How To Get Speakers To Contribute A Bonus To Your All-Access Pass

In the all-access pass for my most recent virtual summit, I offered over $3000 in speaker bonuses. This is how I've always done it and it has a huge part to play in why the summit strategies I teach have a 3-5 times higher conversion rates than industry standard summits.

The best part is that this strategy benefits not only you, but also your speakers and attendees.

Read on to learn how to get your virtual summit speakers to contribute bonuses to your all-access pass, what those bonuses include, and how to make the process easy.

Why I Ask My Speakers to Contribute a Bonus

Let's start by covering why you'd want your speakers to contribute a bonus to your all-access pass. In short:

1. It creates an incredible offer
2. It increases conversion rates
3. It makes it easy for speakers to share
4. It creates results for speakers and you as the host

Let's break each of these down.

It creates an incredible offer

If you're looking to create an incredible, no-brainer offer for your attendees, including bonuses from your speakers will do it.

Not only will your all-access pass have ongoing access to presentations, like the normal all-access pass everyone is used to seeing, but it will have a ton of incredible targeted offers that aren't just freebies. It creates a really powerful offer.

The attendees who upgrade probably won't use absolutely everything that's included, but it converts, and they love it. 

It Increases Conversion Rates

When you have a great offer, your conversion rates will be higher. This is a big part of why industry-standard summit conversion rates are 3-5%.

The average for people who use my summit strategies get more like 15%.

We more than triple the average conversion rates using this method.

It Makes it Easy for Speakers to Share

Having your speakers contribute a bonus to your all-access pass makes it easier for your speakers to share. They can say, "Here's this free thing I'm a part of, it's really awesome. If you upgrade, you could also get access to this thing that I offer".

It just makes it so much easier for them to promote your summit.

It's also a great way to let them grow their email list since they'll get the email address for anyone who buys the all-access pass and then claims their offer.

It Creates Results

Setting up your all-access pass with speaker bonuses increases results for both you and your speakers.

Like we just covered, when your speakers contribute something that is usually paid, they'll get the email address for anyone who claims their offer. They do this by creating a 100% off coupon code for the bonus they've provided. That way, attendees will still need to enter their email address to complete the checkout process and claim the bonus.

Everyone benefits from doing it this way and that's why I love it. 

What My All-Access Pass Offer Looks Like

The summit I hosted in 2020 was my fourth time having an all-access pass with speaker bonuses.

And just a reminder, these bonuses are not freebies; I'm not making a freebie vault. 

These bonuses can look like:

• mini-courses
• 1-3 month access to memberships
• workbooks
• eBooks
• workshops
• templates that they have
  • email templates
  • website templates
  • proposal templates

I do specify absolutely no one-on-one services. We had 550 people purchase the all-access pass at my last virtual summit. No one wants to be doing 550 free calls.

Does it really work?

For my latest summit, I wanted to test how much value it did add and how much of a part to play it did have in my higher conversion rates.

So to test, I created two tiers of all-access pass offers.

1. I had a lower tier with just ongoing access to presentations, notes, and worksheets.
2. I had a higher tier with everything from the lower tier. It also had co-working and networking sessions, and over $3,000 in bonuses submitted from the speakers.

The price difference in these two tiers was:

• $50, before the summit started
• $70 for the early bird offer
• $100 once the summit began. 

I was really interested to see how many people went with a higher price offer and was pleasantly surprised to see that 80% of customers chose the higher price point to get the speaker bonuses.

How We Get Speakers to Contribute Bonuses

First, I'll say that I recommend that a bonus contribution be completely optional for your speakers. It shouldn't be a requirement for them to basically give away something that they usually get paid for. But, all you have to do is ask. 

Mention it in your Initial Pitch

The first place to bring up the optional bonus contribution is in your initial pitch.

I like to do it in the section of my pitch that lists out their requirements. The way I word this is, "An optional resource to include in the all-access pass, which you can make a X% commission on".

On Your Speaker Information Page

Once you've mentioned it in your pitch, you can use your Speaker Information page to provide more detailed information.

You can talk about:

• Why you're looking to include bonuses
• How it will benefit them
• Examples of what to include

Keep it really simple and don't make it sound like a big deal and they won't think it's a big deal either.

As for providing examples, this is what I suggest they include:

• eBooks
• workbooks
• courses of any size
• one month memberships
• freebies

It's helpful for them to see examples, so they know the kinds of things you're looking for.

Also let them know that they can create something new, or include something they already have if they want to.

Consider increasing the affiliate commission for anyone who contributes a premium  (paid) resource.

In the Request for their Basic Information

You can also include fields for speakers to provide their bonus information on in the other questionnaires you'll be sending - whether it's the questionnaire to collect their basic information or their presentation material. 

Include a section description that says, "If you've decided that you'd like to contribute a bonus to our all-access pass, fill out the information here. If you decided not to, no worries, although we do recommend it so you can get extra email addresses and higher affiliate commissions".

The things I asked for in this form include:

• the name of their contribution
• a short description
• the regular price of it, so I can calculate the total price of the all-access pass
• a mock-up to show people what they're getting
• details on how to access it

With these strategies, I had 24 of my 33 speakers for my 2020 summit contribute a paid offer, which added $3000 in extra value to my all-access pass.

The attendees loved it and the speakers loved all the extra email addresses they were able to get.

Resources

• Episode 60: Behind The Scenes Of My March 2020 Summit
• Episode 10: Increase All-Access Pass Sales with Limited-Time Offers
• Summit Host Hangout Facebook group

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