| JenniDahling |
06-08-2007 09:43 AM |
It's been 2 years this week...
That I started my career in this nutty yet quite lucrative industry. As with many of you, my journey has been a long and unpredictable one, but the people in this biz has made it all worth while. The friends I have made, the places I have visited, and all the adventures I had getting my business going in the past year has truly been amazing.
I started at AVN Online, getting my feet wet and becoming familiar with the who's who in the industry. It was there I met Aly Drummond, who became my "persona" mentor, branding me as Jenni Dahling, putting me on as her co-host and board monitor when she hosted AVN in the Afternoons on Y-Not Radio. It was on that board that I met a few people that I am still great friends with today. The very first show I attended was Internext Miami, and I didn't know but a few people, met a bunch of folks, but always retired to my room at a decent hour, after the festivities. I was a scared dork.
Being at AVN put me in a great position to meet the movers and shakers, but my career there was short lived, and after 4 months of butting heads with a few folk, I was terminated. That was a bad week. I had moved to the Valley because I lived so far away and was tired of the 2 hour each way commute on the 405. The week before I was fired, we had just moved back into the house because my roommate and I had been temporarily displaced due to the fires in Chatsworth. (We had only been there 2 weeks before the fires broke out). I got terminated on a Monday, and that Friday I got t-boned on the freeway by a drunk, uninsured driver who fled the scene. Luckily she hit me so hard her car broke in half about 100 yards down the freeway. I had a C240 Benz that was barely a year old and she managed to pretty much kill it.
I spent the next 8 weeks recovering from soft tissue damage, whiplash, and airbag burns. It would have been a lot worse had I not been in such a well built car. God Bless those German automakers.
During that time I was seriously contemplating my future in adult and wondering what I should do next, whether or not I should stay in the biz somehow or go back corporate, etc. But I was always surrounded by good friends who kept encouraging me to stay in Adult and were offering me gigs to keep going. Unfortunately I didn't know much technical, and aside from my toy review spot on Sirius Playboy Radio, the only thing I had going for me was an incredible contact list of owners and decision makers, many of them close friends. Then JMK (owner of fullonvideo.com at the time who now runs hustlercash.com) told me to figure out a way to monetize my contacts.
A few nights later, I get a call from Lloyd, aka Baddog saying that he has extra tickets to some pretty exclusive events at the upcoming Vegas Internext. I figure, why not go and check things out. I was planning to go to AEE to push my Pritty Kitty product line anyway and the shows were running simultaneously at the Venetian. It was at that show I met some very interesting and influential people and the idea for PR Kitty was formed.
I then spent following year attending as many shows as possible, taking on projects, and learing as much as I could. My friends threw me a 40th birthday bash last Internext Miami, and it was then that I realized I had found my home. To be surrounded by 200 of my friends, and the few really close ones that made the party happen was truly a blessing. As I watched the sun rise over the horizon with a smile I had been wearing all night, I knew that my career in Adult was taking a turn for the wonderful and I welcomed it with open arms.
Now, as I sit here in the office at Dirty D's house in Tampa, preparing for my very first panel appearance: "Building Your Brand: Creative Marketing" at Cybernet Expo, I reflect on the incredible journey this past 2 years have been and I am truly grateful to the folks who have helped me along the way, giving me pointers, guidance and support, as well as the folks here on GFY for 2 years of entertainment and amusement as well as information.
May the next 2 or 20 be just as fun and lucrative for all of you as it has been for me (with less trials and tribulations of course!) :drinkup
|
