Sunshine Girls NYC Affiliate Summit

[SunshineGirl]

So we are back!! It was a whirlwind of a trip, but we'll try to pull out some of the most exciting stuff and let you know about it. :)

Friday: Angie, Cindy, and I flew to NYC on Friday morning (EARLY!!). We took a cab to the Hilton near Times Square where the Affiliate Summit conference would be. The hotel was nice (small, NYC rooms). Angie and I bunked together and Cindy had a room a few doors down.

Headed to the hot dog stand on the corner because we were starving. Not bad but not really anything special either. We took the Explorer passes that we had purchased through SR at Go Card USA/Smart Destinations to Madame Tussauds in Times Square to exchange them for tour tickets. We chose the upgrade to the City Sights tours and the Statue of Libery Ferry as two of our options.

Headed to the City Sights tour bus to see Uptown. Very cool double decker bus. Tour guide was okay but kept begging for tips. He did point out some good restaurants to try.

After about 2 hours, we went back to the room to change and finish checking in. Turned right around and headed back out to the City Sights Night Tour. It hit a lot of different places and went faster because it was not Hop On/Hop Off. Tour guide was very artsy and was very involved in recovery after 9-11. Learned a lot of history about the city and the buildings. Brooklyn bridge was scary on double decker bus but the view from acrosst the river was AWESOME. Our picture looks like we were standing in front of a fake backdrop it was so beautiful.

Headed back to the room through Times Square and stopped for yummy baked goods.

Girls, did I leave anything out?

[missangie]

Well you did fail to mention that the Brooklyn Bridge is extremely scary from the top of a double decker bus given that you can't see the sides of the bridge! You also forgot the yummo gelato we had while waiting in line to upgrade our Go Cards! Other than that, you got it all. We had a blast on Friday. It was a long day, but the city was well worth it.

[askomsky]

So far so good! Loving it!!

When the kids are a little older we'll venture to the city itself instead of Lady Liberty. Our high school Jr's and Sr's take a field trip to NYC and catch a broadway show. Last year it was The Lion King. Can't wait until I can chaperone that field trip! lol

[sunshinecindy]

Ya, you missed that I had my pic taken with Morgan Freeman....well, sort of.

[SunshineGirl]

Saturday: Had to get up early to get to NBC Studio Tour by 8:30. Stopped and grabbed yummy bagel from cart. NBC Studio tour very cool. Got to stand in Brian William's studio plus sit in the audience area of Saturday Night Live. (Did you know that the chairs are the original chairs from 1975??).

Then we took the downtown tour (City Sights) and saw lots more cool stuff. Very funny tour guide. It was hot and we ended up with sunburned chests. Woops! One of the funniest things was seeing how the people illegally sold fake purses on Canal Street.

Stopped at Battery Park to go see the Statue of Liberty. Waited in line for an hour and a half just to get the ferry. While we were in line, a tour helicopter and small plane collided in the river. Helicopter flew right over our heads. It was crazy because we were on the ferry and watching the news come across Twitter on our phones.

Saw the Statue of Liberty and made a video (coming soon!). It was amazing. Just beautiful.

Headed back to Battery Park and finished our tour. This tour guide was all about pointing out where celebrities live/lived.

Made it back to the room in time to register for the conference and then get ourselves all dolled up for the first official event--the buy.at party. It was held at the Empire Hotel. buy.at is the network that we run Tickemaster, 1-800-Pet-Meds, and some other programs through. GREAT people who bend over backwards to help us. Only about 100 people at the party, so we really got to talk to them.

After the party, we headed out with the ARC group (they manage programs like Solanova, Checks Unlimited, and the new Ken Paves site). Had a VERY late dinner with them (like 10pm) and headed back to the room about midnight.

Miss anything, ladies?

[SunshineGirl]

Sunday started out interesting. We left the hotel to grab some breakfast and saw HUNDREDS of police officers. We assumed someone famous must be coming, so we hung out. After awhile we got curious and asked a couple of NYC's finest what it was all about. Turns out that the Dominican Day Parade was set to go right in front of our hotel.

Have you ever seen the Seinfeld episode where they have the Puero Rican Day parade? It was JUST like that! No one could get out of the hotel to get anywhere for hours. Couldn't even cross the street to get to Starbucks. But it was an awesome experience. Bands playing, people waving flags. We didn't get to see much, but we could hear it!!

Sessions started later in the day on Sunday. All three of us volunteered our time at the Affiliate Marketers Give Back table. This is basically an industry fundraising group to benefit Breast Cancer Awareness. It was a good feeling to be involved in something that raised over $3,000 in one day.

After visiting the Meet Market (where we picked up some great new merchants and giveaway items!), I headed off to be a Mentor for awhile to a woman new to affiliate marketing. I hope someday to introduce her to all of you if I can get her to join SR. :)

That night, we attended a party hosted by Shareasale at the Empire Hotel. One of the funniest moments of the night was when we were in the photo booth and Melissa Salas from Buy.com television popped her head in to bust up our picture. Angie and I were cracking up!! We actually made it to bed at a reasonable time (for Affiliate Summit) between 1 and 2.

[SunshineGirl]

I just discovered the proof of our crazy photobooth trip!!

http://www.shareasalephotobooth.com/#85

[sunshinecindy]

Funny, heres mine:

http://www.shareasalephotobooth.com/#208 and http://www.shareasalephotobooth.com/#77

[missangie]

Love the photobooth! We need to start planning for Vegas. :rotfl:

[askomsky]

Funny, heres mine:

http://www.shareasalephotobooth.com/#208 and http://www.shareasalephotobooth.com/#77

OMG you look bored to death in the first one but the one with the young guy are hilarious! Love Tricia and Angie's too! :rotfl:

[Sunni]

OMG those are too funny! Looked like fun! THanks for sharing.

I have enjoyed reading your about your trip.

[SunshineGirl]

Monday started off with a keynote speech by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. (you can read more about what I thought about their new book Trust Agents (http://www.tricia.me) on my blog). I got up the nerve to wait to meet them after their speech and they were incredibly awesome!! They started following me on Twitter immediately. It was amazing, and I was glad that I went up! Their main idea was that you have to build circles of trust around you in business and that you do good things just for the sake of doing them, not to make money off of them.

Throughout the day Monday we attended various sessions and met up with our merchants. We did a fun video on the new Checks Unlimited Sound Inserts, and I just added it to the videoblog. These were so cute. They would make a fun little gift for someone who has everything. And we got an exclusive free shipping code. :)

Monday evening was a BLUR!! First we headed to a pizza party thrown by a company called Market Leverage and a man named John Chow. Authentic New York pizza in every variety you could imagine (incluiding anchovy!). Then we made out way to a place called Johnny Utah's where we sat around a mechanical bull. Although we did not get up the courage to ride it, we had a good time watching everyone else!! Then we headed back to the hotel to attend a karaoke party.

In the middle of this, something interesting happened. I got a Twitter message from Chris that he didn't think my avatar on Twitter represented me well enough. So I spent the whole day pondering it. That night he showed up at karaoke and I approached him about it. He was so nice, I felt like a rockstar that he even cared!

But wait...there's more! For those of you who know what PayPerPost or IZEA is, the owner, Ted Murphy, showed up at the party. By a stroke of good fortune, he sat down next to me to look at the karaoke book. Cindy went and grabbed the official conference photographer and we had some pictures taken. Superstar moment number two!!

We meant to go to be early, but the karaoke was too funny. We couldn't help but stay and watch our friends make fools of themselves. Another late night.

[SunshineGirl]

Tuesday was our final day in NYC. :( Because the kids were starting school on Wednesday, I wanted to get home Tuesday night to see them off.

We started the day with a fabulous keynote! Peter Shankman, who owns HARO, inspired us all. Again, the topic seemed to focus on trust. We all went up to meet him afterward and told him about some of the success we had in the media thanks to HARO.

We also learned about something very interesting...Pokens!! You'll have to listen to our most recent podcast to learn more. But we are now Poken crazy! We felt very left out that other people were pokening with the keynote speakers and we couldn't.

We attended a few more sessions and said goodbye to all of our friends before heading to the airport. It sounds like it is a good thing that we did not stay for the triathalon because someone actually fell off one of the toilet racers and dislocated his knee!!

On the way out, we picked up some "I <3 NYC" shirts for the family.

I think that's it!! Arrived home around midnight...another late night. Just in time to get back to work and life early the next morning!

[speechteachri]

Wow!! Itsounds like you guys really did have a whirlwind trip! Glad you had a good time and got back safely! The photopics were hilarious!