The 5 Big Steps in Starting to Plan Your Profitable Virtual Summit
Anyone can wake up one day and decide to host a summit. They can randomly decide where to start, take off with no real direction, and put an insane amount of hours into an event that totally flops.
And...I kinda don’t want that to be you.
The steps we’re going to talk about in today’s episode are the steps you need to start your work toward an event that is actually going to get the results you're hoping for.
I'm not giving it all away today, and there are two reasons for that:
- This would turn into the longest episode ever, and I like to keep things short and sweet.
- I have a free challenge coming up that will give it all away and walk you through exactly how to make these five steps happen.
Start Your Summit That Sells Challenge
My signature Start Your Summit That Sells Challenge is a free 5-day event I created when I saw entrepreneurs holding themselves back from planning a summit. I saw that what they needed was to start and they were having trouble figuring out how to do that the right way.
In this 5-day challenge, we'll have:
- Daily live trainings covering everything you'll read about here.
- Extra resources like worksheets or calculators to make your planning easy.
- Short homework assignments that you'll post in the Facebook group and get my feedback on.
- Prizes you can win by playing Bingo, all to help with hosting your summit!
The live version of this challenge is happening April 26 - April 30, 2021. Click here to save your spot!
If you're tuning in after the live event, catch the replays here.
5 Big Steps to Plan Your Profitable Virtual Summit
Alright, let's dive into those 5 steps, shall we?
Step 1: Get Your Mind Right
If you're not confident when you start planning, a few things are going to happen:
- You won't do it or you'll do it, but your speakers and attendees will feel that you're not confident and the results and experience will suffer.
- You'll stifle your own results because you're afraid to put yourself and your summit out there.
- You'll hit a tiny roadblock, convince yourself it's not going to work, and stop.
I've seen each of these happen time and time again.
Keep in mind, you don't have to have a big audience for a virtual summit to work for you. But that small audience can't cause you to feel massive amounts of self-doubt every step of the way.
Step 2: Set Realistic Goals
The second step to getting started is to set realistic goals for the event. This will let you know what you're working toward and make decisions along the way.
There are 3 types of goals you'll set for your summit. Goals for:
- Yourself - What goals do you have for income, registration, and what the summit will do for your business overall?
- Speakers - What do you want your speakers to get by participating? Visibility, email list growth, or affiliate payouts, sales?
- Attendees - What transformation do you want attendees to see in their lives or businesses?
Step 3: Choose Your Audience
From there, the first piece of real planning is choosing the audience for your summit. And keep in mind, a lot of times, the audience for your summit is not the same audience for your business.
I've seen big influencers get the audience wrong, and then go on to say that summits don't work because of it. The audience you choose will make or break your success.
Step 4: Choose Your Summit Topic
After you choose your audience, you'll choose your profitable summit topic. When you get your topic right, it makes everything else about the summit so much easier.
My biggest piece of advice is that your topic needs to provide a transformation for your audience. It needs to solve a real problem that they have or give them something they need.
When you get your topic right, it will make everything from writing copy to choosing presentation topics to finding speakers easy! Those are the most time-consuming tasks, so if we can make those easier, it's worth it.
Step 5: Set the Date
Finally, after you have your audience and topic chosen, you're ready to put a date on the calendar and make it happen.
The reason to choose a day after you choose your audience and topic is that those tasks can take some time. You may need to step back, take a break, poll your audience, or reach out to your ideal audience members to see what their pain points are and how you can solve them.
You'll want to choose a date that:
- Works well for you (without driving yourself crazy and causing extra stress)
- Works well for your audience
What's Next?
I know I've given you a lot of basic tips without a lot of implementation, but that's because I've seen how effective this challenge is to get a summit off the ground quickly.
Join us in the free Start Your Summit That Sells Challenge and take action on all 5 pieces we talked about today.
Free Training Series: Summit to Sales
Learn how virtual summits can become your most effective lead generation strategy, cash injection method, and lead to a long-term, reliable increase in sales of your signature offer.