Thought Process, Experiments, and Strategy Behind Our Upcoming Virtual Summit
We're working on our next summit and for the first time ever, we're hosting a summit for membership site owners! I always want my events to go well, but I also use them as a chance to experiment with new strategies to see what's working NOW in the virtual summit space.
And this time, I'm doing something new and taking you behind the scenes of an event we haven't even hosted yet! This is a first for me because usually, I show up after we do things and share the strategy and how it went.
This week, I’m giving you an insider look at what we're testing, getting into the details, and sharing deeper parts of the strategies we're trying this time around.
In this episode, I'm sharing...
- Why we're trying something new with our strategy and positioning.
- The results I'm expecting for the summit and the launch that follows.
- How I'm tying in multiple offers to the event.
- Why I'm bringing in a partner for this summit, and how that's going to work.
- And more!
Dive in for all the juicy details!
Listen to the episode
How we chose the audience
Most of you know we have a program called the Launch with a Summit Accelerator® where we teach how to launch a course, membership, or group program through a summit. Right now, I have noticed that the membership site owners are seeing the most life-and-business-changing results from launching through their summits.
Our course clients have awesome launches, but the membership owners have seen the biggest impact on their overall business like retiring their husbands or being able to quit their 9-5 to run their membership full-time, and I want to be a part of that success for more people.
I see a lot of membership site owners write themselves off because of the fact that they have a lower-ticket membership, but that works really well in the summit space.
Summits really skyrocket results for membership site owners.
Positioning this summit strategically
With that being said, the positioning was tough for me this time. In the past, I've always hosted summits about hosting summits, but that didn't feel right this time. When something doesn't feel right, I really try to listen to that because I've seen time and time again that when I try to force it, the process is miserable.
So we started over with our positioning from scratch!
With how we've seen summits performing in the B2B space, I did not want to do something generic, which might be where some of that hesitation came from. "Use a summit to launch your membership" really limits me to my own audience and it just didn't feel right to try and force that.
I wanted to do something that would let me experiment on the cutting edge so I can report back on how it goes and give our clients and students the most up-to-date strategies.
For the first time ever, I decided to take summits out of the forefront of our messaging, and I'm still setting the stage to talk about it, but it's not what we're leading with.
This has been a GRAND experiment with removing summits from the main summit positioning. People coming into our previous summits are familiar with or interested in summits. For this summit, the idea of a summit might not be anywhere on their radar.
Want help positioning your summit? Check out A 4 Step Process for Positioning Your Summit for Success with Elli Runkles.
Results I expect from this summit
Because I intentionally decided to do something different with the positioning for this summit than I've ever done before, I expect the results will be pretty different too.
First, I expect the summit itself to perform better than our summits about summits with a higher conversion rate for all-access pass sales.
But, I expect fewer offer sales upfront. In the past, our offer sales are where we make the bulk of our revenue. In the past, we made $78,000 total, and only $15,000 was from our all-access pass sales.
I think this strategy will give us more sales in the long term since we'll be adding thousands of people to our audience who we can support with their summits when they're ready. We've also seen a lot of people with memberships come into our programs because of their coaches or friends telling them this was where they needed to be.
I'm expecting the summit will go well, but I'm not aiming for 6-figures by any means. It's going to do really great things for us later down the road. People aren't coming into this summit thinking summits are the answer to their membership problems. It will be a new thought for most of them. I wouldn't expect them to commit to the idea of a summit AND join a big program to pull it off right away. I would do that, but I don't expect others to do that. 😉
There will actually be a lot of people who I won't encourage to host a summit. If someone's coming to learn how to set up their membership or perfect their memberships and sales, I don't want them to host a summit and throw thousands of people at it or hundreds of new members into it, when it's not set up for success yet.
It really is an experiment to see if the long-term thinking will pay off in the long run.
How we landed on the final messaging
Finalizing our positioning and messaging for the summit was a process and a group effort! I chatted with Elli (I had her on a few episodes back when I talked about my team and all the positions they hold), and we knew we wouldn't do a summit about summits and made some good progress with choosing the summit name, tagline, and general messaging. Then we pulled in Nadine Nethery from CanDo! Content who did a really comprehensive audience survey for our membership site owners that informed the rest.
I could have guessed what this audience wanted, but Nadine did the BEST audience survey I've ever seen. It had incredible questions and multiple paths based on their answers, and it gave us exactly the data we needed.
Based on those responses, we were able to know exactly who this summit was for. Then I handed those results back to Nadine for her to do her copy magic with!
I like to have the initial idea, but then I like to pull in other people who can take my idea and make it sound better.
Deciding what offer to launch
It shouldn't be a surprise to you that I'm tying an offer into this summit. It's what I teach and support people with. I have to launch so I can continue to test and innovate, but I truly think it's the best way I can serve those who are ready.
I have exactly what they need, why would I leave them hanging?
When I was looking at the audience and messaging and trying to decide what offer to launch, there wasn't one clear answer.
The Launch with a Summit Accelerator® was my first thought because of what we're seeing people do in that program, but I know that even though we're aiming toward those more experienced membership site owners, we'll still get newer membership site owners, too. I want to serve them well too, and I'm willing to put in the work to do that.
So, if the Accelerator was a good fit for some people, what was the other option for the newbies who weren't ready to launch their membership with a summit yet? Would Summit in a Box be the right fit? The answer was actually NO!
I could have forced it, but it didn't feel right. If someone is still trying to figure out their membership, I don't want them to stop that for 3+ months so they can host a summit, just to launch a membership that they're still trying to figure out. I want them to have something that will convert on an ongoing basis and then tie a summit into that.
It just so happens that earlier this year, we launched a new program called Challenges That Make Bank. At its core, it's about using a Challenge to engage and sell to your audience between summits so you have an easier way to keep your people going and make the most of the work you put into your summit. But it's also really great to test a new offer! So Challenges That Make Bank got tied into that.
But we're not stopping there. I truly wanted to support people who are focused on improving their membership, but that's not my expertise. That's where our partnership and collaboration with Mike from Membership Geeks came in! People who need help with their membership can go to Mike to learn about that and then use Challenges That Make Bank to launch it.
We're going to attempt to tie all that into the summit!
I'd never recommend this strategy to someone new or most other summit hosts either. We're going to really step it up and segment this in a really fun way and they'll get the best offer that's positioned for them.
A customized summit experience
We're going to have multiple levels of attendees at this event, even though we're only going to market to those with proven and experienced memberships that are ready to scale. But I want to welcome those beginners because I can help them when they're ready.
To do this, we're creating a highly engaging and choose-your-own-adventure type of quiz that will put people into one of 3 categories. The entire summit will be customized based on these results.
Those categories will suggest...
- a specific schedule of presentations
- specific all-access pass bonuses
- which live experiences they should attend
- which offer they will be presented with
We'll also have a default category and plan for those who don't take the quiz.
It's going to be a lot of work, but I'm really excited for this! I'll have an episode on here about a month after the summit to share a recap, but I'll do a live training for the Accelerator clients where I cover the exact strategy, the automations, the quiz questions and results, and so much more.
Other experiments we have going
I've shared the biggest things we're experimenting with in this summit, but there are several things we're trying for the first time with this event!
We're testing having way too many speaker each day, because of how we have the customized schedules for each person.
We're also testing out live-streaming the presentations! They're all prerecorded presentations, but I'll be live both days streaming them. We'll see how many people come and if they engage or if I'm just hanging out by myself.
I'm also experimenting with tying in a partner in this way because there's a gap that I can't fill. He's not a sponsor or co-host, so it's just different than anything I've done before.
The last experiment we're doing is a very simplified "Launch Day" on the last day of our summit. I don't think I'm doing any networking or coworking sessions for this summit. The audience just isn't set up for that this time.
I'm also experimenting with a few little speaker engagement ideas that I'll report back on when I'm done!
Next Steps:
If you're a membership site owner, get on the waitlist (or register!) for the summit!
If you want to host a summit that stands out, the Accelerator is where you need to be. If you want the insider scoop on these strategies, the minds of my team and me on your summit, so you can uplevel your summit the way I am, you need to apply to the Launch with a Summit Accelerator program. In this program, we walk you through step-by-step how to launch a course, membership, or group program with a summit, with every template you need along the way. You also get daily support, live coaching calls, critiques, copy reviews, 1:1 calls, and so much more! This is where we have the space to work with you on more advanced strategies for your summit.
Resources
- Episode 233: A 4-Step Process for Positioning Your Summit for Success with Elli Runkles
- Episode 267: Behind the Scenes with the Summit in a Box Team
- Episode 268: Behind the Scenes of Launching a New Program
- CanDo! Content
- Membership Geeks
- Summit Host Hangout Facebook group
- Launch with a Summit Accelerator
- 6-Figure Summits Workshop Bundle
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