Pam Slim is such a connector. Through her I met Havi, Communicatrix, and a lot of other cool people.

Also, I’m a broken record on this, but Twitter is just the best thing ever. It’s the next best thing to partying your ass off at a conference.

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Dagnabit, looks like my other comment got eaten by WordPress.

What I wanted to say is THANK YOU for you extremely kind words. I was so lucky to meet you in our class, and watching your gentle words burst into bloom all over the internet is fantastic.

I have had amazing success with building friendships and business partnerships by participating in classes. In a few cases, I was asked by the instructor to co-teach a class after taking it. That led to some juicy contracts, and the chance to connect with even more cool people.

I will honestly say, no joke, that class-participation-related income over the last couple of years is at least 50,000. Nothing to sneeze at!

The key is to be yourself, and give everything you have to the class. In this case, being a teacher’s pet is a good thing.

Good stuff.

-Pam

Pamela Slims last blog post..Stop searching for the perfect job and start finding your life’s work

JoVEs last blog post..Shopping bags…

On your post: I’ve always been blessed to have terrific people in my life, but it’s really taken off now that I’m a managing editor in the nonprofit world. (Talk about people who live to reach out!)

And what amazes me all the more is how a positive cycle develops over time. You’re enthusiastic and eager to help … other enthusiastic people are eager to help you as a result … you get even MORE enthusiastic and eager to help others … those people build their enthusiasm … and pretty soon we’re on a constant human-to-human high. Not a bad place to be, I think. :)

Thanks for the great insights! I look forward to reading more!

One more tip: reach early. The first few people you meet at a new event are usually the people who you’ll become fast friends with.

And so – if you reach early, you’ll have a chance of meeting the organizers and the speakers and other considerate folks who came early too.

(Only people who are willing to help will come early.)

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I am SO glad that I took that course with you for the very reasons you suggested. Yes, the content was good and it was useful. But the connections were really amazing, and it absolutely did lead to “real” work and “real” money. (When I mentioned your and Naomi’s awesome course, you may have made a few thousand dollars, but due to your awesome partner program, I made $750 in Hershey money which is very handy for finishing my book.)

I can safely say that from being a *student* in a number of classes over the years I have made over $100,000 in income due to the partnerships I have formed.

It doesn’t work if you try to go out there and “vend” your services.

It does work where, as you say, you go looking for super-cool people whom you would love to work with and just be your badass self.

And my advice if you are taking a class — don’t be afraid to be the teacher’s pet. I did so by being totally proactive in my class, and ended up being invited by a few instructors to co-teach the same class at future sessions.

(not a nauseating teacher’s pet, a helpful one to other participants).

Go conferences! Go classes! Go cool people!

-Pam

Pamela Slims last blog post..Stop searching for the perfect job and start finding your life’s work

Great point, Havinator. And one that most people don’t have the chutzpah to say. (Am I Yiddish now? I think I might be Yiddish.)

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Where do you find out about different courses — especially online ones?