From The Contest Queen

At some point after the movie The Secret came out I decided I wanted my picture taken with Jack Canfield, Joe Vitale and John Assaraf.

Last week I won tickets to The Phenomenal View featuring John Assaraf.  On Tuesday we went to the Royal Ambassador Event Centre to see John speak.  After we arrived, while we were getting settled, helping ourselves to coffee and tea, a gentleman came up to me and said, “Hi. I am Frank. We have meet before. We had a close encounter.”  I did not recognize him right away.  Maybe it was because he wasn’t wearing his sumo wrestling suit!

It was Frank Pointek, my sumo wrestling competitor and the fellow contestor who encouraged me to start contest clubs in Canada.  (Read all about our first encounter here.)

He and his wife had also won tickets.  Lucky guy won the grand prize which included lunch with John!

If you have never heard John speak, I highly recommend attending.  He is worth seeing at least once.  I thought he was so good, I ordered his CD course Having It All, so I could continue the lessons we touched upon that day.

I asked my husband if he had any cash on him as I also wanted to buy John’s book The Answer.  Turns out, niether of had any on us.  Then, when we were lining up for our buffet lunch, as we passed the registration table, there was his book with a Post-It Note with my name on it.  I had won his book too!  After the break, I got my book autographed and my picture with John.

Now I just need to meet Jack & Joe!

One of the nice things about having other friends that also enter contests and sweepstakes as a hobby is, if they can’t use the prize they might share it with you.

My friend Richard won tickets to a Toronto pub crawl with Labatt for Alexander Keiths 213th birthday.  Richard and his wife couldn’t go so we volunteered to have a good time in their place.  Labbatt really knows how to treat their customers and winners.  We had a very good time with food, drink, song and fun at every stop along the way.  Sadly I didn’t get a photo with Craig and eight beer wenches.  (His last record was six beer bunnies in Banff.)

At the first stop, we subjected ourselves to the greening of the hands ritual and holding them up as moose antlers.

Sorry Richard, we didn’t save you a piece of cake.  THANKS!!  (To be fair, we have also shared prizes with Richard & Chris.  What good is having fun if you can’t share it?)

I came across a website that combines two of my favourite things: the Law of Attraction (LOA) and winning, THE LAWTTERY OF ATTRACTION.

David Slocombe has decided he would like to give back, or in this case, giveaway, to thank the Universe for the miracles he has received in his life, so he created the Million Dollar Giveaway.  It is an ongoing sweepstakes for money that anyone world-wide can enter once per week. (One entry per person per week please.)

Remember to also read his blog: Bald Guy in a Blue House.  Since I work from home, occasionally I feel very isolated.  When I read about David’s LOA journey on his blog, I feel I have found another wonderful companion on my journey, my life’s journey, my soul’s evolution.

I want to touch on another similar point.  It amazes me how one can find fellowship and friendship over the Internet.  I have found it with many fellow sweepers in Canada, the US and some as far away as New Zealand and Australia.  You can find many fellow sweepers online in groups and forums: Canada, United States and Australia.

May you be as blessed as I am with your new found friends and journeymen.

I came across this article in Brandweek (a marketing and advertising industry publication) about “the future of contesting”, It’s Easy To Win.

The Coles Notes of the article is: sweepstaking will shift to online streaming live games shows in which they can participate in promotions, games and sweepstakes winning instantly.

I do see this as a new method of entry.  (It actually looks like a lot of fun!)  However, I do not see “old-fashioned” sweepstakes, contests or lotteries ever fading out or going away.  Each entry method has its merits and place within a company’s marketing mix.  The product or service and the target demographic will determine which entry methods, or blend of methods, a company will select to use when designing their sweepstakes promotion.  An online live streaming game show will just be a new method to choose.  Just like blogging and Facebook are also fairly new online entry method choices.

Check out the It’s Easy To Win site yourself and let me know what you think.

What a crazy week I have had and it has culminated with a chest cold.  So, I am finally blogging about last Sunday in Hershey PA.

What an early morning after such a late night.  YAWN.  Nothing keeps a sweeper away from prizes! Robb Nease, our MC, spoke about radio contests and I spoke about The Missing Secrets.  I really liked all his tips but I found some only worked for smaller markets.  I know from experience because sometimes trying to dial-in, in a major market such as Toronto can be very difficult.

One tip was: ensure you sign-up to the online loyal listener club as sometimes members are offered exclusive contests or given additional online opportunities to win prizes.  Others were, to get to know the DJs or when the station has a remote, go as there usually are exclusive prizes for attendees. (Sandra posted a great article on increasing your odds in radio contests awhile back on her site.)

I then spoke on The Missing Secrets.  Last year I spoke about The Law of Attraction and The Secret.  I read a lot and over the course of the year I felt, I “discovered” two more steps to the three step process.  Ask, Believe, Receive PLUS Action and Presence.  So, my speech this year was basically a quick review of last years speech along with going into detail on my research.  (I’ll save expanding on those two points for another blog post!)  At the end of my speech I gave away a dozen of my favourite motivational and inspiration books as prizes.

The convention finished of with, of course, another round of prizes!  I love to hear sweepers yelp with joy when their name is called.  I won a Thanksgiving table decoration set.  Too bad I’ll have to wait a year to use it as Canada’s Thanksgiving was on Monday October 13th.

I’ll post the detail on the next Hershey convention as soon as I receive them.  Hope to see you there!

Where does the time go?  It’s Tuesday and this is the first chance I have had to blog again about the convention.  Sandra on the other hand was able to blog about the convention (her day 2 post), and she managed to blog about a few of the other speakers and their great entry tips (cooking & baking contests).

Saturday was a very full day as the vendor room opened early and there were activities until almost midnight.  Sandra was scheduled to give three speeches as she is very knowledgeable in all areas of sweepstakes.  (There are over 2000 sweepstakes related articles on the About.com website.)  However, I am assuming she does not have a lot of public speaking experience because she made a very common public speaking error.  She spoke too quickly.  It is easy to do when you want to ensure you cover all the points in your speech.

(I have to credit being a member of Toastmasters with helping me improve my public speaking skills over the past two years.  This year I completed both my Competent Communicator and Competent Leadership pins and I have just started my Advanced Toastmasters Bronze badge.  I highly recommend joining Toastmasters.  It’s a perfect organization to join for anyone who has to give presentations either in an office or to large groups.)

It actually worked in the attendees’ favour because she had extra time we was able to cover topics not originally on the agenda.  Since one reason many attended the convention was to learn more about the hobby, we certainly benefited from Sandra’s short speeches.

Craig (my husband) spoke late in the afternoon on text messaging contests.  Everyone enjoyed pulling out their cellphones for a hands-on session.  We even had a few instant winners!  (Try texting JONES to 64000 if you have a US wireless provider and see if you are an instant winner too.)

Then we all dressed up for dinner, enjoyed a fabulous buffet dinner, gave out the vendor raffle prizes, the mailed-in raffle prizes and the biggest prize donations for the weekend.  I donated an 8GB iPod Nano so the winner would be able to listen to all my online radio show iTunes podcasts.  No excuses!

Stevan of Wellsboro, PA won the lucky basket in my vendor table raffle and Lauralee of Manchester, NH won the iPod we donated.

The past few days have been extremely busy.  This is the first chance I have had to blog between all the travelling, shopping, schmoozing, selling and winning.

Early Thursday morning we left Oshawa to head down to the convention.  After a few unscheduled stops and a beautiful scenic fall drive, we arrived at our hotel at 9pm.

No sleeping in late for us.  Friday morning, after our favourite breakfast at Cracker Barrel, we were off to run errands.  We had to buy a prize donation for Saturday night’s banquet, souvenirs, donations for that evening’s Hershey Bonanza and CHOCOLATE!  On our way to Chocolate World we passed a street sign that I just had to stop and photograph.

When we got back to the hotel we had just enough time to set up my vendor table before the convention officially started.  After dinner the Meet and Greet began with an Ice Cream Social.  After mixing and mingling the Hershey Bonanza began.  Neither Craig nor I won a basket full of chocolate themed goodies.

Then Let’s Sweep a Deal began.  Those dressed as a prize they won were eligible to win extra prizes.  Somehow I forgot reading about the costumes in my convention information packet, so we didn’t pack anything fun to wear.

Craig won some CDs in the evening’s regular draws. WOO HOO!

The best part of the evening for me was finally meeting Sandra Grauschopf of Contests.About.com.  (You can read her version of the evening’s events on her blog.)

I recently wrote about the adventures around getting my new Blackberry.  The short version is, I asked the Universe for a free BlackBerry Curve and through my impatience I paid $75 for one.

Today, I opened the mail to discover a $0 BlackBerry upgrade offer from my wireless service provider.  I was a bit upset.  I had wheedled them for months to give me a phone for free to no avail.  Right after I pay for the phone they offer me what I had asked for all along!  I called them and explained my frustration.  The representative I spoke to understood my frustration.  She promptly removed the charge off my bill.

I was amazed.  That was so easy.

I got exactly what I originally asked for.  I got a BlackBerry Curve for free.  Since I now had the BlackBerry in my possession, I had released my attachment (and desperation) to the phone allowing the Universe to bring me the balance of my request.

So, the lessons I was reminded of today were:
1) trust what you ask for will be given.
2) be patient.  The Universe has perfect timing.  It just may not be your timing.
3) it may not all come at once.
4) release your attachment to your request.
5) allow, your request to manifest in your life.

What life lessons do you need to periodically review?

I just read a really good post by marketing guru Seth Godin titled Making It Real.  His intention was to get business people clear about their marketing message so their future product or service would appear to be coming soon, not some vague point in the future.

His message, works for everything.  How many times do we say, “I want more money.” and when the Universe leaves us a penny on the ground in front of us we are ungrateful?  Didn’t you just get what you asked for?  Oh, you wanted hundreds, thousands, millions.  You were not specific so the Universe responded with what it thought was the appropriate physical manifestation.

What’s on your Winning Wish List?
A trip. Where?  For how long?  For how many?  All inclusive?  Spending money?
A car. What make?  Model?  Colour?
Cash. How much?

Bring that future prize to you, now.  Be specific!

OK, I’ll be more specific too.  I want to be a guest on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, before December 1, 2008.  That guest spot will lead to: 1) over 100,000 books sold in the US before December 1, 2009 along with 2) a permanent, well-paid role as her “Sweepstakes Queen” - just picture me with a big gold crown, a furred purple cape, an Ellen t-shirt, jeans and my lucky four-leaf clover sneakers - showing up at her sweepstakes winner’s homes handing out prizes and aiding her with in-studio promotions.  And as Joe Vitale would say, this or something better!  Why stand in the way if the Universe has a better plan?

From October 16th until October 19th Craig and I will be in Hershey PA attending the 3rd Annual Northeast Mini Sweepstakes Convention.  I am looking forward to going because many fun and exciting things will be happening; we will see many sweeping buddies, we are both speaking, I have a vendor table featuring some new products, we have time to visit Chocolate World - YUMMY! - etc.

Today as I was reading the RSS feeds from the blogs subscribe to, I discovered Joe Vitale was coming to Toronto for a book signing.  WOO HOO!  (If you have been a reader of my newsletters and blogs you would know Joe Vitale is one of my favourite inspirational and motivational authors.)

As I kept reading, I realized the book signing was on Saturday October 18th and I was going to be off on my own adventure.  It figures!  I go and he comes.

Then the thought occured, the Universe must have another plan for me, us.  It is not the right time for me to meet Joe Vitale and visa versa.  I wonder when it will be…

So, if you live in the Toronto area, and want to meet Joe, go to his book signing (and please let me know how it went!).