First off I wanted give a big thanks to Jason Rubacky, Brian Littleton, Lindsey Savoie, and the rest of the Share a Sale staff.
This was my first ThinkTank and I hope that I will be invited again next year. Thinktank is an annual event that brings together merchants, OPMs, and affiliates together in a private setting.
Sunday
We (Logan Thompson) took an early flight out Las Vegas to San Francisco a day before the event started just to get a good night’s rest before the golfing the next day.
We arrived and called the car service to make sure he was going to still be there and he had us meet him upstairs in the drop-off area. So we think we have the right car since the driver was on the phone. We hopped in and after about 10 minutes the driver finally asks, “You guys are going to Half Moon Bay, Right?” We knew we had the right car then.
So we checked in to the Ritz Carlton at Half Moon Bay and proceeded to head over to Mullins, the bar and grill on site to watch the Seahawks game, plus a few other games before heading back and getting some work done.
Later on we headed to dinner with Eric Nagel, Jason Rubacky, Kristin Kinsey, Alicia “Aliki” Rocco.
Monday (Golf Day!)
Well needless to say I was nervous as all hell to go golfing, since this was only the second time I have ever played on a course. Here is this beautiful course and I was on it, enough said. The views from part of the course were amazing. Although they called it the Ocean Course, the ocean really didn’t come into play as much as I thought it would.
My foursome included Myself, Logan, Eric, and Tony Pantano. I know that I had a blast, I had a couple great shots and if I did slice one of my drives, there was a good chance I might have one the long drive contest. But for some reason they want your drive to land in the fairway not right off the pathway (sucky rule).
After golf I had a quick little break before the welcome reception, where ShareASale handed out some fleece jackets, a “yearbook” talking about the venue and event, they also handed out a copy of Jim Kukral’s book, Attention! This Book Will Make You Money.
After the reception it was a “Whiteboard” session in Rubacky’s room with some Jonnie Walker Blue (damn that was good).
Tuesday
The morning started out with breakfast and then some breakout sessions. I’m not one for attending sessions, as I hardly attend them anymore. I think a lot of deals are made on the outside, but these were very well targeted and something that I was very interested in. So much so I thought a couple of them could have gone longer.
After lunch I headed back up to my room to get a few things done and take a quick nap. I didn’t schedule any one-on-one merchant meetings; now that I look back at it I wish I would have.
Later that night I met up with Logan and Eric for some pizza. We had a great talk about affiliate marketing and more. After dinner we headed to the Thomas Fogarty Winery for the OPM Wine Tasting. The ride up there was horrible, just horrible I was feeling sick before I even started drinking. There I talked with Greg Hoffman, Joel Garcia, Vinny O’Hare and Deborah Carney of Team Loxy, and Angel Djambazov from there it was an early night.
Wednesday
After a killer breakfast (but no bacon! what?) everyone head to the last session led by Brian, “What does Share A Sale need to fix.” This was very interesting concept, I don’t think I have ever had a company say “what’s wrong, what we need to fix” without sending out a survey, a questionnaire, etc.
Once the session ended we headed down to the bar and had a couple drinks and some lunch and some talk. Then once a big group left Logan, Eric, and I headed over to Mullin’s once again for a few more drinks and some more brainstorming before catching our flights.
Again I had a great time seeing some old friends and making a few new ones. I hope to see all of them again, if not at Affiliate Summit West, then hopefully at ThinkTank11. I will try and post some pictures here shortly. I’m still trying to play catch-up.
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