Thursday, May 8, 2014

Elite Retreat 9.5 Re-cap


“Omaha, somewhere in the middle of America” is what the majority of people think and know about Nebraska. This year I decided to through an Elite Event designed around Berkshire Hathaway to expose to people why I still live in this AWESOME state! We only allowed 20 attendees to partake in the three day event filled with networking, receptions, five star dinners, and nightlife entertainment. I can certainly say that the caliber of attendees was high this year and I couldn’t be more happy with the turnout


We hosted the event at the Element hotel located in Midtown Crossing. The area was fantastic as it had several restaurants and activities to do within walking distance. The staff at the hotel was impeccable and I would highly recommend hosting an event there. There was even a kitchen in every room and to turn on the lights (since it was a green hotel) you had to insert your room key into a slot.On Wednesday, we had two attendees arrive early who were from Switzerland and Norway so I drove up to Omaha and took them out to lunch. After lunch they went back with me to Lincoln (for those of you of do not know Lincoln is about 50 miles from Omaha) to stay at my house and see our office. Let me tell you they thought our Best Buy store in town was the greatest electronic store they have ever been in .


Thursday was the first day of the event and man did my staff do such a fantastic job. Every attendee was greeted by a staff member and when they got to their room they were greeted with gift baskets filled with techy goodies. Thanks to our friends over at Carbon Chat for sponsoring “nerd kits” for every attendee that included a Google Chromecast, a mobile portable phone charger, and a multi USB wall charger. I included my favorite book for 2014 Traction, if you have not read it yet you should as it gives great advice for building out a successful team and business. Everyone also got personalized glass engraved coasters with their last name and the official Elite Retreat 9.5 designed t-shirt.


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At night we officially kicked off the event with a champagne toast!


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We hosted a cocktail reception and hor’s d’oeuvres at Crave sponsored by our hosting company Binary.net. It was great to see everyone and meet all of the new attendees in person FINALLY! Did I mention we had 12 NEW attendees this year? It was fun to see the newbies and alumni network with one another!


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Friday, was really where it was at! Our meeting started at 9:00 and continued throughout the day until 5:00. After breakfast my staff rounded everyone up and had padfolios, pens, and a little extra special gift sponsored by Fraser Stryker from Borshiems. Now for those of you who do not know what Borsheims is, think of it as Tiffany’s. It is not just any jewelry store because it is owned by Warren Buffet.


To kick off the day the conference I opened and introduced the goals for the day. I then have every attendee go around and introduce them self, yes you may be thinking this is seems very childish but I cannot tell you how important this is going forward through the event.


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The line up of speakers for the day was previous VP of Go Daddy and now President of DNforum.com, Adam Dicker, Nebraska Book Company and Neebo’s Sr. VP/ CTO, Nate Rempe, and CEO/Co-Founder of Bulu Box, Paul Jarrett. This group of guys totally blew attendee’s minds with their experience, advice, and just tips/tricks they have learned along their own journey.


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For the second part of the day we had a few different networking activities planned. I can tell you this was one of the most productive networking events we have every had! For one of the activities we decided to do “speed dating”.


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At the end of the conference we surprised our attendees by giving each of them a DotCEO domain. Thank you Jodee Rich and the people over at Peoplebrowser.com for setting these up for our attendees and making us an Eliteretreat.ceo community site as well.


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At night we met at the J.Coco, a local five star restaurant, for a private cocktail hour and dinner following. You could say the conversation was flowing like wine ;) or the drinks that we were all enjoying. Come later that evening we had two limos waiting to take everyone out for a night in downtown Omaha. Lets just say Omaha was not prepared for the kind of party they were about to experience.


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Come Saturday morning every attendee received a Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder pass to attend the annual meeting/expo hall. For some it was their 2nd time seeing Warren Buffet speak but for the majority it was their first. I can say one thing, if you have not seen him speak yet I highly recommend it and soon as there has been rumors he will be retiring soon.


I can say the event was a huge success and it couldn’t have been one without our attendees, speakers, sponsors and staff! I cannot thank you all for your continued support and making this elite event what it is today. Please stay tuned in the next coming weeks for the announcement of Elite Retreat 10! I can certainly assure YOU that you will not want to miss out on this!!!!


Trying to increase your Google rank that is like no other?




Source: ShoeMOney



Elite Retreat 9.5 Re-cap

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