If you’ve played around with the idea of hosting a summit for your online business, this episode is for you. In today’s episode, Jenny Suneson of Summit Success Squad joins us to highlight the benefits of hosting a summit, along with best practices for hosts and speakers. Listen in as she shares how she got started in summits and how beneficial they have been for her business!
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Guest Bio
Jenny Suneson is a podcast strategist and the founder of the podcast management and marketing agency Savvy Podcast Agency. The Savvy Podcast Agency helps entrepreneurs launch and grow their podcasts and start turning their listeners into leads.
Today’s episode is brought to you by my Client Hub Template inside the DIY Systems Template Shop. Business owners often have their client information spread across a variety of different tools, making it hard to access the information they need to make critical decisions. That’s why I built the Client Hub Template for Airtable, to take the guesswork out of building your own!
Here are the highlights…
[1:26] Get to Know Jenny
[6:45] What is a Summit?
[9:32] Benefits of Hosting a Summit
[16:52] Setting Up the Right Trip Wire as a Contributor
[24:32] Nurturing & Segmenting Your New Subscribers
[31:06] Why Attendees Should Sign Up for Summits
Connect with Jenny
Instagram: instagram.com/jenny.suneson
Podcast: pod.link/1700310195
Website: summitsuccesssquad.com
Review the Transcript:
Colie: Hello, hello, and welcome back to the business first creatives podcast. Guys, I’ve got list growth on my mind. It’s the one thing that I had for a goal in 2023. And while I have made strides, I don’t quite think I’m there yet. And that’s why I’m super excited to be talking to my guest today. Jenny is going to tell us about the process of hosting a summit.
The do’s and don’ts and then how it has benefited her business. Jenny, welcome to the podcast.
Jenny: Yeah, thanks for having me. I’m really excited to be here.
Colie: I mean, and I want to talk to you about summits, which is interesting because that’s not what I thought we were going to talk about. So why don’t you tell the listening audience who you are and what you do before we dive in?
Jenny: Yeah, so my primary business is actually in podcasting. So podcast management, podcast launching, podcast pitching. But I do have a secondary business with my friend Lindsay, and we host virtual summits and focus on a lot of the visibility side of things. So we host two virtual summits a year together, one on visibility, one on summit.
And we started hosting these events back in 2018 and then eventually decided to form a business together. So this is our secondary kind of joint business and it’s been so much fun to have that creative outlet and be able to help people host their own events too because we’re so passionate about that.
Even though it’s not our primary business, it’s still like super fun to be able to do and kind of takes us out of like the day to day of like what we do in our regular businesses, which is always, always
Colie: Yes. And I mean, I kind of know Lindsay from the internet, but I mean, she invited me to be part of one of the summits. And so that is how I know Lindsay and it wasn’t your joint summit. It was one that
Jenny: Yeah, it was one that she hosted on her own.
Colie: But, I mean. I, in my world, which originally I started my business in photography and while I still take pictures, systems and automations have pretty much taken over, but I feel like in the photography world, we just don’t do summits in the same way that we do in the business world.
We usually host them. Not really focused on list growth. I mean, I gotta be honest. Sometimes when I see a photography summit, I don’t know what the goal is, but when
Jenny: we doing here?
Colie: like what are they doing? I mean, I think it’s just, it’s more of an opportunity to gain visibility for the guests rather than an actual like business goal for the person who’s hosting, which I just always find so fascinating, which is why I’m excited about this, this conversation with you.
So, Jenny, when you first jumped in the summits, did you do your first summit alone or was it with Lindsey?
Jenny: It was with Lindsay. Yeah. So back in 2018, that was our first summit. We It’s way different than it looks now because we definitely bare bonesd it, just because it was our first time. And, yeah, I mean, we So what we did is really interesting. So we had seen other people doing something similar and we were like, Okay, like, let’s see if this is a good model or what we should go for.
And so we have like the first part of the conversation with the guest, free. And then they had to upgrade to get the second part of the conversation. So, yeah, that was kind of common back then. I don’t see that happening as much now.
Colie: heard of that. So, yes, it’s definitely not common now, but as I said, like, I didn’t really join the business space, if you will, until like late 2020 into 2021.
Jenny: And yeah, that’s, that’s when like, yeah, the complete now what we do is we have completely free. The whole session is free, but, there’s like an upgraded thing that doesn’t have any bonus sessions with speakers, but it has like bundle items and extra trainings with me and Lindsay and things like that.
So, it was definitely interesting because, yeah, we were just like, okay, we would cut off the conversation with the person and then like record another thing. And then, yeah. Upload that. So, yeah, I mean, it was fun. Like I said, it was very bare bones. We didn’t do Most of the things that we do now, just because I feel like a lot of people think when they’re running their first event, they need to do absolutely everything.
And, um, that leads to burnout. Like I’ve seen some people for their first time hosting summits that have sponsors, which I, you know, that good for you if you can get sponsors, but. I think that’s a lot to manage for your first event because you don’t even know how well it’s going to go. So how are you going to like tell these sponsors?
Oh, we can get XMM signups. And things like that. And for me, I prefer to like have data to bring to people before, you know, saying, Hey, can you pay me for this? So Lindsay and I, yeah, we, we didn’t have sponsors for that. We haven’t, Lindsay actually just finally experimented with sponsors last time, like her September of 2023 summit.
So, or. August, yeah, it was August. So,
Colie: what I was
Jenny: yeah, yeah, so it was August, and that was the first time she even experimented with sponsors, and we’ve been doing this since 2018. But I see some people doing it right out the gate, which is fine, but like, like I said, it’s just, I don’t know, I like to have the data to back it up.
So, we do a lot of things differently than we did that very first time, but. It was really fun to kind of just start getting out there and experimenting with summits because at the time there weren’t very many back in 2018. There was a couple, but definitely nowhere near the amount that there are now.
And especially in 2020, when everyone was craving like that connection, I feel like so many people were like starting summits and podcasts at that time. Because it was like, we need that connection. We are tired of being virtual, so we need something that is still virtual, but also gets that connection piece.
And covers that.
Colie: absolutely. And we are going to touch on like pre and post pandemic in just a sec, but I feel like I was listening to you and I’m not actually sure that my entire audience is going to know what a summit is. So. Why don’t we just define, like, maybe not what you and Lindsay did for your first one. Let’s talk about if someone was going to come across a summit in 2023, what might they expect to get from it?
And how would it be structured? And I know that there’s different
Jenny: Yeah, yeah, there’s, there’s definitely different stuff. But, but like typically what you’re going to see now is, it is going to be, there’s either, most of the time they’re like three or four days, sometimes five day events. There’s a variety of speakers between 20 to, I’ve even seen as many as 50 recently.
I’m like, holy cow. How are you managing 50 people? That sounds terrible. For me, my max is 30. Any more than that is like too much. I know Lindsay actually probably did one maybe at least for you last year or this year. I’m not 100 percent sure if she had. More than 50. I don’t think it was 50. I think it was smaller than that.
But anyway, so it’s across like that three to five day period. Usually the presentations are available for about 24 to 48 hours for free on that free ticket. And then to watch and get the replays you pay an upgraded fee. The way that Lindsay and I do it is we have two kind of tiers. We have the one that is like basically you get all the different ways to consume the actual.
Content and interviews and that is like one price and then we have an additional one that includes all that plus like a bundle of goodies that makes sense for the theme of the summit extra sessions with me and Lindsay, little goodies, little extra goodies here and there as well. So we kind of do the two tier model, but there have also been like some paid summits popping up recently anywhere between like, Like a seven to ninety seven dollar fee for virtual summit to me.
I don’t really consider that a summit even though it is. I don’t consider it when I feel like that’s more of like a virtual event. Just because you’re paying for it, but people still. Use that term, interchangeably. So those are the kind of the two different ones that are popular now. And then Lindsay and I actually, we do a one day one for our October one, which is about visibility.
So we do like, we focus on one tier of visibility. So like we did one this month actually in October as we’re recording this. And the tier that we focused on this time was collaborations. So it was like visibility collaboration edition. So, and it was just one day. Um, So that one day was free and then we had like the next day was a VIP day.
So,
Colie: Nice. Okay. So let’s talk about, because, okay, every summit has a host and then they have speakers that they have chosen or that people have applied to speak on particular topics that you have either predetermined or you’ve put out a general topic and they’ve, you know, said what they could contribute to that topic.
So let’s first look at it from a host perspective. What are the benefits of hosting a free summit? Okay. With a possibly a paid tier after but what are the benefits to the host for hosting this event?
Jenny: Yeah, so I think the host obviously gets the most benefit, but they also are putting in the most time and effort, so they should get the most benefit, right? Because, I mean, when I look at, I track my time for everything, but when I look at how much time I spend like planning a summit, it’s usually about 75 hours.
Um, and that’s with having it really systematized, having templates, having all this stuff that has already been pre made over time and just having to like switch out text and things like that. For your first one, you are probably doing at least a hundred hours worth of work, if not more. So yeah, so the benefits obviously would be list growth is number one, because you are tapping into these people’s audiences.
They have to sign up for the free, you know, the free summit and that all goes onto your email list. We do not share our list with our guests just because of purposes. We do not want people to be coming at us and saying, Oh, now I’m on 50 new people’s list or 30 new people’s list. And I didn’t opt into for this.
And it’s just. I see people that still do that and I’m like, probably not the best, but you know, you do you, it’s not my place to tell you that you shouldn’t do that. But yeah, so, so we don’t share the list, but there’s ways for the people to grow the list, which we can talk about later. And then, so that’s a huge one for us.
So you can make money off the backend if people are upgrading to get the replays or the bonuses. So that’s another benefit of course. And then you can also sell a product off the backend. So once the summit is done and wrapped, you’re probably super exhausted and want to sleep for a week. Um, but, but from there you will launch a product that is relevant off the backend.
You know, it doesn’t have to be anything super expensive. It doesn’t have to be like a 2000 plus dollar program. But yeah, you’re launching something off the back end. And then I’ve seen people even do like a downsell after that too. Like if they have like a more expensive product and then, you know, they do like a downsell, which that’s a lot more effort, but, um, so yeah, so that’s kind of the three different ways you can, benefit from that.
And plus the connections, of course, those are huge. That is, you know, most of the people that I’ve met. That I brought into my summits. We’ve collaborated together in other ways. They’ve been on my podcast. I’ve been on their podcast So the connections have been a really huge piece and that’s probably one of my favorite things like yeah the list growth is great the money is great, but like the connections is just so much fun because When you are of online business owner, you’re not really seeing people frequently so being able to make those connections is just really wonderful and like if you’re an introvert like me That is like a super easy way to make those connections because you’re like, all right It’s really easy to have that ask because it is benefiting both you and the person you’re reaching out to versus like you’re not just like In their Instagram DMS randomly like hey, let’s be friends.
You know what I mean? Like that doesn’t always go over well
Colie: Yes. Okay. So let’s talk about your speakers. So we’ve talked about the benefits for the host. Now let’s talk about, about the benefits for the speakers. What do speakers get from participating in a free summit?
Jenny: Yeah, so, they get, obviously they get to get that recognition, have that, like, you know, on if they have a media page and they get to say like, oh, I spoke with the XYZ summit and like put that there. That’s always nice to have. They get to get in front of a variety of different audiences. Usually, like, you know, I don’t care about people’s reach.
I’m not like, oh, my God, you need to have thousands of people on your email list to be considered, but we just take a post to see how much like collectively we would reach email subscriber wise So it’s usually anywhere between like 30 to 50 thousand people that they’re potentially reaching obviously, there’s gonna be some overlap in people’s lists because the only business space is not that big right so
Colie: but it’s also not very big.
Jenny: Yeah, exactly.
So like there’s gonna be some overlap there. So that’s just something to keep in mind But yeah, so they get the opportunity to get in front of new people, they get to share their authority, like, if they want to get on stages in the future, it’s like being on a virtual stage for just kind of a great kind of stepping stone because obviously speaking virtually is a lot easier of a commitment and easier,
generally, like when you’re getting your feet wet, to actually be on a podcast or speak at a summit or something like that versus going straight into speaking on a stage, because obviously that’s way more nerve wracking. You have to spend money to get there and fly and have a hotel and all kinds of different things like that.
So there’s a lot more barriers. and then they can grow their list too. It’s obviously not going to be as significant as the hosts because You’re getting all the opt ins, but they’re able to provide usually some kind of free offer that everyone can access an opt in to, so they will get some list gross from that, and then also if they contribute to, the bundle with one of their paid offerings, then anyone who signs up for their product will also give them their email address too.
So,
Colie: Okay. So I just feel like we need to recap because that was a lot. So as a host of a summit, you are getting list growth. You are getting money both from, potentially people who are upgrading into one of your paid tiers, and then also if you have strategically planned to sell a product or a service on the back end of your summit, and then as a invited speaker, you are getting visibility, both to the host audience, as well as every other speaker that is participating.
So if the, let’s say if the topic is something. You That is bringing other people that also have your ideal clients. It’s just a wonderful way to get in front of like several thousands of people all at once who may have not had any idea who you were before you agreed to speak at the summit. And. There’s also list growth, because if you are adding in a free item, anybody who’s participating in that summit can sign up for your free item, and then they are added to your opt in list.
Now, the one thing that you didn’t mention, though, was that speakers can also get money, not being
Jenny: Oh, yes.
Colie: to speak, but
Jenny: commissions. Yes.
Colie: affiliate commissions. Yes.
Jenny: Yep. I forgot to mention that because it was a lot, but yeah, you can also get affiliate commissions, on the paid upgrades. Well, Lindsay and I usually do, 40 percent for speakers.
Colie: feel like that’s pretty standard.
Jenny: Yeah, and we do 50 percent for if people contribute to the past and then we do 30 for standard like affiliates who aren’t speakers.
That they want to promote, so.
Colie: Now, I have always felt like, as a speaker, and I guess from the host perspective, if you are strategically planning to sell a product on the backend, that is how you are like, you’re using your participation in order to actually make sales. But I feel like a lot of people really overlook the value of participating as a speaker in a summit, and then making sure that your lead.
That you are offering in order to get emails leads or even the topic of like what your presentation is on will naturally lead to one of your paid. Offers. Because some people just speak to speak. And while I think that’s great, if I was going to talk about, you know, the values of systems and automations and the freebie that I offered was directly related, giving them a win in this area, then I could craft a specific email, series that would then guide them to one of my paid offers that I feel like is most aligned with whatever it is that I spoke about
Jenny: right. A lot of people leave that on the table and we try to educate too and our stuff like, hey, you should have some sort of tripware that’s relevant or something so you can make additional money. You can lead people back to your offer so that they feel like they’re getting the most bang for their buck.
Whether they do or not is a different story because you’re not going to sit there and hold their hand and be like, please do this for your own business. But, you know, we try to educate them and let them know like that’s. Best practice and, you know, it can be time consuming to get it set up if you’re in a bunch of different events and you have like all these sequences going that are in your email that are, catered to that specific event.
But especially if the event is something like that, you know, is probably going to bring in a lot of your ideal people. I would spend that time to. Do it. Whereas like if it’s an event that you’re like excited to participate in, but it’s not exactly a hundred percent your ideal people, like maybe that one just goes to your general welcome sequence for the product.
Right. So kind of just like weighing your options and seeing if it’s worth the time to put the additional effort in. But I definitely think having some sort of like, you know, Tripwire, or something that you can make additional, money off of is really important so you don’t just feel like okay great I added all these people to my list, but
Colie: And now what?
Jenny: now?
Yeah
Colie: Okay. So let’s talk about list growth, because I feel like we should set some expectations, if you will. So if you are like, okay, Jenny, this sounds really awesome. I think I might try my hand at hosting a summit sometime in the future. How many? Maybe that’s not the correct way to ask. If someone is like, okay, I think that I want to host a summit in the future, what kind of list growth can they expect from their very first, um, hosting opportunity versus maybe someone like you, who’s like five years in, like how much has your list growth grown over the last five years?
Jenny: Yeah, honestly, it’s really first I think it really depends on the topic so if you have like a really broad Topic, you might be getting in more and more and more people, but they’re just coming for one or two sessions, right? They’re just like, oh that one looks cool, or that one looks cool, or these two look cool.
So you might experience that bigger list growth, but in the long run you’re gonna get more drop off, which obviously It’s nice to get that win up front, but the drop off is kind of like discouraging, right? So I think sometimes people get really blinded by that and they’re like, oh, you know I’m gonna host this really really broad event and get all this list growth, but then It’s not going to be like lucrative in the end.
So I think, you know, for us it varies. So for our smaller one day event that we only have like six speakers, it’s obviously way smaller. It’s only about one segment, so we’re going to get a smaller list growth. We usually get, between like three to 500 people for those smaller ones, which is still pretty good for only
Colie: great.
Jenny: you know, only having six speakers, and being so, like, niche. Our Summit Summit probably does around the same, even though that is a longer event. It is way more niche. It’s just. You know, it’s about summits. Not everyone wants to host a summit. So obviously we’re not attracting everyone and their mom to the event, which is totally fine.
So that one’s usually 300, 500 as well. Totally fine. Like, you know, we don’t, we don’t expect everyone, everyone in the online business space to want to host their own summit because it is a big, big undertaking. But for something that’s like, I know for Lindsay’s that is for tech VAs, it is more niche, but then it can still apply to like, a regular standard VA, which there’s lots of VAs out there.
So if they’re like considering, Oh, let me niche down into something that is not like a general VA there, you know, that’s going to apply to more people than our Summit About Summits. So she, I know for her, she gets. I want to say like last time she was, she got really, really, really close to a thousand. I think she almost broke a thousand or she, or she exceeded a thousand.
Um, and then like when I do my podcast summit, which I haven’t done in a year, just because of this year was kind of a crazy year. But, um, when I did my podcast summit, that was also more lucrative because more people have podcasts or wanted to start them. But then I did one for podcast managers, which is way smaller.
segment, which I don’t even do that one anymore, but it’s a way smaller segment of people. Um, and that one was kind of like around the 300 to 500 people range. So yeah, it just really depends on what it is and how many people are interested in it. And. Like I said, sometimes you might get a lot of people that join your list, but they’re only tuning in to one or two sessions.
Whereas like if it’s more targeted, people are looking at every single session or like majority of the sessions. Which I think is going to be a more engaged person overall than someone, you know, when you’re just getting a bunch of people who are only coming for one or two sessions.
Colie: Let’s talk about that drop off. So you said that and I knew what you meant, but listening audience, she’s talking about unsubscribes. So how many of us have gotten like a really, we put our freebie out there and let’s say that we get like 50 people subscribing on day one and we’re like, yes, this is awesome.
And then like when you send your very first newsletter, like 13 people unsubscribe. Okay guys, so I want to make sure that we are all being realistic about this. One of the things that happens when you are hosting a summit is, yes, you are getting all of these people who are signing up for your list for the summit, but that doesn’t mean that they’re all right fit clients and that they’re all going to hang out on your email list.
Yes. So what have you found to be an average unsubscribe rate if you just have an idea
Jenny: a good question. I think it also depends on the event, too. Like, I mean, I, I feel like for my podcast one, that one experienced a little bit more because it like, everyone, like, people would attend and be like, You know what? Actually, I don’t think I want to start a podcast. This sounds like a lot of work.
So like, that would have a lot of drop off, but for like my podcast manager one, when I hosted that one, that was like a decent retention because they were like, I’m either really committed to this or like, I’ve already been a podcast manager, so like, I want to keep learning about this. So that one had decent, I can’t really, like, I don’t really know like figures off the top of my head, but like, it really depends on what the topic is.
And then for like our collaboration one. And our summit one, I feel like those are pretty great, good for attention too, because if they already committed to wanting to host a summit, yeah, sure. They might watch some sessions and then realize like, that’s not for me. But for the most part, if you like, if you’re having this idea about hosting something as big as summit, you probably already did a little bit of research to know that it’s going to be something that you are interested in continuing to pursue after you, you know, after you did that first initial research, you’re not just like, Oh, this sounds cool.
And then you realize it’s like, you know. 100 plus hours work and then you’re like, never mind. So I think it really depends on the event, but I found the ones that are more like niche tend to, even though you did get smaller list growth, those people hang out longer
Colie: hang out longer.
Jenny: it’s not just like, Oh, here’s 50 topics.
I only was interested in two. Now I’m just going to unsubscribe because the topic I was interested in was not the one that the host
Colie: Yeah, I mean, so let’s talk about that. So we didn’t get it. You know, I was thinking that you were going to say something like 30%. So maybe I’m just going to throw that number out there. But the 1 thing that I would love to ask you is as a host. What is it? Do you have any tips for someone who wants to make sure that they don’t have significant unsubscribes or drop offs after the event has happened?
Like what have you found in terms of nurturing that audience that has led to perhaps people hanging out long after the event has taken place?
Jenny: Yeah, I think, I mean, if you, sometimes, yes, it’s good to go immediately into a promotion. So it’s not like you’re quiet for a week or two and then, and then people are like, Oh, yeah, I forgot about this. Let’s unsubscribe. But if you are going into promotion, then yeah, I would say just immediately go into it.
And yes, you will get some unsubscribes because people don’t always like being pitched to immediately after something, but That’s, you know, that’s going to be the, where you’re top of mind. They’re the warmest at that point. But after that, I like to let people kind of self segment. So like, they’re not getting every single email because most of us do not talk about just one topic to our email list every single week.
Uh, because that would get a little repetitive and boring and we run out of things to say. So I let people kind of select what they’re interested in. So for example, like for my podcast focus, I’ll let them like pick if they are You know where they’re at in the podcast process. Have they started one yet?
Are they in the growth phase? They want to monetize. Where are they at? So I can like cater my emails to them, which obviously adds more work to my part. But, they get what they want. I also add something about like, do you want to like learn how to pitch yourself to podcasts? They can select that one too, no matter if they have a podcast or not.
And then, you know, now I have like the mom focus brand. So I also kind of have some questions about that or, you know, I will be including those going forward. So I let them self segment so that. They’re not getting emails that they’re not excited about. I also give them the option to like opt out of specific promotions too.
So like initially in that first email that I’m emailing them about after the summit or just going forward, anytime I have a promotion, I have them give the option to opt out and then they can click there and then they don’t receive any more emails, but they’re still on my list. I give them the option to opt out of my like newsletter.
So like if, if they don’t want to receive that, they don’t have to receive that. They can just do product update. It’s only if they have one of my products. So giving people options is really, really helpful. And that’s going to, you know, you’re going to be able to retain those people a lot longer if you’re giving them those options, because if you’re just sending them blanket emails every single week, chances are they’re not going to be interested in absolutely everything you have to say.
So eventually if they get to the point where they’re like, okay, I got three weeks of emails and I’m like, eh, about. They’re probably going to hit the unsubscribe button. Sometimes people will hang out longer because they just ditch their inbox. But, um, yeah. And then it’s also good to clean your list regularly too.
Like if people haven’t opened your emails in a couple months, it’s okay to ditch them. Like I know it can be hard, but it’s okay to ditch them. Like you’re, you’re essentially paying for someone who’s not engaged, which is not really fun. Um, at the end of the day, especially if you’re getting close to that, like that limit of your next like tier of, email subscribers.
Yeah. Definitely, definitely get rid of that dead weight.
Colie: Yeah. I mean, I feel like with summits and I don’t have any experience as a host, of course, but I have experience as being a participant in a summit and then also being a speaker in a summit. And I feel like sometimes I will sign up for a summit because I love one of the speakers, but of course I’m signing up and the host is who’s getting my email.
So if that host does not, at some point. like identify themselves by name and help me to like put an email to a, you know what I mean? It’s like put a face to a name, but that’s not what you do in emails. But like, I have of course had a few where I signed up for a summit. It wasn’t really apparent like who the host was or anything like that.
And then like a few weeks or even a few months down the line, they send me an email and I’m like, Who is
Jenny: heard from them all this time.
Colie: you know, I, I Google, I look up the name in my email and I see, oh, they were the host of the summit. Okay, but I haven’t heard from them in a few months and like I have no idea who they are.
Unsubscribe.
Jenny: Right. Yeah. So I think it’s, it’s good to start early. I mean, you don’t need to be like on them the very next day. Like, oh, the summit’s ended. Okay. Let’s like be annoying and get in your inbox.
Colie: Mm
Jenny: don’t wait months. Either because people are going to forget and if you do wait a little bit longer, like there’s nothing wrong with sending an email to that specific new segment of people that subscribed.
Via the summit and say like, Hey, just popping in. This is Jenny, the host of XYZ summit, you know, like remind them it’s okay. Like, you’re not going to do that every time you email them for like the next year, but like, like maybe the first one or two emails that you’ve sent after the summit, remind them,
and recently it’s been interesting though, because I’ve, I know I didn’t sign up for these people’s lists, but clearly the summit host did share the emails because I, I got emails like, Oh, Hey, I’m just popping in from XYZ summit. And I’m like, well, I don’t sign up for your freebie. Like, you know, like. Not that I wouldn’t have signed up for their freebie, but I just didn’t because I just I know that I didn’t and I’m like, Oh, this feels icky.
Like even though they’re identifying themselves where they came from, it still felt like icky. I’m like, oh, I didn’t I didn’t realize I was gonna be on all these
Colie: on all these lists. Well, you know, the very first summit that I participated in as a participant, , I’m not going to name her, although she’s not currently in the industry anymore, but it was someone who used to do Facebook ads and I signed up for a summit. And I don’t even believe at that point that any of the speakers were like doing freebies.
Like, I don’t think that was a thing when I first was, you know, Participated in that summit. And then all of a sudden, two weeks after I got slammed
Jenny: With like everyone that
Colie: everyone who it’s. And at first I was just really confused. I was like, okay, clearly my email got hacked. Like, I, I could not figure out what was going on.
And then finally, when I Googled one of the people’s names, like the summit was still on their Instagram. And I was like, oh. Like all 40 speakers got my email and pretty much all emailed me at the same time.
Jenny: Right. Yeah, I
Colie: I was just like, wow.
Jenny: That’s, that was the same thing for me. I mean, it wasn’t that big, but it still is like, I feel like everyone just like decided to send an email on the same
Colie: On the same day. Yeah. I mean,
Jenny: Was that part of like the guidelines? Like, hey, you know, we’re gonna give you your, the list. You guys need to email like this week.
Kind of situation. I don’t know, but it was very bizarre. I mean, I was happy they identified themselves because I would have just thought I got it. Signed up for like a random people’s list, but yeah, they would say I’m from the XYZ summit. I’m like great I didn’t even watch any of those sessions.
So there’s no way that like I forgot, you know So there’s no way that I downloaded your freebie because I literally forgot to attend
Colie: Yeah. Okay. So. We’ve already talked about the benefits of a summit, both from a host and a speaking perspective. What about participants? Like, why would I want to sign up for a summit? I mean, I know what I think, but I’m interested in what you think.
Jenny: yeah, I think the main reason people sign up for summits is like Well, some people are in the, the boat of like funnel hacking, they want to see how the behind the scenes works because they’re like, I’m thinking about hosting an event myself. Let’s see how it works. Like, what does their thank you page look like?
What does this look like? I do that a lot too. Like, sometimes I don’t even care about the event. I’m like, I just want to see what their backend looks like. To see how we can kind of zhuzh up ours. Um, that’s not the only reason I set up, but that can be a, that can be a factor. But I think people are like, they see a session or two or maybe three, five that look really interesting that they want to learn from.
They want to support one of the speakers. They really like one of the speakers and they’re like, Oh, she’s never, I’ve never seen her do this talk before. Let’s like see what it’s all about because they really like that speaker. Maybe it’s someone they’re like a super fan of, and then they get to know other speakers through that.
There are people who I literally have seen at our event for years. And I’m like, it’s so interesting because like. Some people are just chronic learners, like they just want to learn and learn and learn and learn and learn, which can be hard because it sometimes can lead to inaction because they’re just learning and learning and not doing.
Uh, yeah.
Colie: Mm hmm.
Jenny: that can be something to like people just like, or some people just literally sign up for every single event that they see, like I’ve literally, there’s some people that I’ve like, I like anytime I host an event or Lindsay hosts an event or we do our joint event, I’m like, Yeah. There’s always gonna be these handful of people that go to everything and like, that’s great.
Like nothing wrong with that, but it’s just interesting. But yeah, I think it’s people are chronic learners. They want a funnel hack. They really want to support one of the one or two of the speakers that, that is speaking at the event that they really enjoy. And I don’t know, some people do as a procrastination technique.
They’re like, I don’t feel like working on my own business.
Colie: Let me do a summit. Okay.
Jenny: Yeah.
Colie: I’ve always thought of summits as like, taster menus, if you will. It’s like, I usually, if I see that there’s a speaker that I have kind of been interested in one of their paid offers before, and I see that they’re speaking at a summit, I will sign up for a ticket so that I can watch their
Jenny: like learn, like their learning, or how their teaching style
Colie: exactly and to see if there’s somebody that I vibe with, or if what they’re discussing is actually like something that would benefit me or from a perspective that I value, because there’s a lot of topics that I’m interested in, but not everyone covers them in a way that like, feels. I don’t want to say ethical because then people are going to jump down my throat, but like, there’s a lot of ways
Jenny: It’s just not, yeah, it’s not
Colie: and I’m very particular about.
Yeah. So. That was what I have done as a participant, but I’ve also done probably all of the other ones that you mentioned interested in seeing their funnel from the back end. I’m interested in supporting a particular speaker or a host. I mean, these are all things that interest me and I feel like as much as we can to support these kinds of events means that more people will put them on because if there gets a point where people are hosting virtual events and like you said, spending like 75 hours putting it together.
If the rate on your investment, like if you’re not getting a return on your investment of time and money, people are going to start posting them and then we’re not going to really have these really great opportunities to kind of get a sneak peek into someone’s teaching personality and, you know, get those kind of quick wins because I do think that’s one thing that I want to say, just in case anyone, if It’s not familiar with summits.
It’s listening is that don’t expect to go and like have someone teach you their entire process. A to
Jenny: like easy. Yeah. No, that’s not the point of it. Yeah. Yeah. No, that’s a big, big expectation to have a someone for free, right? They’re usually like 20, 25 minute presentations and no one can cover their entire business in that amount of time. Um, but yeah, I love that you mentioned that the teaser thing. Cause yeah, that is really true.
It’s a great way to see like someone’s teaching style without having to, you know, invest in the product first, which is really, really nice. Especially if it’s like a. More expensive program or something that you’re eyeing and they don’t really have anything that’s like 97 or below.
Colie: Yeah. Okay. So let me ask you one final question because I mean, this, this conversation has just been amazing. If you had to give advice to someone first who wanted to host their own event, what advice would you give them in order to make the event as successful as possible? Mm hmm.
Jenny: I would say don’t try to do everything that you’re seeing people who are seasoned are doing because you’re, something’s going to slip through the cracks. If you’re literally trying to do something that someone’s been doing for like five plus years, like I said, we did not start where we’re at now, right?
And if we try to do everything that we do now, back then, it would have been an epic failure because we just weren’t there. We didn’t, we didn’t have the knowledge. We didn’t have the resources. We didn’t have the time. We didn’t have. You know, we just didn’t have what we needed to make that happen. So I, I don’t, I mean, I’m not saying like, it needs to be completely a hundred percent bare bones because people’s expectations about summits have kind of increased since 2018, but like, you don’t need to go all out.
You don’t need to have a sponsors your first time. You don’t need to have like all these like fancy extra things. You don’t need to have like, you know, people do like these little. Goodie bags, which are like, it’s not really a sponsor, but it’s like a paid thing where people can kind of include a product and get everyone can get that.
So there’s like so many different things you can do, like, you don’t need to do everything. You know, and it’s, you can, you can go outside the box. That’s okay too. That’s fun. I think that’s, that’s fun to experiment, but you don’t need to do absolutely everything because you’re gonna burn yourself out.
Something’s going to fall through the and then it’s going to reflect poorly on you, whether to your speakers or your participants, and then they’re going to be like, well, I don’t want to ever like attend or speak at event that so and so hosts because something slipped through the cracks. That was kind of major and people, you know.
We’re into that. So
Colie: What advice would you have for someone who wants to speak at their first summit and they want to make sure that it’s as good of an experience as it can be for them?
Jenny: good question. So, have like, when you’re pitching to like, if you’re not, if they’re not reaching out to you directly, if you’re like doing an application process or something, give multiple topics when you are pitching to like, for the application, because if you just give 1 chances are, they might already have that filled and then they’re just not even going to reach out to you.
They’re just going to like, be like, oh, unfortunately, we have that already filled, whatever. So give multiple topics. And then when you get accepted, definitely have like, you know, if you can build out a more custom sequence. So when people do subscribe to your freebie, you are able to kind of cater to them specifically and say like, thanks so much for joining this freebie via the blah, blah, blah summit or whatever.
So people know where they kind of came from, because it can be really easy to forget. So that’s another thing. And then, you know, in your, in your presentation, like, don’t be afraid to give away. A lot of information. I feel like sometimes people get like really, they get hung up and they’re like, well, if I’m giving this, this for free, then why is anyone going to pay me?
So I think kind of like, don’t be afraid to give away a lot of information because I feel like obviously you’re still going to have more to offer. It’s like that 20 to 25 minutes is going to give away every single part of your brain and no one’s going to ever invest in you ever again.
Colie: So don’t be stingy and like, have a little bit of faith in
Jenny: Like most of the time when we get summit presentations, they’re amazing. We’ve, Linda and I have had a couple experiences where we got something and we’re like not really pleased with it, especially after knowing like what that person can do because we’ve seen them do other stuff. and you know, sometimes people have a bad day.
They’re not, you know, their presentation doesn’t, doesn’t go well, but, yeah, just, just don’t, don’t be stingy, like you said, and don’t be afraid to give away more than you think you should, because that’s like, that’s going to get more people opting into your stuff. That’s going to get more people wanting to work with you at the end, even though you might think, That, it’s not.
You might think, oh, well now they know everything I can teach, so that’s it. It’s like, no, that’s, that’s not it.
Colie: you cannot possibly give away everything that you have in your brain in 25 minutes Or you would not have a business.
Jenny: Yeah, exactly,
Colie: Like I
Jenny: You would have failed already.
Colie: I feel really good when people ask me for help on Instagram or my emails. If I can answer you in less than five minutes and give you a win, I will absolutely do it.
Even if it means you’ll never have to hire me for that. Because again, if I can solve your problem in five minutes, I don’t need you to pay me
Jenny: Exactly.
Colie: just wait until you have a bigger problem that I can solve for you that will take me more than five minutes.
Jenny: Exactly. I love
Colie: All right, Jenny. This has been amazing.
If the listening audience wants to connect with you more, where can they find you?
Jenny: Yeah. So the place I hang out the most is my Instagram. That is just, jenny. suneson. So my name with a period in between. And then if you want to check out Lindsay and I’s stuff that we do all about summits, if you’re thinking about hosting a summit, we are at summitsuccesssquad. com. And yeah, we, we do like.
VIP days and setups and we have like a DIY course and things like that about Summit. So, um, lots of fun over there if you’re like, if you listen to this and you’re like, Oh, Summit sounds really
Colie: sounds good. I need some help.
Jenny: Yeah, exactly. So, yep.
Colie: All right, everyone. I hope that you have been just a little inspired to either host a summit, Participate in a summit as a speaker, or just grab a ticket for the next summit that, you know, tickles your fancy, but that is it for this episode. See you next time.
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