8 Takeaways from Hosting the Membership Momentum Virtual Summit

A few weeks ago I hosted the Membership Momentum Virtual Summit, and I'm excited to share eight key takeaways from the event today! I recorded this episode right after wrapping up the event, with the all-access pass cart still open, and the momentum high. So you're getting my takeaways while everything is still fresh.

I wanted to capture my thoughts before they fade, so I'm bringing you my top takeaways right away. Although I won't be sharing specific numbers and conversion rates publicly anymore, I'll dive into the strategies and insights that made this summit a success.

If you're curious about the detailed results, feel free to DM me on Instagram or email me to learn about our Launch with a Summit Accelerator program, where I share detailed debriefs with our clients.

For now, let's get into the takeaways. I hope you enjoy this episode and find it both fun and informative. Let's dive in!

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My 8 Takeaways from Membership Momentum

I know you probably want to hear all the details: the strategy, the conversion rates, and the revenue. I decided a few years ago that I won't share all of those results anymore. I don't want anyone to base their results on mine. I don't want the pressure of knowing that when I'm doing something, I'll have to share the results with everyone. Hosting a virtual summit is already enough pressure, especially being the "summit person". There's already the pressure to get things right. 

So the specific details of conversion rates, revenue generated, and things like that are only shared with our Launch with a Summit Accelerator clients. If you want to hear those details, what worked, what didn't, and what the numbers looked like, then DM me on Instagram, email me, or apply for the Launch with a Summit Accelerator.

So let's get into the 8 takeaways!

1. Positioning is key to a well-done B2B summit

First, I don't know where the rumor that summits don't work anymore came from, especially B2B summits, but I proved that wrong with this event. What I didn't prove wrong, was the reasoning I would give that B2B events are tough: positioning is key. You can't go host a summit for business owners, with positioning that has been done a million times before. You will struggle to host a summit that "helps business owners grow their business". It's really hard to stand out and host an awesome summit in that niche. You can do it, but you need realistic expectations. 

What I proved to myself with this is that a strategic, well-done event, works really well. Our conversion rates across the board blew my expectations away. We got such incredible feedback from attendees and speakers about their incredible experience...and that's what we're going for! That's what we help our clients with every single day, but it was such a refresher for me to see that it's still possible with a B2B audience. 

Because of the caliber of our event, we were able to make a more broad audience of membership site owners work. 

If you have solid, unique positioning in your B2B niche and a well-put-together event, you're still golden to see immediate and long-term results. 

2. A choose-your-own-adventure format is a LOT of work

We tried something new this year and did a choose-your-own-adventure format for the summit, and I knew it was going to be a lot of extra work, but I didn't know just how much extra work. This is not something I ever would have recommended to a client. I would have told them, "If you need to have attendees sort themselves into paths or categories, you should be hosting your summit for just one of those categories." That's still what I'll tell people, but it's my job to experiment and stay on the "cutting edge" of virtual summits.

We did an audience survey before deciding on the event positioning to see where people are at, what they need help with, and what they want. We saw that the people who took that survey fit into 3 really distinct categories. I knew that 2 of those categories were who I wanted to make this event for, but that people in the 3rd category were still going to show up. We catered to more advanced membership site owners but knew the newbies would still come because they aspire to get to that level. I didn't want to have those newbies come and feel lost so the quiz sorted attendees into the right path based on where they're at in their business. 

People loved it! We got such great feedback. But it was sooo much work!

It meant four times as many emails (and if you've hosted a summit before, your mind is blown by that!). Even the email sequences right after someone registered took us days to do. Usually, our registration email sequence is about 8 emails long. But since we had all these different paths, ours had over 50 emails and more automations than we could count.

There was the main email sequence someone was put into, and if they didn't take the quiz, they stayed in that sequence. But what if they took the quiz after the 1st email? Or the 3rd? They had to be put into the right email sequence at the right time. And that's not an option in Kajabi. So we had a lot of automations and a lot of email sequences! Our test document for this was over 100 lines long in Sheets! 

I love that we did it. I love that we experimented with it, but this isn't something I'd ever recommend to someone for their first few summits. 

We worked with Nadine from Can Do! Content to help with this and she is a genius and so fun to work with! She's the one who made the quiz, the results, the corresponding pages, and wrote all the emails for us... but it was a lot of work! We also had a separate dashboard page, schedule page, podcast page, and all-access pass sales page based on their quiz results. 

3. Don’t trust coaches who don’t practice what they preach

This won't surprise anyone, but this hit me kind of differently during this event: don't trust coaches who don't practice what they preach. Don't trust a copywriting coach who doesn't write copy anymore. Don't trust a summit coach who doesn't host summits anymore. I got so many important reminders during this process. It's been less than 2 years since I hosted my last summit, and I know I had these realizations last time, but it's so important for me to get the refresher on the mindset rollercoaster, the amount of work it entails, and the work you go through to put it together. 

I doubted myself. I doubted whether I should be coaching people on how to run a summit if I had these feelings, but now I can look back and serve my people even better. I can say, "Yeah! I felt that too, and here's what I did."  That was a good reminder for me that I'm a better coach because I run summits, but it was also a good reminder for me to be leery of other people in other areas to make sure they're practicing what they preach.

4. The emotional rollercoaster never goes away

We even have lessons in our program to prepare you for the emotional rollercoaster that comes with a summit. And that rollercoaster never goes away, no matter how many summits you host.

There are so many highs in the process...

• your speakers start saying yes
• your initial excitement when you start planning
• you open registration and people sign up
• when those sales start rolling in 
• when the event is going on

There's not much in business that beats those highs. But there are also intense lows that go along with it...

• the intense doubt before you hit send on that first speaker pitch email 
• wondering if anyone will sign up as you get ready to open registration
• wondering if anyone will buy your all-access pass
• the terrible mid-promo period where your excited speakers have promoted but your lollygaggers haven't yet

This was my 10th event of my own, and I've helped with hundreds of other summits, but that rollercoaster never goes away.

5. Something will always go wrong

I feel like I'm not doing a good job of making summits sound fun! I promise they're worth it, but the truth is that something will always go wrong. 

As I host events, I'm always taking notes to either talk about on the podcast, teach our clients, or include a strategy in our program. 

I was so excited when we opened registration and nothing went wrong! This is one of the days when I expect to have issues pop up, but everything was perfect. Thennn day 1 of the summit happened. 

First, Kate's internet went out, and she's my go-to, my #1 right-hand woman. And so poor Kate is anxious and scrambling, driving a half hour to a coffee shop for the day, then poor me because I forgot how to answer emails again and deal with customer support. 😅 I got a reminder on why I don't go into the inbox because it gives me so much anxiety to deal with support and unhappy people. Luckily there was only one unhappy person that the videos didn't have the playbar, which was a total oversight and I didn't mean to leave those off and I added it right away. That reactive mode set me up for higher anxiety all week long, honestly, and it wouldn't have happened if Kate's internet hadn't gone out and if I hadn't forgotten to add the play bars.  

I also had this smart idea to duplicate the schedule page with the day's links already on it, but forgot that on some pages, it would send people to the old page, so some people got a 404 page. 

Zoom decided to lose our Kickoff Call meeting and gave everyone an error code so we had to scramble to set up a new meeting and get the link out to everyone. 

Those were the only things that went wrong, and it was all manageable, but it was a reminder that something always goes wrong, even if it's a minor thing. I want you to allow the brain space that something could go wrong, and likely something will, but it's also okay and normal. Which is why my next takeaway is to always have the support you need to overcome those challenges.

6. Have the support you need

I'm so glad I have the support that I do. I have my assistant Kate, and she helped so much throughout the event. Kaitlyn is my mindset coach and she helped me through the time when people were slow to promote and I was doubting if the event was going to work as well as I wanted it to. I have Elli who does our Accelerator coaching and she was the cheerleader I needed throughout the week. 

I know a lot of people go into hosting their first event and they haven't worked with anyone else yet, and we see that with our students and clients. We see people host a summit with no help, but I would really urge you to get an assistant, especially if you plan to host a summit with more than 2000 attendees.

Without Kate, I wouldn't have had much space to enjoy the event. I wouldn't have had time to sit back and read the testimonials rolling in. I would have been refreshing the inbox, responding to everything, and fixing tech that didn't work, and that takes away from so much of the experience and I don't want that for you. I want you to be able to enjoy it. 

Even if it's your first hire ever, get someone to help you, even if it's just for during the summit. Plus, in the Accelerator, we are helping people with their mindset during the planning process and during the event itself. We'd love to support you there, too. 

7. The beginning of the promotion period is slower than it used to be

This isn't breaking news and probably won't surprise anybody, but the beginning of the promotion period is slower than it used to be. This shift has been happening over the past year or two, and it was a reminder for me this year. My previous summit had 100 sales on the first day, and this time we had about 100 registrations on day one. It used to be that there was a big huge spike that happened when speakers first started promoting the summit, but that just doesn't happen anymore. It's a slower trickle and people are promoting less. They aren't chomping at the bit to get the first emails out. They don't mind waiting until the last minute or day of to do their first promotion. 

The growth is more slow and steady now versus huge spikes at certain points in the registration process. This shift is probably healthier, but it's a different thing to get used to if you've been hosting summits for a while and are used to the big spikes that happened in the past.

8. The impact you can have on attendees and speakers is worth far more than the revenue and leads 

 My final takeaway is that the impact you can have on your attendees and speakers is worth far more than the revenue and leads...although those things are great, too! Let's be real, we need those to keep running our businesses, but when I'm sitting here looking at the numbers on one screen and the testimonials and kind words and love on the other screen, it's the love that makes me want to cry and do this over and over. It's not the numbers. Sure, they will sustain our business and help our business grow, but the impact is what almost makes it an addictive thing to do. If I can help people this much, I want to do this over and over. If you've never hosted a summit before, I can't wait for you to experience that. If you've hosted a summit before, you get it. 

It's such a great feeling to see something you've worked on for months pay off not only for you but for the people you created it for. 

So there you go - these are my 8 takeaways from this summit! It was such a great event, and I'm so glad we hosted it. It's one I can't wait to do again. I hope these takeaways give you a realistic look at what it's like to host a summit, but also make you interested in hosting one for yourself. 

If you missed Membership Momentum, you can head here to catch the replays.

If you'd like our support working through takeaways like these, hosting a gold-standard summit, apply for the Launch with a Summit Accelerator.

Resources

• Episode 42: Virtual Summits Don't Work? Here's What I Have To Say
• Episode 94: All-Access Pass Sales Page Tips
• Episode 273: How I Stay on the "Cutting Edge" of Virtual Summits (but keep it out of our core strategy)
• Nadine from Can Do! Content
• Summit Host Hangout Facebook group
• Launch with a Summit Accelerator
• 6-Figure Summits Workshop Bundle

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