This is a session from Sell With a Summit: Podcaster Edition. You’ll be hearing from Krista from Summit in a Box about the key elements she’s learned from experience that make for a great summit. Let’s get started!
Krista Miller: Hey podcasters. Thank you so much for joining me today. We’re going to talk about four keys to a money-making virtual summit. I promise this is going to be good. I am so excited to go through this with you. I also want to connect with you over on Instagram, if you’re over there. So be sure to DM me let me know that you watched or post a picture in your stories. so I can give you a shout-out as well. So let’s dive right in and I’ll cover the four keys of a moneymaking virtual summit.
So if you’ve been around the online business world long, I know you’ve heard someone say that online summits don’t work I’m even in a program right now with a hugely successful business owner running it. And she has a lesson on getting leads through sponsoring virtual summit ads. And in it, she says that summit hosts would love to put your ad in their summit for $250 because summit hosts don’t make much money.
You can bet they got an email about that one from me, please never let someone put an ad on your summit video for $250, but that’s not why we’re here. Just a little example for you. What that does tell us though, is that not all segments are profitable, but yours will be with what we’re going to cover today.
If you don’t already know me. Hello, I am Krista I’m the founder of Summit in a Box. As you can guess if I have a massive program about virtual summits with every training and template you could ever need. And I’ve partnered with Jenn in the past to host a summit about summits.
I’m not too shabby at creating summits that make money, but I had to learn that the hard way too. It’s not just something that, you know, people that don’t teach you about. summits have to go through it’s a lesson I learned that opened my eyes to how important. These four keys are. So my first summit made $16,000.
That was not bad for someone who had never done it before had spoken at one summit ever. I was making like $3000-$4,000 a month. At the time I had less than 500 people on my email list. So I was thrilled with $16,000 in that first summit. But then the second one came along and what happened there?
From $16,000 to $2,500… this is where the four keys we’re going to talk about became so clear to me specifically, one of them. And when I figured it out, it was all uphill from there. So summit number three, I bounced back and made $22,000 with 2000 attendees and summit. Number four, we really doubled down. I figured out one more of the keys.
We’re going to go over. And I brought in $60,000 with 4,000 attendees. So let’s start going into each of these four keys, just a warning. I am not covering super obvious things here. You obviously need to do a good job hosting You need to promote it. Well, things like that, but if you get these four keys, right, you will have what you need to host a summit that makes a ton of money while being an incredible resource for your audience.
So the first key is choosing the right audience and this might sound boring, but I want you to stick with me because marketing a summit to everybody does not work. Even the biggest names out there in business, get this wrong. And then they go on to say that summits as an overall strategy, just straight up don’t work, a wide audience is what’s going to make you struggle to get.
Signups like registrations sales and speakers. It’s not the size of your email list or how big of a deal you are. It’s the wide audience for your summit. And yeah, it’s just straight up not going to work. So it’s actually really common to find that the audience, your business is positioned to sell to, or the audience you have your podcast for Isn’t narrow enough for the audience for your summit. So think things like creative business owners, online business owners, moms, professionals, those audiences are too wide. So instead what you’re going to do is break your audience down and host your summit for a subset of the people you’re used to targeting.
So for example, this summit is perfect. So Jenn targets. Creative entrepreneurs for the most part, right? That’s a really wide audience. And she knew that targeting creative entrepreneurs who want to host a summit was just not going to be very effective. So that’s why this summit has editions and you are learning content specific to podcasters in 2020, Jenn and I partnered up and hosted a version of this summit for course, creators.
And I know she has a lot more other specific audiences up her sleeve for future editions So just an example of how. That kind of works in practice. So I want you to start brainstorming what this could look like for you. If your audience is a little too wide and this might be uncomfortable, it probably will be uncomfortable if you’re having to do this.
So don’t rush it. And that’s what your action step is just to start brainstorming for now, brainstorming step one. Once you have an audience that you feel like is a good fit, then you can move into the rest of the action steps we’re going to cover today. So, how to actually do it. Start with your existing audience, use them as a starting point.
If you target an audience like online business owners, creative business owners, women, moms professionals, you need to get more specific. Even if it is more specific than your podcast audience. So you’re going to break that down into smaller groups next. So for example, if you’re targeting, I don’t know, creative business owners, maybe you have photographers.
Coaches designers. I don’t know. All of those different subsets are different groups. You could break your audience down into, and then choose the group that you feel like you can help them most. So if there’s a group you resonate with the most, maybe there’s a group that tends to respond best to your marketing or purchase your offers more often that’s a perfect group to start with.
It doesn’t mean you can’t come back and host a summit for another one later, but it gives you a good starting point. And that is your summit audience. Once you have the audience figured out you need a truly transformational topic, which is our second key. Not just any topic is going to lead to a successful summit.
It needs to be powerful. Your summit topic has to solve a huge pain point that your audience has if you want it to work. And in solving that pain point. You’re giving them a transformation through your summit. This combined with your audience makes the difference between struggling to get registrations and sales, versus just watching them roll in and being like, wow, this is really working.
So vague topics like grow your business. They don’t cut it. Even grow your podcast Wouldn’t have cut it. You need to get specific. What is the end result? Your audience truly wants that you can deliver or start to deliver through your event. So Jenn could have hosted a summit for podcasters and said she was going to help you grow your podcast, but how much better and more attention grabbing is it that she’s specifically.
Helping you monetize without sponsors like as a fellow podcaster, I’m all over that idea that speaks to me so much more clearly than just something vague, like grow your podcast. It’s more attractive and it lets Jenn and us as speakers get more specific in what we’re doing to help you. So you will look at the audience you’ve selected and uncover their biggest pain point.
I really recommend getting on calls with them to make sure you get it right. Even if you hate calls as much as I do. That’s the only reason I got my first summit topic, right. Is because I got on three 15-ish minute calls, not that bad. alright but looking. At that audience getting on calls with them and finding out what their biggest pain point is from there.
You can create a summit that solves that problem, and that is your summit topic. So your starting step is to focus on the audience first. And then once you have that figured out, get some calls scheduled with those people. One thing at a time, even though we’re kind of going through several steps. Start with that audience first.
So I want to show you this graph here. That was the difference between my first two summits. So in my first summit that made around $16,000. I had the audience and the topic, right. Our first two keys, but I messed up the topic on the second time I tried to get like cute and creative did not work as you can see by that graph.
So I just wanted to show you that, to show you that that key truly does matter. Key number three is pitching the right speakers. I’m not at all exaggerating. When I say that this is an absolute game changer. You need to be intentional with who you pitch. This does not mean you’re pitching all of your friends that you think will say yes, it doesn’t mean you’re pitching all of your past podcast guests.
Although hopefully that’s where most of your speakers can be pulled from, but it means that. you’re pitching the speakers who will be able to speak directly to your audience meaning your attendees and who will bring the most attendees to your summit, Cause if none of your speakers are bringing you an audience, the Summit’s not going to do you a whole lot of good So these are the people that will bring the most attendees to your summit. The people who can speak directly to the audience you’re targeting, and that’s going to give you more registrations and sales when you don’t pitch the right speakers, everybody loses out your attendees are suffering because the speakers aren’t able to speak directly to them effectively Speakers suffer because they don’t get any results from participating.
And you suffer because you’re not going to get the leads and sales that you wanted because the speakers aren’t bringing those, leads when they come to speak, basically, it just is disappointing for everybody. This, the speakers were the difference between my third and fourth summit. The third summit made $22,000.
I didn’t change anything. When we jumped to my fourth summit and that one made $60,000, my speakers were the only thing I changed. I targeted, or I went for almost all speakers who had the exact same audience as my summit. And as you can see it more than paid off everything nearly tripled. So I want you to take action on this today, too.
You already did already to do the hard part, which is figuring out your profitable audience and topic. And once you have that down, you can start brainstorming. Speakers, which is what I’d love for you to do. Give yourself plenty of time for this. It takes a bit to find those perfect-fit speakers. So take your Summit’s audience and look for speakers who target the exact same audience.
Just a reminder creative entrepreneurs, online business owners that does not count. That is not specific enough. For example, a summit that I host is for brand and web designers. So I’m only looking for speakers who offer also offer products and services. to brand and web designers. So if you do interviews for your podcast, definitely start by looking at your guests to see who would make a good fit.
It’s always nice to be able to pitch people you already know, but not all of your guests will probably make a good fit if you had to narrow down your audience. But these are the people who will bring and get results alright I promise you that. It’s a difference between speakers who will get $50 affiliate payouts versus like $4,000 affiliate payouts.
And I’ve seen this over and over again. If I invite a speaker who does not target the right audience, they don’t attract the audience. I want, they don’t get the re like the affiliate pants they were looking for from participating. It will push you out of your comfort zone because you’ll be pitching more people you don’t know, but it is so worth it.
I promise. And those relationships will just continue to pay off. The fourth key we’re going to cover today is a powerful offer. So when you have the three pieces in place, we’ve already talked about that’s when you have what you need to create a powerful offer and for that to pay off. Okay. So a $20, all-access pass does not cut it when it comes to making money through your summit.
Okay. A $20 all-access pass. Is not actually valuable. The price shows that it’s not valuable. They’re like, okay, if it’s only $20, it must kind of stink. And you’re just missing out on giving your people a ton of value and crazy profits for yourself. So there are all kinds of options for your all-access pass.
But basically what I don’t want you to do is just sell. Presentation replays for 20 bucks. Like we said, my go-to all-access pass offer includes access to presentations, whether it’s a year’s access or ongoing access, extra live sessions of some sort that will help them connect with people and implement what they’re learning notes, transcripts, or worksheets, something to help them have something tangible to help them break down what they’re learning.
That takes a lot of time. So I put optional next to that. And then speaker bonuses are huge when it comes to an all-access pass that converts with that offer, there is so much more value that your attendees actually want. Okay. You’re helping them take what they learned in the summit so much further. You can charge.
Way more for it several times more for it. And everyone’s going to get a bigger return because of it. And that’s how you start making money through a summit A bonus tip. I always like to give, when it comes to your all-access pass is including price increases. So most of you kind of understand or have seen the importance of deadlines when it comes to selling a digital product, and that applies here to your summit and all-access pass as well.
So a few price increases I recommend throughout the summit. Is first I recommend having a special, fast-action or action-takers offer immediately after someone registers for your summit, they’re excited about it. They just said, yes, reward them. If they’re ready to take it a step further already and get the most that you can out of them being truly engaged and excited and understanding the mission of your summit, then you should have an early bird offer.
So some more special pricing that takes. Place until the summit starts. And then once summit starts, you will have at your regular price. And then you can always do a cart close as well, which you’ll want to do. And all of those things will push extra sales to you. So all of these keys come together to take the 3-5 industry standard summit conversion rate and bring it closer to 15%, which is what my students and myself see.
So that 3-5 that’s what all-access passes typically convert at. For summits that don’t put these keys into place, that’s industry standard. And like I said, myself and my students on average are seeing between 10 and 20%, evens out to 15%, which whole lot better who doesn’t want to triple their conversion rates.
Right. So we had Eden launched her first summit. As a one woman shop and ended up with over $3,000 in registrations and over $16,000 in sales, she’s hosted summits since then that bring in over $30,000. We have Hannah who her first summit made 150 sales with a 16% conversion rate and doubled her email list.
Her second one brought in nearly 5,000 attendees and over $34,000 in sales and Heidi did more than she ever thought she would, and had 3000 registrations and over $24,000 in revenue. And that those weren’t even her final numbers that was while her summit was still going on. And just to break mine down a little bit more.
That first time it had everything except the speakers, all the keys we talked about except the speakers, the second summit, I still didn’t have those speakers and I lost the topic. Third, I got the summit, the topic back, but still missed those speakers and the fourth summit, I got all of the keys. Right. And you can see how that paid off.
So I know this is a lot. I know I talked really fast. We’re going to break it down more in a masterclass. I’m hosting for you coming up. Be sure to tune in for that.
So like I said, if you want to take it further, I’m hosting that free masterclass. It’s called the 3-Part framework to triple your monthly revenue with a virtual summit. While building your list for free. So we cover all kinds of stuff in this class, but we will cover the secret to creating a plan.
You can actually follow to make your summit happen. Even if your business is already too busy, we’ll cover how to host a profitable event and land expert speakers without a huge audience of your own and how to use my three-part profitable summit system to triple your monthly revenue and the size of your email list.
So you have a little bit of a headstart today with deciding your audience and topic, but there are two. More important parts of the system that we’re going to cover in this class. And I’ll also teach you exactly how to fit a summit into your business, because I know you all run very busy businesses have lives outside of that, all of that good stuff.
And you’ll be able to host a successful summit without the size of your audience mattering at all when it comes to registrations or getting the speakers that you want. So I hope to see you there. Thank you so much for being here.
If you take away one thing from this presentation, I want you to remember that not all summits are profitable, but with these four keys, yours will be.
I hope you got a lot out of everything that Krista shared in this episode – there’s so much more you can learn, so definitely check out that masterclass. If you want to learn more about Sell With a Summit: Podcaster Edition and you know, maybe get to watch the rest of the sessions without having to wait for them to come out on the podcast, you can go to http://sellwithasummit.com/podcaster/.
Learn more about Krista at https://www.summitinabox.co/