We are switching our topic up this week. Is your membership growing, and you do not know the next step? Have you considered a summit or a giveaway? Gary and I will talk about what it could mean to your business by doing a giveaway or a summit. Come with questions, and we will have answers.

Today I’m joined by my business bestie Gary. We are going to get started by talking about what you think about if you’re considering planning a summit or a giveaway. 

Gary thinks you should think about planning it and we’re going to tell you why. Hold tight because we’ve got some great reasons.

If you’ve got no idea where to get started, we’ve got someone to help you out just in case. 

Why I Love Summits

So I shared in an email recently about why I love summits. They can truly be a game changer for your business.

Now I have done five summits and I’ve helped clients do bunches. My friend Gary has been co-hosting a super successful giveaway for years. It’s one of the top ones and a lot of people that are there say that they really feel that it’s one of the better ones. I think so too, because it’s the heart of coaching. It’s the heart of coaching, which of course is why we’re so aligned together. 

Our Top Reasons We Love Giveaways and Summits

There are many top reasons why you should do a summit or giveaway. These are the key one that hosting a giveaway or summit will achieve for your business.

List Building

Want to build a list? You need to do a summit or a giveaway. The best thing about the giveaway is you just come up with one opt-in gift for yourself and the opt-in page for the whole summit, and everybody else has to come up with the resources. 

Most of you already have some sort of, we call them a call to action or gift and it can be a video, a checklist, a course, an ebook. I’ve done all of them. I’ve done a checklist. Gary is currently even working on a new one this year, a new one on places to get published. Ifyou don’t know about this, Gary is the publisher of the number one magazine for coaches choice magazine. 

There is no other publication like ours so we are number one. And you know what, in my heart and the heart of our readers, we’re number one. 

That reminds me of a really good reason why you should consider doing a seminar giveaway because it helps position you. As the number one guy. It gives you that positioning as an expert in your field. People start thinking of you differently when you’re the one that hosts a summit or hosts a giveaway because you’re the bomb diggity. Like Gary said, he is one of the most respected. He does it with his partner, Marcy Nelson Garrison. They’ve done a lot of work and they’re positioned really well because they’ve been doing this for years and years.

As Gary says “We’re positioned as an expert in what we do, not who and how we do it. Not what we exactly do, but we’re kind of doing what we do the same. Cause Marcy will do something about coaching toy companies. And she does stuff related to creativity, creating card decks or courses or books. And I, on the other hand, I’m a little bit more practical. To get more clients. That’s kind of my key thing on a lot of the giveaways. And I have to make up a new one every year because we’re committed to it, everybody has to have a new one every year.”

So that’s another one of those things that helps keep that high quality that you have inside your giveaway. 

It also keeps the entrepreneurs thinking “What’s a new freebie that I can use to grow my list?” The number one reason you should consider this is it’s a super powerful and potent way to use all of that energy at one time for list growth for growing your community for doing all that. 

I think we said that already, but it can’t be said enough times. It’s one of the number one list building opportunities. 

As Gary states “One of the fun parts that I find is nurturing those people after the event and nurturing them in and offering them other things that I have and nurturing them to eventually purchase.”

And that’s the whole name of the game. You need people to sell to and your list may be small, hosting these events will make it bigger. Plus even if you are bringing in a smaller list, it needs some fresh blood, you know, for whatever reason. 

I think the important thing to say about that is these new people that you’re bringing in are warmer than cold people on your list because they’d been introduced to you by a trusted source.

That’s where the power of collaboration can be so cool because it’s like, when Meredith said “Hey, you guys should totally trust my business bestie, Gary, all of my people are like, all right, well, bear do what she says, I love Gary, but she loves Gary that I should love Gary too.” I call this the transitive property of trust. I should call it the transitive property of love either way. When we do this, these people are a much warmer audience coming to your list from a giveaway or a summit because they’re coming from a referral source. It’s one of the powers of collaboration.

You have to focus and funnel down on what you’re best at. And then as you become that expert, people know you, it’s like law. So you have real estate law. You have commercial law, you have family law, you have corporate, etc. So, you want to be distinguished as the person who is the expert in that particular area. Even if it’s a crowded area. How do you stand out? 

So your gift could be a standout. Your, unique value proposition could be a standout, that kind of thing. And one of the things that we’re going to help you with is understanding how you create your summit or giveaway with the end in mind. Especially since we were talking about those warm buyers, those warm audiences. They’re more likely to buy from you because they’ve been trained and they’ve come in and trusted. So they’re warmer and you’ve now positioned yourself and see when it’s designed. Well, that backend offer that you make after the big event, they’re like, “Oh yeah, I have so much value from this giveaway. I had so much value from this.” They’re ready to say yes. 

It’s a high conversion because you’re starting with the warmer audience versus a colder audience. And another reason you should consider it. Gary said this one earlier, and I don’t want to overstep it. Fun. It’s fun to collaborate. You get to, regardless of whether it’s a giveaway or summit, you get to meet the new people. You get to meet all these amazing partners and experts and figure out, “Oh my goodness, I love meeting this person. And I want to do this later. I want to promote them later.” And it also gives you the access to possible other additional sources of revenue and you may become an affiliate for all of these amazing, cool people that you work with.

It’s like that old commercial. They told two people and they told two people and they, and you know, and it’s like, when you think about, when you’re doing your website and your online marketing, and you do this, it’s called organic connection. It’s that sort of the same thing. It’s these people who you’re meeting today and working with today can be contributors to an article and choice magazine.

Reciprocate With Others

Or it can be a joint venture partner in a project or so on. It’s one of those reciprocal partnerships. It’s definitely got reciprocity to it. When you find these right fit partners. 

I had somebody in the summit that was so in line and et cetera, that one person’s like, “Well, after that one interview, I knew I had to buy the whole summit because it was so much value. And then I did.” So, and then when it was an opportunity to help promote hers, she invited me to do her giveaway. There’s so many opportunities.

So not only do you have this one focused event where you explode your list, but you’ve now created 20 to 30, depending on how many new connections, which also then creates new opportunities. Because you’ve positioned yourself well, you’ll now start getting more opportunities to participate in other people’s summits. And that’s where that reciprocity is. And you start sharing how much you love them. They love you. And so you’re now doing what Gary was talking about, that reciprocity of the give and take by sharing our communities. 

I build my community and then I help build your community. Then you help build my community. It builds your networking skill. It builds your generosity. Muscle builds your collaboration. If you like working in collaboration, this is truly one of the great, great things to do summits.

What Did I Gain Long Term?

Think about what you have afterwards. You have a collection of things that you can use for other purposes. So if you’re doing a summit, for example, you can keep those recordings and then you can offer them maybe later on in a nurture sequence or that kind of thing. Or you can make it evergreen and sell it as a package. 

The idea is they become like your high end clients because you’re cultivating them, not just for one sale, but potentially a hundred sales. They don’t give you just one lead. They give you 10 leads, a hundred leads, a thousand leads. 

I’m a people person, which is why I love the summit because I love to just ask really good questions and nerd out and listen. Especially when it’s a topic that you love and you know, you’re not an expert on all of these things. You bring in the people that are the peanut butter to your chocolate, that help and enhance what you do.

Especially if you’ve missed out, like Gary said earlier, then there are the things that help enhance what you offer and you can learn more. I love the interview process. You’re a great interviewer. And you’re a great interviewer because you love doing it. I am too, but I haven’t done a summit. I’m doing something slightly different because I’m doing the giveaway.

The tools that we offer are kind of correlated. So, the stuff behind I’m the systems guy. So of course, Meredith and I are putting together a system. Step-by-step do this, then do this, then do this. And then pretty much the same across the board for each one, whether it’s a giveaway or a summit. So if you want more clients, you want more warm leads and you want to have fun come along and play with us. So we are teaching this live, which means you’ll have opportunities to ask questions and we might do it evergreen later.

At the moment, September 14th, which is next Tuesday at 10:00 AM Pacific, which is 1:00 PM Eastern standard time. It’s a good thing. He and I are in two different time zones. So we can figure this out together. And we’re also doing it September 22nd on Wednesday at 4:00 PM. Pacific 7:00 PM Eastern. 

The nice thing about this is both this information can help you do a summit or a giveaway. And once you do the work, the first time you can then do an annual event after that.  Like Gary’s doing.

I’m doing the second Heart Centered Leaders Summit. I already started getting my recordings in. The systems are the same. You need an opt-in page. You need to sell and you need a page to sell something. And or whether it’s the upgrade package for the summit and or the backend offer.

We’re going to give you some amazing things to help you get all your pieces in place for all of these. A reminder that those that join us for the 14th can rejoin us again for the second event. So if you didn’t catch it all in the first round, because you’re busy taking notes or whatever, or just Gaga about what we’re saying, you can come back on the 22nd and play with us again. 

Gary’s Three Favorite Things

Another thing that I love about summits and giveaways is it’s a great opportunity for you to practice one of Gary’s three favorite things.

Automate, eliminate, delegate.

Invite people to be on your team right now. You can do some of it really simply with one to maybe a VA. I did my very first summit with one VA. That was it. And God bless her, she knew a lot of the tech and all those things because I didn’t know back then all the things I know now.

We got this thing ready, you know, without too much burden. I would say, and a couple of people, even this time, it didn’t take that many people kept doing some images. You and I doing the checklists and Scottie doing the pages. So it wasn’t big. It doesn’t have to be a massive effort. 

I think that’s the other thing too, don’t be afraid to just do one. And even if it’s like five or 10 people, because if it’s five or 10 of the right people, I know I’m giving away a lot of the course. But it was five or 10 of the right people. Then you can expand from there, like don’t try and go like a summit of a hundred people the first time out. Do something that you’re, that not just comfortable with is a bit of a stretch. 

I think the other thing that you’re starting to share and reveal that I think is really important for people to understand is I know some people might be concerned like, “But I don’t know these huge, big wigs, or I don’t know, or my list is really small. How am I going to get somebody else with the list?” Well, you don’t necessarily have to be somebody with a 5,000 person list or a 10,000 person list to start a giveaway or summit.

You could start from zero. I did my first without a list. I didn’t even understand the list. You can find other early stage people. So maybe your list is going to go. Maybe each person, you know, has just a few hundred people on the list. Maybe they don’t have thousands and thousands and that’s okay. But that’s going to give you the confidence for the next one and the next one. And the next one, because of this collaborative effort. 

We’re going to find partners who wanna play. We’re gonna do something that’s really great. But anyway, I think the thing that’s really important is that there is a summit or giveaway that is perfectly designed for you at your stage of business. Don’t be concerned.

You may be surprised. Some of those people that you think are the big wigs in the industry that you think would say no, say yes. We’re going to share some of those secrets on how to get them to say yes, and how to get them to participate in what it means for your summit and what the impact is going to be.

So that’s going to be something that we’re going to share inside of this workshop as well. 

Bring even your small lists. We know how to help you grow them. We all know about compounding interest. And the more you do it, the less effort and leverage it takes. You were just saying, once you have the systems in place, once you have the opt-in page and the copy written the first time, it’s really just to edit and update it. Maybe it’s got a slightly new theme. Maybe it’s the same theme, the following year and the following year and the following year. 

So updating all of those systems that you put in place the first time and using them on an annual basis or a quarterly basis or whatever you want to do gives you that compounding growth. Begin with the end in mind. So knowing that you’re going to repeat it, build stuff, code it, name it, whatever. Give it a naming convention that makes it easy to replicate. Replicate and duplicate. 

This is where Gary’s automation statement comes into play. Automate the process.

Delegation. We spoke about that as well, but we’re not going to give away all our secrets today. 

If you want to join us for this workshop, it’s only 67 bucks and it’s going to be well worth your time. We’re going to get this done in two hours. Ask your questions, get your answers so that we can help you. We’ll even do a little coaching to help you narrow down those niches in the QA sections. Maybe we might take it offline for you as well. We’ve got some secrets. We’ve got some surprises and guests.

We are giving you some cool things too. One of the things is wrangling your partner’s information. So we’re giving you a done for you document to help you get your partner information collected. We’re giving you an email template to send out to those partners so that they say yes. That’s all included. Plus we have some bonuses. If you’re interested, that are amazing for a little extra, that we think are worth every penny. So, but either way, just at the basic 67 bucks, you’ll get what you need to get started on the road in the world and out in reality. 

It’s not that hard to do. Just requires a bit of diligence and some of the tools that we’re offering you. Join us for the six degrees of collaboration. How to grow your email list and community by hosting a summit or a giveaway.