My Favorite Time-Saving Summit Strategies
Have you ever thought about hosting a summit, but wondered.... where am I going to find the time!?
This is something I hear literally every day from people who want to host a summit, but they're frustrated because they honestly don’t have the time for it.
I’m not here to brush that off or say that they're making excuses. I know it’s a real struggle. Summits are big projects that you want to take on when you have the time to prioritize it, and it’s something I've dealt with myself.
You’re busy trying to grow and sustain what you’ve built, stay consistent with strategies you’re already using, and live your life outside of business. You can’t throw a project as big as a summit into the mix without making some changes.
Sometimes making time for a summit is about looking at the things that you're doing that aren’t actually moving the needle, and are really just busy work. Generally speaking, pushing pause on those things for a few months is what tends to create the most time for someone to work on a summit.
Or if you’re like me, and like to always have a big project going, it might be a matter of just waiting for your current project to be done so you can work on a summit as your next big project. Or maybe you're realizing your current big project won’t help you make progress toward your goals as much as a summit, so you hit pause on that and move into summit work.
Once you've found the time to fit the project of hosting a summit into your plans, there are ways to add in time-saving strategies to make the process more streamlined, and that's what we'll be focusing on this week.
For resources on how to make the time for a summit, tune into these episodes...
- Make Room For A Summit (In Your Already Full Business) with Ashley Gartland
- The 4 Keys That Allowed Me To Host a Virtual Summit on Part-Time Hours
- "I don't have time to host a virtual summit."
But once you've made the decision, and you know you're moving forward with hosting a summit, the strategies I'm going to share in this episode will help you to make the summit hosting process easier and faster. Who doesn’t want that?
Listen to the episode
Hosting a summit takes some serious time.
If anyone tries to tell you that hosting a summit is quick and easy, run. If you see or hear any of my content and it seems like I’m trying to claim that it’s easy, either know that I’m really not or call me out on it. Because it’s an undertaking.
I’m talking a 90-day timeline, minimum - and that’s if you’re not launching on the backend - and anywhere from 10-20 hours per week IF you have templates and processes like we have available in our programs. And that range, 10-20 hours depends on how quickly you move, how much of a perfectionist you are, and the team you have to help you implement.
I don’t say this to scare you, but if I’m going to be out here preaching the greatness of summits, how fun they are to host, and how powerful they are, it’s also my job to make sure you’re set up for success and going in with the right expectations - and the time investment is a huge part of that.
So…with that being said…how can we make sure we’re reducing the time investment as much as possible? Let’s dive into my 4 favorite time-saving summit strategies.
My 4 Favorite time-saving summit strategies:
Time Blocking
I’m going to start out with the most basic one: time-blocking.
When someone joins our Summit in a Box or Launch with a Summit Accelerator program, they get access to our full 300+ task process for hosting a summit - due dates assigned and all!
And when they copy that task list to their project management account, all of the tasks are always grouped together in either 2 or 3 days per week. I could have spread them out throughout all 5 days, but that leads to...
- More task switching throughout the day
- More having to remember what you were working on
- More having to pull up tabs and spreadsheets over and over
When instead, you could save a ton of time by knocking out as many tasks as possible in one day!
When I plan my own summits, I have Monday and usually a half day on Wednesday set aside for nothing but summit work.
I know it sounds simple, but it’s so helpful in allowing you to work more efficiently and save a ton of time.
Ditch the Bells and Whistles
Moving on to the second key is to keep it simple. You can keep your first event simple if you need to! Use this as your permission slip!
It’s okay to keep things a bit simpler with your first event, and you can come back with more next time!
My first summit didn't look at all like our summits do now. There were no live events, no podcasts, no prizes...and it still worked!
In our programs, I try to label everything that is optional as optional, but it’s easy to put pressure on yourself to really come out of the gate swinging and do exactly what you see me or someone else do.
Know that we all started somewhere. Over time, I’ve added more and more features like Bingo, live sessions, sponsors, affiliates, prizes, podcast feeds, order bumps, and upsells.
None of those things are going to make or break your success.
Being able to get your summit out there in the first place, and do the basics well, is much more impactful than adding a bunch of bells and whistles that cause unnecessary stress or that you aren't able to execute well.
Think about what expectations you have been holding yourself to that maybe you can let go of to save time with your first event.
Your next summits get so much easier once the first one is out of the way. That means you can have some extra time to add in a new aspect or two each time. All your tech is ready. Your registration page is created. It's just tweaking things.
Outsource
Now that you've made time and you're keeping it simple, with what’s left, see what you can outsource if your budget allows.
Outsourcing anything related to speakers is usually a huge time-saver. We work 1:1 with some of our students and clients on things like live event support, speaker management, and Kajabi tech setup. But really, that’s just the beginning of what you can hand off!
If you don’t already outsource but have been thinking about it, a summit is a great first opportunity to do so.
You will save days of time for yourself by handing off the simple things like speaker management, content management, inbox support, and community support to someone else. Even just one of those things can be a breath of fresh air for you!
Follow a Proven Process
This one is the #1 biggest time saver, but I save it for last because I never want to come across as a big walking promo of my programs. But the truth is nothing is going to save you more time than using a proven process. This is so you don’t waste time sitting and planning out things that have already been planned, and following templates so you’re filling in the blanks instead of starting from scratch with every single thing you need to do: to the 10+ web pages, 100+ emails, speaker onboarding material, promo material, and more.
I just had someone reach out on Instagram last week and I asked them how their summit was going. They said it was going well, but there were sooo many times throughout the process when they realized they needed yet another email and knew I probably had a template they’d have been able to use…and I do!
So if you’re really looking to save time, nothing will give you a better return than following a system that already exists and has been proven time and time again.
You can even stack these things together and get the project process and templates... and then outsource the execution of them!
If you're interested in getting your hands on our process, DM me on Instagram "272" so I know you came from this episode, and we can chat about your goals and which option is the best fit for you with where you're at.
Resources
- Episode 30: Make Room For A Summit (In Your Already Full Business) with Ashley Gartland
- Episode 70: "I don't have time to host a virtual summit."
- Episode 85: What to Outsource in Your Virtual Summit
- Episode 284: The 4 Keys That Allowed Me To Host a Virtual Summit on Part-Time Hours
- Summit Host Hangout Facebook group
- Launch with a Summit Accelerator
- 6-Figure Summits Workshop Bundle
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