Ep. 27: Using Summits to Grow Your Email List With Krista Miller

Meg Casebolt 0:01
You’re listening to social slowdown a podcast for entrepreneurs and micro-businesses looking for sustainable marketing strategies without being dependent on social media. Social media is a double-edged sword. It’s a wonderful way to stay connected. But it also can feel like an addictive obligation. And it’s even more complex for businesses. Your audience might be right there, but you’ve got to fight with algorithms to maybe be seen by them. So whether you want to abandon social media altogether, or you just want to take a month off, it’s possible to have a thriving business without being dependent on social media. This podcast is all about finding creative, sustainable ways to engage with your audience without needing to lip-sync, send cold DMS, run ads or be available 24/7. Let’s get started.

Hello, friends, I am so excited to share this interview with you with Krista Miller Christa is the founder of Summit in a box she runs the simply profitable designer summit I am this year, I am a speaker in the simply profitable designer Summit. So those of you watching the YouTube video will see me in my T shirt for the simply profitable designer Summit. And I wanted to bring Krista on to talk about her experience with teaching people how to run summits, in part in order to become less dependent on social media. So Krista, thank you so much for being here

Krista Miller 1:21
today. Thank you for having me. There’s going to be so much fun.

Meg Casebolt 1:24
I know I feel like we’ve been running like a parallel lives of our businesses for years and years like we met in when you were still a developer, I think and we were like how can we work together as a designer and a developer without the specializations that we’ve taken on that since then?

Krista Miller 1:39
Oh, my gosh, what a journey for sure. Yeah. And then like, didn’t talk for a couple years. And then like, oh, yeah, she exists.

Meg Casebolt 1:47
I think we’ve gotten to reintroduce to each other a couple times that it’s like, wait, no, I already know Krista. Exactly. But isn’t that the wonderful thing about this online business world is we’re all always trying to connect each other with cool people. Yes, I love it. So if you don’t mind, tell us a little bit about what it is that you do both as a summit teacher and a summit host the two sides of the Krista Miller coin.

Krista Miller 2:11
Yeah, so I started out as the summit host. And I mean, that wasn’t my start. But the first way I dove into summits, after speaking, of course, was as a host, I didn’t I never planned to teach people about Summit. I was like, I need a way to grow my business. I need more people on my email list. I need clients, I need money. Let’s summit can do that. And I went in with really low expectations, and came out of my first summit with just results better than I ever would have dreamed, you know, I was hoping to literally make my goal was literally like, I hope I make $2,000 from this summit. It made $16,000 triple my emails booked me out for six months. And I was like, whoa, okay, that’s cool. You know, I had never made, I think my biggest month to date at that time was like $4,000. So to go on to make $16,000. From one thing, my mind was blown. And I was like, Okay, I’ll do this again. So that’s like, how I started the whole summit thing. And I’ve been running at least annual summit since then, there’s been a few years where I’ve run two a year. And just by accident, I started teaching about sound bites, because I had, you know, with that first time back in 2018, I had speakers emailing me sending messages on unboxer. On Facebook, I had attendees reaching out all over the place, saying, Hey, that was really good. Can you show me how to do that? And I was like, No, that was so much work. I will not teach you how to do away. You know, the universe has a way, when there’s something you’re meant to do, it will make sure you do it. And eventually I was like, Okay, I’m gonna just I have this really awesome Asana template that I use. I’m like a total planner nerd. I love planning things and details. So I took the asana project I use for my summit, I unarchived it unchecked all the tasks made it a little bit prettier. It was like here $200 Like, do you want it? And they did. And since then, we have just been pumping out summit hosting resources. So now I mean, focus a summit in a box where I just have any anything someone wants to know about running a summit is my goal to like have that available. So not only do we have like hundreds of podcast episodes, we have every single training template, tutorial resource, anything someone would ever need, because summits are an incredible way to grow your business, but they are too much work. In my opinion for anyone to start from scratch. It is not necessary. It is a lot to do. There are like just hundreds of details, emails to write web pages to make it is silly to start from scratch when you don’t have to. So my goal is to be the one stop shop for everything someone needs to run a sum and make it easy and actually work. Yeah, that’s another thing you hear people saying supplements don’t work. You know, they’re they’re old news like well, not from what myself Often my students are seeing. So I’m really focused on the strategy side to like, how do you make this actually work for you?

Meg Casebolt 5:06
So if people aren’t familiar with the idea of a summit, can you just like define for me the basics of what you would expect from any Summit? Whether you’re, you know, a speaker, your student who’s who’s participating in it, like a member of the summit, for lack of a better term, if you’re the host of the summit? Like, what makes a summit?

Krista Miller 5:25
Yeah. So, in my definition of Summit would be a free event with a group of speakers. You know, I mean, honestly, could it be like five speakers? Yeah, I like to see at least 15. You know, from from the way I like to do things, usually a three to five day event, there are one day summits, but you know, in general, three to five day event, with a group of presentations each day, all focused around an overarching topic. So the summit should provide some sort of transformation. You know, or bring people together for something they just like love, that’s a passion of theirs, and then teach them specific things based on that each day. Generally speaking, those presentations are going to have a limited time access with the community aspect. So you can go in and interact with people. And then once you sign up, there’s generally going to be some kind of upsell, usually to something called an all access pass, where you can get ongoing access to presentations. And you know, other things that may convert better, like speaker bonuses, live sessions, things like that. Those aren’t in all summits, but they’re in all summits that convert well. And that’s kind of the basics of it, you know, you sign up as an attendee, you can go to these sessions, you’re getting emails, communicating all of those details, that community where you can go interact and an option to have an upsell.

Meg Casebolt 6:42
And so I am assuming that a lot of people who are listening to this maybe have been to a summit before they’ve signed up for one, maybe they’ve seen it as a user. But what is it like to be a speaker at a summit? Because I know, you know, for me, and here’s my kind of experience here, I think you were one of my first summits that I ever spoke at. And so I was kind of like thrown into it. This was maybe four or five years ago. So you were like, oh, we need an offer. And we need a freebie. And I was like, Oh, let me create all that stuff. Right. So as a speaker, what are the benefits of being part of that, you know, 15 to 30 to 50? People? Like, what why would I want to speak at a summit?

Krista Miller 7:26
I love this question. And I think most speakers are saying yes to summits, they shouldn’t say yes to, oh, it’s really tempting to just say yes to any opportunity, but not every opportunity is going to be worth your time. I’m just being totally honest. So you know, if you’re saying yes to the right Summit, though, it is going to get you in front of an audience, you would have have had to spend hundreds or 1000s of dollars on Facebook ads to get in front of. So you are getting that exposure. Exposure. I hate that word of the summit, I guess for what it is return for creating this presentation. Personally, I like to have like, you know, slides, a group of slides made from my go to presentation so that when I pitch for someone, I’m never making anything from scratch, that helps you save some time, make it more with your time. But you’re going you’re you’re giving this presentation, at the end of your presentation, you should be allowed to pitch something, if you’re not say no to the summit host, you should be allowed to pitch a freebie or a paid offer or some way you can grow your business, I always recommend freebies, because that’s just going to convert way way higher than trying to sell something to these people right away who maybe have never heard

Meg Casebolt 8:35
of you, when you’ve had 20 minutes with them. And you’re supposed to be giving value you shouldn’t be spending the entire time going. And here’s how you can give me money. But if you get the get get them onto your email list, give them an option to buy for you, you know, either when they’re signing up for your email list, or you know, down the road, because I think I’m just kind of sharing my experience, which is like when I go to summit, I go and I’m like, let me just figure out whose freebies I want. And then I’ll go in, I’ll sign up for them. Same with like, bundles. I’ll kind of do this. And if I get hit too soon, with like, how do I? How do I give, please give me money, give me money? How do I upsell, I’m like, Oh, I’m not ready for that. Yeah, I don’t know you yet. But by getting people onto your email list, you have a chance to nurture that relationship to give them an opportunity to take whatever that next step is. So I think starting with a freebie is absolutely the right move for most people.

Krista Miller 9:23
Exactly, exactly. And, you know, some hosts, again, who know what they’re doing will probably ask you to contribute something to the All Access Pass, which at you know, at first glance might be like, Well, why am I giving you something for free? Do it, do it if this is a well positioned Summit, because you’re giving them access to you know, one of your lower priced offers. And that’s another way to get a whole bunch of email addresses. And these are email addresses from people who invested in the event. So they’re investing in whatever transformation this event is promising. And then also if there’s opportunities to like, be live in front of these people in our acting with them or interacting with them in a community, that’s another really great way to start doing this to the speakers I have, and the times I’ve done this and been as involved as possible, those are the people who get the best results from from participating. And you know, I have speakers who between the freebie they’re pitching in their presentation and contributing to the All Access Pass are getting hundreds and hundreds of leads, I had one speaker last year report making over $15,000, within a week of the summer ending just from being in the summit. So like, you know, this is something that does work. And there is that affiliate income aspect to, again, that works best if you’re participating in the right, perfectly targeted events. So there really are a lot of really great benefits of speaking if you’re choosing your your events wisely. Yeah, and

Meg Casebolt 10:46
I think you make a really good point to point out like, not every Summit is created equally. And even if you get into a summit that does really well, for someone else’s business and other speakers, it may not be the right fit for you and for your business. You know, I’ve been a speaker on summits that are kind of just generic, like, this is a summit for solopreneurs, or this is a summit for mom, business owners. And those are to an extent my people, but they might not be specifically looking for the services that I provide. They may be looking for more productivity tips or pricing strategies or, and now not really like the marketing specifics that I’m getting into, they may not be ready for that yet. Whereas, you know, in a time of recording next week, I’ll be speaking at your Summit, and it’s like, it’s for designers. So my messaging and my positioning is very different. Because it’s like, let’s talk about SEO specifically for designers, both for getting your own clients and for using it for your your design clients like kind of learning enough or working with me until I was like, yeah, absolutely. I want to talk to just designers, because they are a source of referrals for me and a source of repeat client bases. And so making sure that you’re finding a summit that is relevant to who you want to serve long term, and they’re at the right level of knowledge. Now summits do typically tend to bring in I would say, maybe a newer audience who have a bit more time, you know, the complaint that I hear about Summit, sometimes it’s like, Well, how am I going to watch 25 hours of resources? So can you speak to that a little bit? Like how much do people who are who are watching some it’s actually watch live or or engage with the Facebook group and the community and the materials, like, tell me a little bit more about what you’ve found, as the host. And as the person who’s also I know, you’ve got to have a bunch of numbers around all

Krista Miller 12:42
I do. I wish I knew more about like exact percentages of who watches videos and stuff like that. As a host, I’m always begging my attendees, please don’t watch them all. Yes, you’re not going to accomplish anything, if you just sit through videos all week, and then you’re going to end the week overwhelmed, and you’re never going to do anything. So please don’t. So I always have ways built in to help them like pick and choose the right presentations. You will though have a handful of people who like if you have a chat box they’re in. Like I see you I told you not to but I see you really have a lot of people like that and you don’t want like that’s it’s no good for anybody. You know, for them to be doing that. As far as the percentage of people who watch videos live, you know, I teach pre recorded segments for the most part, if you host like a truly live event, you are going to have a bigger turnout, right. But that’s not the kind of event I host. If it’s like a 5% turnout to the live portion like I have, each of my pre recorded presentations has a time where the speaker is live in the chatbox. So that’s what I’m talking about. Even like a 5% turnout to something like that like is pretty darn good. Because, you know, people watch throughout the day. So the live turnout is not all that wonderful. As far as community goes, usually it’s about 30% of attendees will translate over to a community. And that’s like a Facebook group, something that’s easy for them to get to. Typically speaking, if you’re trying to, like avoid Facebook and do something like circle or mighty networks or whatever that percentage is going to be lower. Or if it’s or if it’s the same sign up up front, it’s just going to be lower engagement throughout because people just don’t log into those things as much. I do have a few students who have like, gone outside of that and had like ended up with really awesome communities. That’s just not like the normal thing. So usually, like 30% people in the communities, what you’d expect there.

Meg Casebolt 14:40
And I think also knowing who your users are and what their behavior is, if they are more. You know, if they’re really loving social media, then build it up on social media or if you’re talking to you know, if you’re b2c and you’re talking to people who aren’t in online business, then you kind of need to be in the more accessible platforms because you don’t want to also have like Learning Kirbo how to get into the community on top of all of the trainings that you have. So making it as accessible as possible in terms of technology and not needing to teach a whole new platform, but also recognizing that some people are like, I’m over Facebook groups, I’m not going to go join,

Krista Miller 15:16
no matter what, there’s always going to be someone who is unhappy with something, and you just have to make the best decision you can.

Meg Casebolt 15:23
And I think also, when you have these these events, these online events that are reaching 1000s, or 10s, of 1000s of people, there’s a lot of customer service involved in that. And the chatbox is, you know, the the Help Desk box, not the chat box during the actual summit presentations, but the Help Desk requests can be a little bit overwhelming.

Krista Miller 15:44
Yeah, I did last year trying to have one of those little help chat boxes. And within like, the first couple days of promotion being open, I got rid of it. I was like, This is the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life. Not not fun. So yeah, so there can be some, some support involved and having a community that people are not already used to will just multiply that and to me, it’s not worth it. Because like support is not my strong suit. I do have an assistant to help with that. But I just don’t want to add to find you.

Meg Casebolt 16:13
So if people are thinking about joining a summit as a speaker, but they’re not quite sure if it will be worth their time. Can you kind of talk me through why? Why this would be a collaboration or outreach strategy that it who this would be good for, or like why you would choose this instead of something else for why they would choose speaking at a summit speaking at a summit. And then I want to talk about hosting a summit and the benefits of that too, because I’m curious about that for myself.

Krista Miller 16:45
Yeah, I like I like speaking at the right fit events when I can, because I can, I know I can sit down for an hour to make a presentation handed off. And like, the rest of that is handled. For me, it’s free. I’m not paying for anything, I’m not managing ads, I’m not scheduling social media constantly. It’s just being done. And it’s a one off thing. But there are different exposure opportunities, and it’s going to pay off in one way or another. So that no, that’s kind of the main reason I would, I would do it. It’s also just a good addition to everything you’re already everything else you’re doing for your marketing, because you’re getting in front of a very wider range of new audience members. You know, where if you’re posting on social media every time like cool, you might get a new follower two per day or more, if you’re better at it than I am. Chris, it’s hundreds or 1000s of people that may have never known you before. That’s awesome. Even if they’re even if they don’t go to your presentation, and they just see your name and face on the schedule page. Next time you pop up in front of them, like, Oh, I’ve heard of her before, you know, like it’s you’re building that visibility, that name recognition. Another really awesome thing I love speaking for is networking with the other speakers. So like, take the time, I’m bad at this, I’m telling you to reach out to these other speakers like look through, like if they have the host as a meet the speakers page or something like that. Look through it, read through their bios, who’s a good collaborator, for you, who’s good for you to know, who could you refer people to and vice versa. That is another really great part of summits. And something that more and more hosts are starting to do is kind of build in ways for speakers to meet each other like I’m doing. I’m trying a little like matchmaking thing this year where I’m asking speakers, okay, who do you want to know? And we’ll go through and kind of make connections after the summit. In the past, I have tried like, hey, post your coffee chat link in here and who you want to connect with. Here’s the spreadsheet, go, go, go do whatever you want, and kind of leave it up to them. Some people post will have like networking calls where you can get on and talk to other speakers. That is a really powerful like little bonus of being a speaker at summits.

Meg Casebolt 18:56
Yeah. And I’ve had people reach out to me months after we’re on a summit together and like, oh, we were on the summit together. I saw you then now I have this guest expert training. And I’m looking for somebody. And I’ve positioned myself as like, Oh, now if people have questions about SEO, they come to me because they know I can not only can do it, but I can teach it. Yeah. So putting yourself in that mode of being a teacher and an educator and having the resources can lead to long term changes, you know, and being able to get in front of new audiences? Well, I think the difference between like being in a summit versus you know, being doing a joint venture webinar with somebody or being on a podcast is that those are like one to one connections. So if you and I were to do a webinar together, I could reach your audience or you could reach my audience, but it would only be two audiences. The benefits that I see in a virtual Summit is that you have 30 speakers and each of those 30 speakers has different groups of people that they’re talking to so the the joint collaborative power of that, especially if you have a couple powerhouses in there, you know, people who have 10 20,000 people on their email list, and they reach out about it. And then those people are, you’re now getting in front of a group of people that are all interested in the same thing that you’re talking about. Even if they don’t like you study, even if they don’t buy from you, they might join your email list, they might just recognize you the next time around, they might follow you on social, whatever that looks like. So how do you decide who to ask to be a speaker? Hmm, as a whole? It’s like, how do you pick your lineup and

Krista Miller 20:36
so what you don’t do is go pitch all your friends and all the people you know, who will say yes, and the first people that come to mind, I did that for for my first event. And like, I got, I got results like it worked. But it doesn’t work. Not everyone is as lucky as I was. And it’s just not going to get you the best results. So just go pitching the first people that come to mind. Really, the key to pitching speakers who are going to bring results and get results are pitching people with the exact same audience that you want to reach for your Summit. So my summit that’s coming up right now is for designers, I most of my speakers, I would say like 90% of my speakers don’t just target like creative business owners, some of them do. But I think all but like three have a specific offer just for designers. So those, they’re going to be able to market so much more effectively than people who are just like kind of casting a wide net. So that that is really the key to hosting a summit. And also a reason that having a specific audience for your segment is so important. Like if you’re trying to host a summit for creative business owners solopreneurs online business owners, moms professionals, that’s going to be harder, it’s just going to be harder, you’re not going to see conversion rates are as high, you could still get good results, okay. But it’s it’s just harder all around. And it’s hard to get speakers who are going to bring results, because it’s just such a wide audience, you can only get so specific with audiences that way. So yeah, that’s, that’s the biggest key. You also, you know, of course, want someone who’s willing to promote. So a lot of the times the people you see on, you know, summits constantly, they’re not going to be the best people to pitch because they’re not going to promote, I am on a lot of summits, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to send a solo email about someone else’s event. I hate that. I’m like that. But I get pitched too much.

Meg Casebolt 22:20
If you’re, if you’re doing two summits a month, you can’t send seven emails about each Summit coming up. It’s just not something that’s reasonable. And so if you’re thinking about being a speaker at a summit, really think about the timeline of it, because if you want to be a good summit speaker, it’s not only like there’s a little bit of a time commitment to create the presentations. But then it is a visibility commitment. It is, you know, sending out two or three emails for a summit or making sure that you devote time in your social media to talk about it to get your audience there, under the assumption that the other speakers are doing a similar amount of work and trying to get people involved. And it’s like you have to you have to commit to not only Oh, I’m going to speak at this, but I’m going to leverage my my marketing in order to get in front of a larger group of people. And there might be people who unsubscribe from my email list because they’re like, Oh, well, this isn’t for me, or this is getting to know she’s she’s tried to sell me too many things lately, that that’s a risk that you’re going to take if you want to do that. But also by participating, you can grow your email list to a new group of people who may be a better fit for you and not as worried about you trying to sell things that are relevant to them. So making sure that if you decide to speak at a summit, you’re also committing to pretty much for like a week or two beforehand. That’s what you’re talking about. Yes,

Krista Miller 23:44
everywhere all the time. And like you don’t you don’t have to, like I just said, but I would ask that just out of courtesy you let the host know if you’re not going to be doing that. So they can decide, Okay, do I want to reach out to someone else. But also, if you are, keep in mind that it also benefits you like moving forward, because like I know exactly which speakers promote, how much they promote. I know how many attendees and how much income they’re bringing into the summit. I asked those speakers back there are speakers I have had on every single one of my sermons I have ever hosted, because I know they’re gonna go hard when they’re on the event. If I don’t ask people back who like don’t promote or if they promote and don’t get results. And I know it’s not a good fit for either of us. I’m not going to ask them back either. So it’s also good for you. If you are promoting and I’m you know, I’m referring those top speakers to other summit hosts and things like that. So, you know, there are benefits of, of giving it all and kind of treating it as your own launch whenever you’re able to.

Meg Casebolt 24:46
Absolutely so people are hearing this maybe they’ve spoken at a summit they’ve attended summits and they’re thinking like, oh, would it be worth it for me to host a summit? So my understanding and correct me if I’m wrong is When you have a speaker at a summit, they have a freebie, but you don’t get the entire list because of GDPR GDPR compliance. Like you can’t say to me, here’s all the people who signed up for the summit and here, put them on your email list, that’s illegal. Instead, people have to choose to opt into every speaker specific email list. But as the summit host, everyone is complying with you emailing them, and then you can continue to keep in touch with those people after the summit is completed based on you know, what you’re putting into your little button, you know, the words underneath the button, the disclaimer underneath. So is that one of the key benefits of the summit? And then also the income? Like, what are the benefits of hosting a summit to trade off the amount of organization and paperwork that goes into it? Why Why would I want to host a summit?

Krista Miller 25:45
Yeah, so I mean, email us growth is, of course, a big one. Honestly, there’s not another strategy out there, where you will see the amount of list growth that you will through a summit. I mean, you could you could go and throw, I don’t even know how many 10s of 1000s of dollars on ads, it would take me a very serious amount of money to get like, like my thought that someone I hosted last year made $92,000, I would have probably have to spend like a million to like make that much through Facebook ads, I don’t even know like, I don’t know how much I would have to make that through Facebook ads. So

Meg Casebolt 26:20
the list growth aspect is huge. Like, like, you’re just going to literally multiply your email list in a way that nothing else can or does. Especially get paid to grow your email list to you know, when you’re saying like, Sure, you could go get, you know, 5000 people who are signing up for your email list for my ads, but it would cost you $100,000. And this way, you’re making $100,000 and adding 3000 5000 people to your email list and that way,

Krista Miller 26:47
exactly, the revenue is another really big thing. And there are like, there are several ways you can earn revenue for through a summit you can have sponsors, honestly, for first time host, I just kind of recommend don’t usually go that route you can. But the All Access Pass can’t like even if you have nothing to sell afterwards, the All Access Pass can be huge. That is what I made $16,000 with with my first event that was so so big for me at the time to have that and it’s just gotten bigger every single time since you get that immediate revenue for a summit. Generally with a summit you’re going to have like a decent affiliate amount to pay out. So you know, I would say usually 60 ish percent will be like profit you can keep. But still like that, for the scale of a summit, it is big. And then it’s also the perfect opportunity to launch your thing afterwards. So if you have a course membership service, anything that sells well, you will have wanted to position that summit to sell that thing. And boom big like my biggest course launches ever have come from being immediately after Senate’s because people are warmed up. They trust you. You’ve been showing up and they’ve been seeing you for a week they’re making progress. And they don’t want to just stop. Like if they’ve been they’re showing up all week long. And you’re like, Okay, see you next time. They’re like, what the whatever you offer is like the perfect next step for them. So you can have just an incredible launch through the summit. And then even the people who don’t join will continue to join afterwards. So the last summit about summits I hosted was in was it 2020 I think it was 2020. And I still have people every single time I do a live launch, I still have people from that summit who are joining, some of them take some time, but it still pays off. Another benefit is all of the speakers you get to invite on, you’re not going to be besties with all of them. Probably if you are like That’s awesome. My introverted self, that’s not really my style. Like the ones that show up, that are clearly involved that like you can tell they want to grow. Those are perfect people to stay in touch with to how to do JV partnerships with invite on your podcast beyond their podcasts. It’s really great to leverage those relationships moving forward. And I could go on forever. But those are a few of like the biggest benefits of hosting a summit I have really found that you can look at any other marketing strategy you would do and look at the top benefit of that and then see that a summit does it better like that? So it’s it’s kind of like a power house type situation. It does take work though. So like that’s the trade off.

Meg Casebolt 29:24
Yeah. And I think also something that you didn’t touch on that I think is also really important is when you’re the host of the summit, your face is the one that all those people are looking at your name as the one that’s showing up in those emails. So you are you’re gaining the people are gaining knowledge of you, even if you’re not directly selling to them when your name comes up in the future. They’re already familiar with you the brand awareness of hosting a summit can be really transformational in terms of just people recognizing who the heck you are in a very saturated world.

Krista Miller 29:55
Yeah, exactly like you for months, years afterwards. Hey, you know, I was Got your so and so Summit? You know, back in February and you know reaching out about this? Oh, cool. You know, that’s cool to see. And that happens all the time. You’re totally right.

Meg Casebolt 30:11
And since we’re talking about can you trying to find ways to get yourself off of social media and still be able to run a business still be able to sell products or services still be able to run, you know, to make a lot of good money? How do you promote your summits or promote your products on the end of the summit without necessarily needing to run a ton of Facebook ads to it? Or, you know, what are the the non social media alternatives that you use to market your own businesses? And events?

Krista Miller 30:40
Yeah, yeah. So So for events, specifically, it’s going to be like, if you’re totally like, no social media, it’s going to be your email list. And your speakers and affiliates, like those are the things you can leverage. But your speakers are going to be more effective than any social media promotion, you would have done anyway, that’s just just how it works. Because they’re promoting to their audience that trust them, this really awesome, targeted, specific event that has a transformation is free, why would they not sign up? So those are the key places you’re going to promote off of social media?

Meg Casebolt 31:11
Yeah. And being able to have those collaborations and even if you are choosing not to be on social media, some of those other speakers are, so you can still get that reach of them using that channel, without you needing to be the one that has to use those particular outreach methods.

Krista Miller 31:26
Mm hmm. Yeah, for sure.

Meg Casebolt 31:27
Yeah. So anything else that you want to share with us about hosting a summit being in a summit? The process of organizing a summit? I would love to hear again, have any final thoughts? Yeah, I

Krista Miller 31:38
mean, I could go on all day long. I think like, the biggest thing I would say, based on the things we’ve been talking about is like, if you’re wondering, if you’re ready to host a summit, you probably are. Like, if you have an offer that you can successfully sell, even if you have an email list of 20 people and you have sold three copies of your work. That kind of tells me you have you have messaging networks, you know who you’re talking to, you know, how you’re helping them, you can communicate that in a way that they’re like, Okay, take my money, I want that. Like that is kind of the biggest thing you need to be able to host a summit. What I don’t like to see is people who have never launched anything, like use a summit to try to like, see if their messaging works, or if this new offer they created will sell like, that’s a lot. That’s a lot of work for a beta test. Let’s do your actual beta test somewhere else first. But generally speaking, if you have an offer that sells you are good with like details and managing things, like a summit is a great way to do things like don’t wait until you have the big email list. Don’t wait until you’re like a big deal. A summit will give you those things. So it’s like backwards to wait. But it’s something that a lot of people a lot of people do, like, I can’t do it yet. I’m not ready. It’s like, no, you’re fine. Let’s do it. I love that

Meg Casebolt 32:55
advice, especially if this is something that sounds like you know, what I’m I’m really organized, I have a very clear idea of who my audience is, and how I can offer them value and how my network can offer them value or who would be a good fit for something complementary to what I’m selling. If that all sounds like you, then definitely consider a summit. And if people want to find out more about your product and and offer to help them start their first summit. Tell me about that.

Krista Miller 33:25
Yeah, you guys, if you head over to some inbox.co, you’re gonna just see everything you need, you know, some the place I would recommend people start to try to map out what a someone’s going to do for their business is our our Sun hosting roadmap, it’s at some of the box.co/roadmap. And it will basically say, take you through the process of okay, here’s how you would get people into your Summit, here’s how you know, you would go through the six phase process to get them to whatever your end goal is. So you’re thinking through, why do I want to host the summit in the first place. And that’s where I want you to start. And I’ll kind of walk you through the steps of how you’ll be able to get the most out of an event. And make sure you go in and kind of with the right mindset, not just like, I’m gonna give this thing a try. It sounds cool, because I want you to do a little more planning than that.

Meg Casebolt 34:12
Yeah, I love that. It’s a lot of planning and a lot of coordination. And I’m always impressed by summit hosts and how much they have their shit together when I just do not love them. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Chris. I really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you for having me. Thank you so much for listening to the social slowdown podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe or come on over to social slowdown.com and sign up for our email list so you never miss an episode. We’d also love if you could write a review to help other small business owners find the show you can head over to social slowdown.com/review Or grab that link in our show notes for easy access. We’ll be back soon with more tips to help you market your business without being beholden to social media Talk to you then.

Please forgive any typos as this transcript was automatically generated by otter.ai.