The day began the way all sweepers like, with drawings! Craig won a 6-month subscription to SweepsU.
Our first speaker was Steve d’Adolf. His speech was entitled Luck + Skill = Winner. He was emphasizing the importance of using all your advantages (skill) as a sweeper to increase your odds of winning (luck). A few of his great tips were:
- Subscribe to e-flyers as you don’t have to wait to get them in the newspaper or go to the store to find out about a specific retail sweepstakes.
- Use your DVR/PVR to record shows that are airing code words so you don’t miss them.
- Use MS Outlook to manage multiple email accounts including Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail so they all come to one location.
Our next speaker was Chrysa Duran, owner of Thrifty Jinxy (@ThriftyJinxy). She spoke about blog giveaways, giving tips to those just branching out from standard online entries. Chrysa is a fan of blog contests as she wins 20-30 prizes per month due to the odds vs a national or even regional sweepstakes.
The last speaker of the morning was Patti Osterheld (@posterheld), owner of SweepSheet (@sweepsheet). Patti spoke on social networking sweepstakes. Unfortunately, entering on Facebook and Twitter is such a huge topic it was impossible for her to cover them in just 20 minutes.
(NOTE: I plan to hold online webinars this fall covering blog, Facebook and Twitter contests. Each one will be 1-2 hours long covering each topic in-depth to give you a better understanding of how to use each of these entry methods to your advantage. Stay tuned as details will be posted on this blog and in my newsletter; The Winning EDGE.)
After a break, we all returned mid-afternoon for the banquet. Judy McCurdy, owner of Sweeping America spoke after the late luncheon. She was HILARIOUS! She has a very Steven Wright delivery method. Judy is soft spoken, but her vocal variety and facial expressions were worthy of an International Award Winning Toastmaster. Really?! (I can’t do it justice. You’ll just have to see the convention video.) She told stories almost turning the speech into a roast of some long time sweepers. Judy then talked about errors found in the official rules. Since it’s my #1 tip for entrants, you would think the promotional lawyers, contest management companies, judging agencies and/or the sponsors would review them themselves before a promotion is launched. She really should give that segment of her talk at the next promotional law conference.
Then more prizes!! What a great night our table had.
I won a coffee back pack.
Craig won the centerpiece.
During the raffle session, Janet and Patricia each won $500 in gift cards, Barbara won $500 in scratch lottery tickets and Jenn won a $50 Best Buy gift card plus both of us won $500 cash!!
We agreed to all sit together again next year.
Then there were the vendor raffle drawings. Linda of New Berlin, WI won an autographed copy of You Can’t Win If You Don’t Enter in my free raffle and Dexter of Harpers Ferry, WV won my Lucky Basket.
We had originally planned to go to the Mall of America (@mallofamerica) Saturday evening, but we were so tired we just hung around the hotel with our friends.
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