wasn’t the "only" women there.  There were 4 more.  Two Eben employees, one bartender and a wife.  Which may go to explaining a little bit of the reception I got at the event.

"Who are you here with?" was the most common first question I was asked by a stranger.  Yep, as if I couldn’t have possibly been there on my own, like they were expecting me to be a wife or employee… or cocktail waitress :)

But mostly, they just ignored me.  They would say hi or introduce themselves to all the men in a group I was standing in, then with much discomfort and pointedness, their eyes would just float over my head, never making eye contact, to go onto the next person.  It was surreal.

Even Eben Pagan himself, when he went up to speak for a few minutes at lunch, addressed the group "gentlemen and gentlemen"… I was sitting within easy eyesight of him. 

Check out this interaction.  I’m still laughing about it.

One guy’s opening line to me was "are you an internet marketer?"

As I glared at him, with my best sneer, I just said, "of course"

He said, "I don’t mean to be sexist but…"

Me: "Then don’t"

He apparently enjoyed this verbal berating, because he sat down next to me and proceeded to enjoy an additional hour of it.  Several times I advised him, "when you find yourself at the bottom of a hole, the first rule of survival is Stop Digging".  He just laughed, then told me I was the most interesting person he had met that weekend, and that I had demonstrated enough worth now that he was interested in knowing more about me.

I kid you not… he said I had demonstrated enough worth. 

I asked him if he had made all of the other marketers in the room jump through the same hoops.  His words said yes as his face told the real truth… of course not.

I’m still laughing at this…

Someone else (I forget exactly who right now) and said, "I was thinking about what I could share with a group of the smartest guys on the Internet"

Now, I’ll admit, I’m more "one of the guys" then most of the guys are… but still… I was amused.

Thankfully, I’m not the sort of feminist that just gets pissed off.  Quite the contrary, I find it empowering.  There’s a whole lot of room to grow, and I’m here to lead the growth.

Watch out boys, my lipstick brigade is on the march! ;)

My friends that know me didn’t exhibit a moment of surprise at seeing me in the room (thank you, and I love you too).  Many of them did execute this very curious maneuver.  While introducing me to someone new, they’d say, "This is Donna Fox, she’s an excellent marketer in her own right"

That expression, "in her own right" was so curious to me.  It’s mysticism was enhanced by the number of times it was used this weekend.  It seemed like all my friends had read from the same script.  "uh-oh, there’s a woman in the room, better figure out what I’m going to say nice about her… here it is, on page 27 of the manual, "introduce the female comrade by sharing her name and that she’s in the same position as you are, praising her performance.  Be sure to hedge the compliment with the words "in her own right".

Seriously, this expression was so curious to me I did a little research on it.

I found the expression first used with respect to royalty.  A queen "in her own right" was a queen who’s position on the throne was due to her own royal bloodline and not that of her husband.

The Latin, which is also used in legal documents, is "suro jure".  It can be used for both sexes, as in "in his own right" but because of the way society works, it rarely is.  Usually it’s the female that’s the exception to the rule.  It’s amazing that phrases like this still exist in our regular speech patterns.

My friends were saying I’m excellent because of me, not because I’m riding the coat-tails of someone else’s brilliance.  So, I guess that’s good. A wonderful thought really, but it’s necessity saddens me.

The last story I have to share came from a conversation with Andy Jenkins of StomperNet.com  Andy was talking about the allegations he’s heard that Stomper was sexist.  This really bothers him.  He talked about the female staff and how much he admires them.  He talked about the fact that 35% of Stomper members are female.

Once again, a misguided thought.  35% female membership indicates to me that your product is good enough many women ignore the fact that the marketing isn’t directed to them and join.  Truly effective, gender-neutral marketing should statistically show 51% female (even more really, since 70% of all new businesses are female-owned).

Andy and I had a good talk.  He recognizes the problem with the under-representation of women, and just doesn’t know what to do about it.  We talked about a number of suggestions that I really hope he implements.

In fact, that’s the impression I got from most of the men.  They want the women involved.  They think of us like their wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, and truly do want us to be successful.  They look around and wonder where the women all are.  They find it amazing that they don’t see any.  They literally don’t SEE us!  Because out of site is out of mind.

It’s kind of a vicious circle.  Women aren’t invited in because they aren’t top of mind.  If they aren’t top of mind they aren’t seen.  Literally aren’t seen.  I mean, they aren’t right in front of the men.

So it takes a very progressive male to intentionally include a woman in the inner circle.  It takes a Ben Mack to advocate on your behalf.  It takes the promoters like Eben to ask the question, not "who are the top internet marketers"… but "Who are the top FEMALE internet marketers who should be included?" We are out there, many of us, making millions.

Sounds like affirmative action, doesn’t it?   there’s one slight difference.  Affirmative action is forcing behavior in the hopes that values will change.  I’d much rather see a change in values followed by a demand for consistent behavior.

And based on the comments of the wonderful men I conntected with this weekend, I think we’re about to start seeing that.

Readers, who are the progressive thinking men in your lives?  If you’re a progressive man, let us know, and thanks for your support!