Craig Tant of MooCash moderated, and in no time, he brought the entire audience into the realm of the dialogue. With a few exceptions, the people in the room had all been in the biz for at least a couple of years, so the talk segued into a discussion about how to take business to the next level, a very valuable topic in tight times.
Panelists included Sean Eggert from CCBill, Brad Mitchell from Mojo Host, Alec Helmy from XBIZ, Oystein Wright from Mansion Productions, Tim Henning from ASACP and Marty Greif from PrivacyView Software. The distinguished panelists brought wide-ranging experience and perspectives to bear.
Rather than repeating the first session, Tant began the second where the first session left off, even though new audience members were in the room. Some of the same ground was covered, but the two-hour format allowed the theme of the seminar to flourish and become more developed.
That theme was basically the difficulty many in the industry have in taking their businesses to the next level. The reasons for that are, of course, varied and individual, but the panelists did agree that even the owners of very successful companies often had great difficulty making long-term goals and business plans.
There were many other finer points made that spoke to the opportunities currently available to adult online entrepreneurs in an increasingly tight marketplace, with a decided emphasis on work ethic and passion.
“In today’s market,” XBIZ President Alec Helmy said, “you have to focus on something you are truly passionate about, and assess how much time you are willing to put into it. Surfers are drawn to the best on the Internet.”
“No one will be more passionate or work harder for your company than you,” MojoHost Brad said.
Marty weighed in with very solid advice in response to a question from a small, two-person business about hiring core employees.
“When you hire,” he said, “you need to know the basics of what they are going to do. In fact, you need to know all the pieces of your business.”
The discussion then zeroed in on finding good affiliate managers, a difficult thing to do at any time, not just during hard times.
“They have to be profit centers,” Tant said.
“I get that question quite a lot,” Oystein said. “You get what you spend, and many of the best ones cost a lot. You might have to steal them from someone else.”
The panelists also imparted lots of specific advice to audience members about their individual programs. Suffice to say, Tant urged everyone to take hands-on advantage of not only the panelists’ experience, but of everyone’s at the show — sound advice he has been giving for years.
Many other topics also were covered, including traffic acquisition, search engine optimization, blogs, community building and ethics. Tim from ASACP summed up the importance of child protection for the adult entertainment industry.
“It’s all about the industry showing that it can self-regulate,” he said.
