Virtual Summit Strategies

#008: Ignite Your Summit With John Lee Dumas

About John Lee Dumas

John Lee Dumas is the host of Entrepreneurs on Fire, an award winning podcast where he interviews inspiring Entrepreneurs who are truly ON FIRE. With over 2000 episodes, 1 million + listens a month, and seven-figures of annual revenue, JLD is just getting started. Visit EOFire.com to set YOUR Entrepreneurial journey ON FIRE!

Description

As one of the top podcasters in the World John Lee Dumas of EOFire.com has spoken on hundreds of summits and has interviewed thousands of speakers. He drops a major value bomb on recruiting and interviewing influencers for your next summit.

Quotes:

"It takes 20 years to build a great reputation, but it takes 5 minutes to ruin it."

"You're looking to plant a flag on the ground,

you're building a pond for hopefully years to come."

Where to find JLD:

✔️ Entrepreneurs on Fire

✔️ Youtube Channel

✔️ Facebook

✔️ Twitter

✔️ Instagram

Ep: 007: Paid Marketing Strategy For Your Virtual Summit.

Join me as I interview Jose Aviles on Paid Marketing Strategies for your Virtual Summit.

Shownotes can be found at: podcast.virtualsummits.com/007

#006: I'm going to show you How To Successfully Launch Your Online Biz In One Day… Even If You Have No Audience and No Budget To Start that and more in today's episode of the Virtual Summit Podcast.

Shownotes can be seen at podcast.virtualsummits.com/006

#005: Chandler talks about the specific strategy he used to get impossible to reach speakers to speak and promote his summit generating 3 times his yearly income in one month!

Quotes:

1) "One of my best employees first heard about us from our Virtual Summit"

2) "Fail Fast and Fail Forward, if you're thinking about doing a summit just do it!"

3) "0 – 10 Million Dollar Business Started From A Virtual Summit"

4) "Double Our Income For The Year In One Month From A Summit"

• [email protected]

• Self-publishingschool.com

• com/selfpublishingschool/

• com/self_pub_school

• com/company/self-publishing-school

• com/channel/UC3KUDrLcG1Ni8Wl63LtREYg

• com/channel/UCUv8ZJDL-Vl1BPCGUefDQlg

• https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/self-publishing-school-learn-how-to-write-book-grow/id1235151546?mt=2

• Chandler is the host of the Self Publishing School podcast and the author of 6 bestselling books including his most recent book titled "". He's also the founder and CEO of Self-Publishing School, the #1 online resource for writing your first book. Self Publishing School made the INC 5000 in 2018 (#2,699) as one of the 5,000 fastest growing private companies in the US. Through his books, podcast, training videos, and Self-Publishing School, he's helped thousands of people on their journey to writing their first book.

• Business Insider Article: http://www.businessinsider.com/chandler-bolt-self-publishing-school-2015-4
• Influencive "Top 30 Entrepreneurs Under 30": http://www.influencive.com/top-30-entrepreneurs-30-creating-life-terms/
• Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/Chandler-Bolt/e/B00GM19IKY/
• Chandler's "Entrepreneur House" in San Diego: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/279602
• Chandler on Good Morning Sacramento w/8 year old Emma who wrote a book through Self Publishing School: http://gooddaysacramento.cbslocal.com/video/category/spoken-word-good-day/3702511-how-to-write-a-book/
• 7 Ways Self-Publishing A Book Can Make You 6 Figures: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/300342
• Chandler on "Good Morning San Diego" talking about how to go from blank page to published author in 90 days: https://www.facebook.com/chandler.bolt1/videos/1743320102344838/

#004 How To Build Your Summit

What is the one question to ensure you don't get screwed by a Virtual Summit consultant, plus how to remove 90% of the time needed to build out a summit with one single solution.

If you are just joining us on The Virtual Summit Podcast, I highly recommend that you go and listen to the first three episodes to get yourself acquainted with the podcast.

Remember, you can get the shownotes and resources at: podcast.virtualsummits.com/004 and podcast.virtualsummits.com/resources

This is going to be a little bit longer of an episode but could possibly be one of the most valuable episodes you could listen to. We are going to be talking specifically about the different ways you can build out your summit, what that looks like, and how to avoid a complete disaster. It's an episode you want to listen to till the very end if you are serious about hosting a summit.

Four Ways To Build Out Your Summit:

1. Pay someone else to build it
2. Custom build it yourself (wordpress)
3. Use a generic tool or software (ClickFunnels, Kajabi, Thinkific)
4. Use the Virtual Summits Software - Makes hosting a summit easier than ever before

Physical Components Of A Summit:

1) Landing Page

2) Thank You /Upsell Page

3) Summit Home Page

4) Individual Speaker Pages

5) Bonus/Gifts

6) Sponsors/Resources

7) Sales Page

8) Thank You Page

Additional Aspects:

1. FAQ Page
2. Support Page/Help Desk/Contact Page
3. Group Area for group conversation

What Is The Difference Between A Summit Coach And A Summit Consultant?

• Coaches typically sell online programs that give you the information to host a summit.
• Coaches typically don't do anything with you or your summit other than give you the online trainings and sometimes answer ongoing questions.
• Coaches are going to be much less expensive as you are paying for a program & no assistance.
• You still have to build it all yourself.
• Consultants typically create most of the platform for you and are responsible for running the summit.
• Consultants don't typically do anything outside of the summit platform creation and live summit tech support.
• Consultants are going to be much more expensive depending on the caliber of consultant.

Let's Dive Into The Four Areas Of Building Out Your Summit:

Pay Someone Else To Build It Only really recommended if you have disposable resources, or you have done several successful summits & know your conversions & can make it profitable.

What The Process Looks Like

• Find a consultant or coach – They will do an in depth consultation.
• Understand what you want and are looking for and when you are looking to launch.
• They tell you the amount you need to pay them and then you agree
• They handle most of the heavy lifting as far as building out the site – usually with pre packaged templates they have created.
• You will still have to do all the speaker, affiliate, & sponsor recruiting, management & interviews.
• You will have to pay for all of the materials being built (usually software that they are an affiliate for)
• They will help guide you and advise you on insights into the marketing & launching
• You will have to create all the marketing materials, ads, emails, copy, and paid advertising.
• They will handle any technical aspect or issues that arise during the summit.
• Once the summit ends your arrangement is finished and they are done
• You will still have to pay the monthly fees for all of the softwares & plugins they used to build your summit. (Usually generating them ongoing revenue until you stop paying).

How Long Does It Take

• Typically a summit consultant can get most of the summit up and built within 2 – 3 months
• If they have the ability to work on it full time probably in 1 – 2 months.
• However, you will still need the extra 2 – 4 months for speaker recruitment, interviews, and marketing creation.
• In total you could most likely launch your summit within 3 months based on your speed of speaker recruitment.

How Much Does it Cost

• Most good summit consultants are going to cost between $7,000 - $10,000.
• High end consultants (or speciality niches) can be upwards of $35,000 - $50,000 & require profit sharing from the earnings of the summit.
• Consultants below $3,000 are most likely less experienced or not high quality.

What Are The Downsides

• The obvious downsides are going to be the costs. Summits typically don't have huge profit margins from the summit. (Most profits come from post summit income – check out episode 003 for more information on this podcast.virtualsummits.com/003).
• So when you are paying out a lot of money to build your summit you are

1. Decreasing your ability to take home the cash
2. Increasing risk of actually losing money if your summit doesn't do well

• Consultants will typically remove themselves from the direct relationship of the success of the summit (mainly because they can't guarantee it's success and don't want to be held responsible). So they will only take responsibility for the creation of the structure, not whether the summit succeeds. Which means you are ultimately still solely responsible for the success.
• This is why I typically don't recommend consultants for your first summit. I think they are a great opportunity after you know you can generate results. But before then you run the risk of paying a lot of money and ultimately not making it back.
• Ultimately the downside is the financial costs and the risk. If these are non issues for you, either because you have the disposable finances, or you are confident in your abilities to create success then this can be a great option for you.

What Are The Upsides

• You don't have to do any of the work building the summit.
• Allows you to move much quicker in launching your summit
• You have someone with experience who can help guide you
• You can stay in your zone of genius and let someone else handle the technical aspect
• You have someone to turn to when something goes wrong or if you have questions.

What Should I Know (or Ask)

Before you ever agree to pay anything with a consultant here are the things you should know and ask.

1. How many summits have you run before (and provide some examples)?

• Do your research. Reach out to these summits and ask the hosts about their experience.
• This could save you from disaster in the long run
• If they have run less than 5 summits they are newer and pose more risk
• If they have run more than 10 summits they are most likely experience
• Anything over 25 is a well experienced consultant.

2. What are the average results you typically get from your summit?

• If they can't give you an estimate or average that means they haven't generated any decent results.
• Find out what summit they got good results with and check with that host. If they won't tell you which summit then they are lying. RUN! Always confirm this with the summit hosts. Many times consultants will "exaggerate" their results.

3. When was the last summit you helped create?

• If it's been more than a few years that is a red flag. It means this is probably not their main expertise and are just trying to do it on the side to generate extra income.

4. Where did you learn to create summits?

• This is more in relationship with question 1. If they have minimal experience, then how do they know how to run a summit? If they have had training, then maybe it's worth it, if not then they are just guessing and it's your money that will be the gamble.

5. What exactly are you going to do and what are you not going to do?

• Always very important to have in writing exactly what they are responsible for doing (and not doing) to hold them accountable.
• This should be done before you pay them anything
• Afterwards they will opt out of doing more work
• Additionally this is just good to know so you are aware of what you need to be ready to do.

6. What happens if for some reason this summit bombs?

• This is a tough question that no one wants to ask, but honestly is something that needs to be asked.
• Are they holding any of the responsibility for this summit to perform well? If not, then that is a LOT of risk on your shoulders.
• They should be willing to at least provide guidelines and agreeables to what is a successful summit, an ok summit, and a "bomb" or bad summit.
• They should be able to offer you some kind of peace of mind that they have a little skin in the game.

7. Will you allow me to pay you partially upfront & the rest from the results of the summit?

• This right here is a huge tell and also relates to the question above. If they are confident in their abilities to help your summit be successful then they can at least put some amount (even a tiny amount ) 10% -50% of their payment could be taken out of the summit results or profit
• If they are completely 100% against this and don't even at least consider it, then watch out. That means they already believe the summit isn't going to do well. If they don't think it's going to do well then you really don't want them consulting.

How To Get Started?

• Easiest way is to go to our resource area over at VirtualSummits.com and see the list of our approved consultants that we have vetted & recommend. (if you are a consultant and want us to check you out then get in touch with us.)
• Additionally you can reach out to our team and see if you qualify for our Virtual Summits Immersion Programs. We typically only work with clients we know we can get great results with and we definitely take responsibility for the success of the summit, but we have a limited number of spots we work with each quarter. You can send us a request for more information to [email protected]

Build It Custom Yourself (wordpress)

This will be a much shorter version to get through.

• This is only for the bravest of entrepreneurs
• Ones that have either great knowledge & skill in building websites and landing pages.
• Have a lot of experience in creating items from scratch using wordpress.
• So most likely the entrepreneurs like myself that were out there creating before things like clickfunnels, kajabi & Thinkific were around.

What The Process Looks Like?

• You map out what you want your summit to look like.
• How many speakers, how many pages. What color schemes, fonts and special items
• You then begin building it using wordpress and plugins like wishlist member, deadline funnels, thrive cart, disques chat box, and every other technical tool that goes into building out a 100 page event like a summit
• Then you pray nothing breaks and you linked all your links correctly. (which you didn't, I can already tell you that) ;)

How Long Does It Take?

• If you have never done this type of thing before, you can plan on it taking you roughly 4 months of non stop (30+ hours a week) of creation for about 2 – 3 months.
• That's not counting the interviews which will most likely take another 1 -2 months of part time (15 – 20 hours a week) 0f time.
• If you run more than one you can reuse your original (clone it) and it will save you about 1/3 of the time. You will still have to spend a lot of time because you have to edit everything inside of the pages.

How Much Does It Cost?

• If you are someone that knows how to do this you will probably have some specific tools that you want to use, so the cost might be different
• When I built my first summit – it had 7 softwares & 26 plugins all frankenstined together
• It cost me roughly $6,700 in total
• I was able to streamline the process (after I created the first one) to about $2,500 - $4,000. Because I could reuse a lot of the same tools I had already paid for.

What Are The Downsides?

• It takes forever
• It typically doesn't look as professional
• It still costs a decent amount for the first one.
• It will 100% for sure have tech issues.

What Are The Upsides?

• Total Control & Customization – make it exactly as you want it.
• If you plan to run more than one.

What Should I Know (or Ask)?

I would not recommend this option unless

1. You are super skilled & knowledgeable in wordpress creation.
2. You have no other option., which really there is always the Virtual Summits Software option which honestly you couldn't pay me to go back to doing it the wordpress built from scratch way. (and I've done probably 10 summits this way before).

Use A Generic Tool Or Software (ClickFunnels, Kajabi, Thinkific)

• This is honestly the most commonly done way for people hosting summits. Either because their coach, consultant, or someone they know told them to just use one of these funnel/course building tools to try and host a summit on it.
• Most of the people that are advising people to do this are doing it because they get a paid affiliate commission if you click their link and sign up for any of these tools.
• With that being said it is much much cheaper, & easier to do it this way than paying a consultant or building it from scratch.

What The Process Looks Like?

Typically 1 of 2 ways:

1. If you are being referred by someone who gets affiliate commissions, they will typically have some kind of template or generic format that you can download and use to template out your summit.
2. If you are just doing it on your own then you have to figure out how to build it out yourself.

Either way it looks like this:

• You sign up for one of these tools. The most common are (Click Funnels, Thinkific, & Kajabi).
• They will have pages that can be built.
• You build a landing page, a sales page and all the speaker pages.
• You have links for all the pages.
• When your summit goes live you have to figure out how to turn on or off the links to the pages that they should not have access to yet.
• This usually requires going into every speaker page for that day of the summit and activating the link, then at the end of the day you deactivate the link.
• You do this every day for 3- 14 days twice a day for up to 80 speakers and again pray you didn't miss something . (Trust me you did, everyone always does). When that happens you generate typically several hundred to several thousand emails from attendees complaining.
• At the end you drive all the traffic to the sales page and try to generate sales.
• Then after it's over you have to duplicate everything (If you really are trying to be ethical) so that the original attendees can't still access the recordings, and give the new duplicated version to those who upgraded and paid for the recordings.
• Another way is to shut it down , take all the presentations and put them on a membership platform and give all those who paid access to that membership platform.
• Or the lazy way is to shut it all down and just give those who paid a link to your dropbox with all the videos. (Don't do this)
• Overall, this is honestly for the costs one of the best ways to run a summit, if the virtual summit software didn't exist.

How Long Does It Take?

• Typically this will take roughly as long as it does to set it up on wordpress because you still have to go through and build everything. It's just much more user friendly and won't look like a 3rd grader built it. (or maybe it will I guess I've never seen your page building skills.
• So in general you are looking at probably 1-2 months of solid work to build out the summit at a minimum putting in 20-30 hours a week & then another 2-3 months of interviews & marketing creation.

How Much Does It Cost?

• Costs are much more reasonable here.
• You are probably looking at around $1,000 - $3,500 upfront costs & around $600 - $1,000 of recurring costs depending on what tools and additional fancy software you add into it.
• Also if you are getting this from a coaches program you should factor in the $1,000 - $2,000 you paid for their online course.

What Are The Downsides?

• Its still a small investment.
• You still have to build it all which is going to take a lot of your time.
• Things will break and not work (always happens) links not connected correctly, etc.
• It won't look or function great because it's built on something that isn't really designed for summits. Meaning the functionality won't feel perfect. It will work, but trying to do a summit on a course software, or a landing page software just doesn't function the way a summit is truly suppose to be run.

What Are The Upsides?

• It's much quicker than building it custom
• It's much cheaper
• It will look better than building it yourself
• It lets you create a summit which will greatly benefit you and your business.

What Should I Know (or Ask)?

• Honestly , there is nothing super negative to this approach.
• I've done the same. My progression went from building them custom on wordpress, to using Thinkific or clickfunnels, to now running them on Virtual Summits Software.
• The only real thing to know is if you are going to build a summit on one of these tools then for the same or less cost you can have it built and run quicker, cheaper, and with better functionality on Virtual Summits Software.

How To Get Started

Go to the show notes at Podcast.VirtualSummits.com/004 and we will have links to all these tools like Thinkific, click funnels, etc.

Use The Virtual Summits Software

• Virtual Summit Software Makes hosting a summit easier than ever before. It is the only software designed 100% specifically for running summits which means every aspect about it is ideal for summit hosting & creation
• It has literally changed the game when it comes to summits. The power that use to be reserved for those already successful entrepreneurs with big budgets, teams, and resources has now been given to everyone of us. You don't need a team, you don't need any tech skill, you don't need a big budget or resources.
• You can literally have a summit up and ready to launch in a matter of hours, not months.

***A little history on the virtual summits software. As I had mentioned I have been running summits for about 4 years now. I've been involved in around 25 summit creations. I use to build them by hand painfully. After a few years of wishing there was an easier way to run summits, I finally found the number one development company in the US and we set out to build the perfect solution to hosting a summit.

We started out by doing a product discovery where we interviewed 50 some summit creators asking them their pain points and solutions. We found that there was a massive pain in this area and NOT a single solution available to accurately solve it.

We then set out on the next year building what would become the number one tool for hosting a summit. It literally makes the process so easy that everyone can quickly and simply run a successful summit.

What The Process Looks Like:

• Head over to Virtual Summits.com and you can sign up for a free trial.
• Click "Host Your First Summit"
• You then type in your summit details
• Go to the landing page builder and choose a template customized from the top 100 most successful summits ever run.
• Fill out the information you want on the landing page.
• Go to the speaker section and start recruiting your speakers.
• Speakers will get the request & they fill out their information and it is auto populated through out the whole summit saving you at least 25 – 40 hours of work.
• Decide what levels you want in your summit, like free, vip, and elite.
• Attach your email software to the membership with one click of a button and you now have all the attendees being signed up to your email list automatically.
• Drag and drop those speakers into the summit scheduler and poof you are done!
• Your summit is ready to collect leads to run automatically without you having to do anything and of course collecting you the cash generated from the summit purchase.

How Long Does It Take?

• I've created summits in under an hour
• My partner in my other company runs a one-day summit at least once a quarter. She is probably the least techy person you will ever meet & she can have a summit up and ready in a matter of 2 hours.
• Obviously your first time in the software it might take you a few hours, but no matter how you look at it, the other alternative is 100+ hours or 2 – 5 hours. Pretty awesome.

How Much Does it Cost?

• This is the insane part. It doesn't cost $10,000. It doesn't cost $5,000. It doesn't even cost $1,000. The highest offering that is available for fully unlocked, unlimited summits with the Ever-Summit Feature is the same price as any of the other software solutions we were previously talking about. Or even less if you take the standard option. It's really a no brainer.

What Are The Downsides?

• Really there are very few downsides if any.
• If I had to really try to make something for this I would say in terms of software it is still relatively young. Which is actually kind of a positive because every week there are new and cool features being released, but at the moment of recording this episode there is not as much customization options as there could be. They are coming, but that would probably be the top downside.

What Are The Upsides?

• Essentially everything.
• It's cheaper, easier, faster & less tech problems to host a summit.
• It is designed specifically for hosting & running summits.
• Everything about it is seem less and the way a summit should run.

What Should I Know (or Ask)?

• There is a feature called the Ever-Summit feature which is exclusive to Virtual Summits Software. With one click of a button the software will automatically rerun your summit as if it was live on going forever.
• What is so cool about this is that human nature has us subconsciously think that anything that is old is no longer good. Even though you and I know that those videos are still good, people who see that it's over will choose not to opt in for it.
• The Ever- Summit feature allows anyone who comes to the landing page to see that the summit is set to run next week for example. They opt in and then the software automatically unlocks and locks each day & session appropriately and correctly and then when it's over it locks it down again. If that attendee tries to go back to the landing page it shows them that the summit is ended and they need to upgrade. But for all new traffic that goes to that landing page sees that the summit starts next week!
• It allows your summit to become the beginning of your customer journey and allows you to scale your business quicker.

How To Get Started

Head over to VirtualSummits.com and you can sign up for a free trial to test it out and get started building your next summit.

***In closing here, there are no necessarily right or wrong answers to these options. My goal was to shed an in depth light into the options that are there, what is great about them, and the not so great.

It's up to you to decide which option is the best option for you and your situation.

No matter what you are (Summit Host, Speaker, Affiliate) you have a message that needs to get out to the world. Don't wait, choose whatever option makes the most sense to you and is the easiest to get started and just start moving forward!

My Request

• I'm going to give away all the best insights and gems, I just need YOUR HELP?
• First subscribe & leave a 5 star review on this podcast
• Second, share this podcast with anyone you know who has done, or wants to do a summit.
• That's all I ask.

How To Get In Touch

• I am always looking for feedback.
• If you have questions send them to me. (I'll start doing a special Q&A monthly episode)
• If you want to be a guest reach out and let me know
• If you know someone I should interview please put me in touch with them.

Email me at: [email protected]

Resources You Can Get: Podcast.VirtualSummits.com/resources

- ODS Guide,

- VS Framework,

- Plug & Play,

- Free Trial Virtual Summits Software

I want to end this episode by saying,

"I believe in YOU & YOU can do this."

Summits are by far one of the most powerful ways to quickly grow your list, launch your platform & make more money! (Even if you are just getting started). Don't get caught up in Analysis paralysis, because the world needs to hear your message & there are people who are waiting for you to help them.

So just get started. Imperfect action is always better than doing nothing!

Thank you & see you on the next episode!

#003: What Are The Different Kinds Of Virtual Summits

How to Determine Which Type Of Summit To Run

Not All Summits Are Created Equal, and how one single factor could be setting your summit up for massive failure. Plus how to decide what type of summit you should run. All that and more inside this episode of the Virtual Summit Podcast.

Did you know there are more than one type of virtual summits and each produces a much different type of result? See which type of summit you should host and what to expect in this episode of the Virtual Summit Podcast

Multi-Day Virtual Summit - The Whole Army

Overview: A major event over a period of days or weeks orchestrating a large group of influential experts to talk on a variety of solutions to an overarching topic to create massive awareness and excitement while greatly building a list.

Primary Goals/Objectives:

• Lead Generation
• Awareness of you and topic
• Networking – Lots of speakers
• Summit Cash – Large intake but most of it from the summit is paid out. (Affiliates)
• Post Summit Profit - Large List Gives

Minimum Requirements:

• 20 – 30 speakers (ideally the more the better)
• 4 – 6 months prep time
• $3,000 - $10,000 in ad spend
• Team/help – Customer Service, Dev Team (100's of pages), Marketer, copywriter,
• Minimum 90 - 120 hours of YOUR time invested

Normal Expectations:

• Email Leads 5,000 – 35,000
• Summit Cash: $15,000 - $50,000
• Post Summit Cash: $25,000 - $150,000

Additional Uses:

• Productize – upsell, downsell, flashsell
• On going lead generation
• Setting up your high end offer

Negatives:

➖ Used up all your connections – have to wait to ask again

➖ Not Immediate Cash Generation

➖ Need support and assistance

➖ Need A Software (or someone who can do it)

➖ More of a one time – one use event.

➖ Most of the traffic is going to come from paid ads and speaker promotions (no ever-summit)

➖ Requires a large amount of time, focus and energy

Positives:

➕ Generates a massive amount of awareness, attention and authority

➕ Has the potential to generate a large amount of leads

➕ Can jump start a business into success

➕ Can be a game changer for an entrepreneur and their business.

***Get my Virtual Summit Framework in the show notes at podcast.virtualsummits.com/003

One-Day Summit - A Ninja Assassin

Overview: A quickly obtainable solution to a very specific problem that your audience is acutely searching for, provided by either a single host, or a few experts executed in a short amount of time.

Primary Goals/Objectives:

✔️ Lead Generation

✔️ Monetization – Premium Summit

✔️ Priming an additional promotion or campaign

✔️ Summit Cash – Self Liquidating Offer

✔️ Post Summit – Start Of Your Customer Journey

✔️ Relationship Building

Minimum Requirements:

• Can do it with ZERO Speakers
• 5-16 speakers (ideally less can be better)
• 30 – 60 days prep time
• $1,000 - $5,000 in ad spend
• No Team Needed
• Minimum 10 - 30 hours of YOUR time invested

Normal Expectations:

• Email Leads 500 – 7,000
• Summit Cash: $5,000 - $30,000
• Post Summit Cash: $10,000 - $50,000
• Customer Journey Cash: $50,000 - $250,000

Additional Uses:

• Remains A Lead Generation Machine (Ever-Summit Protocol
• Productize – upsell, downsell, flashsell
• Setting up your customer journey – keeps the journey going.

Plug and Play Frameworks:

✔️ List Builder - Free

✔️ Monetization – Premium

✔️ Membership Primer

✔️ Affiliate Promotion Success

✔️ Product Launch Priming

✔️ Physical Products Selling

✔️ Live Event Recruitment

✔️ Fill Your Mastermind

✔️ Book Launch

✔️ Brick and Mortar Business Building

Negatives:

➖ Generates less overall leads, income and awareness

➖ More difficult to get the same level of exposure and outcomes as a MDS

Positives:

➕ Ongoing options to generate MANY ODS every year. (Didn't use all your connections)

➕ Steady ongoing growth

➕ Versatile: multiple uses to increase outcomes on a variety of campaigns

➕ Can use more long-term permanent promotion strategies (blogs, podcasts, etc)

➕ Do not need a team, or large budget or resources

➕ More tactical and effective, obtainable (less risky) wins

➕ Can quickly build a business that can scale

***Get My One-Day Summit Starter Guide in the show notes at podcast.virtualsummits.com/003

Live Streaming Summit

Overview: Taking a summit and adding in part or in total a live streaming of the interviews and presentations so that the information is being presented in real time.

• This is going to be the same concepts for Multi-Day Summits and One-Day Summits with the only real exception being that the sessions are actually being done in real time versus pre-recorded.
• Overall if done for a Multi-Day Summit due to the complexity and tech risks most fully live streaming summits generate less leads and income comparatively.

Benefits:

✔️ Adds an interactive component which greatly increases engagement and ultimately relationships

✔️ Can be done through Facebook which allows for greater options of virality as Facebook gives preference to live streaming especially longer running live streams

Negatives:

➖ Huge risk for technical (or personnel) issues and problems

➖ Very difficult to get ALL speakers to align their schedules to the exact time frames needed for a live streaming event

Hybrid Event

Overview: Running a Multi-Day or One-Day Summit while adding live streaming activities.

👉 This is the most commonly done method. The actual presentations throughout the summit with the speakers are pre-recorded. However, at some point through out the summit the host will incorporate a live streaming aspect.

👉 Typically run either as a "live webinar or zoom meeting" or as a live inside a Facebook group.

👉 This gives the major benefits of the live streaming aspect while removing most of the major technical risks.

👉 The exact components and how to build these summits will be covered in an upcoming episode.

My Request:

• I'm going to give away all the best insights and knowledge but just need YOUR help!
• First - subscribe and leave a 5 star review on this podcast
• Second - share this podcast with anyone you know who has done, or wants to do a summit
• That's all I ask

How To Get In Touch:

✔️ I am always looking for feedback

✔️ If you have questions send them to me. (I'll start doing a special QandA monthly episode)

✔️ If you want to be a guest reach out and let me know

✔️ If you know someone I should interview please put me in touch with them.

Email me at: podcast.virtualsummits.com

Resources you can get in the show notes at podcast.virtualsummits.com/003

✔️ One Day Summit Guide

✔️ Virtual Summits Framework

✔️ Plug and Play

✔️ Free Trial Virtual Summit Software

I want to end this episode by saying,

"I believe in YOU and YOU can do this."

Summits are by far one of the most powerful ways to quickly grow your list, launch your platform and make more money! (Even if you are just getting started). Don't get caught up in Analysis paralysis, because the world needs to hear your message and there are people who are waiting for you to help them.

So just get started. Imperfect action is always better than doing nothing!

Thank you and see you on the next episode!

#002: Fundamentals Of A Virtual Summit

Do you remember the phones in your home that were on the wall with the rotating dial paid? Did you know those Phones are The Reason We Have Virtual Summits right now, and that a High Value, Low Risk Opportunity is always the best way to go! I'll explain this and more in today's episode on the Virtual Summit Podcast.

• Introduction to who is Dr. Mark T Wade
• Be sure to check out episode 1 on getting started.

What Is A Virtual Summit

Collaborative Marketing Strategy

✔️ Creates collaboration between industry experts to come together to solve a problem for the audience by sharing their insights.

✔️ It's an Online Event- Originally called TeleSummits, then branded Virtual Summits, Online Summits, and sometimes just Summits.

✔️ Like an online conference where attendees can register and access a variety of presentations or interviews from a multitude of expert speakers over a specified period of time, all online virtually.

✔️ Think of a series of webinars, masterclasses and interviews all scheduled together providing value on a specific topic from industry experts.

✔️ This is one of the most powerful marketing strategies available for entrepreneurs to grow their list, launch a platform, make more money, grow their authority and make an impact in the world.

✔️ A great summit can attract tens of thousands of qualified and engaged leads and generate 10's of thousands of dollars in a single event.

Overview/Examples

✔️ An entrepreneur will decide if he/she wants to make an impact in the world and grow their business quickly.

✔️ They will decide on a specific problem to target & how to solve it. Needs to be an acute problem that your audience is searching for. You need to know your audience.

✔️ They will reach out to a variety of industry & niche experts to talk on these solutions.

✔️ They will either pre-record an interview or a presentation (or occasionally done live) to be used during the virtual summit.

✔️ They will pick a date & time for the summit to start and then they will advertise the summit.

✔️ Speakers and affiliates will help promote it.

✔️ Attendees sign up typically for free, and gain access to the summit presentations when the summit starts.

✔️ The summit access is opened to allow the attendees access to that days presentations.

✔️ At the end of that day the sessions are locked & the next day sessions will be released/available.

✔️ This will continue for the length of the summit ✔️ Then the summit is closed & locked down once the scheduled end date has passed

✔️ Attendees will have the option to purchase on going access to the summit presentations for a fee.

✔️ Typically additional bonuses or incentives are added to increase the value of the offer. Some come from speakers and some from hosts.

***This is the basic overview of a summit. Most summits today take some creative spin or angle to make them slightly different and more appealing than previous summits.

History/Background

✔️ Virtual Summits stem from the original creation of TeleSeminars back in 1990. Participants would have to get the information for the Tele Seminar and call in to access the information. ✔️ Typically in the form of a TeleSeminar which would be in the format of either an interview or presentation/lecture and would be a one off presentation.

✔️ When there were more than one TeleSeminars happening over the course of multiple days, it would be referred to as a TeleSummit. ✔️ This was first termed a TeleSummit by Milana Leshinsky in 2005 who conducted the first TeleSummit called the "Coaching TeleSummit"

✔️ Today TeleSummits have evolved into virtual summits, which incorporate online live streaming video, pre-recorded video sessions, webinars, and social media to engage and interact with the audience.

***I did some research on this and there might be some others that have happened and if you know of any other information over this timeline that I have missed, please reach out to me at [email protected] because I would love to know of any others that have happened.

• January 2005 – Milana Leshinsky : Coaching TeleSummit
• June 17, 2009 - Virtual Learning Summit - IIL Global Companies
• Sept 27th 2009 - Virtual Retail Summit
• March 21, 2010 - Howard Lichtman - Article "Telepresence, Virtual Conferences and the Future on On-Line Events"
• May 26 2010 – Women's Leadership Exchange Virtual Summit
• Nov 30 2010 – Landing page success summit. Ben Jesson & Dr Karl Blank
• March 18 – 2011 – 20 Reasons Why Virtual Conferences are the future – Jaime Wilson
• 2017 – The One-Day Summit was invented by Dr. Mark Wade

What Are The Different Types

Originally Referred To As TeleSummits:

✔️ Tele- for telephone. Attendees would get an email (or find it on a website) a phone number and registration code and call in to listen to a series of teachings, all done on the phone. As it evolved they could text questions in and have live chat through text messages.

✔️ There are Hybrid summits, which included a live in person component with a virtual streaming component as well.

Today We Refer To Them As:

• Multi-Day Virtual Summits typically consist of 20 – 80 speakers over the course of 3 – 14 days with a main theme and underlying specific topics or categories in which the speakers would be organized. A minimum 90 days is usually required to put together a Multi-Day Summit with the most common & successful summits being anywhere from 6 – 12 months to prepare and create.

• One-Day Summits consist of typically 5 – 16 speakers who teach a specific solution to one single specific problem being addressed. It is typically much shorter, and easier to consume for the audience & much easier to be created for the host. Typically these can be created in 30 – 60 days. One other main difference is these can be run without ANY speakers, and just the host presenting the information, or a hybrid version with the host and a few speakers.

• Live Streaming Summit. 99% of all summits are pre-recorded and streamed over the course of a set period of time. However, there are a few summits that run live streaming. These have a high engagement rate, but run a very high risk of error or complication.

• Most summits incorporate some kind of chat to provide a live feeling to them & help to increase engagement.

What Are The Benefits?

✔️ Growing an email list, generating income, & building authority.

✔️ Leads are typically more engaged & higher quality

✔️ Self-Liquidating offer - pays for it's self

✔️ You have a platform

✔️ Expert leverage

✔️ Networking

✔️ Builds a relationship & solves a problem

✔️ Sets up a great opportunity

What Are The Cons

❌ They require some level of thought and skill to be done well.

❌ They typically require a level of participation from the speakers and if that doesn't happen it can yield lower results.

❌ There can be a large amount of email communication that happens during a summit with the attendees.

❌ There can be tech difficulties, like links not working or videos not playing (not an issue if you have virtual summits software).

❌ They can be difficult and overwhelming if you are doing it all by yourself without the Virtual Summits Software.

Overall

👉 Very few cons. Even if your summit bombs from a lead generation perspective you now have a platform, a product & authority.

👉 You become the "Host Of The X Summit". You can sell it on going as a separate product or as an up sell/flash sell, etc.

👉 You can repurpose the sessions, which gives you an endless supply of content (Podcast, YouTube, blogs, etc.).

👉 You now have a relationship with many influencers that you can leverage.

Before Virtual Summits Software existed it was very time consuming and costly. Most summits would require some level of initial cash deposit, which could be risky, if the summit didn't perform, and they would be out hundreds of hours of work. Virtual Summits Software has reduced the risk, time, and costs to almost nothing in comparison.

How Are They Different From Other Marketing Methods

✔️ High Value Low Risk

✔️ Lead magnets – low value –incorrect emails ✔️ Webinars – high risk

✔️ Funnels are not building a relationship they are processing people

✔️ Virtual Summits create a relationship with your audience and increase engagement, which increases the quality of your audience.

✔️ Offers Insight from a variety of different experts on a single topic or idea.

✔️ Provides an easy access or source for people who are interested in the topic to get access to the information all in one place.

✔️ Typically pre-recorded, but occasionally done live streaming.

✔️ There is typically no hard selling or pitching

✔️ Great way to build a relationship

Who Typically Hosts Them

• Summit Hosts range across all industries & niches. Anyone looking to make an impact in the world, generate income & increase their email list. Currently the health market and internet marketing spaces are the most saturated, while many other areas have yet to even be tapped.
• Before Virtual Summits Software most summits were reserved for influencers who either had a team to help them or large financial resources to have the summit built out. Now everyone has the opportunity to host a summit in a very short amount of time, with no team and minimal budget.

Common Mistakes

❌ Not giving yourself enough time

❌ Not getting your speakers engaged and supporting

❌ Not getting your topic and theme narrowed down enough

❌ Having to try to build out a summit on your own and not having any assistance

❌ Not being creative enough to stand out and generate interest around your summit

Why Are Summit Hosts So Important

👉 Summit hosts are changing the world for the better. They are the forward thinkers, the action takers, and the ones to stand up against adversity and fight for what they know is important. They take on a seemingly insurmountable task and orchestrate a profound path ensuring that the world continues to change for the better.

👉 YOU, the summit host are so important. YOU provide those who are suffering with solutions from those with the answers in a way that allows them to obtain results and end their suffering. 👉 You are the ones who are making a difference in the world. You are creating IMPACT.

You are a Summit Hero and I thank you for what you are doing!

My Request

• I'm going to give away all the best insights but I need YOUR help.
• First, subscribe & leave a 5 star review on this podcast
• Second, share this podcast with anyone you know who has done, or wants to do a summit.
• That's all I ask.

How to get in touch

✔️ I am always looking for feedback

✔️ If you have questions send them to me. (I'll start doing a special Q&A monthly episode)

✔️ If you want to be a guest reach out and let me know

✔️ If you know someone I should interview please put me in touch with them.

Email me at: [email protected]

Podcast Episodes and Show Notes can be found at podcast.virtualsummits.com

This Podcast Episode 002 can be found at: podcast.virtualsummits.com/002

Resources For You

Take advantage of the following resources by going to: podcast.virtualsummits.com/resources

✔️ ODS Guide

✔️ VS Framework

✔️ Plug & Play

✔️ Free Trial Virtual Summits Software

I want to end this episode by saying,

"I believe in YOU & YOU can do this".

Summits are by far one of the most powerful ways to quickly grow your list, launch your platform & make more money! (Even if you are just getting started). Don't get caught up in Analysis paralysis, because the world needs to hear your message & there are people who are waiting for you to help them.

So just get started. Imperfect action is always better than doing nothing!

Thank you & see you on the next episode!

#001: Your Virtual Summit Journey Starts Here

If you are ready to grow your list, launch your program, make more money, and make an impact in the world then this podcast is for you!

Introduction to who is Dr. Mark T Wade

What I've accomplished

The purpose of this podcast

✔️ Is to help enlighten those interested in hosting a summit on how to successfully create a virtual summits from those who have already done.

Overview:

✔️ Interviewing Summit Hosts, Speakers, Sponsors, Attendees on their experiences, feedback, failures and successes with weekly teaching sessions from your summit expert Dr. Mark T Wade, Founder of Virtual Summits Software and Creator of the One-Day Summit Formula.

What To Expect From this podcast

✔️ A weekly a strategy session from me

✔️ Weekly Interviews from summit creators and participants

✔️ Why Interview with these Speakers - To learn from their mistakes and grow from their successes

✔️ Show notes will be at Podcast.VirtualSummits.com/whichever episode you are on ex. today's notes at podcast.virtualsummits.com/001

✔️ Resources for your summit are available at: podcast.virtualsummits.com/resources

#000: Hello and welcome To The Virtual Summit Podcast

My Goal For You

✔️ YOU, the Summit Host to get insights, gems & success strategies

✔️ Learn from the experts in the summit world - summit hosts, summit speakers, coaches, consultants, marketers, etc.

✔️ How to avoid the failures that most of us who run summits experience and hopefully gain those rewards

Every Business Should have a summit

✔️ Whether you're a brick and mortar business, you're an info business, your (online courses) a course creator, you're a content creator - every business should have a summit.

✔️ A summit is one of the best ways to establish authority, kind of create yourself as a niche influencer or expert.

✔️ It's also a really great way to have a platform and generate ongoing leads.

Who is Dr. Mark T Wade

✔️ I'm a health care professional by trade of postural neurology.

✔️ I started off with a brick and mortar practice and wanted to help more people.

✔️ I had one of the most successful posture correction clinics in the country and I didn't want to create more clinics and more staff and more overhead but I still wanted to have a larger reach and help more people. So, I started an online business.

✔️ I too found going into the online business world difficult and not easy.

✔️ After hearing my good friend (Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income) talk about a virtual summit on a podcast, I thought, you know this sounds amazing; like this is what I'm looking to do, what I would like to do. And I'm trying to be a little bit of everything else and nothing else is working -- So, let's give it a go!

✔️ I ended up creating a summit.

✔️ I created the Virtual Summit Software

✔️ For the past two to three years, I've been fully in the Virtual Summit world - both creating and hosting our summits.

Why I care:

I love them for many reasons including:

✔️ Getting a business going

✔️ Generating leads

✔️ Gaining influence and authority

✔️ Make money

✔️ The most important reason; the thing that matters the most to me is that I see summits as more than just a tool for leads and profit and authority.

✔️ I see summits more than just a lead and profit generator. I see them as helping people who are suffering get the solution to their problems from the top minds in the world.

✔️ Summits help people impact their lives and solve a problem, build relationships.

What Is Virtual Summits Software

✔️ It makes hosting a summit easier than ever before.

✔️ It's the only software designed one hundred percent specifically for hosting summits. It doesn't matter what types of summit, whether you want a one-day summit a multi-day summit or any other kind of summit it's exactly what you're looking for.

✔️ It is the tool, it's the machinery that drives that engine.

✔️ Virtual Summit Software is the tool that drives that engine.

Get in touch with me! – [email protected]

✔️ With that, I'm always here throughout this podcast. Please feel free to reach out to me. I'm here for feedback, looking for feedback.

✔️ If you're interested being interviewed on as a guest on our show, reach out to me.

✔️ If you know somebody I should interview or somebody I should be in touch with, please let me know.

You can contact me through our email – [email protected]

Happy to hop on an interview, Facebook live, a webinar, or even speak live!

Get the shownotes at: [email protected]/000