In August 2020, I didn’t have plans to host a summit. I didn’t have a team and I definitely didn’t have the time to put an online event together. Know the feeling?
After chatting with Krista in episode 55, the idea started percolating and seven months later my first summit baby was born. I loved that conversation I had with Krista because I feel like it really laid the foundation for what it looks like to host a summit—without gaining too many extra gray hairs.
Now that I’ve been there and done that—and many of you have too—I thought it would be helpful to have Krista back to talk about upleveling your summit. With so many people hosting summits these days, we talked about how to make your summit stand out, what steps to take to avoid common pitfalls, and how to use your event to create lasting change in the lives (and businesses) of your audience.
Listen in!
Mentioned in This Episode
- Virtual Summit Funnel Roadmap
- Virtual Summit Prep Timeline
- Summit in a Box affiliate link
- Episode 55: The Content Experiment Podcast
- Episode 111: The Content Experiment Podcast
- The Content Mastery Lab
About Krista Miller
At Summit In A Box, Krista helps entrepreneurs 3x their monthly revenue through virtual summits without wondering where to start or what to do next. Her method is focused on strong connections, collaboration, and making a difference in the lives of everyone involved.
The best part? She makes it easy! With every strategy, copy template, website template, script, tech tutorial, and resources you’d ever need, your summit prep just got a whole lot easier!
Follow Krista on Instagram, join her Facebook Group, or learn more about hosting your virtual summit by visiting Summit In A Box.
Transcription
Abby Herman 0:08
Hey there, and welcome to Episode 121 of the content experiment podcast, a podcast that supports the idea that content and marketing are ever moving targets in any business. And it’s okay if you don’t feel like you’re doing it. All right all of the time, you have permission to experiment with little tweaks and changes in their content, to find out what works for you, what increases value for your audience, and what grows your business, and most importantly, what feels good for you. I’m Abby Herman, content strategist and coach for online business owners who are ready to make a bigger impact online. I firmly believe that success isn’t about what big marketing brands and so called gurus think is the right thing. It’s about you and your business, your lifestyle, and, frankly, your values and belief systems. You get to do business in a way that works for you. Back in August 2020, I had Krista Miller on the podcast at the time, I didn’t have plans to host a summit. I mean, maybe the idea was percolating a little bit. But at the time of the interview, I didn’t have a team and definitely didn’t have the time to put together a summit. So maybe my conversation with Krista helped me figure out that it was possible. That seems to happen a lot when I’m interviewing guests.
Abby Herman 1:28
And then I hired my first official employee and dove into planning. I loved that conversation that I had with Krista because I feel like it really laid the foundation for what it looks like to host a summit. Now that I’ve been there and done that, and many of you have to, I thought it would be helpful to have Krista back to talk about up leveling your summit because you know, the content experiment summit 2.0 is coming. With so many people hosting summit these days, I wanted to talk about how to make your summit different, as well as where some summit hosts trip things up. But first, I want to welcome you to the podcast. If you’re new here, I know that you’ll find this episode and all the episodes really full of no nonsense support, to help inspire you to get your message out there. And to give you the actionable steps you need to make it happen. So you can get on with business your way. If you like what you hear, hit the subscribe button so you don’t miss another episode. And if you’re a repeat listener, and you haven’t already left a rating and review, I would be so grateful if you’d hop over to your favorite podcast app and do that. ratings and reviews are what help tells Apple Spotify, Stitcher and all the other platforms and me that you like what you’re hearing, and it helps to get the podcast in more earbuds so others can benefit from the information I’m throwing down on a regular basis.
Abby Herman 2:58
And this podcast is brought to you by content mastery lab, my membership community where we talk about content creation, idea generation, market research, social media strategies, and all the mindset blocks that get in the way of our own visibility plus a whole lot more. Sometimes it takes some time to be brave enough to share a message and sometimes it takes some time to get the message right. In the lab, we focus on little tweaks and changes in our content to get the best ROI of our time investments. Because big sweeping changes take a lot of time, effort and money and they don’t always pay off like we expect them to stop floundering with trying to figure it all out yourself and start creating content with the confidence that you’re on the right path. Join us monthly or quarterly or commit to a whole year for extra one on one time with me and quarterly planning parties where we work through your content together in an intimate group, head to thecontentexperiment.com/lab for more information. And if you sign up and use the coupon code podcast, you can try out your first month for just $1. Okay, back to our guests. Like I said I’m chatting today with Krista Miller of summit in a box. She truly is the go to expert in creating your own summit with ease. As I mentioned on the episode Christos summit in a box program is the thing that helped me pull off my summit without gaining too many extra gray hairs.
Abby Herman 4:29
And actually, a lot of other factors went into the success of the summit, not the least of which being my team. I talked about the lessons I learned from hosting a summit in Episode 111. So you can head back there to see how it went for me. And there’s a link in the show notes if you want to listen in and there’s also a link to Christa summit a box program in the show notes. Now before we get to the interview, I want to formally introduce you to Christy Miller at summit and abaqus crystal Entrepreneurs three acts of their monthly revenue through virtual summits, without wondering where to start or what to do next, her method is focused on strong connections collaboration in making a difference in the lives of everyone involved. The best part, she makes it easy. With every strategy, copy template, website, template, script, tech tutorial and resources you’d ever need your summit prep just got a whole lot easier, and I can attest to that. So here is our conversation. Hi, Krista. Thank you so much for joining me today. I am so excited to have you as my second repeat guests on the podcast.
Krista Miller 5:39
Hey, Abby, I’m very honored. I was very excited to get your email inviting me back on it’s gonna be a lot of fun to kind of dive deeper into the summit world.
Abby Herman 5:40
Yes, yes. So before we get started, can you share with listeners what you do and who you do it for?
Krista Miller 5:55
Yeah, so I help basically all online business owners plan and launch profitable virtual summits that aren’t slimy and gross. So I basically want to help you get really awesome results through a summit as far as lis growth and income goes without being just find me about it. So that looks a lot like focusing more on other people over your own benefit. So yeah, we’re running businesses, we need to benefit throughout you what we do. But first, we need to look at how other people are gonna benefit. So how are your speakers gonna benefit? How are your attendees going to benefit? I walk people through the process of making that happen. I love that. And can you share, like how you help business owners with this? Like? What are your offers? How do you work with people? And then how does that the way you’ve run your business? How does that help you to live the lifestyle that you want? Who on? So yeah, I have a few different things. So we have like a free Facebook group that we help people and kind of you know, get started with with their questions as they’re diving in, we have a free podcast called summit host hangout that we’ve got over 100 episodes on where I just dive deep into strategy, short and sweet episodes to say, you know, hey, think about this on your summit, go dive in here and get the get the general idea.
Krista Miller 7:12
And then we do have some paid programs, our signature program is called summit in a box. And it basically has every training template, copy template, task list, calculator, everything you would ever need to plan in launch a virtual science. So if someone decides, hey, I want to do this thing, I want to do it the right way. And I don’t want to pull my hair out the first time, we have something in the box to help make it easier for them. And honestly, launching that offer has has changed everything about the way I do business because I used to do all one on one work. And I have no problem with one on one work. But now I do not because of of the summit inbox program. And it’s just been incredible. To have that freedom to everyday sit down and work on what I want to work on instead of client work to I’ve started taking Friday’s off every week, just because I can you know, and spend much less time I spend more time with my daughter all that good stuff. So it has really launching a product like that, that was so needed in the market has really helped me change the way I do everything. It’s just created so much more free space in my life in business, which I didn’t know I wanted. But it’s it’s pretty nice once you have it.
Abby Herman 8:22
Yeah, I bet. And I have to say too, as a student of the summit box program, and I’m a VIP students. So I get to like, ask extra questions and get some review some reviews done. I found the program itself to be like, so incredibly valuable in putting together my own summit. And I honestly like I don’t think I could have done it without some metal box. I really don’t all of the, I mean, for those of you listening, if you’ve thought about a summit, everything is done for you. You just have to like plug in the details. I mean, you know the details, your some it’s going to be different from somebody else’s, you plug in the details. It’s all there, the emails, the tutorials, the checklists, the the templated emails, and the templated surveys and the bingo cards and like it’s all done for you. So I love it.
Krista Miller 9:15
My nerdy brain loves making stuff like that for everybody. So I love hearing that you have enjoyed using it.
Abby Herman 9:21
I have and listeners, you can go to my affiliate link in the show notes if you want. So I said that I mentioned that you are the second returning guest. So we talked back in August of 2020. It’s Episode 55. There’s a link in the show notes for everyone who wants to check that out. And it was kind of like a summit one on one type of interview. It actually feels like it was a lot longer ago than August of 2020. But if we talked about the kind of the basics, and this was before, I don’t even think that even hosting a summit was really on my radar when you and I talked and I think Probably after we talked was when I was like, Oh, yeah, I can do this like I could, I could totally see myself doing this. So we talked about the benefits of the summit, how to leverage the free ticket, the paid VIP pass, you know, all of that. Because even though it’s a free offer, you’re still selling something. And I want to take it a step further this time, because so many people are hosting summits in some way, shape, or form. And I’m wondering, are they still beneficial to have summit? So what is the benefit? For me as a business owner to host a summit? And what’s the benefit of a speaker to someone to speak in a summit?
Krista Miller 10:43
Yeah, you asked me, the good… asked me the tough questions today. So for the first part of that our summit still beneficial to host because there’s, there’s so many of them, this is something I’ve been seeing chemical out, you know, like, everyone moved online in 2020. And there’s all these events happening is everyone just tired, and they don’t care, they don’t want to watch. And, honestly, if you do your summit the right way, which I’m sure we kind of covered in our in our last episode together, it’s not gonna be a problem. And I can give you my first hand experience on that I just launched my fifth run of a summit a couple months ago. And we made $92,000, just through the all access pass, which was over $30,000, more than the last event. So I would argue like my people were still pumped to show up to this event. They weren’t saying, I’m so sick of like showing up to online things. They’re like, no, this changes my business. This is for me, this is gonna be a lot of fun. I’m gonna sign up for this thing. So your goal, as the host, is to put make something that will make people feel that is that easy to do?
Krista Miller 11:52
No, it’s not like that’s a lot of upfront, brainstorming and planning and figuring things out you have to do, it has a lot to do with your positioning. And like I said, I’m sure we talked about this in the last last episode together. But if you’re hosting a broad summit for a wide audience, those are the ones that people aren’t into anymore. No one cares about summit for online business owners to help them grow their business, like you need to get more specific than that. So you can really make a difference for attendees until you’re solving a problem that they have. That’s what makes them show up. So if you can do that, I do not think you need to worry about you know, people not being interested anymore because of events, make your stand apart. And you’re good to go. With that being said, How does this benefit you as a host, I can talk for a very long time on this. So I’ll keep it short and sweet. Like the benefits you’ll see in my like outward messaging are like triple your triple your monthly revenue and your email list, like cool, we’re gonna see growth in revenue, we’re gonna see our email list grow when we host the summit. But to me, those aren’t even the best parts. And Abby, I’d be curious to see if you agree after hosting your first summit. But for me, the things that really make this crazy beneficial is, first of all the difference you make for your attendees, when you host a free event that truly transforms lives and businesses, one that just feels pretty dang good to have people popping in your inbox being like, you literally changed my life. And here’s how, like holy cow, you don’t expect that going into your summit, and then you make it happen. And like nothing else even matters, the money you made doesn’t even matter because you know, you impacted this person. And And beyond that, when you make that difference for people, you now have very loyal audience members. So these are people who want to stay on your email list. So people who want to buy what you have to offer, they want to recommend you That is crazy. No other I shouldn’t say no other. But I can’t think of any other type of funnel or anything you can put in place in your business.
Krista Miller 13:52
That creates superfans like that as quickly as the summit does. From there, you also have the connections you’re making with your speakers, which is another thing that always blows me away. So let’s say you have 15 speakers for your summit. That’s 15 people that you can if you do it, right, be close to after the event, collaborate with be simply be new business friends with do JV partnerships down the road reach out to when you need something here or there, whatever. You’ve just grown your network with these other experts that you clearly trust because you brought them on to your event that is so dang powerful. And then if you have any other offers, which I’m sure everybody listening does, your Son sets you up perfectly to sell those offers. So whether it’s a course you want to launch a membership, a service you want to book out, your summit sets you up perfectly to lead your summit attendees into those things, whether it’s them joining immediately after the summit is over or staying on your list being nurtured for a few months and being ready to jump in the next time. You want something the next time you have an opening in your service. So dang powerful. The power of a summit is like truly endless and I feel like it’s not something you can actually grasp until you actually until you do it. And you’re sitting there afterwards like, holy cow, like I did not expect. It’s just like one thing after another, just kind of like I’ve seen fall into place for not just myself, but other people as well. Then moving on to the speaker part how to speakers benefit. So
Abby Herman 15:19
Can I can I interject here, just really quickly before you do that, because I do want to mention, too, that, yeah, I totally agree with you that it’s the impact that you can make on your audience on your people. And I was able to so so I did an episode on the podcast and kind of did a recap of it. And I didn’t mention revenue numbers or anything on that episode. But I’ll be honest, I didn’t even come close to my revenue goals for the all access pass didn’t come close, or the registration numbers for that matter. And end end. Sure I was bummed about it. But I gained so much from like, just watching people succeed, watching the connections happen in the Facebook group, I know that people found their biz besties. In that Facebook group, I got so much great feedback on the speakers, I was able to watch the speakers kind of like just really show up for, for the audience members, I loved watching the conversations that were happening in the chat during the presentations, I was actually surprised at how active the chat role was during that time. And just knowing that people who didn’t have the means to pay for coaching or to pay for someone to help them with messenger bots, or with speaking or with whatever, just knowing that they were able to get some of that support that they needed, so that they can move their businesses forward was huge for me. And yeah, I benefited from, you know, growing my list by quite a bit by new people finding me and so you know, maybe I can help them in the future. So it was sure there was a revenue goal that was attached to because it’s a lot of work. And, and I spent money on getting support and all of that on the back end. But I know that doing it again, it’s going to take me less time, it’s going to be a lot less stress. And and it will pay for itself, you know, down the road, so And to me, it paid for itself with the just the value that I was able to add to other people in other people’s businesses. Because you know, that’s, I mean, that’s why we so many of us are not everybody. But that’s why so many of us do what we do. Yeah, we need to make money because we’re we have a business, but being able to help other people has been huge. So I just had to interject that.
Krista Miller 17:43
No, I’m glad you did. Yeah, it is just it’s so powerful. Like I said before, it’s something you can’t really understand until you you go in and do the darn thing. Yeah. But I think the last piece of your question was then like, how do speakers benefit and I’m sure we’ve all all seen summits or heard someone say that speaking at summit isn’t worth it, or someone say I spoke at this summit, and I’m never doing it again. There are wrong ways to summit as far as speakers are concerned. When you set things up, right, which I can tell you did Abby bit just based on what you said about seeing them succeed to see them, you know, connect with the audience. It is one free marketing for them. And I don’t like to use the exposure and visibility, visibility positioning when I pitch speakers, that’s not what that’s not what they care about. But they do get that they do get that get that through the summit, because it’s people and with a targeted a targeted audience, finding them, they’re seeing them present on a topic that they need help with, it’s natural for them to say, Okay, I’m gonna watch this allow a lot more of what this person offers.
Krista Miller 18:46
Cool. From there, it’s an email list growth opportunity. So you should always let your speakers pitch at least a freebie at the end of their presentation. So they can be growing their emails to people who are interested in learning more about that topic. And I have people say, Well, how can I sell any of my thing, if I’m sending all my attendees to all my different speakers, that’s not how it works. Not everybody that signs up for your summit needs your help. They need help with different aspects of what your summit topic is about. Sometimes it’s going to be you sometimes it’s going to be a speaker and be excited at the opportunity to connect to those people with the experts who can help them the most. There’s also income opportunities so whether or not you pay your speakers you know, I don’t we don’t need to get into that you can pay your speakers a fee if you want to. Affiliate income is another way that they can make money. So if they’re promoting their your summit, they should get in my opinion, at least a 40% Commission on any sales they make. And from there as they’re collecting those email addresses through their presentation, they then have the opportunity to put them in their funnel and sell more of their thing. It’s the ability to to just connect with the attendees. So I one of my favorite things is like getting on Instagram during my summit and seeing like an attendee tag me in a post. But the post wasn’t actually about me. They’re tagging me because I’m the host. But really, they’re talking about how awesome one of my speakers is, heck, yeah, like that is awesome. And that makes your speakers feel really good too.
Krista Miller 20:11
And I mean, I could I could go on and on. But like, your speakers should be able to benefit through your summit, through connecting with people who need them through growing their email list through making money through it being a very easy process for them. So don’t come in with all of these requirements from your speakers, you know, send, send three emails, post three times on social media come to this training on how to be a good affiliate, come to this, like networking session with all the other speakers, do your presentation and come to a live panel, like make it easy for these people? Can you have some extra things you want to throw in? Yeah, make it optional. You don’t just like make it as easy for your speakers as possible. So that, you know, a lot of times, especially with first time summit, you can’t promise them anything, you don’t know how big your time is going to be. So keep that in mind when you’re setting your expectations for them so that their benefits outweigh what results are like what you can promise them basically.
Abby Herman 21:04
Yeah, definitely. I mean, you you definitely do not know what’s going to happen in the summit, when you do it for the first time. So I did not have any I recommended that they promote, I didn’t have any requirements. I’m going to adjust that a little bit next time around and have like something like do let’s do something to promote the speakers who did promote, I mean, they earned quite a bit of commission. So from the affiliate sales, which is fantastic. In fact, there was one in particular who I was on her email list and I got the email. And literally like five to 10 minutes after the email. It was like affiliate sale after affiliate sale after it works. It definitely works. And I told her like what a rockstar she wasn’t just like, I don’t feel like I did that much. And I was like, well, you’re the top affiliate so it was awesome. So with so many people hosting summits, I feel like like there’s a I mean obviously there’s a formula for doing it, there’s a way to do it. And a lot of people look at summit it you know, like it’s going to be this and and, you know, fill in the boxes, kind of kind of thing. But really, there’s so much we can do to make our summit different from someone else’s? Can you share some unique things that you’ve seen people do and some ways that that business owners have made their summit a little bit different?
Krista Miller 22:31
Absolutely. So first, I want to say if you’re like a first time Senate House and you’re already overwhelmed, feel free to tune us out for a little bit. But if you’ve like done it before, and you just want to make it really cool like there are so many awesome ways you can do that. The first one that’s coming to mind for me is Emily Walker, who is hosting the do it your way summit. And as we’re recording like she’s she’s promoting that and everything right now. And what’s so cool about it is like the the VIP experience she’s creating, you’re not just signing up to watch presentations, you’re signing up for an experience, and I don’t remember exactly like everything she has included. But like for example, a couple of the things are like a live cooking class where you will you like get ingredients ahead of time and like can cook along like with this class. And I think she has another one might be like yoga, or something like that. But like, that’s really cool for a business summit to have special things like that thrown in. And I feel like those live aspects customized to your people are the the best thing you can do to set your event apart. Like I have someone hosting one of my students is hosting like a craft summit. So she’s gonna have some live like craft along sessions, like come make this card, come do this thing with us. Like that’s, that’s really cool. That really helps your event stand out from just having a bunch of pre recorded presentations, you know. So that’s kind of where I would point people to look first is how can you go beyond the traditional summit model to create a deeper, more immersive experience? And I think that’s the best thing we can do with online events.
Abby Herman 24:11
Yeah, I love that ends. You know, those seem like they’re very actionable. They’re very doable for pretty much anyone to have something like that. And I love that because Emily Walker. So it’s a business summit, and she teaches on course creation, right. And she’s having yoga and cooking classes. I love that that’s so unique and different. So fun. Yeah. Love it. Okay, so of course I want to tie, you know, this conversation about summits to content, and what the content piece looks like for summits. We need promotional content, we need to be able to promote what we’re doing and encourage people to attend. What are some ways that we can get really creative with our promo content. So it’s not, you know, static social media. Post or emails exclusively like those are important, but other other ways that we can get a little creative to promote our summit. And I imagine that some of these ideas might cross over really well to other parts of our business too,
Krista Miller 25:14
For sure. So like, when you’re promoting your summit, if there are any trends going on, hop on those trends and use them for your summit. Like right now, Instagram reels. Heck, yeah, I was making reels to promote my last summit, because everybody’s watching them right now. Everybody’s sharing them. Who knows how long that will last? But you can bet I jumped on that trend. I think my very first reel ever I was like, Alright, I got to figure this out for my summit, because it’s something that’s going to catch people’s attention. And it did. Like clubhouse. I don’t it’s clubhouse even a thing still right now? I don’t know people haven’t thought about it as much. Yeah, well, like, that’s another thing. But I saw a lot of my students jumping on. I haven’t maybe it’s just that I’m not paying attention to it anymore. But they were having huge success. They’re like, I’m just gonna promote on clubhouse because this is incredible. They jumped on a trend, they jumped on what everybody is watching right now what everybody wants to see. And they’re using that to promote their summit.
Krista Miller 26:11
I think that’s the best thing you can do. Should you still, you know, send those emails that are focused on like benefits and pain points and features or your summit? Yes, still send that information because people still respond to those things. But make it more exciting too. Like carousel posts are another thing I’ve started using over the last few months on my Instagram feed. And I have seen everything I’m doing on Instagram. Oh, my goodness, what word Am I looking for, it’s like working better since I started doing that. Because it’s more in depth posts that give more value to people. I made some of those from my summit. So it’s kind of like sharing some advice, giving some tips, whatever. And at the end, relating it to the summit, like anything like that, that is one step up from just posting a stock photo and typing in a caption that’s gonna stand out, that’s gonna give you a better chance. And also something that can be really helpful is roping in your in your speakers into promotion. So going live with them on their Instagram account in their Facebook group on their Facebook page.
Krista Miller 27:14
Abby, getting them all on your podcast, like any kind of collaboration you can do, whether it’s on your platform, or theirs is going to expand that audience. And even if that speaker now doesn’t do their own promotion, you help them at least get something out there. That’s another that’s probably the most beneficial thing you can do is find those different ways to do promotion with your speakers, because it guarantees them that it gets your summit in front of their audience at least one time. How did you like doing that? By the way? Did you like bringing all your speakers on it had to be crazy.
Abby Herman 27:48
Oh my gosh, I’m laughing because it was it was crazy. So getting 25 speakers 26 speakers onto the podcast in from the starting January 4 until I think the last one went live on March 13. So it was like eight, nine, ten weeks or so. It was a lot and and I loved the connection I loved you know, being able to interview them. There was one speaker who she had already been on the podcast. And she was kind of like a late addition speaker. And so I opted not to interview her, which I think she was probably thankful for. But she had already been on the podcast. So it was a lot of work. I don’t know that I would do it again. Simply because of the sheer amount of content that we were putting out there. I think that I was going crazy. My team was going crazy. And my editor was going crazy. But but it was I really enjoyed connecting with them, especially since quite a few of the speakers I didn’t know like they were cold pitch to them to be a part of the summit. And it was nice to be able to talk ahead of time and to introduce my audience to them too. So But yeah, I don’t know that I recommend it. But it’s such a great like you said it’s such a great tool to help the speakers and to give them you know, something that it’s basically done done for them. I mean, they have to sit for the interview, but it’s done for them.
Krista Miller 29:17
So yeah, well and like also, that’s you made me think of something else that people aren’t gonna they wouldn’t think of when they’re thinking of how do I promote my son but it’s huge. It’s connections with your speakers, like real personal connections. And like think of this from your own standpoint, are you more likely to go hard promoting a summit for someone you’ve never heard of before? or someone you know, pretty darn well and consider yourself friends with like, Yeah, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m going to go much harder for my friends. I’m not going to let a summit one of their summit slipped by without sending an email or getting in front of my social media audience so like Abby, even just the power of that, that you have that connection with them, there’s more of a likelihood that When when your emails were coming into their inbox about the summit, you said, Hey, promotion started, it is more likely that they’re going to open that email and read it and care enough to want to promote, because they want to support you now, because they know you on a personal level, not just through some emails from you saying, hey, you’re awesome, you want to be part of this thing, you have a connection with them. And that can care. It makes it easier to carry that through until after this is over as well. So like, Don’t underestimate the power of having real connections with your speakers. When it comes to promotion. It is the best thing you can do.
Abby Herman 30:30
Yes, I yes, I agree. I agree. So let’s talk about that after the summit piece, too. So we spent all of this time I mean, I have to admit, like I was done, I was done with content. And I know I didn’t do a good job on the follow up and the you know, the after, after the summit content, what are some things that we that we could do to maintain some momentum after the summit? And bonus points, if it’s something that we can do during the planning stages? So we’re not actually doing it after the summit when we’re exhausted? And what are some things that we can do with you know, as far as like maintaining that momentum and keeping in touch with our speakers and our attendees?
Krista Miller 31:15
Yeah, so I’m going to start with speakers first, because that will be that’s easier in my head. But don’t host your summit, be talking to these speakers all the time and emailing all the time, and then you’re done. And you just never talk to them again. Like, that’s kind of awkward. Don’t keep up with people, when they’re launching something of their own, share it like support them, keep chatting with them on social media, or you know, wherever you can connect with them, keep those relationships going, that’s the best thing you can do for your speakers, because it shows them that it was not just like a fake relationship, to use them to grow your audience. And I am sure no one listening would ever go in with that intention. But that’s what it can feel like to people if you just drop them on a sudden after this is over. So the best thing you can do for speakers is to stay connected, keep supporting them.
Krista Miller 32:04
For attendees. I love this question, because I just got finished creating a course for my son and evoc students about how to launch a course through summit. And that’s the first thing I want you to think about. And you can you’ve can and should do this, get it all set up with the planning for your summit. That means you should expect extend your summit planning timeline. By the way, don’t try to add something else, like a 90 days on a timeline. But if you have an offer that will help these people put it in front of them at the end of your summit. And I like to build this into the experience of the summit as a whole. So for summit inbox, I’m hosting a summit about summits, it makes sense for me to long term right? No matter at the end of that, yes, because I can make money through it. But because it’s going to be something that people want. If they go to this free event, learn about how powerful somebody is, and they want to host one at the end. Cool might not be like, here’s this thing, I have to make it really easy. So you know, it can’t I know, some people are like, Oh my gosh, I don’t want to launch it after the summit. Because you know, I’ve been sending them all these emails, no, they need what you have to offer. So launch your thing, whether it’s a course membership service, right when your summit is over, I like to build mine right into the summit.
Krista Miller 33:14
So throughout the summit, I’m building awareness of whatever it is that I’m going to be launching, I’m not pitching it, but they know what’s coming. I have a few different strategies for that. But you’re basically building awareness without pitching. Then on the final day of your summit, you can focus on building engagement, getting people excited, open the doors to whatever that is whether you’re announcing you have 10 spots open in your you know, one on one service or whatever, or you have this court this amazing course or membership and the doors are now open. That is like the best thing you can do. Because now these people who found you are like all about what you do because of the summit, or like, heck yes, I want this thing. By the first time I did this, I got my biggest course launch ever through my summit. And it was so powerful the live webinar I did for people who came live converted at 41% for a $2,000 product, that does not happen, like people want what you have. So the best thing you can do is to offer it to them, don’t be gross about it, but offer it to them.
Krista Miller 34:12
And then afterwards, then you can go into nurture content. So I think it’s really important to stay in touch with your attendees once the summit is over. Personally, I send Well for one business, I send monthly newsletters for another I send weekly just kind of depends, but keep in touch with them. Don’t be like hey, here’s this awesome summer emailing you every day, boom. Like you falling off the face of the earth, you know you’re gonna want to I’ll be tired, but have a plan for how you’ll stay in touch with them moving forward so that maybe you didn’t have something to offer them right away after the summit. When you do have something to offer. They remember who you are, you know, and then you know when you go in for round two like you were talking about Abbie, they are there you already have this audience of people built up who are going to be excited for the next thing you’re doing whether it’s another summit something new you’re launching all that good stuff. Stay in touch with them.
Abby Herman 34:59
Yeah. That big course launch was that the one that you did this past fall and September 2020. So, cuz that’s when I bought two during the during the, I mean, to be honest, I knew you were going to I knew you were selling it at the end. And like all week and like, just give me the link, like, I just want the link I just look in, like, just get let me in right now because I already know I’m gonna buy like, it doesn’t matter. I don’t know if I think I knew how much it was. But I was like, I just, I’m just gonna buy like, just give it to me. You know, I was primed and ready.
Krista Miller 35:30
Totally. There were so many people who were like, Can you just take my money already? I’m like, No, I don’t wait till Friday. I was never pitching. I was never gross about it. But people were ready. And they wanted that next level support. And it was really cool to see.
Abby Herman 35:45
Yes, yes, totally. Um, so I have a question about repurposing the content that you use in the summit. Can you share? Like, how do we so I, you know, I did the summit, I have got all these great talks. Can I repurpose that information? And if so, how do I? Do I need permission? Like what are some of the permissions, the conversations that you need to have with speakers ahead of time? If those are your plans? Like what can I do with all of this information, all this great content after the fact?
Krista Miller 36:21
Yeah, so I have such mixed feelings on this. And I think because partially people can go about it in a really bad and gross way that’s taking advantage of their speakers. But on the other hand, you did a lot of work to put this thing on, let’s keep using it after the summit is over. So like, one of the easiest things you can do is continue to sell your all access pass on evergreen. So what I like to do is, you know, find whatever freebies on my website that fit with the topic of my summit. So one of my summit is to help designers simplify their business, I have a freebie I’m like 1010 steps to simplify your design, business, whatever. They’re actually like cooler sounding than that. But you get the idea. When someone opts in for that freebie, they get a like a limited time offer to upgrade to the summer presentations for like a 50% discount, cool that just kind of make sales on autopilot, I’m continuing to benefit from that content, get it in front of other people, you could also put your phone on evergreen, so you’re someone’s always available for people to sign up to and kind of go through it as if it’s live. So they get 24 hours to watch the day one videos. Same with day two. And someone that can be a little tougher for some people, because it requires ongoing promotion for it to work like no one’s just gonna randomly sign up for an evergreen summit.
Krista Miller 37:33
But what you might have, I don’t know if it’s what you were referring to more, but I’ve seen some people, you know, post their summit videos after a certain amount of time on YouTube, or put them on their podcast, or put them in their membership, or make a membership out of them. Those are the things that I personally have a bigger issue with, because of how we position a summit, you have 24 hours to watch this content. If you want ongoing access, you have to pay for it. And then we’re going and putting it on YouTube or a podcast like to me that feels gross. Then we also have the issue of of speakers. And this can or can’t be an issue depending on how you go about it. So the first thing you need to do is look at your agreement with your speakers, do you have the rights to be spreading their content beyond the summit? Is that something you included in your contract? And regardless of what your contract says, even if you have exclusive rights to their content, which a lot of speakers aren’t going to give you I wouldn’t sign that contract, it’s still a good thing to reach back out to them and be like, Hey, here’s my plan. Like I plan to put your video on my YouTube channel, I’ll link to your freebie and you and all that stuff. Ask them before you do that, because even if you have rights, you could still burn bridges by doing something like that. Those are the things that I personally have more of an issue with. So there’s all kinds of options, it just kind of depends on what feels good to you, and how you’re going to present that to your speakers. get them on board with it.
Abby Herman 38:58
Yeah, those are some great ideas. And yeah, you’re right, I, you know, thinking about my all access pass, and I have a membership, I would do some of the members some of the people in my membership bought an all access pass somebody the early bird price or the fast action price somebody at a higher price. I wouldn’t feel right then giving everyone access to that. Because that’s not fair. It’s not It’s not fair for the people who paid you paid full price for it, too. Now everybody gets it for free, quote unquote free for the price of the membership community. But yeah, I never thought about selling the all access pass on evergreen. And I actually just had someone asked me the other day for to buy the all access pass and I said no, because the promotion period was over like it was the carts closed and the next summits coming up in the fall and so so listen up and listen in for when that goes live. So um, but yeah, I like that I definitely talking to the speakers about that and it may even be an opportunity For the speakers to continue to earn affiliate income on it as well, since if they’ve agreed for you to use the content, you know, maybe they want to promote it and earn some additional affiliate income. So
Krista Miller 40:13
Yeah, yeah. And even if it’s even if it’s one time that an audience member asked them if they have something that can help them with something specific and the answer is your summit, cool, there’s a $50 affiliate commission for them.
Abby Herman 40:30
This is such a great conversation. Before we go is there if someone listening was only going to take away two things from the conversation, like two nuggets that you think are the most important when you’re planning your summit or up leveling your summit? What do you think those two things would be?
Krista Miller 40:48
Okay, first, I would say these are gonna like, contradict each other. First, I’m going to say, if you are already overwhelmed with planning a summit, keep it simple, you don’t have to add all these extra things that we were talking about, okay, you don’t have to do these crazy live sessions, you don’t have to get super creative with your promotion, get the first one out into the world, because that’s the hardest one, everything after that gets so much easier, it is so much easier to host your summit. For the second time, the most work you’re going to do is onboarding your speakers, and getting their presentations ready to go. Everything else is already done. You’re just making tweaks. So if you’re overwhelmed, get the first seven out of the way, don’t worry about extra bells and whistles. But then I’ll say if you’re a second time host, oh my gosh, I love what we talked about today, how can you uplevel what you did last time? How can you create a deeper experience for your people? So a lot of the times when I’m talking about experience, I’m just like, Hey, have a community, give them some more to communicate with each other and get to know everybody?
Krista Miller 41:49
But how can you make an experience and a lot of that’s going to go into like live sessions and people do fun things and connect with each other. And then like the polling the promotion aspect of two, how can you really uplevel that, whether it’s something like running ads, or jumping on whatever bandwagon is going on at the time on social media? How can you leverage those things for your summit? So you know, those are the two, maybe one piece for two different types of people listening, that I would love for you, not for you to take away?
Abby Herman 42:21
Awesome. You have a roadmap that can help people get started with their virtual summit. Can you share a little bit about that and where people can find it?
Krista Miller 42:31
Yeah, so we were talking about how, you know, one of the best things you can do for your people after your summit is launch, whatever your thing is, but that’s not going to work, if you like don’t have a plan for going in. So this roadmap is my virtual summit funnel roadmap, it’s gonna walk you through six stages of taking people from finding you for the first time through your summit, to being ready to buy your offer at the end of it. So it’s a six step process, we’ll walk through each stage. In this freebie, we have checklists for you to go through for each stage. So mistakes to avoid all that good stuff. So that’s what our freebie is for you. And where can people find it? So summitinbox.co/roadmap.
Abby Herman 43:08
Awesome. And we’ll make sure that a link is in the show notes as well. And where can people find you online to learn more about you and get some in the box?
Krista Miller 43:18
Yeah, you can learn about all the summit in box things over at summit in a box over there? Oh, you’ll find our podcasts there. Links to all the things over there. And I also hang out a ton on Instagram. We’d love to connect with you over there. hear about your seminar idea. Let me know you came from Abby’s podcast, all that good stuff.
Abby Herman 43:35
Awesome. Thank you so much, Krista, for joining me. And you’re joining me like in the middle of launching as well. So thank you for that.
Krista Miller 43:42
Thank you so much for having me.
Abby Herman 43:46
I know that there are so many ways to repurpose summit content. And that’s definitely something I’m thinking about for the content experiment summit 2.0 this fall. But Krista is right. There are a lot of considerations to take into account well ahead of time if you’re going to do that. And I loved her example of Emily Walker’s summit. Adding some personal to the business summit is such a good idea. We’re all human after all. Now if you’re ready to start experimenting with content and marketing in your own business without having to do all of the guesswork yourself. Remember that you can join us inside content mastery lab at thecontentexperiment.com/lab and use the coupon code podcast to get your first month for $1 Pricing starts at just $97 A month after that. If you found value in what you learned here today, be sure to share it on social media. Take a screenshot of the episode on your phone and share it over on Instagram stories. You can tag me at Abby Herman and the content experiment and you can tag Krista ad summit in a box. The more you share, the more we can get the podcast into the ears of more business owners just like you who need to hear the message that they are not alone. Until next time, take care.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
