How I Stay on the "Cutting Edge" of Virtual Summits (but keep it out of our core strategy)

Not too long ago, I reached out to a past collaborator, friend, and affiliate about something, and she gave me what I considered a challenge wanting to know how I’m staying on the “cutting edge” of summits. She wanted to know so that she could decide if she was going to continue recommending me or not - or at least that’s how I took it.

Now, I don’t know if she meant it as a challenge. I don’t know if this is what she meant to say, but it’s how I understood it so, naturally, as a highly-sensitive person, it led me into a bit of a downward spiral.

Wait, am I on the cutting edge?
Do my strategies work?
Am I serving my clients well?
Am I the worst?
Do I need to quit?

…you’ve been there, right?

I’m so glad that she unintentionally led me down that spiral because it made me think through what I'm sharing with you here today.

So in this episode, you’re going to hear my response to how I stay on the "cutting edge" of virtual summits. And you’ll also hear why the “cutting edge” doesn’t make its way into our core strategies.

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My thoughts about being on “the cutting edge” of summits

Here's my honest opinion: the "cutting edge" is overrated and creates so much pressure for something that might not work.

If I’m going to spend my time on something, I want it to be proven and know that it's going to work. 

However as someone teaching summits who has others looking to me for strategy advice, I do need to stay up-to-date on things. I'm constantly paying attention to:

• What’s working and what’s not
• What used to work that doesn't anymore
• What the new trends are
• What new options are out there
• What new ideas can I come up with to try

Honestly, this is probably my least favorite part of the job. I hate the pressure, but it’s part of it nonetheless.

So…how do I do it?

How I stay on the “cutting edge” of virtual summits

It’s built into what I do every single day. Every business day, of the entire year, I’ve got my hands in our clients' summits

As of recording this, I’ve got 50 clients I’m supporting in our Launch with a Summit Accelerator program in every niche you can imagine...from yoga to being a stepmom to being a preschool teacher to autistic kiddos to business strategies, and more!

That leads to a ton of learning, analyzing, and experimenting every single day.

Our Launch with a Summit Accelerator program was actually built in a way that lets my team and I both help and learn from these events. As a way to support our clients best, we have some 1:1 calls in the program that allow us to gain even more insights into summit trends. One of these calls happens right when registration opens so we can look at their numbers, conversion rates, and how people are using their website and decide which changes to make. Another happens after the event so we can review numbers and decide what to change and keep the same for next time.

Those calls were designed in order to support our clients, but they’ve had the awesome side effect of us getting to learn from those events too.

• Analyzing the website usage data with clients has led to significant changes to our templates
• Seeing promo efforts get the best results has led to making different recommendations in our courses
• And when we see how clients are taking and applying our strategies in different ways, we’re inspired with new ideas

I could go on and on! But having our hands in all of these other summits really helps us ensure that what we do is still working.

I host my own events. 

In addition to supporting our clients with their summits…and probably more importantly…I walk my talk! I don’t teach summits without hosting my own summits. 

This is my chance, every 1-2 years to retest all of our strategies, go through my own program to make sure nothing is missing, and, most importantly when it comes to being on the “cutting edge”, I get to experiment.

Let me tell you, there’s a lot of pressure on me when I’m hosting summits. As “the summit person”, I feel like what I do is analyzed under a microscope and there’s so much pressure to get incredible results. But I do sacrifice those potential results by experimenting in all kinds of ways.

The day this episode releases, I’ll be in the middle of hosting our Membership Momentum virtual summit and there is SO much about that event that’s a massive experiment. This time we're experimenting with:

• the positioning
• the offers we’re launching
• how we’re launching them
• customized profiles and segmenting in the event
• new dashboard pages
• and more!

I’ll have an episode breaking it all down, but I stay on the cutting edge by trying new things that stay true to the core strategy and seeing how they work so I can report back.

I’m not willing to experiment on my clients…except in very rare circumstances where they’re totally up for it and aware of the risks…so the experimenting happens when it’s my results on the line.

Then, I report back…

I don’t immediately implement everything I've learned into our programs, but I do share with our clients.  After our summits I love to do live debrief sessions with our Accelerator clients where I share what we did, how it went, and answer all the questions they have. Oftentimes, that turns into some of them really wanting to try one of our strategies on their own, which leads to me creating additional trainings and templates. Generally, I keep those trainings and templates as private and exclusive to our Accelerator clients at least for a while.

There are a few reasons for this:

1. I want more testing to happen where I can be there to offer support and give feedback.
2. I want that testing to happen by more experienced business owners who understand the risks and can also put their own spin on things.
3. I am very hesitant to recommend that first-time summit hosts add any additional complication to their events.

So you typically won’t see “the cutting edge” in our programs because sharing unproven, “cutting edge” strategies that are going to add more to your plate and take even more of your time, and it isn’t going to serve you. I can serve you best by providing proven step-by-step strategies that you can feel confident in.

But you can bet that when my work with clients or my own experiments uncover something in my core strategies that needs to be changed, we make those changes!

We actually totally revamp our Summit in a Box and Launch with a Summit Accelerator program curriculum every 18 months, on average, to do exactly that.

So, I hope this episode puts your mind at ease knowing that you’re learning from someone who cares and walks her talk. 

If you're interested in learning more about the Launch with a Summit Accelerator program to get my eyes and feedback on your back and have access to our summit breakthroughs as we have them, apply now!

Resources

• Membership Momentum
• Episode 202: Why Your Offer Needs to be Proven Before Launching with a Summit
• Episode 233: A 4 Step Process for Positioning Your Summit for Success with Elli Runkles
• Summit Host Hangout Facebook group
• Launch with a Summit Accelerator
• 6-Figure Summits Workshop Bundle

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