EP 75: Summit Your Way to Industry Dominance (Plus Real Numbers)
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Hey everybody, welcome back to the Aquora podcast where we talk about list building and lead generation, scaling, launches, and a whole ton of other stuff. And today I want to focus in on something that's going to make a big difference in your business, but also I just want you to know what some businesses are doing. And so we're really going to dive in and we're going to focus in on

Why high level businesses, I'm talking high six figure, multi seven figure are actually super paying attention to the ROI when you do a summit. Now, if you've ever done a summit before, perfect, awesome. But I'm going to give you some advanced techniques here. The things that I do with clients where we have a multi six figure launch off the back end of a summit and we make a

like really good money as, you know, having sponsorships and VIP and all that stuff in the summit. And I know we talk about summits a lot. This is going to be a bit different. So listen in, we're going to get really, really tactical. So virtual summits are just not a lead magnet. It's not just a way to grow your list.

And a lot of top tier businesses since the pandemic know that they're high converting, know that you can create high ticket revenue and understand that it's a lot less expensive to run a summit than it is to have a three day in person conference like, you know, social media marketing world and so on and so forth. Right.

Love that conference, by the way. So today I'm just going to break down exactly how these businesses are using them to generate six figures and beyond. Okay. So summits are just not list builders anymore. You've probably either been on a summit, heard of summits, maybe you've hosted one, and you

You've probably seen how they work. I'm not going to explain that. I have other episodes that explain how summits work. Now, I've been doing summits since 2013. I have produced about 450 and counting at this point. The majority of the summits that I do at this point are for high ticket items. So that is, you know, masterminds and so on that are like 30K and above post-launch. Okay. So those are, that's the whole goal of these events. And, um,

If you think that summits are just for beginners to launch your business, not so anymore. Yes, you can launch your business with a summit and I highly recommend that you do, but it's not just for beginners, right? Businesses that are making 500 K a million, 5 million plus are leveraging summits right now, not just for audience growth, but direct revenue partnerships and industry dominance. They're owning their space and,

through leveraging events like this. And so today I'm going to break down the real financial impact of summits, and I've got numbers to back this stuff up, how summits are being used to sell really high ticket offers, courses and services, and the long term ROI that really makes summits more valuable now than they ever have been in the 10 plus years since I've been doing them.

And why skipping out on doing a summit in your own business means that you're leaving a serious amount of money on the table. And I really don't want you to do that in 2025. If you listen to one of my, I think the last solo episode I did, I talked about how I feel like the economy might take a downturn in 2025 and you should be prepared for it now. Having a high value summit means

that really creates a ton of leads and sales and partnerships is the way to bulletproof your business right now. So let's talk about it. Let's fact check this. I bring receipts, as they say. The financial impact of summits is very well known in the industry, but I'm going to pull some numbers from my own clients and share.

Cold hard data always makes me happy. So six figures is not rare in a summit anymore. A well executed online summit can bring in 100k or up to 500k in revenue or even more. I have seen a summit recently that did over 1.5 million.

I have produced summits that have brought in over 250,000, some reaching as high as 350,000. Now that is in the, the, the six months post event and sometimes a little bit more. Okay. So, uh,

Let's just talk about one of the more recent ones that I did that pulled it in about 250 K. Okay. Uh, we pulled in also about, I think it was about $50,000 in sponsorship revenue. And we did a five X increase on the premium service enrollments for that company. And this is, was a coaching company that was helping and supporting other coaches. Right.

And we did pull in over 10,000 email subscribers in a single launch, organic only. We did no ads. Okay. Organic only. Now, if you want to do ads and you've got some money to throw at it, I highly recommend it. Have a healthy budget. This is where the sponsorship dollars can pay for your ads budget and pay for me. My whole goal when I talk to a client who's about to sign is I say my goal is to

to pay for myself, right? Pay for my feet through sponsorships, VIP dollars, and any ancillary sales, and also to create like a five X increase on your sales off the backend.

Okay. That's my, it's not a promise, but it's what I want. And I try and really go for it. And I often complete that. So businesses that are doing virtual summits right now, especially in a high ticket space are getting four to six X ROI on the summit investment.

So, um, and to pull stuff from outside of me, I studied by Hey Summit, uh, which is a platform. It's an all-in-one solution showed that for every dollar spent on summits, businesses saw an average return of four to $6, right? So that performs the same, if not better than a lot of SLO funnels, uh, that's performing better, if not the same as actually it's better in my opinion than ads, uh,

So really, really seeing a ton of revenue coming in from every dollar spent on a virtual summit. Okay. Speakers are not just showing up anymore. They're motivated to sell on your behalf. 50 to 70% of high ticket summit hosts secure partnerships with their speakers and

which then leads to affiliate sales for the promotions that they have. It creates cross promotions and joint ventures. And it also creates direct sales from some speaker bonuses and other upsells. So what we're seeing is a lot of the speakers are being really motivated. They love this extra income that they can earn. So if you have a 30K mastermind giving somebody 10%,

That's 3k. I'd love to do that every day. I'll sell. No problem. Summits are no longer about getting people just on your email list, but they are also about profit driving and creating a profit driving machine that works for you when it's done, right? These things work amazingly well. So high level businesses are using summits, not just for sales, but

not just for leads, but a myriad of other things. So let's talk about what's changed in summits and why established businesses, people who are making some really good money, are suddenly doubling down on events like this as a core part of their marketing strategy. Summits convert at a higher rate than webinars. I love webinars. Webinars are great, but they have one major problem, and they usually convert on cold leads between 5% and 15%.

on a really good day. Okay. Summits on the other hand, create a high engagement environment where conversion rates range from 20 to 50%. So you have to ask yourself why, why is that different? What makes it different? Well, there's a longer engagement time with a summit. You're instead of a 60 minute webinar, you might be spending up to three days with these people and you're building trust and they're understanding who you are and they're most likely checking you out as well.

There's a much higher perceived value with summits because you have multiple experts, live Q&As, in-depth content. You're making it feel like more of a premium product. And that adds to the premium sort of value of it. And then also you're creating a ton more touch points. Oh, yeah.

You've got so many more email sequences going out. You're creating pre-engagement or pre-event engagement, sorry, post-event offers, and you're nurturing your leads in between and before you even make that pitch. So you're getting a ton more touch points with these people. And the more touch points, the better, right? So the result is your attendees will buy more and they'll buy bigger because they're ready to invest more.

So summits create immediate and long-term revenue. So you get, you know, day one revenue right from the VIP if they upgrade to the VIP. And then long after the summit ends, if I look at post-summit sales, I benchmark them at three, six, and nine months.

Okay. That's the distance I can usually see a really good conversion. Usually three months, we're going to get probably our most six months. We're going to get some decent and the nine months we're going to get a couple of people. And I can really track that. You can really see,

where people are coming in your funnel through the summit and then making their purchases. And you can attribute those purchases and those people directly to the event and the fact that they participated, right? So an example on one of my clients' launches, they made $80,000, 80K in all excess pass revenue right in the summit. So that's in those three days. And then they went on to close 250K in high ticket sales from the relationships they built within that event.

Interestingly enough, even some of the speakers were a good fit for their product and they joined. So we got five, I think five speakers out of that summit who actually joined and paid for the high ticket sale, like the high ticket offer. And you already know this, but summits really do position you as an authority in your space and have you create that sort of command attention as to what it is that you do. Having a summit hosting or even being on one

instantly levels up your credibility, instantly creates that authority. You're no longer just another business. You're the person who brings top experts together. If you're a host, runs an event that people will talk about, you own the stage and just instead of just being a speaker on somebody else's, you own that piece. And when you're seen as the person behind a high quality industry leading summit, it is absolutely game over for your competition.

They cannot fill the space. If you're filling the room with your name, the summit, the energy and all that, you own that space. Nobody else can own that space at the exact same time in the exact same way. And you are, you can leverage that endlessly. That's why hosting a summit is so powerful. That's why the summits that I'm hosting,

focusing on and that I want you to focus on having are of these higher caliber. Now, with full transparency, 13 years ago, when I started doing this, I was, first of all, I was undercharging like a crazy person, because I was still learning. And I needed to kind of learn my chops, like I needed to make my place. And so my first summit ever, I charged $300.

which I mean, I was learning and that was a long time ago, but $300. I mean, it was a loss for me hours wise, of course, because a summit can take, you know, 40 to a hundred hours to create, but man, did I learn a lot. And so now when I, when I host a summit, depending on what level we're doing and how much of a team I need to bring in and how much of a team the client has, the price tag is obviously different.

Obviously so much more, right? Six to 10 X on that. So, but I, I maximize the ROI for my clients so that I'm paid like I pay for myself. That's the goal, right? So let's talk about how you can maximize the ROI in your own summit if you want to host so that you can create a massive windfall. I love these things. All right. So, you know, summits are worth it. I've got you on board there. Awesome. Let's talk about how to actually make them profitable.

You have to go beyond the free summit model. Okay. I still love a summit where it is free to register, but if you are only running a summit to get leads, you're doing it wrong. And high level businesses know this and they are following this model. They are offering VIP all access passes, most likely two of them. All right. A tier one and a tier two. The price tag between those can be 47 up to 297. Or if you have a higher end product, it could be a bit more.

High ticket backend offers. Okay. I'm talking between like two to 10 K up to 30 K or 50 K high ticket backend offers. If your offer is an $18 monthly membership, you need volume.

A lot of it. Okay. And you can do that with a summit. Absolutely. But you're going to get the most bang for your buck if you have something of a higher value that people can join. Okay. And then let's look at strategic partnerships. Now, I love, I love strategic partnerships and sponsorships.

And for the most part, you can generate anywhere between 5K and about $50,000. I've done a bit more, you know, a bit more, but I do love that space. And I think anybody can get a 5K sponsorship level out of somebody, right, to monetize your summit before it even starts. And then you can use that money towards ads, etc. And then I want you to look at how you make your summit a sales-driven machine opportunity.

from the start, not afterwards, right? If you're doing it afterwards, it's too late. Do it from the start. Most people treat summits as free content and they scramble to sell something afterward. Instead of baking your sale into the entire event, I breadcrumb everything. So I put in an exclusive bonus for VIP buyers that leads them to the high ticket offer.

I create a fast action offer for summit attendees to join the high ticket offer at a reduced price, right? That's going to get you some sales. And then I have speakers sell live with limited time offers on the event. Game changer. Okay. If you want to use summits to build partnerships that fuel future growth, this is how you do this part.

The biggest mistake is people make is focusing only on the event and not on the relationships. That is a massive, massive mistake. If you only look at your speakers as fodder to build your list, again, you're doing it wrong.

High ticket business owners are leveraging summits for long-term strategic partnerships, like speaker affiliate, who will help you continue to sell your offers down the road, or collaborations that bring in new revenue streams, or referral partners that drive business for months and months and months after the summit ends. Okay. This is a shorter episode, but I'm like trying to drill it in to sort of wrap it up. And why I think skipping summits is leaving a boatload of money on the table is I want you to think of virtual summits as

not just for list building, but absolutely for revenue driven activities, right? So if you're just thinking list building, again,

Bad thing to do. You're missing out on one of the biggest opportunities in the online space and for your business right now. So high-level businesses are doing this to drive six-figure sales, sometimes more. They're boosting their industry authority overnight. In three days, it's done. They're landing partnerships that fuel long-term growth. They're creating affiliate sales. They're really creating relationships. And the best part is you can leverage this strategy effectively.

very, very quickly. You can do this in 90 days. You can do this in 120 days, which is my preference. Bigger, bigger, bigger summits, you take about five months, but you can leverage this in 120 days, no problem. And so if I've gotten you excited about events like this, if I've gotten you excited about summits, I'm glad. Go and do one. You can totally do this on your own, but if you're looking to do this and you need help, contact me, right? Even if I don't build it for you and promote it for you or produce it for you,

I can give you some steps on how to support that. Okay. I really want you to have a successful year. I think I know what's coming in 2025 and I really want people to not be stuck on their back foot about this. I really want you to be successful. So I'm going to be putting together some live trainings about this, how to run high ticket profit driven virtual events. And I'll share that as they get closer. Okay.

And I'd love for you to be able to join. So if this is something you're interested in, great. Keep listening to the podcast. And if you've listened this far, amazing, please do subscribe to the podcast, wherever it is that you're listening and drop a review for me. I would love to hear what you think.

about all of these acquire episodes and all of the guest episodes we've got so many coming up you would not believe how lucky i feel to be having these conversations with these incredible entrepreneurs very very fortunate thank you so much for listening to acquire i love doing this for you on a weekly basis and i hope to talk to you soon take care