Confessions of a Six Figure Professional Blogger

February Mastermind Meetup for Tampa Bay

February 11, 2009 | Personal

Last night, we held my third meetup of the Tampa Bay Mastermind group. This is a group I organized on Meetup.com to serve as a social gathering for people engaged in internet business in the Tampa Bay area. We had a good turnout last night and a lot of great conversation. Some of the guys from my smaller, more private mastermind group came as well.

Here is a list of the people who came out.

  • JR Griggs. Local conservative blogger at Jrs2cents.com. @JRGriggs on Twitter.
  • Ryan Wade. Serial marketer, but he’ll tell you he’s into porn and gambling. @ryanwade on Twitter.
  • Kyle Graham. Programmer geek and marketer in the same body. Check him out on KyleGraham.tv.  @kylegraham on Twitter.
  • James DeLong. Currently a JV Manager for some big guys. :) @jamesdelong on Twitter.
  • Julia Gorzka. Local social media consultant. @JuliaGorzka on Twitter.
  • Tony Teegarden. Personal development guru and former death metal guy (ironic, I know ;) ). @ateegarden on Twitter.
  • Shelby Nousain. Connect on LinkedIn.
  • Chris Blackerby – a serial web entrepreneur, it seems. Too many sites to list, but he’s got his name as a dot-com.
  • Rick Hawkins – A former school teacher, he is now looking to build an online business.
  • Gary Burge – a pharmacist looking to go online.
  • Barry Nicholson – a local copywriter.
    * NOTE: If I missed anybody, just contact me and let me know.
    I didn’t have a real camera with me this time, so I just used my Iphone and sent some pictures to my TwitPic gallery. Here they are:
    pic1
    pic2
    pic3
    pic4

So, great meetup. Here’s what Julia said on Meetup.com about the evening:

Great conversation. After spending the evening with this group my head is swimming with ideas, inspiration and questions. Thanks to all for being so generous sharing about your business, approach, set-backs, learning, recommendations, etc!

That’s awesome.

So, the next meetup will be in March. I will schedule it some time in the next week or two.

If you weren’t able to make it last night, I hope you can come to a future meetup. I’ve been holding the meetup on a Tuesday evening, but feel free to post a comment and let me know if another night would work out better.

And if you’re reading this and aren’t in the Tampa Bay area, I encourage you to either join or organize a meetup in your own area on Meetup.com. I was having a conversation with James last night, in fact, about just how important networking has been for us and our businesses. So, don’t miss out on it. If there isn’t a meetup in your area, take the lead and organize one. :)

EDIT 11:57PM: Tony just posted a video over on his blog of Chris showing some of his marketing materials that he has used to learn how the game works. Good stuff. Check it out at TonyTeegarden.com.

EDIT 12:43PM: Just edited to include the link to Kyle’s new site. And already, he’s making me look bad with his video quality. Damn!

If you enjoyed this article, you might also like...

  1. Tampa Bay Mastermind Meetup – January 2009
  2. Tampa Online Entrepreneurs – MeetUp With Me
  3. Tampa Blogger Meetup
  4. Our Crazy Mastermind Meeting [Video]
  5. Mastermind Wisdom Video

Learn The Real Story On Blogging As a Business...

  • Get immediate FREE access to the Six Figure Blogger Blueprint
  • Get exclusive stuff NOT available on this blog.
  • Get the latest updates from the weird Risley man who runs this site.

Enter email:

  • I'll be moving to Tampa in late 2010 (as soon as the Army lets me go) and hopefully you'll still be doing this. I'll be there this summer too, and if the timing is right, maybe I will stop by.
  • SWEET!

    I'm famous!

    Serial web entrepreneur checking in!
  • I would love to attend, but have a conflict with Tuesday (and Thursday) nights. However if for some reason my schedule changes in the future I will be sure to add this in. It seems like these meetups have been great so far.
  • If you want to really grow your business then you need to network!
    It took me awhile to understand why my friend spends thousands of dollars to attend a country club just to play a round golf from time to time. It hit me when I realized that most of his business comes from referrals he met there.

    Don't go to events or meetings if your only purpose is for business. You should be there to build relationships and if done right you will have more business than you can shake a stick at.

    ...and David thanks again for organizing another great turn
    out.
  • Thanks for the mention man! The Personal Development Death Metal Dude...sounds like a new blog post to me :-)

    Thanks for putting the event together! Super great time!
  • Really wish I could have made it! I live in Sarasota and was swamped all day! And I4 rush hour traffic scares me to death! But for the one in March I will head up to TPA early in the day and wait for it.
    Looking forward to finally meeting the people I read so much about!
    Jennifer
  • Was a great night! Thanks again David for organizing, I will definitely be there next month.
blog comments powered by Disqus