Now that the Personal Development Partners website is up and the membership base is starting to grow, it’s time to rapidly grow the community for the benefit of all present and future members!
Online communities are hard to start because if people go there and not much is happening, they won’t join. However, if people don’t join, then there will never BE anything happening!
In order to get past that critical spot during the growth of the PDP site, I am going to do it the old-fashioned way – bribe people! 🙂
Starting at midnight on Tuesday, September 18th, and running until midnight on Friday, October 19th (both Eastern Standard Time), there will be a contest and membership drive for PDP that I am calling the Personal Development Push. There will be 3 awesome prizes awarded to the people who do the most to build and grow the community, and those prizes are:
1st prize is a brand new 4GB iPod Nana w/Video, preloaded with every minute of audio from Mike Dooley’s incredible Infinite Possibilities program! In addition to having the MP3’s preloaded onto the iPod, you will also receive the CD’s themselves to listen to in your car, or just to keep for your archives.
Total Value of this Prize: $280
2nd prize is a brand new 1GB iPod Shuffle preloaded with the awesome Million Dollar Mindset program from James Arthur Ray. Again, your iPod will be preloaded with the material, and you will also receive all of the CD’s from the program, as well as the comprehensive Million Dollar Mindset workbook .
Total Value of this Prize: $160
For those of you who want to choose your own information or gadgets, the 3rd prize is an Amazon.com Gift Certificate for $75. The gift certificate can be used to purchase anything sold on the Amazon website – you can choose to purchase personal development related products, or something completely different.
Total Value of this Prize: $75
Ways to Win the Prizes
This contest is about letting people know about Personal Development Partners, and at the same time it is about rewarding people who participate and help to grow the value of the community. To win the prizes, you will accumulate points over the next 31 days, and the 3 people who have the most points at midnight EST on Friday, October 19th will win the 3 grand prizes.
In order to grow the community in as many ways as possible I have put together 10 different ways to earn points:
- Refer a member to the site who then signs up for any type of membership – 5 pts
- Put a link to Personal Development Partners in a blog post – 10 pts
- Include a linked screenshot to PDP in a blog post (screenshot is below) – 15 pts
- Put a link to PDP in the sidebar or Blogroll or your site – 20 pts
Screenshot:(right-click and “save picture as” or “save image as” to save a copy)

Maximum Possible Points using these methods: 45 pts plus 5 pts for each referred member; unlimited referrals possible
- Sign up as a Free Member of the site – 15 pts
- Sign up as a Premium Member – 30 pts
- Sign up as a Junior Thought Leader – 40 pts
- Sign up as a Senior Thought Leader – 50 pts
- Start a new thread (discussion) on the site – 3 pts
- Respond to a present post or thread (minimum word count of 10 words) – 1 pt
Maximum Possible Points: UNLIMITED!
Common Questions
1) How do I refer people to the site?
There are 2 URL’s that you can use to refer people to the site; one of them goes to the home page, the other goes directly to the registration page. Both URL’s will include your unique User ID, which the system uses to record the referral as coming from you.
Here are examples of both URL’s. The number “2” at the end is my User ID, so be sure to substitute it with your own. You can find your own User ID by going to the site and looking at the Member List, and then clicking on your own username
https://www.personaldevelopmentpartners.com/?referrerid=2
https://www.personaldevelopmentpartners.com/register.php?referrerid=2
2) What if I am already a member of the site?
Present members will receive the points for their present level of membership. However, if you upgrade your membership, you will get the higher number of points associated with whatever membership level you upgrade to.
3) What if I am already a Senior Thought Leader and can’t upgrade any further?
Keep being the leader that you are and enjoy already having 50 points! Maximize your chances of winning by participating frequently on the site, and also referring other members.
4) How will you keep track of how many points each person has?
Other than keeping a running tally using an Excel spreadsheet, the site itself records almost all of the information that will be used to count towards prize points. Over the weekend after the end of the contest I will reconcile my spreadsheet with the data from the website, and announce the winners the following Monday.
5) Do I need to let you know that I am participating?
The only
thing that I need you to tell me is if you write a blog post about the site and/or if you put a link to PDP in the navigation of your website. If you do either of those (and you SHOULD!), please send me an email to make sure that I credit your account with those prize points.
So, that’s it! This concept is really very simple.
The personal development community now has a place where they can not only interact with each other on several different levels over the Internet, but we can also find people all over the world to interact with face to face in person. It’s a simple, useful, and powerful concept that is facilitated by a simple, useful, and powerful website.
Help yourself and your circle of influence by helping to grow the Personal Development Partners community, and in return you could end up with some totally awesome prizes that are 100% related to personal growth and development.
There is a term for this: no-brainer!






This is awesome Aaron. What a great, fun way to catalyze the growth of this amazing resource. I’m in! I’m going for the big one!
Edward,
Awesome – glad to have you in on the game!
It will be loads of fun as everyone interacts with and learns from each other while at the same time earning points for some very cool stuff.
I’m looking forward to the process and it will be great to have you on board, Edward!
Great idea Aaron! Count me in too.
Awesome, Priscilla – glad to have you on board! 🙂
Also, based on an idea that I read earlier today, I am going to try to find a way to add a section on the site that lists all of the personal development bloggers out there, as well as a system so members can rate them.
Your list was obviously the catalyst for that idea. See what you started??? 😉
Sounds like an awesome project Aaron. I created my account and made my first post. I’ll do a post about PDP and this post to help you out.
Aaron – Just wanted to thank you in advance for my new iPod. 😉
Awesome idea!
Adam – Thank you so much for your support! I really appreciate it, and I’m heading over to PDP in a few minutes. I’ll check out your post and leave a reply.
Thank you so much for your help, Adam – it means a lot!
Lyman,
HA! I have no doubt that you’ll be rackin’ up points the entire time, and way to exercise that “gratitude in advance” technique! 😉
Glad you’re a member, Lyman!
Hi Aaron
Count me in as well. I’ll do a blog post to promote it. Let me know if there’s anything else i can do to help.
Steve
Steve,
Thank you so much for your support! Will definitely look forward to you being with us at the site, and I very much appreciate you putting up a post about it.
I’ll get you added to the growing list of supporting members. Thanks again, Steve!
I love the ripple effect!
It’s great to see you putting together a promotion that’s a real win-win. People that are interested in a personal development community get to enjoy in the success, even before it gets started. Keep up the good work.
PG,
Thanks for the positive feedback on my idea. It’s been “cooking” for quite awhile, and now that it is finally up and running, I am working almost non-stop to both build the membership level, as well as add new functionality that will bring more value to the community.
I’ve got several awesome additions that I just made today, and I will be making an announcement about them shortly.
C’mon over to the site and join us if you haven’t already signed up!