SPARK and HUSTLE

Last week, my team and I went to a conference in South San Francisco called Spark and Hustle. If you have never heard of it, definitely check it out! It is a great event created by the wonderful Tory Johnson, and there are still dates left in this year's event tour. My daughter, Krysten, and son-in-law, Jeff, attended the event in May that was held in Los Angeles, and they had an incredible time. They both learned a lot about marketing, branding and the necessities for a small business. The event is primarily geared towards women, but a few men were at the LA event. They did a drawing for an iPad (courtesy of Time Warner Cable), and my son-in-law won!! They also spoke highly of Cindy Morrison, who is a social media strategist, speaker, author and Emmy Winning TV Journalist. They came home and told me that we all had to attend the San Francisco event. I am very glad we did. 

You are never too old - I mean experienced - to learn. I have been in business for over 20 years and am still learning new things on a daily basis... especially with Krysten and Jeff on board! 

This event was a bit smaller than the LA event, but the information was just what we needed. The main things that I took from the event were from Cindy and the only male speaker, Joshua Zerkel, regarding social media. We just wish that Cindy was able to speak longer! We learned the power of muscle marketing from Alex Cavoulacos (another Greek girl) from The Daily Muse and Andra Davidson from Lifetime Moms. I learned about a website called Indiegogo, which is for crowdfunding.  The speaker from Indiegogo (sorry to have not written her name down) told a story of a man named Joseph Pulitzer (sound familiar?) who used crowdfunding to raise money for a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty (read the story here). 


I learned how to use Indiegogo so I could donate some money to a dear friend's new movie called STAR. (Check it out & donate if you can!)  

To add some icing to the cake (low fat of course!), my daughter won an Amazon gift card ($300) from one of the vendors! 

If you own a small business, check out SparkandHustle.com to see when Tory and her crew will be in your neck of the woods. You can also see Tory on Good Morning America on a weekly basis. Thank you, Tory, for teaching me some wonderful and powerful new things!