In December 2006 I attended the first ever Elite Retreat Conference in San Antonio, TX. In my opinion, this was the best conference of this type I have ever attended. The attendees numbered about 20 and there were abundant opportunities to talk one-on-one with the presenters. Coupled with the fact that it was a “no sales pitch” event, this made the conference all the more interesting.

The upcoming Elite Retreat conference in March 2007, being held in San Francisco will prove to be no less informative. With the addition of Darren Rowse, Kris Jones and Neil Patel the organizers have expanded the amount of information that will be presented.

Darren Rowse of Problogger.net is a full time blogger and internet personality. Darren presumably replaces Dave Taylor who was a presenter at the last event.

Kris Jones of Pepperjam Search, a new addition to the presenter list, will prove to be an invaluable resource for internet marketing and internet business in general.

Neil Patel, an internet marketing consultant and creator of CrazyEgg.com, will prove to be a very interesting addition. Neil is a very smart guy and his abilities cover a broad spectrum of internet related businesses.

Rounding out this list and present at the San Antonio conference will be Jeremy Schoemaker, better known as Shoemoney, SEO, affiliate marketer, PPC arbitrage expert, SEM & branding extraordinaire and an all-round fun guy to hang-out with.

Aaron Wall, an extremely smart guy and well known for his work on Search Engine Optimization (seobook.com) will have a wide variety of SEO techniques to impart. Aaron is a highly paid SEO consultant who large companies consult with in order to improve their search engine rankings.

Last but not least, Lee Dodd, the organizer of the Elite Retreat Conferences. Lee is a forum and online community expert. Lee’s knowledge in this and other areas proved to be very informative and interesting at the conference in San Antonio.

In my opinion, despite the pricey admission fee, Elite Retreat San Francisco is an event not to be missed.

So, I recently received, in the mail, an “invitation” from a no-name entity who plastered the words “Internet Marketing Conference” like it was their company name in subdued gray type all over the stationery. The invitation was to a free internet marketing seminar in my town, of all places. I say, “of all places” because Melbourne Beach, FL is not the hotbed of internet entrepreneurship that you may think. I may be wrong, but I doubt it.

The reason I attended was because curiosity got the better of me and I was dying to find out what this was about.

This seminar, or conference as they call it, was presented by a company called Storesonline.com. If I had known that before, I would have searched Yahoo.com and found this. Anyway, I was there already, one of about 150 people, crammed into a hotel ballroom like sardines and I figured I’d give them a chance.

There were SO many red flags going off in my head that this was just a big sales pitch and here’s why:

• The cheap suits of the seminar crew. JC Penny specials, all of them.

• The presenter was trying to be Mr. Personality and greeting everyone like he was a celebrity but looked like he fit better in a dive bar type of environment.

• The constant reminders by the seminar crew that this was a really popular conference and things sell out fast.

• They were offering free lunch and a free day-planner. “A $120 value!” Right.

• They talked more about the experience of having money that building an internet business.

• The seminar presenters “revival preacher from Kansas” method of delivery.

• The opening line, “How’re all you folks doing today!!” “What was that? I couldn’t hear you!”

Basically this free 90-minute seminar was a sales pitch to get you to the full-day seminar for which they were charging the lowly sum of $20.

According to John Chow in his post about his experience, he says that the “services” they were offering were exorbitantly priced and completely not worth it. He was right.

In my opinion, if you know enough to run a business on the internet, you know that this company’s services are a total ripoff. Yes they aggregate all that you would need to run an ecommerce site but the more you learn, you will find out that these services are available a WHOLE LOT cheaper elsewhere.

The thing that made me kind of sad was that about 80% of the people in the seminar were older retirees in their 70s who looked like they were all into all the crap this company was selling.

So, as always, buyer beware.