(Scott used to run the ECHO Conference in Dallas.)

From the article:

Having experienced Killer Tribes as a speaker and attendee this year, I think I learned a valuable lesson about planning events. The reality is that planners, staffers, volunteers, vendors, speakers and attendees all experience the same event in different ways. They have different responsibilities, hopes, fears and expectations. They have different goals, obstacles and pet peeves. They bring something different to the table, and they take something different away from it.

The piece is very insightful, and you can read it in its entirety here: Inside the Killer Tribes Conference.

You can also download the entire Killer Tribes 2013 Conference here.

(you can click their logos to learn more.)

The Mocha Club

Mobilizing folks to give up a few mochas a month to support strategic and solution-oriented relief and development projects in Africa. Don’t miss what they are doing with their Purpose Projects!

Justin McClure Creative

A full service creative agency specializing in digital and new media technologies. Hands down, the best experience I’ve ever had working with a design firm.

The Seed Company

Devoted to accelerating the translation of the Bible by working with local churches and translators all over the world. If you were at the conference, you heard Amy Lynn Andrews tell an incredibly moving story about the role The Seed Company is playing in her life.

Love and Respect Now

Bringing the message of Love and Respect in relationships to 18-35 year olds. Be on the lookout for their Illumination Project, which launches this Spring. (Fearlessly led by Joy Eggerichs, one of the funniest people I know.)

Haven’t picked up your copy of the audio from the 2013 Killer Tribes Conference? Grab it today!

1 Place to get it all.

The 2013 Killer Tribes Conference is now available.

All 6 hours of content, yours for just $55.

Have you seen the new look yet?

Audio form the 2013 Conference is now on sale and lots more goodness is coming soon.

Stay Tuned!

We are so excited to connect with all of you next weekend as we learn and get inspired by each other and an amazing lineup of speakers.

Speaking of those amazing speakers, here’s a look at the conference rundown.

Killer Tribes 2013 – March 23, 2013

Session 1 | 8:30a – 10:00a

Ben Arment – How to Become the Leader of Your Own Free World

John Saddington – An Ordinary Tribe

Session 2 | 10:30a – Noon

Crystal Paine – The 5 Be’s of Building Your Tribe

Panel 1 – The Journey of Writing a Book
Shawn Smucker, Matthew Paul Turner, Amena Brown, and Scott McClellan

Panel 2 – Productivity and Time Management
Craig Jarrow, Amy Lynn Andrews, and Ken Coleman

Session 3 | 1:30p – 3:00p

Brad Lomenick – What Makes a Movement

Breakout 1 – Strategic Affiliate Marketing Tactics
Jessica Turner

Breakout 2 – Making a Living as a Writer
Jason Boyett & Shawn Smucker

Breakout 3 – How to Be Productive as a Self-Employed Creative Person Without Hey Look, A Squirrel!
Tripp Crosby

Session 4 | 3:30p – 5:00p

Kristen Howerton – Accountability, Vulnerability, and Boundaries

Marlee Ward – The Secret to Leading a Loyal Tribe

Bryan Allain – Put Down the Treasure Map

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It’s going to be amazing, can’t wait to see you there!

Not registered yet? What are you waiting for? Tickets are still available!

See you next weekend!

Amy Andrews from BloggingWithAmy.com has joined us to be a part of our Productivity Panel.

Amy is passionate about about time management and organization, and her book, Tell Your Time, has been called “…a life changing read” and “…a huge blessing of peace and sanity to my crazy day.” She is an amazing blogger and communicator, and she’ll be joining Craig Jarrow and one other person on the Productivity Panel.

Who is that other person?

It’s Ken Coleman, host of The Ken Coleman Show, a daily radio show in Atlanta,

Ken is not only on the radio in Atlanta from 5p-7p every weekday, he’s also the co-host of the popular Catalyst Podcast and the author of a new book, One Question, that releases next month with Simon and Schuster. We’re so excited to have Ken on board!

Last, but certainly not least, we are excited to announce that Amena Brown will be joining us at Killer Tribes as a part of our book writing panel!

Amena is a speaker, author, and event host whose words never fail to excite, ignite and inspire. Her debut book release, Breaking Old Rhythms: Answering the Call of a Creative God, explores how experiences such as deejaying, learning to dance, having a broken heart, and practicing the rules of improv can teach us about our life’s rhythm and how we can better tune our ears and lives to the rhythm of God.

We are so lucky to have her be a part of what should be an amazing day at Killer Tribes!

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These three speakers fill out an already dynamic lineup of presenters that will inspire, encourage, and empower you to take your growing tribe to the next level.

Whether you’re a blogger, an entrepreneur, or the leader of a dynamic team, the connections you make at Killer Tribes while learning from folks like John Saddington, Ben Arment, Crystal Paine, and more will propel you into making 2013 your best year yet. Grab your ticket now and join us on March 23rd in Atlanta!

For more info: The 2013 Killer Tribes Conference

To Register: Get your ticket now!

It’s my privilege to share that we’ll be joined in Atlanta on March 23rd by three new amazing speakers: Brad Lomenick, Marlee Ward, and Craig Jarrow!

Brad Lomenick is the executive director of the Catalyst Conference and the author of the upcoming book, The Catalyst Leader (Thomas Nelson, April 2013).

He’s passionate about the principles of leadership and he loves equipping and inspiring influencers to continue to make a difference.

Marlee Ward is a business coach, marketing mastermind, and speaker who lives to help entrepreneurs increase their income and their impact by building profitable businesses that serve others.

She writes practical, easy-to-apply, savvy business and marketing tips designed to help you grow your business (and your bottom line) at MarleeWard.com.

Craig Jarrow is an expert in the field of time management, goal setting, and organization having taught on the subject at a wide variety of companies including The Home Depot, The U.S. Navy, and LifeHacker.com.

His passion is to empower people to take control of their lives by teaching them about the skills, habits, and tools the most successful people in business are using today.

—

These three speakers join an already dynamic lineup of presenters that will inspire, encourage, and empower you to take your growing tribe to the next level.

Whether you’re a blogger, an entrepreneur, or a leader, the connections you make at Killer Tribes while learning from folks like John Saddington, Ben Arment, and Crystal Paine will propel you into making 2013 your best year yet. Grab your ticket now and join us on March 23rd in Atlanta!

For more info: The 2013 Killer Tribes Conference

To Register: Get your ticket now!

We’ve got such an amazing weekend planned for you! Our Friday night pre-party is going to blow last year’s out of the water, and the conference on Saturday is going to be jam packed with inspiration, insight, and a ton of laughs.

Haven’t seen our speaker lineup lately? You might want to check it out. (and we’ve still got a few more announcements up our sleeves.)

Remember, the Early Bird ends TONIGHT. Email a friend, make plans, and do something unexpected to make 2013 memorable!!!

We’ll see you there!

A lot can be accomplished in 365 days. And unless you take the time to properly evaluate the last 365 days, how can you have a proper perspective of what you can expect in the next 365 days?

Do you have a yearly review process for your blog? Have you scheduled a day to look back on what you’ve accomplished in the past year? Do you have the proper perspective to start dreaming for the year to come?

Over the past few years I’ve refined my yearly review process. I’ve nowhere near perfected it, but it has been a great way of helping me to realign with my goals and plan for the future.

In this post I want to share with you my review process.

Set the date

I schedule out 4 hours on the last Saturday of the year. Nothing else is scheduled in that time slot. I go somewhere I can focus without being interrupted (like the local Starbucks) and bring my laptop, notebook, and a pen. I set my Google Analytics time frame from Jan. 1 of that year all the way to the current day. Then I meticulously go through and record all the metrics that are important to my site’s growth.

The measurements

Below are the 8 primary metrics that I look at when going through my Google Analytics.

Unique Visitors

The number of individuals who have visited your blog.

Pageviews

The number of pages that were viewed on your blog.

Pages per Visit

The average number of pages each individual views before leaving your site.

Social Actions

The number of +1s, Tweets, Likes, and other social media actions that Google is able to track.

Traffic Sources

The various ways people are finding or clicking through to your site.

Refferal sites

The websites that are sending you visitors because of a direct link to your site.

Visits by Social Network

The social networks that are sending you visitors because of a posted link to your site.

Bounce Rate

The percentage of people who visit your site and never view any other pages besides the one they landed on before leaving.

And any other little metrics here and there that I’m curious about– there are tons of things to look through.

What got me there

Once I’ve recorded all the most important metrics I compare them to my ACTIONS taken– what did I do that garnered these results:

• How many blog posts did I publish?
• How active was I on specific social networks?
• How much did I engage outside of my own site?

The biggest factor for me though is the first one– how many times did I hit “Publish”?

Once I know this, I can then go discover which posts had the most page views for the year. This will tell me which types of content are the most successful, and which ones I should probably never do again.

Setting next year’s goals

Once I’ve gathered all of this data, I can decide where my successes and failures were. From there I begin to set next year’s goals, along with specific actions to accomplish them.

Goals:

• XXX,XXX amount of Unique visitors
• XXX,XXX amount of Page views
• XX,XXX amount of Social Actions
• XX,XXX amount of visits from Social Networks
• X pages/visit
• X% bounce rate
• Write a book… etc.

It’s not enough though to just set goals– you must also come up with specific actions that will bring about your goals. Here’s some examples of actions I have decided to take to reach my own goals:

• Write more frequently and consistently (publish “x” amount of blogs per week)
• Spend more time networking (make “x” amount of new connections per week)
• Spend more time sharing other people’s work than my own work
• Read books “X”, “Y”, and “Z”.

I am still refining the process and my capacity to execute it better. I thought I’d at least share it with this community though and see what your thoughts are.

I would love to hear if you have a similar process in the comments.

Better yet, if you have any ideas that I haven’t mentioned here, please share them!

Dustin Stout is a graphic artist, social media enthusiast, and self-proclaimed technology addict. He writes about faith, creativity, and social media on his blog, Dustn.tv.

You bought the Macbook Pro, distraction free word processor, a subsription to Spotify for inspiring music, created a blogging calendar, went to Bryan’s Killer Tribes Conference and have listened to the audio every day since.

You’re a blogger, or at least you’re supposed to be. Your blogging production has been dismal for as long as you can remember because you don’t have time to write about the great ideas that you’ve got scribbled in the $14 Moleskine you bought.

Adding one habit to your life will help you achieve the blog you know you’re capable of writing. You need more time and last I checked they’re not making any more of it.

If you really want to be a successful blogger then you need to write more and write more often. If you’re not as successful as you want to be then do something about it. The single habit that changed my business and the rest of my life was learning to wake up early.

Let’s be clear on something, I hate waking up early but I love being up early. My kids are 5, 3 and 15 months old so if I want to get any writing done while I’m at home I have two options. Wake up early (around 5:30am) or stay up late.

Have you ever stayed up late with the intention of finishing some work but then watched TV instead? That doesn’t happen at 5:30am. Have you ever fallen asleep working late at night? That doesn’t happen at 5:30am. Have you ever sat down to write and been tempted to check Twitter, email or your site analytics? That doesn’t happen (as much) at 5:30am.

How to Build an Early Riser Habit

If you want to build a habit of rising early you need three things.

1. A purpose – No one wakes up late for a flight to Mexico to go on vacation. Give yourself a purpose for rising early unique from the rest of your day. Make the time special and selfish. It’s just for you.

2. A bed time – You will not get up early if you stay up late. You’ll never regret going to bed at 9:30pm but almost every time you go to bed at 1am you do regret it. Go to bed earlier.

3. A plan – Buy a good alarm clock app (Sleep Cycle or Rise Alarm). Set up your coffee maker the kick on early. Buy some sweet slippers to wear when you get out of bed. Set out a book and something to write with and on at your favorite spot in the living room. Equip yourself to have a productive morning.

If you say you need more time then get up earlier. Morning hours are usually twice as productive as late night hours. I’ve added 10 hours a week to my creative work since starting this habit. That’s 520 hours a year, an extra 13 40-hour work weeks.

You say you need more time to blog?

Learn to rise early and watch your writing radically improve.

Andy Traub is a full time podcaster and founder of the Take Permission Media Network. He’s the author of Early To Rise: Learn to rise early in 30 days. Every copy of his book includes the full audio edition as well as 30 days of email encouragement. You can learn more about his book at EarlyToRiseBook.com.