Marketing Impact Academy 2.0: Changing the Course of My Life Forever

Have you ever wanted to go somewhere, like an event, but you didn't have anyone to go with you or you weren't quite sure what it would entail? But, something pulled at your heart and you just knew you were meant to be there?

That was me.
That was the Marketing Impact Academy (MIA) event.

For those of you who follow me, not for business advice, MIA is a online course for ANY business owner who wants to learn how to properly execute and successfully run an online business with passive income options. For me, I went because I am a student of Chalene Johnson's in the MIA online course and this was a no brainer. This training teaches you EVERYTHING you need to learn to be successful with building an online business and gives you the tools to succeed.

So, on Thursday, I left SUPER early and boarded a plane that ended up being delayed twice. But it enabled me to get more work done so I wasn't even remotely upset lol. As the plane landed, all of my worried anxious feelings went away. My Uber driver got me talking and it was easy to chat about my brand Gina Marie Fit and this community I am building along with a successful online health and fitness business. It wasn't hard to see my excitement and hear the passion in my voice, I was meant to be here.


That first day, I checked into the Hyatt Regency, busted out a workout to calm my nerves and then of course what else would one do when coming to California? I went to Target. Legit, no lie it was the second thing I did because I needed healthy options for snacks for the weekend. Then, I hopped on my life Beachbody northeast mastermind leader group call and headed downstairs to listen to register. After registration, I hopped on another ranked coaches call and found myself totally in my own element.

Finally, I went to dinner. I was starving, crushed a steak and took in all of the palm dreams and beautiful weather. I laid out my outfits, bagged my bag full of snacks, notebooks, pens and of course highlighters #nerdstatus. Then it was time for sleep....yeah right. I was so excited  I couldn't sleep so I got to work. Honestly, the coolest thing about running an online health and fitness business is that I can do it from ANYWHERE! Legit in the airport, on the plane, in the hotel, at the conference, walking down the street. You name it I made it happen.

DAY ONE: There is absolutely no risk involved

As I walked down to the conference room, early as usual, I sat in line and took it all in. There was this weird feeling coming over me, it's like God was guiding me to my purpose. As the doors open, I found a seat as close to the front row as a I could and breathed. The event began and there she was, my mentor, my favorite fitness instructor, Chalene Johnson! The whole time she had music playing and she came out announced by Kim Cole who I got to meet #loveher! They got down as we did and then it was time to learn.

 

Dreams, you have to align yourself with your dreams and then align your work ethic to achieve those goals. They explained the importance of being captivating, not entertaining, we are in the business of changing lives, we must lead from the front. There was an awesome training on the four types of people and I learned I qualify as a "Processing Perfectionist" someone who loves processes, having a business, but it's just not going where you want it to and your desire for perfection is robbing you of your greatness.

After our first training, then it was time for the speakers. Our first speaker was Brock Johnson, from UnwrapSnap.com training us on SnapChat. It was awesome to see someone so young becoming successful and using such a personal platform as SnapChat to run his business. If you run a business and have a SnapChat account utilize his academy. I joined right after MIA. If you're on Snapchat add me at: ginamariec17.

Then our next speaker was Nicole Walters, an income strategist and entrepreneur. Nicole was a big time corporate worker and one day she decided to become an entrepreneur. Honestly, the biggest takeaway from her story and training was her story about adopting her three girls who were born to a drug addicted mother. Tears. So many tears. I resonated with some of the things her daughter said about not feeling worthy being abandoned by a biological parent. Seeing how selfless Nicole was shows why she's successful. My biggest business takeaways were:

• Part of dealing with being an entrepreneur is dealing with the hard stuff while life is happening
• Set realistic goals, not fantasy
• Ask for resources and help
• Know who you are and what you're doing

Our last speaker of the day was Brendon Buchard, not going to lie, huge fan girl moment when he walked out on stage, my jaw dropped. Beachbody is bringing him as one of our key note speakers for our annual event this year. That's how important Chalene Johnson is. Brendon became an entrepreneur after a string of circumstances that almost caused him to take his life. He was in an accident and almost died. He said as he watched the blood and his life leave his body he realized he still hadn't lived.  My biggest business takeaways were:

• Every moment in life is a second chance, be intentional
• Inspire and instruct others on hot to improve their lives and achieve their goals
• Care enough to decide to do it and align your goals with your actions
• Create products structured around helping people improve their lives

DAY 2: HOW YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN

On Day two, we started with another training with Chalene, talking about the importance of quality content. There was a heavy emphasis on no longer putting out content that we feel we should because everyone else does it. Also, the emphasis was established to arrange your business with organization, structure, persistence and patience. Lastly, to determine the qualities in your ideal coach/customer and be specific with your posting towards them.

Day two one of our speakers was Sean Cannell the YouTube expert. This training was focused around live video, video content and the importance of establish libraries of information that people find beneficial. His top five mistakes for those that create video content were:

1. Weak Intros
2. Low energy
3. Distracting backgrounds
4. Lack of planning
5. Self focused instead of being focused on your audience

DAY 3: IMPLEMENT WITH A PLAN

On day 3, the focus was on establishing an effective plan with set to do list items that we could leave and implement with success. During this training, we were trained on passive income which I am currently in the process of creating and will be launching this month.

Part of the training was on the importance of the right message, sent at the right time, with the right segments. There's nothing worse then signing up for something and being spammed with multiple emails. Instead, create quality, valuable content, with segments so you know who you are sending it to.

Day 3, our speaker was Pat Flynn, an entrepreneur and podcaster from Smart Passive Income (I downloaded it immediately and recommend it). One day Pat "decided to become an entrepreneur." The top takeaways for me, were to create quality audio and take your audience on a transformation so even though they're on a podcast they can visually see where you're going with your story and see your purpose.

So....what's the point of all of this?

For me, personally, I've had a dream for a year of a community base, of a website, a portal for people to go to find quality information, to find value, inspiration and assistance. To thrive even in the most difficult of times and to have the kind of support system we tend to lack with starting an unconventional opportunity.

It took coming to MIA not only to establish the confidence, but to learn the tools to become an effective leader and to truly become a business builder. Now, I have set actions plans, I have steps to follow and a passion burning so bright it's hard to sleep. That's what events  can do for you and your business. Not only does it recharge you but it gives you the things that you don't always find in your daily business life.

Since leaving the live academy training I have implemented more systems, processes and passionate action steps then I have in the past two years combined. It's truly amazing what can happen when your interest, passions and desires align with the plan set for you and your willingness to work for every single second of it. If there is something that you think about, that keeps you up at night, that fuels your soul and you're not doing it yet....just start. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to begin.

Here is a list of all of the speakers and their academies. I know over the next year and a half I have a plan to incorporate all of them to reach a different level in my business to make more of an impact.

Brendon Buchard: The Expert's Academy

Nicole Walters- Fierce Clarity and $1 k in  day

Sean Cannell-YouTube trainings

Pat Flynn-Business/podcasting

Brock Johnson- UnWrapSnap.com