GoDaddy Founder Keynoting Growth Summit; Rule #7; Cyber-Bullies

"…out-learning the competition"

HEADLINES:

GoDaddy Founder Keynoting Fortune Growth Summit — what should prove to be a fun and provocative keynote, Bob Parsons, the colorful founder and CEO of GoDaddy, just confirmed yesterday that he'll be our celebrity CEO speaker at the 2011 Fortune Growth Summit in Phoenix, Oct 25 – 26. Known for his memorable Super Bowl ads, Parsons is also a serious business leader who has grown his firm to over $1 billion from a start-up in 1997.

GoDaddy Sold for $2.25 Billion — Parsons recently sold a stake in GoDaddy to three major private equity firms in late June of this year, one of which participated in the Skype deal with Microsoft (Silver Lake Partners). He remains the largest shareholder. Roughly half the price covered his debt and the rest will be used to continue GoDaddy's rapid growth (25% last year alone). I'm interested to hear Parsons' lessons from this recent transaction. For more details check out Mashable's updates on the transaction.

Video Blog – Cyber-Bullies — Parsons is also an expert communicator and teacher. I particularly like his regular video blogs providing practical tips for growing your business, though his latest video blog provides advice on how your children can deal with cyber-bullies (worth showing your older children) – you'll note this last video blog was June 16 – precisely because he's been busy with all the issues that arise post the sale of your firm – and why he was just able to confirm his participation yesterday.

Parsons' 16 Rules — Parsons also has 16 Rules by which he's lived his life and run his business – though you may have seen them before, they are always worth the 3 minutes it takes to run down the list – they'll give you a huge boost of enthusiasm with all the talk of doom and gloom. My personal favorite is #7, for obvious reasons – it's why I do what I do "Never stop investing. Never stop improving. Never stop doing something new. The moment you stop improving your organization, it starts to die. Make it your goal to be better each and every day, in some small way. Remember the Japanese concept of Kaizen. Small daily improvements eventually result in huge advantages."

Registrations Double – Make Room Reservations — maybe it's because we have the #1 business speaker keynoting, Dan Pink, or because we have $169 room rates at a first class resort in Phoenix or because of Parson's Rule #7 (the most important reason) – anyway, registrations are running literally twice ahead of last year. And because I'm super conservative in guaranteeing rooms, since I never know what's going to happen (which is why we ran out of rooms at the Ritz Carlton last year) — if you think you're going to attend, at least make your room reservations ASAP – then I'll know to grab some more rooms. Here's a link to room reservation info. And remember, those that register earliest and bring the bigger teams (just $250 deposit) get the better seats – just like a rock concert.