Ep. 361: Hosting a Virtual Summit to Grow Your Side Hustle

Speaker 1: Hey there. Shannon Mattern here and welcome to Pep Talks for Side Hustlers, a podcast that brings you side hustle success stories, motivation, and actionable advice to help you go from side hustle to self-employed without taking a pay cut. So I started side hustling back in 2014 as a web designer and after several months of undercharging and over-delivering, I decided to quit doing one-on-one web design work and started teaching people how to do it themselves instead. And what I didn't expect was all of the students who just wanted to hire me to build their websites for them. So I fixed my broken freelance web design business, got it profitable and sustainable. And then I was finally able to replace my six figure income and quit my day job. So on Pep Talks for Side Hustlers, I not only share with you my ongoing business journey, but I also bring you stories of successful side hustlers who started from scratch just like you, and have gone on to replace their paycheck and create six and even seven figure online businesses.

Speaker 1: So if you're a do-it-yourselfer or a web designer, I have got tons of free resources to help you build a profitable, sustainable, and scalable business. So head on over to shannonmattern.com/free to get your hands on them. Okay. So let's go ahead and dive in to this week's episode.

: Welcome to episode at 361 of Pep Talks for Side Hustlers. And I have a very special episode for you today. It is a replay of a webinar that I recently hosted all about hosting virtual summits. So in this replay of this training that I did, I break down the Side Hustle to Self-Employed Summit that I hosted last February and all of the good behind the scenes stuff that led to me deciding to do the summit. Hosting the summit, everything that I learned, the challenges, the wins and everything so that if you are thinking about hosting your own virtual summit, you have all of the information that you need to make that decision. And that you're going in with your eyes wide open about the opportunities that are available to you hosting a summit, and also what you need to think about and be prepared for, to really make it a success.

Speaker 1: And today's episode is brought to you by Summit in a Box, which is an entire system to help you run a profitable summit. I'm talking how-to's templates, trainings, everything that you need to host a profitable summit you can find in Summit in a Box. It's what I used to help me run the Side Hustle to Self-Employed Summit back in February. It's made by my friend, Krista Miller, who is an amazing human with an incredible set of values. And I am a proud, proud affiliate of the Summit in a Box program. So if after listening to this, you're like, yes, I want to host a virtual summit, just go to shannonmattern.com/summitinabox. That will take you over to Krista's website so you can watch her masterclass and learn all the things you need to learn about her program and how it can support you in hosting a profitable summit that's not only going to be profitable itself, but that's going to help you create an incredible list of your ideal client that you can sell your products, programs, and services to in the future. So without any more delay, let's dive in to this week's episode, which is the replay of the behind the scenes of the Side Hustle to Self-Employed Virtual Summit.

Speaker 2: Hello, hello, and welcome to my behind the scenes of my Side Hustle to Self-Employed Summit webinar. I love seeing everyone coming in live. As you guys are coming in, let me know in the chat where you're from and what kind of summit you are thinking about hosting. I would love to know. Ann, Barbara, Charlotte, Jen, Jesse, Karen, Karen, Kim, Mary. Welcome. I am so excited that you guys are here and I would love to know what you are thinking about. What topic are you thinking about hosting a summit on? So the reason that I am hosting this very informal webinar today, whatever date this is, it is August 19th, 2021. And I am in the early planning stages of figuring out what summits and what I'm going to do for 20 22. And as I was kind of digging into all of the data from the Side Hustle to Self-Employed Summit that we did back in February. I was doing my analysis, right?

Speaker 2: I was doing my analysis. I'm like, what worked, what didn't work? What would I like to change for next time. I talked to some of my students inside of my programs that had hosted summits as well, because last year I did a collaboration with Krista Miller of Summit in a Box. We did a promotion together, and some of my students inside of my programs purchased her Summit in a Box course. And so I watched those students walk through the process of planning and executing a summit, and they learned a lot of lessons that were different than a lot of the lessons I learned. And so what I really wanted to do with this session is talk to those of you who are considering hosting a virtual summit and just kind of break down what my experience was like. What went well, what didn't go well. What I learned and what decisions I would make for next time.

Speaker 2: So I hope that all of you who are here are gonna learn a ton from from my experience. And I'm going to be very, very candid about the entire experience. So, like I said, this is a no pitch training. At the end of it I am going to share with you a couple of freebies that you can get your hands on for planning your own summit if you decide that that's the route that you want to go. And then you can literally ask me any question that you want. We will have a Q&A at the end. I am an open book. We're going to dive deep into all of the nitty-gritty about hosting your own virtual summit. So Jen says, "hi, I teach classes of cohorts on the artist's way. So I'd like to host an artist's way day as a mini summit."

Speaker 2: I love it, Jen. Jesse says "an intro to dealing with food allergies". Hey, Kelly. Ann says "I'm a writing coach. So I would do something related to that. I'm thinking about rounding up agents. I could include pitch sessions or one about understanding traditional publishing and include some agents with optional pitch sessions for those who pay. And then the third option is just treat it like a writing conference and include more variety in the speakers to narrow it. I might make it for more non-fiction writers." Kelly's interested in doing a summit for working moms. So for those of you who are here live, I would love to know what topic are you thinking about hosting a summit on. And for those of you who are here live, please ask all of the questions, anything that you want to know about anything related to a virtual summit, I'm your girl. I will answer all of them.

Speaker 2: So, let's go ahead and dive in. So I did such a fancy presentation for you guys. I put together a Google doc with all of my thoughts. So I'm not going to share the whole thing with the right now. I will pull it up when we get to the numbers piece of things, but what I want to really break down for you is why I hosted a virtual summit and why people host virtual summits to begin with. How they typically work. When is the right time in your business to host a virtual summit. What to consider before hosting a virtual summit. I'll break down all my stats, how much money we made, how we made the money. And then I'll share with you, like I said, some freebies that you can get your hands on to help you in your own summit planning.

Speaker 2: So let's see. May says "I'm in the middle of planning a summit with a business partner and excited to hear about all your experiences". Awesome. May, good to see you. Charlotte says "I'm a teacher. I want to host a virtual summit about classroom management for intermediate and middle school teachers. I wonder if it's possible to do it for free for other teachers." Oh, thank you, Jen. I appreciate that. She says, "I always leverage transparency around income and numbers." If you're wondering why I'm reading the chat and you guys are like, "Shannon, I'm here, you don't need to read the chat to me". I do it for the replay. So when people are watching the replay, they get to kind of experience you guys and all your different, really cool ideas and your questions.

Speaker 2: And so Ausa has two websites. "One's about content creation for bloggers, and I want a summit for new bloggers to pitch for my content creating course. And another is my mommy niche to introduce my chores gamification method, and grow my list for both." Ann says, "I see programs that help you put together a summit. Do you think we can do it ourselves?" DIY. We'll get into that. That's such a good question, such a good question. And Karen says "I'm a personal chef that helps clients use nutrition to reach their health goals or a supplemental therapy for treating specific diseases, and transitioning to being an online coach to help clients make this transition for themselves versus having me physically doing the cooking for them. In the future I'd like to do a summit in the wellness space with some related fields that would support my client's goals." Trish is doing an in-person retreat this fall would love to think about how to do it virtually. Awesome. Okay. So I love all of this. I love your summit ideas.

: I have a podcast it's called Pep Talks for Side Hustlers. Everybody that's here, you're all on my email list so I'm assuming that I don't have to tell you a little bit about me. You guys all kind of know you're here cause you know who I am. So I've got my podcast, Pep Talks for Side Hustlers, and I really wanted to do a summit for side hustlers. Right? And not just because I love side hustlers so much and I have such a soft spot in my heart for side hustlers.

Speaker 2: Obviously I do. But it's also very strategic. We do summits for very strategic reasons. And my strategic reason was that I want to grow my email list, right? What I do in my business is I teach new online entrepreneurs how to DIY their website. And so I wanted get more eyeballs on the Free 5-Day Website Challenge, which means more revenue and affiliate commissions, which means more revenue from my Site in a Snap template pack. And it means just more people on my email list and in my world that I get to impact and help and just help people, right? Help people break free from their nine to five. Help people create a full-time income from their online business. And then I also, outside of those programs, products and services, then kind of like diverge people two ways.

Speaker 2: I get a whole lot of web designers creeping on my Free 5-Day Website Challenge. And I coach web designers and I love web designers. And so I invite those people to apply for my Web Designer Academy. And then also, what you need to know how about to market your business, right? A website is not going to market your business for you. You have to do stuff to market your business. And with my Subscriber To Sale Blueprint program, I actually teach people how to market their business without algorithms, ads, social media, all of that stuff. So that's kind of like the ethos, the lifecycle of someone coming into my world. They'll hear the Pep Talks for Side Hustlers podcasts. They'll sign up for the Free 5-Day Website Challenge. They'll buy stuff I recommend in that program.

Speaker 2: They'll buy Site in a Snap. They'll join my Subscriber To Sale Blueprint or my Web Designer Academy, if they want to be a web designer. So I have this whole pipeline of how I help people. And people come in at all different places and they don't have to go through it that way, but that's kind of like the ecosystem, right? So for me to host a virtual summit gets more people through the door because I am strategically choosing speakers who already have the audience of people that I want to help. Right? And so the key to hosting a virtual summit is you get speakers who already have the audience of people that you want to serve. So I wanted to host a virtual summit because I wanted to build my email list so that I could build a relationship with those people. And the natural next step is to be like, Hey, now that we know each other, here's how I can help you reach your goals.

Speaker 2: And then the second goal that I had was I just wanted to make enough money to break even on paying for the summit, right? Because running a summit, there are expenses attached to it. I don't care how much you DIY it. There are absolutely expenses attached to doing it. And we're going to break down what those are here. I wanted to break even, and I wanted it to at least pay for itself, right? Because I knew that once I built the email list, I could nurture and convert those new people into customers and generate revenue from there. Ann says " Shannon, I send people to your free program all the time." Awesome, Ann. Thank you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. So any questions about that before I move on to the next thing I wanted to talk about? Does anybody have any reasons different from mine that you want to host a virtual summit? I would love to hear if you have different reasons for hosting a virtual summit. Because you might do it differently than I did it depending on your motivations.

: So I'm going to move on to my next piece. Ausa wonders "do you think it's possible for new bloggers to host the summit? " We're going to talk about when in your business it makes sense to host the summit here in just a minute. Of course it's possible to host summit, but let's talk about if it makes strategic sense in your business to host a summit at certain points. Danae says "ours is also to grow our email list and grow our audience". Yeah, absolutely. To do it, just to do it is it's a lot of work.

Speaker 2: It's a lot of work. There are a lot of moving pieces. So I want you to have a really strategic reason do it, to make it worthwhile for you. So let's talk about how they typically work. Obviously you guys are here because I'm sure you've participated in them before. It's not like you're like 'what's a virtual summit?. I'm here because I have no idea what it is'. You have some idea of what it is. But typically the way that it works is that you come up with a topic that is very much in alignment with the program, product or service that your business offers. It does not make sense to come up with a summit on a topic that is completely unrelated to what your business does. So just make sure that when you're thinking of your summit topic, the natural next step for the speakers and the people that are there, it wouldn't be off the wall for you to then invite them to a summit.

Speaker 2: Like for me to host Side Hustle to Self-Employed and invite all kinds of people there and then be like, Hey, join my Web Designer Academy that doesn't teach web design. It teaches web designers how to build a business. That's not aligned. It's not aligned at all. I am co-hosting and collaborating with Krista Miller and Sarah Masci to post their Simply Profitable Designer Summit in 2022. And that one does naturally lead to Web Designer Academy. Right? So you want to make sure that your topic aligns with what you are selling. Even if you don't have that thing ready yet, you still want to make sure that your topic aligns with that. And then what you do is you invite people. How you get people to your summit is through your speakers, right?

Speaker 2: So it's not that you're hosting this summit and then you're trying to get individual people there yourself. You host the summit and the attendees come from all of your speakers' email list, with all of your speakers promoting it, right? And it's that collective promotion between you and all of your speakers that makes the summit worthwhile for everyone to participate. Right? So that's how you can go from a small email list or a non-existent email list to people saying, yes I will join and promote because they know that the 5, 10, 20, 25 other speakers that you have, they're all promoting. And it's this collective effort and collective exposure that everybody's getting that everybody benefits from. So when you host a virtual summit, the speakers are the key and the linchpin and whatever other words I can use. They make or break your event. They make or break your event.

Speaker 2: So it's really critical to invite people to speak at your summit who have an audience, and have the audience of people who would be the person who's purchasing your program, product or service. So for me, what that looks like is inviting people like Gina Horkey, who serves virtual assistants, and Kathy Goughenour, who serves virtual assistants. Because a lot of virtual assistants take my training to learn how to offer those services to their clients, or to learn how to build a website for their business. So my whole list of speakers, they serve the online entrepreneur, DIY newbie to mid-level space, in a different way than I do. Right? So someone teaches DIY graphic design. Someone teaches copywriting. We had all across the board people who still serve my audience, just in a different way than I did.

Speaker 2: So that's really critical is your speakers, because the whole thing doesn't work if you don't bring in speakers that have audiences full of your ideal client. You have the speakers there. They've agreed to speak at your summit. They understand that all the speakers together are what creates the event. Basically what you do is, everybody gives tickets to the live portion of the event away for free in exchange for an email address, right? And then you can upsell getting a recording of all of the sessions. People call it an All Access Pass. So the event is free. People can register just with their email address. They can attend all of the live sessions whenever they happen for free. Or, if they want, they can pay for recordings of the sessions.

Speaker 2: And that is how you pay for the expenses of your summit, right? That's how you pay for the web hosting. That's how you pay for, and we'll talk about what those expenses look like, by charging for that All Access Pass. You share the proceeds of the All Access Pass with your speakers. So if I invite Sarah Noked, who is an OBM, she teaches people how to to run OBM agencies, online business management agencies. I say, Hey, Sarah, do you want to speak at my summit? Here's a link for you to use for people to register for their free ticket. But if they choose to upgrade, you get 50% of that sale. And I keep 50%. And that's how you generate revenue, how you entice or reward your speakers to participate in share too,

Speaker 2: because they're going to get some money out of it, right? They're going to make some money off of the summit. And so you split the proceeds of your All Access Pass with your speakers. Some people also offer an extra level of that. They offer what's called like a Power Pack, or you can name it whatever you want. So I did an All Access Pass, which was just the recordings. And then I did a Power Pack, which was recordings and bonuses that I created and bonuses that my speakers contributed to. My speakers are incentivized to contribute to that Power Pack because they get 50% of everyone they sell from people that they refer to the summit. And we'll talk about the tech of tracking all of this in a second.

Speaker 2: So, you you host the summit. You invite all the speakers. They promote your summit because they know that with all the 10 other speakers, we're all collectively promoting my visibility's being 10 X. I'm getting in front of all these other people that I would not have had the chance to get in front of otherwise. There's a bit of an incentive in it for me. If my customers buy something from you, they're going to get paid and you get to build the know, like, and trust factor with everybody who has registered during the summit, because you're the host. You're the one that organized it. You're the one introducing all the speakers. You're the one emailing everybody. And then you're the one who, after the summit is over, is making an offer for your products, programs, and service. And they already know who you are, why you pulled this event together, why you brought these incredible speakers together and you get to talk to them more than all of the other speakers combined.

Speaker 2: So you get to really raise your visibility as an expert. Heather asked a great question. I'm going to hold that for the Q&A, so please, you guys, definitely pop your questions into the chat and I will answer those at the end of this event. I have plenty of time built in for Q&A. There's no pitch. So this is all an informational session for you guys. Jesse had a question too, which I'll ask here in a second.

: So let's talk about when is the right time to host a virtual summit? There are a couple criteria that I highly, highly recommend you have in place before hosting a virtual summit. And then if you still want to host a virtual summit, I just want you to manage your expectations. Okay? So if you have a proven offer that converts, hosting a virtual summit is an amazing way for you to scale, right?

Speaker 2: And when I say you have a proven offer that converts, what I mean is that you already have successfully sold a product to your audience, your product program, or service. So who here has a proven offer that converts? For example, my Site in a Snap template pack that I offer when people sign up for my Free 5-day Website Challenge. I know that for every 100 people that see that offer, four of them are going to buy it. It's a proven offer that converts. I have metrics behind it and I've done the work to take it through a testing and validation process and it sells. People buy it. People pay money for it when I make that offer. So if you have a proven offer that convert, put a1 in the chat,

Speaker 2: Okay. Charlotte is a 1. Nae is a 1. Jen is a 1. Ann is a 1. That's okay, Ann. You can type your long answer in. So the second criteria for those of you who have a proven offer that converts is that you are hitting your minimum baseline revenue every single month. And this isn't necessarily a requirement, but because there is a big investment of time and potentially money, depending on what you want to do, not a big investment of money, but it's going to cost some money and it's going to pull your resources away from other things that you're doing in your business, I recommend that. You're already making the money that you need to make every month. But you want to scale, right? So you're hitting that minimum baseline revenue every single month.

Speaker 2: Now that is not a requirement. This is just more like a 'let's manage your expectations' for what can happen when you host a virtual summit. Because it's a long game, right? This is not instant gratification, instant results, instant windfall cash. This is a long game, long strategy kind of thing. So I just want you guys to know that. Laurie says "I'm nowhere near this, but it's still very interesting and worthwhile to learn about." Yes, it is and that kind of leads me to the next step.

: So the next step - you can, as a new entrepreneur who doesn't have an email list yet, you can use the strategy of a virtual summit to build an email list. This strategy is not right for everyone. It's not right for everyone.

Speaker 2: If you are crystal clear on who you want to serve, how you want to serve them, you have an offer that you want to test because you need people to test your offer on and you want to build an email list And now that you have this email list, you can make your offer to the email list and test it and tweak it. You can do what we call inside of the Subscriber To Sale Blueprint program, you can do either a quick and dirty validation or a tried and true validation. And you want to do it from of "warm" email list subscribers, meaning they came from other people. And they went through this summit process with you. They know who you are, and now you're saying, Hey, what do you think of this offer? What's confusing to you?

Speaker 2: What would you change? Would buy this? And you're doing this validation on it and you're making an offer to them and you're testing your offer. Then I think it would be fine to do a virtual summit when you're just starting out. But I can promise you, it is a lot of work to host a virtual summit. We'll get into that in a second. And so there are easier and faster ways. We teach this inside of our Subscriber To Sale Blueprint program to our clients. There are easier and faster ways to build your email list and do that validation process and then test your offer, get it converting. And then host a virtual summit to scale, to get more eyeballs on that offer after you have a proven offer that converts. So you would just have to know for those of you that said, let's see who said that. Ausa said

Speaker 2: "Is it possible for new bloggers to host a summit?" Of course it's possible. But does it strategically make sense for you right now? If you just have an idea of what you want to sell, but you haven't actually sold it to anybody yet, spending three to six months to set up, get speakers, do all the things and then host a summit and not know if people want your offer. That's a big, big risk. It's a big risk. And you're delaying results by three to six months if it doesn't work out. So what I'd rather see people do is go through a process to have a proven offer that converts before you host the summit. Because then you know people want to buy this offer. Now I just need to get more people. Hosting a summit is a great way to get more people.

Speaker 2: So that is something that I would just really put out there. If you're brand new, it could be a challenge. And so what we experienced with one of my students inside what used to be called the Website Marketing Lab, which is now Subscriber To Sale Blueprint program, is that she went and did a summit to build her email list. And then when she made her offer to her email list. One, she like kind of burnt herself out on running the summit. I mean, it was super stressful for her. She wasn't super tech savvy. She powered through like a champ. She powered through and she pulled it all together and she ran a really successful summit. She overcame all the mindset stuff that came up along the way.

Speaker 2: Like,' I'm not good enough. Who would say yes to me? I don't want to bug speakers.' All of this stuff. And she pulled off a fantastic summit. She was so exhausted afterwards that it was like, okay, what's next? Well, now we have to go through a validation process to validate your offer and then make the offer. And it was like figuring out do I have the right people? And so it was a lot. And had she started with a proven offer that she knew converted already, that it would have been a totally different situation. So that's the other thing. We want you to have a proven offer that converts. So if you do not have a proven offer that converts, we can help you with that inside of our Subscriber To Sale Blueprint, shannonmattern.com/marketingroadmap.

Speaker 2: You can sign up for our free 12 month marketing roadmap training. We'll teach you our strategy for getting you to a proven offer that converts. And then we'll talk more about our Subscriber To Sale Blueprint program and how we can help you. And then after that, a summit is an incredible way to scale. So I just want to be really, really clear on that, especially for new people, new business owners.

: So what to consider before hosting a virtual summit? Laurie says ,'I remembered how hard that was. We all learned from her honesty.' Yeah, absolutely. And I think this kind of leads directly into our next point Things to consider - your technical capabilities. Ann asked the question, she was like, there are programs out there that teach you how to set up a summit and all of the things. Do you think this is something we can DIY? There are so many moving pieces and parts.

Speaker 2: I am like a technical wizard. Not to toot my own horn, but if you're like, Hey, Shannon, can you build this? I'm like, yes, of course. I don't know how right now my brain, but I can absolutely reverse engineer it, figure it out. I have zero doubts that I could figure out how to build and develop anything when it comes to anything technical. So even with me being that way, I bought a program to help me execute all of the details of the summit. It wasn't just the tech piece. It was, end-to-end, all of the details of hosting a summit because it's a lot. And for me to have to try to think through it all and then write all the templates and build all the resources and build all the web pages and all of it, ton of work.

Speaker 2: I shortcutted that work significantly by purchasing a program to help me, but it was still a ton of work. It was still a ton of work. So I want to talk about your tech capabilities and three ways I've seen people do summits and what I did and kind of what I think that you should, do depending on your technical skills. So you've all been to, let me pop that in here. shannonmattern.com/marketingroadmap. That's my 12-month marketing roadmap training. So Heather said, 'Shannon, I don't know if my offer converts. Do I just continue with STS or do I sign up for this roadmap training?' Heather, you're already in Subscriber To Sale Blueprint. So you just continue in there and you're going to do the validation module to see if your offer converts.

Speaker 2: So you're already in that. And so you're good there. Anyone who's not already in Subscriber To Sale Blueprint, you can go check out the marketing roadmap training. And Heather, the replay of that marketing roadmap webinar is inside the program too. So minimum viable tech. If you are not a techie person at all, if you get super frustrated by tech, if you freak out and you're worried and you are just so intimidated, put a 1in the chat. I want to know if you're just like 'tech drives me crazy! I wish I could run an online business magically without having to touch the tech!' Patricia, Charlotte, Ausa, Laurie, Tara, Erica. Heather said "I feel I need support with new tech". Karen. Okay. So you've all seen and been to virtual summits where you buy the all access pass, or you go to the summit.

Speaker 2: There's a page that you go to for each summit session at the correct time. The video magically comes on and then 24 hours later, if you try to go to it, it's expired. But if you buy the All Access Pass, you can log in and you can get access to all the sessions. Put a 3 in the chat box if you've experienced a summit like that, where at a certain time you got an email with the link and you clicked the link and watched the session. There was a chat and people were chatting. And you bought the All Access Pass and now you can just log in. And if you are new and afraid of tech, please do not try to run your first summit that way. That is so much insanity, craziness.

Speaker 2: That's what I did, because, like I said, I'm a technical wizard. And I know you can just be like, that's how I want to run it. And I'm like, cool. I know how to do that. I'll figure it out. I'll build it. Whatever. It's easy. It's easy for me. But it was still a ton of time, right? It was a ton of work. It was a ton of time. If you're running your first summit and you are not tech savvy and tech freaks you out, if you're considering even running a summit to go the minimum viable tech route. This is where I'm going to share my screen so that you guys can see what I consider to be minimum viable tech. You need an email list provider so that when someone signs up for your summit, they automatically get an email from you that says, Hey, thanks for signing up for my summit.

Speaker 2: Here's all the details. And then you can send an email to people like 'summit starts tomorrow'. 'Summit starts now'. You want the capability of sending those emails and a convert kit. Or Convert Kit, the only one I use teach and recommend. I know you guys all use different stuff, but I'm not even going to recommend anything else. You need a landing page. You need a place where people can go to register for your summit for free with their email address. So it's basically like delivering a freebie. Like I teach in the Free 5-Day Website Challenge, right? They go to the page, they put their email address in, they get an email with all the details about the summit that you're hosting. You need some kind of checkout, a cart page, to sell the All Access Pass and to sell whatever else you're selling.

Speaker 2: It makes no sense for you to go through all of the time and expense and hassle of putting together a summit not to try to make back some of that expense with an All Access Pass. Plus, if you're doing a summit that starts at a certain time and ends at a certain time, people all over the globe want to be able to participate, and people who are busy or whatever. Allowing people to purchase the recordings is a win-win right? So you need some kind of a checkout page functionality in order to do that. There are lots of different things you could use, like a SamCart or a ThriveCart, or something like WooCommerce, the WooCommerce plugin on your WordPress site. There are a million ways you could do that.

Speaker 2: And it just depends on the tech that you're using. Also, I would host it live. I would literally do, if I was brand new, a half-day summit. I would host it live on Zoom. And I would invite my speakers to show up live. And I would let them present, or I would interview them, or whatever. I would not try to go through this whole pre-record 'let me build a whole website with 20 different speaker pages and put your video on there and put the chat and make the page go live at the right time.' It's just too much for you if you are not tech savvy, or you're not willing to hire a virtual assistant or a web designer to build that for you. Now, if you're not tech savvy, you have a proven offer that converts, you're making enough money in your business,

Speaker 2: and it makes sense for you to hire somebody to do this for you, because you're going to scale. You're like, 'I'm already golden. I'm not going to do the tech. I'll hire somebody to do the tech'. Then you can do something more advanced. But if it's just you and you're a solopreneur, keep it simple, make it easy on yourself. People are not there for all your bells and whistles. They're there for the speakers. They're there for everything. So you will speak and present everything live. Speakers will be there. You'll do a live Q&A with them. You'll record the whole thing. And then you'll send the recordings to people who purchased. And that can be as simple as like, 'Hey, the recording is in my Google drive. Here's a link to that'. You can keep it so, so simple because it's the value of people attending the event and getting the thing that makes it worthwhile.

Speaker 2: Right? And so if you are afraid of tech, do not make it hard on yourself. It's hard enough reaching out to speakers, building those relationships, getting them to say yes, coordinating the whole event. That's difficult enough. So let's make the tech easy for you. Okay? How many of you were like, 'nope, tech does not scare me'. Put a 4 in the chat. Tech doesn't scare me. I got this. I'm golden. Yeah. Jesse, Nae. Or put a four in the chat for 'I'll totally pay someone to do it for me because I'm not doing it, but I'm willing to invest'. . So about the other half of you are like, I got this, I got this. So if you're more advanced, you can absolutely do this kind of prerecorded summit format where you need an email list provider. You build a website or set up something like MemberVault with membership capabilities that can accept payment. You publish your pages with speaker videos at certain times. If you're using WordPress, you just schedule those pages to publish at a certain time. And then you can either figure out some kind of automation or whatever to make them Members Only after 24 hours. Speakers are not there.

Speaker 2: Speakers show up and participate in the chat, but you're not doing any kind of live broadcasting or anything. You're just showing up behind the scenes in the chat. You have all of your speakers pre-record their session. They have to get it to you beforehand so you can get it all cued up and everything. And you need a longer runway to complete something like this because of all of the tech setup and then all of the coordination with speakers and getting them to get their presentation done early and setting up all of that stuff. So it's absolutely possible to do. Of course you could DIY it. I did not DIY it. I used Summit in a Box, which we'll talk about in a second. I purchased Summit in a Box. I used their templates. Even though I'm a web designer, I used their templates.

Speaker 2: I was like, I am not building all of these pages. I'm downloading their Elementor templates. I am using all of it and getting it all set up. I used all of their systems, all of their processes, all of their scripts, all of their speaker tracking, everything. I just used all of their stuff. If I had to create all of the logistics of hosting a whole summit from scratch, I never would have done it because it's a lot. And so I'll talk about whether I think Summit in a Box would be beneficial if you're doing the minimum viable tech because, of course, you can all do anything you want on your own without a program, right? You can blaze your own trail and figure it out and do it.

Speaker 2: You're all fully capable of doing that. So I'm totally a trailblazer, but I'm also just like, Hey, if someone's going to shortcut this for me and show me the way, I'm all in. So with the prerecorded summit, you just do all of that. And then people who buy the All Access Pass or whatever, they get the replays and they can log in until maybe there's a point in time where you're like, I'm not keeping this website up after this certain period of time. They have until December 31st at midnight to watch all of these, and then they go away, or you do lifetime access or whatever it is you do. There are no rules. You get to do what you want.

: And then for really advanced tech, a hybrid summit. And this is what I did. And I actually thought this was going to end up being easier, but it wasn't. It was more work for me.

Speaker 2: So I set everything up just like the prerecorded summit. But then what I ended up doing was I did a live event along with it. So I had all of my speakers pre-record and pre-submit their presentations. I built out the membership site, the sales pages, the membership capability. When people purchased All Access Pass, they got instant access to all those prerecorded sessions right when they bought. But I also hosted a live event. I hosted a live event. I was online all day. I played the pre-recorded sessions through Zoom at the scheduled time. I did a little intro. I played the session. I invited the speaker to join. The speaker was in the chat. Then I'd bring them on live to do a Q&A. I was on zoom from like 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. I think my summit was three days. So for three days of the summit I was being the behind the scenes emcee. That was a little exhausting.

Speaker 2: I'm not going to lie. The reason I did it that way is because I was running out of time and I felt kind of disconnected from just doing the prerecorded summit. Which I know people do it and it goes really well. But I think I'm kind of a control freak. And I also wanted to hang out with everybody. So I did a hybrid live prerecorded summit. And honestly, it was awesome. But I was exhausted at the end of that. So I'm going to stop sharing my screen here in a second. And then I'm going to answer some of your questions before we dive into the next step.

: So Charlotte said "I can learn". Awesome. Yes, of course. Everybody can learn. Everybody can learn. So Anne said, "I participated in two that use Teachable and I can picture that whole thing in my head".

Speaker 2: Yes. Teachable also could absolutely host an online summit. You said "I've used teachable for years and feel comfortable in that". Yep. Teachable would be a great platform. MemberVault. Some people love Kajabi. Some people love Thinkific. Some people are WordPress people. I use WordPress and Access Ally. There's all of these different ways to do it. Yeah. And you'd have to figure out the live chat with Teachable. So if you're going to DIY your tech and you're going the more advanced route, I highly recommend a program like Summit in a Box to help you. Not only because it will give you templates and step-by-step directions for setting up all of your tech. You can also ask them for help with your tech questions as you're setting up your summit tech.

Speaker 2: So they'll be like, here's how to set all of this up. And here's what it could look like. I don't think they teach Teachable though. So you'd have to see if they going to help you with the platform that I want to use. But they'll help you with all of the text. So Nicholas says "where do you find Summit in a Box?" This is an affiliate link, by the way. I like to disclose that. I only recommend things that I personally have purchased, used, love, gotten great results with, which you will see in a second. So shannonmattern.com/summitinabox. I'll talk about that more in a little bit.

Speaker 2: So there's that one. And then here's the other link that I did not post everybody. shannonmattern.com/marketingroadmap. That's my 12 month marketing roadmap free webinar. So Heather asks, "why do you think people don't upgrade to the All Access Pass? What holds people back?" So we'll talk about conversions and what to expect in a second, but you have to ask them. Every time I make an offer, the next question is, why didn't you buy? Right?, I always want to know for people who didn't purchase, why they didn't buy. And that's the only way to know. Did I do a 'why didn't you buy?' survey for the All Access Pass?

Speaker 2: I usually do for every single offer. This is back in February. I was super, super exhausted after running that summit. I'm guessing I probably did not send out a 'why didn't you buy?' survey. The top three answers are always 'money', 'I'm going to attend live I don't need to', 'there was only one session I really wanted to watch so I could watch that live'. There's only a certain percent that you expect to convert up to the All Access Pass, anyway. Most people are not going to purchase it. Most people are going to sign up for free. Most people are going to sign up for free and not even attend. Right? They're just going to sign up and they're not even going to show up. That's general for everything that you do in your online marketing.

Speaker 2: That's just how it is. And then some people are going to sign up and they're going to attend live. And they're like, I would rather show up live and save my money. Or they just know they want to show up live and get the experience and be able to participate. It's not even always about money. It's just that they want to be part of the experience. Right? And then you have the people that are like, 'this is super valuable to me. I want this. I can't attend, but I want access to all of this'. But I always say ask people why they didn't buy. Jesse asks 'if you keep the summit available after the original run-through, do you still split the tickets?' That is all part of your agreement with your speakers.

Speaker 2: I do. People can currently right now go to sidehustletoselfemployedsummit.com and purchase our All Access Pass and get the replays of all the sessions that we did in February. And my system tracks people's cookies' affiliate links for 180 days. So probably now that has expired, but anytime in the past six months, if I said, oh, Hey, All Access Pass is still on sale. And I sent out an email and someone that was referred by, let's say, Sarah Noked, purchased, it would get tracked and I would pay her out. So, that's how that works. And so whatever system you use, you'll want to make sure, if you are sharing commissions with your speakers, that you have a system that tracks that.

Speaker 2: What were the other questions. Ann says, "I would love to serve more writers in these programs. I just read the first comment. I have to think about the baseline. Good questions for us to consider." Yes, absolutely. What I don't like to see people do is spend so much time and energy in the early part of their business on a summit that does not bring them the results that they hope for or the right email list subscribers. They could have spent all that time and energy making sure that they're really clear on their ideal client, that they have a freebie that converts, that they have an offer that converts, that they know how to make connections and build relationships, that they know how to get organic traffic

Speaker 2: so that a summit becomes a really fantastic natural next step. Because you already have a list of all the people that you would totally invite who are perfect people for your summit. So that's what I really want you to make sure of, is it the right time in your business for you to run a summit? May asks, "did you offer the life part as part of the All Access Pass or was it part of the free offer"? I offered the live part as part of the free part. And then I had the All Access Pass which was recordings of the live session. And then I had someone reach out to me who was in Australia and she was really upset.

Speaker 2: She was really upset. And she was like, 'Shannon, this is not right. It's not fair for you to host this live event from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM, which is the middle the night for me. And then only make the recordings available if I pay. I think that's not right. I know you serve people all over the globe. And this just feels really, really unfair that for me, I have to buy in order to get the recordings. Most summits I've attended keep the recordings available for 24 hours'. I was like, you know what, you're right. So what I did was I recorded the whole live session and I made the recording of the whole live session, all six hours of the day, I made that available for 24 hours. And the way I did that was I think I uploaded it to like my Vimeo account.

Speaker 2: And then I put it in the summit Facebook group for the next 24 hours. And then we replaced that with the next video every day. Because I was just like, yeah, that is kind of unfair that in order for her to participate she has to pay, but everybody else doesn't. So I made that part of the free offer. And then that's how I did that to really be equitable across time zones and everything. Because I wasn't going to do it. I was just like, no, if you want the recordings you have to buy. And then I'm like, no, that's kind of crappy. You should get free access for 24 hours to cover wherever you are in the world. And then after that, if you can't get it together that day to watch, then you can pay.

Speaker 2: Ann says "people are cheap raises, hand guilty". Yeah. So here's the thing. I have done so much work on money mindset, you guys. I going to shift into the money. I've done so much work on money mindset. Don't think that all of your customers or people are just like you, right? One, if you start investing in your business, it's so much easier for you to ask people to invest in you. That is like the biggest thing that I've learned. If I'm not willing to pay a hundred dollars to accomplish something in my business, but I want to ask somebody to spend 5,000 with me, it doesn't align. It does not align. And so if you're cheap, try practicing not being cheap, but also stay out of your client's wallets.

Speaker 2: Right? Heather asks "is 50 50 the typical split?" That's what I personally do. I like to be generous like that. Nicole says, "I love this informal style. Burp away". It's real life, right? I'm glad that you guys like the informal. I was like, I'm not putting slides together for this. We're just going to dive in. And other considerations are your speakers. Who do you want to invite to speak? Do they have an audience? And do you have a relationship with them? And if you don't, start building a relationship now so that when it comes time to ask them to speak, they are the natural next step. Don't invite people to your summit who don't serve your ideal client, who don't have an audience. Unless you're like, I will make an exception for this person because they have something really valuable to add, right?

Speaker 2: Your offer. What are you going to offer for sale to your new email list subscribers? This is a mistake I made that I wish I could go back in time and change. Almost 2000 new people joined my email list or 1300 new people. And I didn't make an offer off the back end of my summit. I was so exhausted. I didn't have time to put it together. I didn't do the work of what's the natural next step from Side Hustle to Self-Employed to whatever I'm going to offer. So, make sure that you know that so you can leverage the momentum of your summit.

: Systems and support. I used Summit in a Box. I could not have done it without it, you guys. I couldn't have, so let's dive into the stats.

Speaker 2: Total people who registered for my summit. I had 20 speakers. I had 1,948 people register for the summit. New email list subscribers that came from my speakers were 1354. So I added a net of 1354 people to my email list that came from all of my speakers. I charged $49 for my All Access Pass as a limited time offer, meaning they registered for the summit for free. The way that that works is everybody comes in through the door of free with your email address. Thank you pages - Hey, do you want to upgrade to get your hands on the All Access Pass? for $49 for a limited time, you have the next 15 minutes to decide if you want this. If not, no harm, no foul move along. And I used Deadline Funnel to create that functionality and it works with any website. Or they could get the Power Pack for $99.

Speaker 2: So I had the two offers side-by-side, Option One - All Access Pass, Option Two - Power Pack. I had this exact same sales page duplicated twice with the limited time pricing and the full pricing. After 15 minutes Deadline Funnel automatically redirects to the full price. So that's how that works. And then my sales - I had 249 people purchase either the All Access Pass or the Power Pack, 12% conversion. So out of all of my registrants, 12% of people purchased, which I thought was actually really high and fantastic. And I was incredibly happy with that number. Here's the interesting part. When you're like, why don't people buy? People are cheap. Three times more people bought a Power Pack at $99 or even $149 than bought the Access Pass, which I thought was really interesting. They're like, 'Hey, I might as well get all the bonuses'. So I think it's worth doing that.

Speaker 2: So my total revenue, this is what the summit made of sales, was $19,335. My expenses to run the summit - $13,856. Almost $4,500 of that was paying out my affiliates. So my speakers sent the summit registration to their email list with their unique affiliate links. When those people purchased an All Access Pass or Power Pack, I paid 50% of that back to my speakers. So that's the affiliate payouts. And then my other expenses: I paid for Summit in a Box, totally worth every penny. It saved me so much time. I tried to figure out, like I was already paying my team, right? I already had contractors. I was already paying them. But they spent about 50% of their time helping me with the summit. I had my tech VA, Laura build the whole website for me. I didn't even do the website.

Speaker 2: I had someone do that for me. I had my VA, Natalie, do all the speaker outreach and coordination. If I could estimate 50% of their contracts with me for three months, that's what I would have billed to the summit. Right? I paid for transcription. I included transcripts of all of my sessions as part of the All Access Pass and the Power Pack. Plus I wanted to make my summit accessible to people who are hearing impaired, people who are hearing impaired-ish, like me. I watch TV with closed captions on, otherwise it's so loud. I want to be able to read what I'm seeing. So we not only transcribed and had it in a document, we did captions on all the replay videos because I can't always understand unless I'm seeing the words while people are talking.

Speaker 2: So I invested paying that. My mom does transcription for a living, so she got to make a little bank. And then we also use a transcription tool, Temi, to do ,the rough transcription. And then my mom cleaned everything up for the captions and then cleaned it up again for the PDF. I used Zoom Webinar for the live portion of the event. I used Access Ally for my membership site plugin. That's what I use for my courses. I had to buy another license because my summit website is a completely different website than my other websites. So I set up a brand new website. I bought a new Access Ally license. I was able to use my same Convert Kit account so I didn't have to get a separate account. I didn't put this website on Blue Host because I intended to have a bunch of people on at the same time.

Speaker 2: And the Blue Host that I teach you guys in the Free 5-Day Website Challenge, the shared hosting version, isn't designed for you to have 500 people coming to your website all at once. It's designed for you to have like 50 people coming to your website all at once. So it would have crashed my website. I needed to upgrade my hosting. And so I hosted this site on WP Engine and I still am. So those were all my expenses. So my net profit, well I kept $5,478. And that's what I paid myself. I still pay myself. And so that's what I got to make for all my hard work during the summit. Future purchases. This is one of the things that I was like, well, how much money did I actually make? Because I wanted to add subscribers to my email list so that I could sell my other products, programs and services.

Speaker 2: So I was able to track back for sure $25,000 in revenue off the top of my summit. And I couldn't track how many affiliate commissions for Blue Host or Convert Kit or anything else came from it just because I don't have the mechanism to track that. So I just wanted to share those numbers with you guys so that you can see realistically people talk about like, yeah, my summit made $20,000. But I needed you to know how much it costs me to run the summit. And I also wanted to point out that I always put Facebook ads $0 because I didn't run Facebook ads. It was all from my speakers. So that's kind of the breakdown of everything.

: So I want to go back through your questions here. Nicolette says if "I use Summit in a Box, will WordPress with Thrives Pro Themes work? I think they have a deadline funnel functionality, but I'm tech dumb so I could be totally". So Summit in a Box has pre-designed themes. Let me log into my account here.

Speaker 2: I will tell you exactly what is included in Summit in a Box once I log in to my account. And I purchased the VIP version because I wanted to be able to access their team and stuff. So let's see. This is how they kind of walk you through the timeline. What do you do 90 days out? What do you do 60, 30 week of, and after. They walk you through your timeline. I know they have Elementor templates.

Speaker 2: I think they do Kajabi templates. Here we go. Beaver Builder, Elementor, Kajabi are the three themes that they support. So if you have Thrive Themes, they're not going to have a template for that, but you can use Beaver Builder or Elementor alongside of Thrive Themes. So that's what I did. I used Elementor and imported the themes into my WordPress site and then applied my branding and I was good to go. Let me stop sharing here. And Nicolette, if you've got Summit in a Box, you can ask them those questions too. Ann says, "I think this is why we need to be sure we know our goals so that if we don't net much, we still might gain from it from other benefits, email addresses of ideal clients, credibility visibility".

Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yes, yes, yes. Yes, because the summit is not the money maker, right? The summit is not the end all be all of it. The summit is a strategy for you to get visibility. The summit is a strategy for you to get more email list subscribers. The other thing that I would say is that if you're not committed to doing a summit again next year and the next year and the next year, don't build out all of the tech, because you can just do a minimum viable tech summit, run it, be good. If you're like, you know what, that didn't get me what I wanted, no harm, no foul. But if you're like, oh no, I'm like going all in. I'm going to do a summit every year. Like 70% of the work that I did last year is complete.

Speaker 2: I just have to update stuff like dates and times and descriptions on my current website. And I don't have to go through all of the work to build out all of the tech. But yes, have a proven offer that converts and be ready to nurture that email list that you build. If you don't know what kind of things you want to send the email list, if you're not planning on sending anything afterwards, if you just build this whole email list, have a summit and then go dark, that would be just a waste of your time. So it's so important to see this as a piece of your overall strategy than as an end all be all thing that's just the moneymaking tool. There are easier ways to make money. There are way easier ways for me to make $20,000.

Speaker 2: I can promise you. Let me share my screen again. All I need to do is get four people inside my Web Designer Academy. And after the summit was over, I was like, 'man, that was a lot of work for not a whole lot of money'. And then I had to be like, 'that's not what it was all about, Shannon'. It wasn't all about the money. It was building an even deeper, more incredible relationship with my speakers. It was impact that we had for all the people that attended and got so much out of it. It was for the lives that we transformed. It was for all of it. It was for the speakers to make new connections with everything. And it was for me to make offers and build relationships in the future. So I just want to share that if you're doing a summit just to make money, there are easier ways to make money.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Patricia asks, "I see you didn't pay for Facebook ads. Was it due to that you already had enough email subscribers on your email list?" No. Not because I already had email subscribers. It was because the way a summit works is that your speakers bring their lists to the summit. So that's why picking the right speakers are so important. You want to pick people who have an audience of your ideal client, but they serve them in a different way. And they actually have an audience, right? And it's the collective participation and promotion of all of those speakers that they all bring their email lists to the event, they all get in front of each other's audiences, and then you get the benefit of collecting all of those email addresses to build the relationship with those people. And then those people become your email lists and you get to make your offers for your products, programs, and services.

Speaker 2: So you don't need to run Facebook ads to make it work. I didn't need to run Facebook ads to make it work. I just happen to also be able to participate as a speaker would because I have my own email list to invite. So my email list I invited and then they got to meet all of the speakers as well. So the speakers got the benefit of my email list participating, but it's just as if I was another speaker for them, if that makes sense. So Nae says "that was my next question. I was thinking of moving to a different host for the summit site". Yes. I would recommend having a more robust hosting for something where where you're inviting lots of people to your site all at the same time, over a continuous period of time. Ann says, "this helps me make better decisions going forward

Speaker 2: and be better prepared with all this knowledge. Yes. Most people do exaggerate numbers. They don't exaggerate numbers per se. They just don't tell the whole story. They're like, oh, I made a million dollars, but I spent $900,000 on Facebook ads. Or, and I'm not kidding when I say that. They will spend ridiculous amounts of money on Facebook ads and then say that they generated the million dollars and have a million dollar business. Fine, but that's not the kind of business I want to run. Right? And so I need you guys to see what it costs to run a business so that you're making good decisions all along the way so that you can create a sustainable business. Ann said "buy Summit in a Box once and it works forever, however many you want?". Yes, yes. Correct. I think I've made the decision to host a Side Hustle to Self-Employed Summit again, a little bit differently, making sure that I have an offer ready to roll on the backend.

Speaker 2: And then also we're doing the Simply Profitable Designer Summit, which Krista Miller, who is the creator of Summit in a Box, created it off the back end of her Simply Profitable Designer Summit. And she's like, I'm so all in on Summit in a Box, I don't have time to run this Simply Profitable Designer Summit anymore. And I'm like, I'll run that for you. And our friend Sarah was like, yeah, we'll, co-host it. And so we're using her Summit in a Box strategies. Plus, she's got a Summit To Course Launch Lab bonus that we are both testing out and implementing for this launch to see how that works too. So it's super cool. So Ann says "with the 90, 60, 30 days in the Summit in a Box, would you say based on what you shared that you would add even more time to the 90 days for a prerecorded higher tech setup?" Yes. If I were you and I was planning a summit. I would give myself six full months for the first time you're doing it. So another freebie that I have for you guys is, and this is an affiliate link because, like I said, I only promote things that I pay for, have a relationship with, use, love, get results. This is a Summit Timeline Calculator that you can get your hands on for free. You put the date, let me show you mine.

Speaker 2: You put the date that you want to host your summit and it backdates everything for you. It is so cool. So I'm thinking about hosting Side Hustle to Self-Employed again on February 21, 2022. Don't quote me on that. This is a 90 day timeline. There's also 120 day timeline in here as well. So if I wanted to host it on that same day, I get to kind of see when I start doing stuff. And so I'd start in October. And so that's why I'm like, if I'm you and I'm doing this for the first time, I'm starting like month, for sure. Like giving myself even more time to work through some of those details. Great question. Let me pull up the chat again. They don't have any Teachable templates because Teachable doesn't really have templates that you can import.

Speaker 2: So there's no Teachable setup so you would be on your own for the templates and the instructions. Yes, you would use WordPress for the landing page and you could use all of the Summit in a Box templates to build out your WordPress landing page, your thank you page, your all access ...well you would redirect to a Teachable payment page for the All Access Pass. So Teachable would handle the All Access Pass payment and the course and all the modules piece, but your website would be the home base for it, your WordPress site. So Heather says, "do you ask your speakers how big their email list is? Is there a minimum you will go with, 5,000, maybe." No, Heather, I don't. I don't. What I do is the same thing I teach you guys inside of what's now Subscriber To Sale Blueprint. I research people. And I look at what kind of a following they have.

Speaker 2: Do they have an email list? Right? So I'm getting on their email lists. I'm seeing if they're sending to their email lists, right? I'm never going to be like, well, how many people do you have? Because 50 people on their email list that I don't know is 50 more people that I can connect with. So that's not a requirement for me. But I do some research. I see, like, do they have a Facebook page? How many followers? Do they have an Instagram? How many followers? Do they have a YouTube channel? You can kind of get a picture of someone's audience size by doing that research. I don't ask how many subscribers they have and I don't have a minimum. I just ask them to commit to promoting to their email list. I don't police it.

Speaker 2: I can't police it. All I can do is say I have a good enough relationship with you that I built up with you before I've asked you to do this, that I trust that you are going to follow through on promotion on your end. Some people don't follow through and there's nothing I can do about that. So I just try to pick people that I have good relationships with. And I've worked up to building those relationships. Laura says," if your email list is small and your goal is to grow with the summit, would speakers with bigger email lists see it as worthwhile, as what you are offering is an incentive. This is where we go back to it's the collective promotion of all of the speakers that makes other speakers understand that it's worthwhile. Right? If I invite 20 people who all have audiences who could benefit from everybody, it's the collective bringing together of all of those audiences in one event where everybody gets the chance to get in front of 20 new audiences.

Speaker 2: That is the worthwhile thing. It's not the affiliate commissions. It's not your email list or your email list size. You're just facilitating this thing that brings these people together to make it worthwhile for all of them. So if it's just two people, maybe it's not as worthwhile as if there's 10, right? And this whole bigger email list. How about just bigger email list than mine? Or how about just has an email list? If I was new and I wanted to dip my toe in the water of a virtual summit, I wouldn't care if you had a hundred people or 15 people on your email list. We can build a relationship. We can grow together. Now, if I'm trying to scale and I'm doing more strategic things, I want to kind of look for people with a bigger audience. But I'm still going to be like, Hey, if you've got something valuable to offer and you have a small audience, I'm not going to be like, oh, that's not worth my while. Because that's building a relationship with someone whose audience is just going to grow and grow and grow.

Speaker 2: And I'm going to be part of that. And we can collaborate again next year when their list is bigger. So it all works. Jen asks "will a recording of this be made available?" Yes, Jen, you will get the recording so that you can watch back. Heather asks, "is there a cost to this timeline?" I don't think so, but maybe there is. I felt like it was a freebie, but I could be totally wrong on that. So if it's not a freebie, my apologies, I thought it was.

Speaker 2: No, I think it's a freebie. The Summit Timeline Calculator is freebie. Yep. So Jesse says "Timeline is free, but there are add-ons you can buy". So the last thing that I want to share with you guys before we go is the Summit Host Process Map. This is another freebie that you can get your hands on, affiliate link disclosure. This is an affiliate link again. This is an affiliate link to free stuff. This is the best way to do affiliate links, you guys. Here's an affiliate link to a free thing. If you end up buying Summit in a Box sometime in the next six months, I get a commission. You get to get your hands on something awesome and free. I get to use an affiliate link to give that to you. And it's a win-win because if you buy, I get credit. That's what I do for all of my affiliate stuff. So it looks like the Summit Host Process Map is $197? I feel like I thought this was free. So I might be giving you the wrong link. So definitely the Virtual Summit Timeline Calculator is free. Okay. So the Summit Host Process Map is not free. Okay. Nevermind.

Speaker 2: The freebie is the Virtual Summit Timeline Calculator. And then what else did I want to tell you? I think I just wanted to give you the link for Summit in a Box. Oh, I wanted to tell you about their refund policy. So if you purchase Summit in a Box, they have a 365 day money back guarantee. And that money back guarantee is that if you don't make your money back of what you spent on Summit in a Box, however you purchased it, at whatever level you purchased it, the VIP level or the regular level, if you email them sharing proof that you hosted the summit, that you followed their steps, they will give you a full refund. So you really literally have nothing to lose by letting Summit in a Box support you in the hosting of your summit.

Speaker 2: And then they have a seven day refund policy, so if you purchase and then you get in there and you're like, man, I really wanted to do the summit this way and none of the stuff in here really helps with that, you can get your money back. Before we wrap up, it's not just the tech that Summit in a Box helps you with. It is all of the EVERYTHING. So I just want to go into the 30, 60, 90 days. It's going to give you scripts to pitch your speakers. It's going to help you pick your topic. It's going to give you spreadsheets to track it, how to follow up with your speakers to get them to say yes, how to get the content from them. It's literally everything. And so that's really the piece of it.

Speaker 2: It's not just the tech piece. It's the systems, the logistics, the timeline. Everything that you need to know so that you don't have to figure it all out yourself. And they are super valuable. And so that was what all I wanted to tell you. I wanted to kind of break it down for you guys, because what I really, really wanted to drive home for you is the right time to host a virtual summit. Having a proven offer that converts is going to make hosting a summit so much more lucrative for you. So a summit is a super strategic thing to do once you have a proven offer that converts. And then if you're already hitting your minimum baseline revenue, then you can afford to run the summit the way you want to run it in a way that's like, okay, cool,

Speaker 2: I am going to invest in the tech because I know I'm going to host this summit every single year. And I want to set this up to be ready to roll every year. I'm going to invite new speakers. We're going to grow our list by a couple thousand every year by doing this and meet new people and all of the things. And again, like I said, if you do not have a proven offer that converts, I would love to help you with that. Please let me help you with that. Because the strategies that I teach inside of Subscriber to Sale Blueprint are going to really set you up for a summit to be the natural next step for you. So you can go to shannonmattern.com/marketingroadmap to learn more about that. Ann asks "what human support is the most critical role?"

Speaker 2: So that kind of gets to what I wish I would have done differently. I'm a total lone Wolf, you guys. I'm like, 'I've got this, I don't need this team. I don't want you to have to work as hard as I do, I just feel bad'. Like, whatever. I've since overcome all of that. I wish I would have had more support on summit day so that I wasn't doing all the things myself. I think for someone who is not techie, you are going to be hosting a summit and you're going to be talking to speakers. If you're going to be doing all of that, I think a tech VA or some kind of technical right-hand support who can set everything up for you and can also just be that point of contact for you while the summit is live is just so critical to the success. Because then you can be the emcee, you can be the person running the show.

Speaker 2: And then secondly to that, just someone to help you set up all the emails, set up all the automations, all of the things. You can do it yourself. You can. It's possible. Just be prepared. If you're going to DIY it, keep it super simple for yourself. Go minimum viable tech. Summit in a Box is still very, very relevant for you if you go the minimum viable tech route. Because all of the pieces and parts of inviting speakers, planning, promoting, all of that stuff is a really big bulk chunk of what Summit in a Box is all about. And the tech is just icing on the cake. So, I just wanted to break all of this down for you guys. I so appreciate you being here, hanging out with me.

Speaker 2: I know we went a little long. I will share the replay with you. There is a payment plan for Summit in a Box. So when you go to shannonmattern.com/summitinabox, and you click on the Buy Now button, there are two different payment plans. One's like a VIP level, which gets you extra support. And then one is just the regular level. And there are payment plans for both of those.

Speaker 2: shannonmattern.com/summitinabox. And it will break down the pricing options for you guys. So who is going to host a virtual summit in the next six months? I'm raising my hand. Anyone? Ausa is doing it. Ann might do it. Someone has their hand raised, May. I don't know if on purpose. Taria wants to help people. Ooh, I like it. Yes. See, here's the thing. Nae is hosting a summit. I'm hosting two in the next six months. So you call me crazy. Right? Taria, I am so excited for you. It is such an opportunity for people who are techie, who are web designers, tech VA's, to really kind of plant their flag in the ground to be that person who's like, I'll set up your site for you.

Speaker 2: I will hook up all your automation for you. I will like dah, dah, dah, dah. And if you're targeting the same people, people who already have a proven offer, already are making money in their business and want to scale, that is the perfect client who has actually money to pay you, right? You don't want to focus on the DIYers who are just getting started and are going to do minimum viable tech and who are really unsure, don't have a proven offer, aren't investing in their business. Those people are not going to be your ideal clients. But the people that are going to be your ideal clients are the ones who are really ready to use a virtual summit as a scaling strategy, where it makes sense for them to invest in you for the long-term value that they're going to get from all the summit tech that you set up for them the first time that they can run that summit with your tech over and over and over and over again.

Speaker 2: So yes, I'm so glad that you're here for that. And I think it's an incredible idea. And more people should be supporting that because there's a lot of work out there for people who are supporting virtual summits, because there are a lot of people teaching virtual summit. Not just Krista. And a lot of entrepreneurs hosting it who are running businesses and don't have the time to pull away from everything that they're doing to execute the tech of a virtual summit, the tech and the systems and just all of that. So, I'm pretty sure that with Summit in a Box, you can get a, I don't know if it's like a developer license. And you can reach out to their support to where you are licensed to use their systems and strategies and templates with clients.

Speaker 2: And so that's an option too, which I think is a really, really cool option. So, Karen's "committing to the following year after we get my baseline business going and I need to figure out how to compliment existing summits, workshops, events, and conferences in my space". Yeah. Or you just host it and you just do it and you just blaze your own trail and not worry about what everybody else in your space is doing. That could be an option too. So thank you guys so much for hanging out with me. It was super fun. I love doing this informal session with you to just break it all down. I'll be sending out the replay very soon. If you guys have questions, you can just reply to the replay email and I'll answer those questions there. And thank you guys. This is my favorite thing to do with hanging out with y'all. So, I'm glad you all found it helpful and we'll talk soon.

Speaker 1: To get all the links to the resources we mentioned in today's show, head on over to shannonmattern.com/podcast. And if you're a non-techie do it yourself-er, or if you're a web designer who wants to turn your side hustle into a full-time income, head on over to shannonmattern.com/free, where I've got loads of resources for you to create a profitable, sustainable, scalable business. Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you next week. Bye.