In about two weeks I am going to San Francisco to attend Elite Retreat. No it’s not a vacation, although when you are working for yourself it often tends to feel this way (except when doing the books).

Elite Retreat is a meetup of a small group of entrepreneurs with an excellent line up of hosts. These industry “experts” spend the time and attention to cover a range of topics, such as online marketing, advertising, monetizing, optimizing, SEO, promotion, blogging, etc.

It would be an injustice for me to pigeon hole exactly what will be covered, I just don’t know but judging from the lineup it’s all the things I am very interested in.

It’s supposed to be very private, about 35 attendees at $4950 per person. Yes it’s that expensive, and now sold out too. I’ve never paid that much for a conference before. However, as you might see in a month on this blog, I truly do believe that it is very acceptable to pay for people’s attention.

That is a very large amount of cash, yes for me too, I am not rich by any means just yet. But these things are a great investment. Let me explain.

Paying people - those who can share the knowledge it may otherwise take you much longer to learn on your own - is usually well worth the cost. Certainly if you think about the time and cost it takes to experiment to come to same conclusions, then it’s a cheap way to cut corners. 

But often you won’t have the time to experiment, and you just don’t know what you don’t know yet. Being ignorant does not remove facts from existence, and if you run a business it’s important to always turn your head and look around once in a while - see if anything is flying straight for your head.

Sure I already know a lot as it is, but there’s always more to learn. In fact usually the people who pay for learning are those who want to get even better, even if by a little, only to get closer to the highest possible state of understanding on the subject. To want to learn more is to admit you are wiser today than you were yesterday.

In addition, there’s nothing I enjoy more than meeting people who understand what you are saying before you finish the sentence. It can be like meeting your own countrymen in a foreign place - you instantly feel like a bond is shared on some level. The high attendance price here will filter out a lot of people, and hopefully only some of the most passionate people will get to attend.

Anyhow, I have almost never been disappointed with paying high fees for conferences before. I have certainly been disappointed with the actual conferences, but not paying for them because of the new ideas and new people you get to meet.

In fact, we’re about to have a new hire at Digitally Imported (hi J!). I have met him only because I went to one conference, which led me to attent a side conference, which is where I met this person. As fate would have it he happened to be a long time Digitally Imported Radio listener too. That’s how these things work folks - sometimes years down the road, but well worth it.

It’s been over three years since I had a chance to visit San Francisco. Having two boys, one almost 3 and another 4 months old now, born within this time certainly prevented me from most travels. But it’s time I visit and say hello to my brother who lives around there too!