Listen Now:
When you’re planning a list build summit… there are a lot of options for the tech to use. And frankly, it’s overwhelming.
So today we’re going to talk about what tech to use – and what to avoid – because streamlining your process will help you be more efficient and more successful in the long run. From your tech stack to your communication tools – tech matters. And we’re here to help.
Planning
Asana or Trello (task management)
Slack (team communication)
Google Drive (content creation & file organization)
Build
ClickFunnels (for your opt-in and sales pages)
ActiveCampaign (email marketing system)
Zoom (to conduct interviews)
Vimeo or Wistia (to host your videos)
Promote
Canva (graphics)
Google Docs (for your copy)
Publer (social scheduler)
iDev Affiliate (for speaker promotion links & affiliate management)
Host
Facebook Groups
Engage
All the tech you already have!
Links to Previous Summit Episodes
Episode 06 – 11 Reasons You're Not Building Your List (and what to do about it)
Episode 80 – What a summit producer REALLY does vs. what people think they do
Episode 10 – How to Engage Your List (after your list build) To Create Raving Fans
Episode 117 – List Building Basics for Non-Fiction Authors
Episode 18 – Your Promotion Timeline: What to promote, when, and how (no matter how long your promo period is)
Episode 32 – How to host a list build and still run your business
Episode 36 – How To Engage Your Audience For Maximum Results During Your List Build
Episode 37 – How to Successfully Use Upsells to Monetize a Free Event
Episode 50 – Which List Build Is Right For Me?
Episode 66 – Behind The Scenes of 2 Summit Launches 6 Weeks Apart
Episode 74 – Boost Your Summit VIP Sales with These 3 Expert Strategies
Episode 88 – How To Use a List Build If You Sell Physical Products
Episode 92 – Gathering the RIGHT Experts For Your Next Online Summit
Taking Events Online with Virtual Summits featuring Dr. Mark T. Wade
Alyson Lex 0:02
Now, I will be the first one to say that I am not a summit expert. Yes, I have written copy, a very successful copy for a lot of summits. And yes, I have strategized and I've been really involved in learning everything that goes into a successful summit. But I'm definitely not the expert. That would be Jenny, you know her, she's on this thing with me. And she knows the tech she really keeps her finger on the pulse of what is out there. What is available, what's an option for you when you run your Summit, and your list build events. And so today, I'm going to kind of interview her about all of that stuff. We're going to talk about the tech today and really break it down. So what I did was I identified really the five phases of running a list build event mostly summits are you've got the planning phase, then the building phase, then the promo phase, then the hosting phase, and then the post-event engagement phase. And I'm going to break it down and ask Jenny what tech do we need at each part of this? Why and I think what you're going to find the most interested in what we can skip because I don't know about you but I like shiny things great Oh yeah.
Jennie Wright 1:33
Oh yes. There's been a lot of no you don't need that you won't need
Alyson Lex 1:39
so cool look what I could do
Unknown Speaker 1:46
yes and no
Jennie Wright 1:52
there's a lot of people who use a lot of Summit you know what I get it I get it when you're first doing a summit I get the whole Oh, I could do this. I can do all that I can have this fun. I can play with that. I can add this in. And yeah, so I get to be the bearer of bad news sometimes The Grinch the whatever you want to call me and say
Alyson Lex 2:13
killjoy party pooper the killjoy, Debbie Downer. Oh, fun, fun police. Damn, I could keep going
Jennie Wright 2:22
copywriter for a reason she? Oh, my goodness, and I get to be that person. So super fun. burst the bubbles. But you just don't need all that stuff. Now. Here's the caveat. Okay. If you've run summits before, and you are trying to get like high-level stuff happening, you've got you're really building a monumental event. Yes, you're going to need some extra bells and whistles. But brand spanking new first-time summit or even your third Summit. You don't need all the bells and whistles. I will say, however, that as you get used to doing summits, the more you do, the more we're going to add stuff in to elevate the experience. But the rule of thumb is, if it doesn't add and make sense. It's a no.
Alyson Lex 3:15
I think the knee-jerk reaction is to dream really big about what you want to include in your event. And just do it all. Because this is your event. So you get to make it your dream event. Right? Like, oh, as an attendee, I would think this is so cool, or, Oh, this is awesome, I can really see the potential for XYZ. And I think it's really easy to get kind of sold into all of those promises that these tools give you.
Jennie Wright 3:49
You do. On the other side, you get sold into that, however, now you've got to either manage it, make it work, have it happen in within the summit, and your summit manager or the person who's handling your stuff, has to be able to make it work has to get the technology working and it has to speak and work with your other pieces of technology. There's the
Alyson Lex 4:17
rub. That's the big key, right, making it work, especially. I mean, we're going to talk about a bunch of different things today. So I want to just kind of dive in and start with the planning
Jennie Wright 4:28
for Smith.
Alyson Lex 4:30
I know it is. I know if I could just magically have things planned for me. That would be funny.
Jennie Wright 4:37
You do it's called me.
Alyson Lex 4:38
Yeah. You make me think a lot though.
Jennie Wright 4:43
I do I do. I push you Okay, let's talk about playing.
Alyson Lex 4:47
Alright, so I know what tools I like to use, but what are the tools that you recommend for successful summit planning?
Jennie Wright 4:58
I really recommend in that room Early stages you keep it simple, okay, so that is, if a task management software is your thing, if it helps you then look at things like Asana, or you know something that's free, versus a paid product. But we'll talk about that team communication. I love using slack. Now Asana does have a team communication tool, but it is not very intuitive, at least not yet. So I use Slack for team communication, if it's you, and more than one person. So if you have a virtual assistant, if you have somebody who's doing your design, or your copy, or whatever, having everybody in the Slack channel actually really, really works. And then essentials, like a super essential is having a Google Drive. The reason I picked google, google drive over Dropbox is two very simple reasons. One, Google Drive, you can do cooperative documents. Now, Dropbox has added that still clunky, just gonna say. But the second reason is, is that you run at a space faster on a Dropbox than you do on a Google Drive. So if you have a virtual assistant, and that virtual assistant is maybe in a different country, and they have the free version of Dropbox, they're going to run out of space, super quick, with summit with graphics and expert pictures and bios and everything that go into these things. And they're not going to be able to access it unless they upgrade. And not everybody wants to pay to upgrade their Dropbox. Most people have the space in their Google Drive. So that's the choice there.
Alyson Lex 6:31
I really like that. And one of the things that we do with our personal summits. And I know that you do with the summit's of your clients is you have template documents. Oh yeah, in Google Drive, you set up the folder for them. And now it's like, Okay, here's my master planning sheet. And it's got all of my needed files. And it integrates with, like Google Forms. So for Speaker intake and things like that. So it just all works really well.
Jennie Wright 7:04
Mm hmm. That's another thing in the planning. So instead of getting type form or any other paid form software, just use Google Forms, Google Forms, you're going to use that. There's two ways we do that. So usually, we do two applications. First one is for potential speakers, and that has basic information, etc. And then we have an accepted speaker or you know, an approved speaker form. So you're looking at creating two forms. With Google Forms. It's incredibly manipulate you can, it's really malleable, you can make it what you want. And you can have people upload pictures and things back in the day. And this wasn't that long ago, you had to have a special plugin to make that happen. Now it's integrated into the form, it's super easy. You don't need to have things like a paid type form account to do it. Google Forms works just fine.
Alyson Lex 7:56
So you mentioned that we can skip type form or job form or any of those paid versions, what else can we skip? In the planning part.
Jennie Wright 8:07
We can skip Oh, so many things, we can skip the paid sort of like mind mapping software, the paid funnel mapping software. So these are things that when you're starting to think about a summit, and you start researching summits, if that's what you're doing on Google, congratulations, you're now cookied. And you're going to get ads for different types of Summit related programs and services. One of them might be these funnel mapping software's where it's like, oh, you can lay out your funnel and your emails, and you're this and you're that? Well, they only allow you to do like one free and then everything else is paid. So I don't recommend that you don't actually need it. You know, if you work with somebody like me, you kind of get all the templates that you need anyways, so you don't really need to pay for that stuff. I always
Alyson Lex 8:55
map funnels out with boxes and arrows on a piece of paper. And then I take a picture of it and throw it into Google.
Jennie Wright 9:00
Yeah. And then she sends it to me and goes, I'd like it to look this way. actually works, it works just fine. So paper and pen is fine, too. Just the main thing is, is that you have to keep it simple. If you're working within 15 Different platforms to build out an event, it's going to get very complex. And I will tell you that the more stuff you keep adding, the more challenging it's going to be when you go to do this, and you really don't want it to be. You want to keep it as simple as possible. And quite honestly use tools that you will continue to use after the event so that you're not paying for something that you're only using for four or three months. And then when it's done now you're stuck with this piece of software. Right? So absolutely just use stuff that you're going to continue to use. I use Google Forms all the time. I use you know, I use Google Docs every day. But I don't need to spend money on things like paid project management software. Asana works just fine.
Alyson Lex 9:55
I think to about that is us especially with With your project management stuff, use something that you're going to
Jennie Wright 10:02
use. Oh, God, have we had this conversation enough times you and I just personally, I mean,
Alyson Lex 10:09
it doesn't matter how many bells and whistles and features and pretty things that your project management software has if you don't ever put a project in it.
Jennie Wright 10:21
What have we used? A sauna?
Alyson Lex 10:23
I've used what haven't I used?
Jennie Wright 10:26
Sauna click up Basecamp. Monday monday.com. What's the other one with the title? Like the cards? Trello trial? Sorry, just gives me a shiver when I hear that one. And there might be some Trello fans listening to this. But Trello I'm, I can't use the cards. It is not visually, it's not enough for me. I can't see a project at a glance for me personally, I need to have it in the list. But yeah, the other thing is Asana may not be your thing, find the thing. Everything. Every one of these things has like a free trial or even what do you call it? Trello is free as well. They have paid components, but you don't need it for this kind of stuff.
Alyson Lex 11:08
Alright, so now we've got it all planned. We figured it all out. We're going to build it. How do we what do we need to do that?
Jennie Wright 11:18
What do we need to do to build a summit? Okay. Well, if you so the the preamble for that is, if you want your summit to convert? Well. There's only a set amount of software that I would recommend. If you just want to build it. You can build it anywhere you can build it on your WordPress site. But it's not, it's not going to convert as well as it would on a software that it's designed for conversion. So I have this conversation every day, nobody really gets it until I explain it. Okay, a page builder, a website. Yes, they all do the same things. But a website is designed to have your website on it and your website content. It's not necessarily designed to convert people into registrations or to VIPs. A landing page software, such as and I'm going to always recommend Click Funnels. And this is pre Clickfunnels 2.0. If you don't already know Clickfunnels is coming out with a new platform update. We don't know when it's coming. At the time of this recording. It's been recently announced. But we know it's coming at some point in the next couple of months. So back to this, I'm going to recommend Click Funnels. But these page builders
Jennie Wright 12:41
are not created equal. So each page builder is slightly different and some are optimized for converting as an example. We, I'm always going to recommend Click Funnels I'm going to tell you not to build it on a website. Because when we're doing it on your website, again, it's just not going to necessarily convert as well. So if we want to get high conversions, let's go for a product that works. Okay, so you're also going to need an email marketing provider. This is somewhere to house all of your emails. Okay. We're always going to recommend the Active Campaign if you don't already have one. You know, yes, you could go cheap and cheerful with MailChimp. But MailChimp is not going to be the thing that I would recommend as your business grows. I'm going to recommend Active Campaign. You also need to make sure 100% That whatever it is that you choose as your landing page software and your email marketing software that they talk to each other through integration. If not, you're going to have to use a third party software like Zapier. Okay or Zapier, depending on where you are in the world, we say Zapier up here and in Canadia. Okay,
Alyson Lex 13:47
first thing is I call it Zapier, but I call it a zap. I don't call it a Zapier. So,
Jennie Wright 13:54
so really, Mm hmm. Yeah, think about that one. Okay. Okay, well, there we go. So, yeah, we know, we definitely need to have an email marketing software, this is where those emails are all going to live. And, you know, it has to be robust enough that you can create things like automations and segmentation in your list at some point, which would be awesome. The other thing that you need to build when you're when you have to have when you're building a summit is you need somewhere that to you're going to record your videos, your interviews with your experts, or to record a video or an opt in video or something along those lines. And the recommendation I'm always gonna say is absolutely get zoom, but pony up for the lowest paid plan. You don't need the webinar plan or the I'm a school teacher plan or I'm a CEO plan or the enterprise plan. Just get the cheapest plan out there. I think it's still 1999 US funds. Yeah, I
Alyson Lex 14:53
think it's 15 or 20 bucks a month.
Jennie Wright 14:55
Oh Canada In Canada. Yeah. So converted to Canadian It's 9099 a month, but in the States, I think it's like 15 or something. Yeah. And then you need somewhere to host your videos. So you record all these videos with your experts. And if you don't know how to run a summit, please go and check out one of our actual summit episodes where we describe this in more detail. But you need somewhere to host the videos that you've created. So there are two options that I'm going to recommend. The first one is YouTube, it's free. And Vimeo, Vimeo, to upload your videos from a summit, you're going to have to pay, you know, there's different plans, the lowest paid plan is usually okay. But usually you're gonna have to upgrade to a Pro Plan. So expect that if you do that, you're going to pay about $400. Vimeo has some great features that you can't get on YouTube, right. So with Vimeo, we can take the title off the video. And we have some, you know, some other cool things and features to make the video look really awesome, inside of our summit. And if that is a sticking point for you, then that might be where you spend a little money. YouTube is free. There's no limits on what we can upload, except how many you can upload in a week, I think it is or in a day in a day. So try not to upload like 25 videos in a day. But it's free. Now, you're also going to have like the name of your video across the top and you can't get the you know, you can't really get rid of the YouTube logo. But if that's not a big deal for you, then it works perfectly fine. And can I tell you some of the biggest people in the online stage are using it.
Alyson Lex 16:31
No problem. So the question that I have is when it comes to YouTube, because I know that you can, if the titles there, you can click on the title and it'll open it in YouTube. And then theoretically, you can save that link. So is that a concern?
Jennie Wright 16:48
Ah, it depends on the person. Yes. And so technically, it is something that people can do, the majority of people don't really do that kind of thing. And if they are, they're going to find a way. So if you pay for a Vimeo account, you can make it so that people can't download it. And they can literally only watch it on the platform that they're watching it on on the page that are watching it on, and they can't download it
Alyson Lex 17:13
from there. So
Jennie Wright 17:17
you sort of have to pick your battles on that one. If people really want your software or sorry, if people really want your video, they will rip it in any way that they can find it. So as quickly as something like Vimeo comes up with a way to keep it from being downloaded. There's other pieces of software out there that can still figure out a way to rip it off of Vimeo. I honestly do not concern myself with stuff like that. I concern myself with the stuff that I can absolutely control. And I don't worry about the rest. And I focus on a great experience if the people really, really want to download the video. Okay, great. What am I going to be able to do? Like I'm just not going to worry about that stuff. I'm going to worry about high conversion, selling my VIP creating an amazing experience. And everything else that I can't 100% control I'm not gonna fret.
Alyson Lex 18:12
Alright, so that's a really good segue into the you can skip it, because you can skip the paid video hosting if you want. What else can we skip?
Jennie Wright 18:23
We can skip this. Okay, Jenny's getting her soapbox on her high horse all at once here. I absolutely want to skip and recommend that you skip these all in one solutions. Oh, freaking MJ. So the the phrase of all in one master of none really does apply here. Right. So these all in one summit software's they are so intriguing, and they say they have everything you need. But here's the problem. Unless you're running back to backs on it, you're now paying for software that you're only using for four months. And then probably closing if you're not doing another summit pretty soon. And now everything for your Summit is in a piece of software that you no longer have access to. What I would rather you do is have software that you're going to use for the entire like for a long time in your business. Okay, so I'm always going to use for me, I'm going to build other pages and click funnels than a summit. I'm going to build my landing pages and my challenge pages and my webinar pages. But you can't do it in these all in one summit software solutions. Those are only for summits. So now you're You mean like now you have to get another piece of software to do thing. Like it doesn't really make sense. And you don't need to have complicated email marketing software. Okay. Nobody needs to spend the $400 a month on the most complicated email marketing software out there. The confusing one, the confusing one that shall remain nameless.
Alyson Lex 19:55
But I'm sure we can all figure it out. It's yeah does lead to a lot of confusion, and software and software? Well, we are not subtle at all. Those complicated, why don't you recommend them
Jennie Wright 20:17
because they have bells and whistles that you don't need. So you should, it really is a Goldilocks situation, you really only need to get the the one thing that you want it the right size, temperature, taste all the things that you need. And nothing else, you don't need all those extra bells and whistles. Because you're not going to use them. They're wasted features that you're paying for. Right. And the other thing that I don't recommend, and you totally should skip this as a total skip is software that's still in beta. You never want to run an important event like a summit off a beta platform. One you're paying for the company to keep developing the software to there's going to be features that are still in buggy versions. So do you really want to have your event have potential bugs, like I had somebody run there wanted to run their entire software in a beta program. And when it came to launch or some it wasn't a client of mine, by the way, cuz I would never let that happen. But it was somebody you know, was just somebody I knew. And they're like, Oh, my God, Jennie Wright, like, nobody can access day one. Nobody can do this. Nobody can do that. I'm like, oh, shocker. Wow. Right.
Alyson Lex 21:26
Sarcastic Jennie came out Holy guacamole nah, see
Jennie Wright 21:29
sarcasm? Like, what is it? These are the consequences of my actions.
Alyson Lex 21:37
The other thing that I think might be really important, and it kind of goes back to what you were saying about your email marketing provider, is you want to just make sure that whatever software you choose, if you choose the software, that it talks to all your other software, and I personally, again, not a tech expert, but I know my way around and I always look for native API integration, that's something that you're going to look for. Okay, so let me just for the uninitiated, let me break down what this integration thing looks like. Okay, so you have product A, and you have product B. If it has a native API integration, it means that the development teams of those two products have gotten together had a meeting and said, yes, we want to work with you. And they've given each other code back and forth, so that those software's connect like a puzzle piece. Okay, if it doesn't have a native API integration, but it has a Zapier or Zapier integration, that is where Zapier is friends with product A and Zapier is friends with product B. And it's like that game of telephone, where instead of straight communication, Product A tells Zapier who tells product B, there are limitations. There are things that you can't pass along through Zapier. Alright, so look for native API integration, for anything that you're doing. Because it would really suck to like, have 1000 people sign up for your Summit, or 500, or even 100, it would suck to have 100 people sign up. And then you have to do everything manually. Which has happened? Totally. Alright, so we have gone through, plan, and build, then the next step in putting together a summit is to promote it. So what are we going to use?
Jennie Wright 23:47
We're going to use one of your favorite tools in the entire world, Allison,
Alyson Lex 23:50
I do love this tool. So so much. Yes, you do.
Jennie Wright 23:53
So Canva, Canva, Canva, Canva, Canva Canva. Unless you are completely not able to design anything whatsoever, and you need to hire a graphic designer Canva is going to be your go to, right so either you or your designer can build in Canva to create everything you need for your event. You don't need to have some of the bigger programs, which we're gonna talk about a bit later. But you can really use things like camp I know some people prefer there's other Canva esque style software. Sure if you prefer that go for it. The main goal is is that you're not spending a boatload of money on graphics and stuff like that. The only thing I will say is it has to look good. Okay, so if if you're really not talented at all in creating something in Canva like if you are like me, and the best thing you can produce his stick drawings. Then hire somebody to do your graphics. Okay. Well,
Alyson Lex 24:56
and I will say that I'm pretty good in Canva you're But you're, you're crazy good and Canva it's not where I need to be spending my time, I just forbid you to be in there. It's all right. So I do hire out for my graphics because I don't want to spend my time in there. And they use Canva.
Jennie Wright 25:15
And it looks great, like you wouldn't know. You know, and Canvas grown so much so worth it. The other thing for promo ng is you want to use thing again, this is where you're going to use the same tools. And by the way, Canva, you can use it forever, right? So it's a it's going to be something that you can keep in your business for the long haul, I'm always wanting you to have something that's going to be something you'll reuse versus a one and done. Google Docs. This is where you can get all of your copy together for your event, because there's a boatload of copy when you're creating a summit, emails, promo, copy, etc. And Google Docs is a great way to build that out. And also to take some of the you know, take some of the templates, if you're working with somebody like me, take the templates that I provide and customize them for yourself. If you're doing social media, and you want to post everything and get it all ready ahead of time, you can use a posting software, like popular, popular is cheap and cheerful. It does the job. It doesn't have any of the bells and whistles you don't need and just has enough to work. Alison and I were early adopters into bubbler. And we're glad we did because it's been really useful for posting stuff in social media. The other thing for promo and again, this relates back to our page builder is click funnels, click funnels, I like for my page building. But it also for me, hosts my order forms, my confirmation pages, my speaker pages, all of it, everything can go into this funnel. So everything's in one place that works. And it's all optimized, in my opinion for conversion. And then the last thing is if you do want to have affiliate, there's lots of affiliate software out there, there's Thrive cart, there's, you know, all these different styles of Affiliate Software with different price points. I'd like you to entertain that you don't need to spend five or six or $1,000 on an affiliate software, you can go cheap and cheerful with the thing that works. I just use IDEV affiliate, it cost me so it cost me like $30 a month when I'm live in a summit. And then I go into maintenance mode post summit and it cost me nine bucks a month until I needed to get right and it has all my stuff. So I find that really helpful.
Alyson Lex 27:31
I really like I dove and I use it and I have it. But I did not know about this maintenance mode. So after we're done recording, can you tell me how to do that?
Jennie Wright 27:44
Yep, context support. That's all it is email, one email, the contact support, and it's done.
Alyson Lex 27:49
Perfect. Yeah, so I dive is. It's a little bit of a beast sometimes because it does integrate with everything. You just have to know how to set it up. There's a little bit of a learning curve there.
Alyson Lex 28:08
Just saying
Jennie Wright 28:08
Yeah, but there's been also also, also also also, wow, new word. In addition to there's a lot of training videos in there. Yeah, there's so much documentation. Yeah. And the support team is pretty. They're pretty responsive. Yeah. So if you decide, obviously, they'll probably help you out. It's definitely
Alyson Lex 28:31
one of the most powerful tools that I've ever used when it comes to that. And I like it. What can we skip with promotion, okay, I'm
Jennie Wright 28:43
going to be really unpopular with my partner in about 10 seconds. And that is that you don't need to have Adobe Photoshop or InDesign or any of those. Now, he's a purist. He loves to design in Photoshop and things like that, because he literally has a design background. However, for the rest of the world for the rest of us who don't have that experience. Like I said earlier, Canva is just fine. So you don't need to pay for Photoshop or InDesign or any of those that are super expensive. And then the other thing is to promo your event.
Unknown Speaker 29:15
I want you to take a deep breath.
Jennie Wright 29:18
Because you do not need to pay for ads. Okay, you don't need to pay for ads. You don't need to put buckets of money into ADS. This is why a summit is so cool. And I'm going to get on my soapbox for a second. The current price per lead for a summit can be anywhere between 15 to $35 per lead per lead. When we're doing the summit through organic traffic. And we're using our experts to help us promote and to get exposure. We're averaging somewhere between depending on how good it's going $2 to about $11 a lead organically. That's a huge savings.
Alyson Lex 29:59
You What do you mean two to $11 a lead if it's organic, clarify that for me.
Jennie Wright 30:04
So the clarification for that comes from everything that you've paid to build your Summit. Okay. So if you've hired a copywriter, if you've hired a designer, if you've hired me, put all of that together that price, then figure out how many people are, you know, have registered for your event. Okay, do a little bit of math and you know, do a division, and find out what your cost per lead is. Now, if you, if you're paying for, you know, a copywriter, designer, Jenny, and you put all that together, and then you're going to go pay traffic, know that you're going to be charged by Facebook, Instagram, and or whoever else you're going to do pay traffic with approximately, it's going to cost you if you do the auction style, it will cost you approximately $35 a lead. So do the math, if you want, you know, 100 people on your Summit, it's 100 times approximately 35.
Alyson Lex 31:01
Yeah, if you want 1000 registrants, be prepared to spend $35,000 on that, yes. And you don't need to use what you're spending on everything else.
Jennie Wright 31:10
Exactly. You could spend zero on paid traffic, absolutely zero and pay traffic, still get your 1000 leads because you empowered your experts, and you got the right experts, which is a totally different episode to actually promote your event, and you can still get 1000 leads.
Alyson Lex 31:28
That's awesome. I am on board. And I know that one of the things that you and I have been talking about, just because you mentioned you could still get 1000 leads is and maybe this is another episode we should do is really how to set those expectations of what you can expect as a result. You know, with full transparency, my last summit, I had about five ish 100 registrations give or take. I was happy with that number. When I looked at it objectively, when I was emotional about it, I was like, where's my other leads. But when I looked at what the expectations were my starting platform, how niched and I was, what my experts had the promotion that actually happened, all of these things, it was a reasonable expectation. So I don't want to fall too far down that rabbit hole, because then we wouldn't have another episode worth of content to do. So. Trying to save that, keep an eye out, I'm sure that's coming up. Alright, we've got our registrations, however many they are based on our expectations. Now it's time to host the event.
Jennie Wright 32:38
This is super simple. Zoom, Facebook group. If you don't want to do a Facebook group, that's fine, too. You don't need to but zoom, essential. And a Facebook group.
Alyson Lex 32:47
That's it. That's it. So. So I don't need any of those fancy schmancy shiny things that, frankly, look really, really cool.
Jennie Wright 33:00
You don't you don't need the you don't need the live conference software, or the fake live conference software. You don't need the breakout room software, you don't need any of that stuff. You literally don't need any of it, you can get it. But somebody like me is always going to be how is this adding to the experience if you if your only justification is, but it looks cool. That is not a good enough reason.
Alyson Lex 33:27
Yeah, well, and I think that some of the trend has been because virtual, like events have gone virtual. And people are really trying to emulate that live event experience. And this will kind of talk about engagement, which is we have it as a post event, but you want to engage during the event. So the more you create that live event experience, the more engaged your people will be right like, Yeah,
Jennie Wright 33:55
and you can do that with Zoom. Right? So you can you know, you can do that with Zoom, you can go as far as using a piece of software, like stream yard if you want. There's other there's other pieces of software. But I'm like I mean, Zoom is sufficient. If you're anti zoom, and you would prefer to use a different piece of software. Absolutely. You go for it. But Zoom is sufficient to making it happen. Again, it's just if it's not adding to the experience, and it's only just cool and shiny. It's not enough. It's not enough a reason, right? It's just not.
Alyson Lex 34:29
I totally agree. And I think too, you don't want to take them off the social platform they're already on.
Jennie Wright 34:35
Agreed. So as an example, mighty networks, okay. Money networks is a software that's out there that a lot of people like to use, and it creates communities and boards and you know, different things and communication channels and stuff. The problem with it is is that you're asking people to leave a platform that they're already currently on and participating on to now join another one that they're only going To attend because of your event, they're not going to be part of many networks, most likely for anything else. So they're only going to be doing it for your thing. And now you're asking them to remember to log into a new piece of software and participate in that. Which doesn't always go so well.
Alyson Lex 35:16
That makes total sense. That makes total sense. All right. We've hosted our event, we've made our sales, whatever it is, we want to do. Now we've got a list of people. How do we work? What do we need now?
Jennie Wright 35:34
Oh, there's congratulations, first of all, okay, you're going to need to take a minute, you're going to have to take a beat. You can ask Alyson about this meeting, have a bit of time post summit before you, you know, just to relax a little bit. But
Alyson Lex 35:48
it's so so true. Yeah. However,
Jennie Wright 35:51
don't take too much time. That's just me. Okay. So we want to engage people. So you've built this event, you've built this list, you've hosted this summit, it's over, congratulations. Now you need to do the next step, which is engaging them and making an offer to people, if all you did was build the list, and then you don't go and engage them with what was the point. So make sure that you're creating that engagement. The key here is we want to use the stuff that we already have in our businesses that you bought for your Summit. This is why I'm so excitable on the fact that I want you to have the right software that you continue to use, and nothing that you're really going to have to put into sleep or mode, except for IDEV or have to turn off or to cancel. Okay. So got, yeah,
Alyson Lex 36:35
that's sleep. That's sleep remote. Yeah. Why did I not know about this?
Jennie Wright 36:40
Because it's not advertised. Right. So a lot of Yeah, software's don't advertise the fact that they have these like little sleeper modes or hibernation modes, or, you know, maintenance mode as they call them, because they're not going to make their money off of that. Now, don't go and email somebody and go, yo, put me in maintenance mode. Like, nobody's going to put you in maintenance mode for that. So the email has to be really, really nice. Like, Hey, I was hoping you could help me out. Thanks so much in advance for your support. Well, a lot like you know what I mean? Nice emails get good reactions. Poopy emails get. Yeah, poopy reactions.
Alyson Lex 37:16
Okay, reaction. Yeah. I know, you were trying to think of something clever. And it wasn't happening. Just roll on with it.
Jennie Wright 37:21
I'm not clever today. All of my I mean, I'm lucky that I have any charm today. Tired. Okay. So, yes, we want to have all the things that we had before. So and by the way, for a Facebook group, just for people who were like, Oh, I don't want to have a Facebook group. It can be a pop up group. You can only use it for the summit. And then when it's over, you know, like it goes into its own little hibernation. So you don't necessarily have to keep a Facebook group going. If that's not what you want to do. I'm all about the pop up at this point. I used to be the year long like constant Facebook, grouper. I'm into pop ups now.
Alyson Lex 37:55
Me too. Yeah. So really, we have our email marketing system, your Active Campaign. If you listen to Jenny Allison, who love Active Campaign, so so so much, your click funnels, all the stuff that is kind of general business software, plus IDEV that you've put into maintenance mode. Right? Yes, yep. We, we don't need anything else. We can skip any and everything else. Yeah,
Jennie Wright 38:28
you can skip any and everything else, if you want to keep this thing lean and mean, if you want to add stuff in if this is your third, your fourth summit, things like that. Sure. There's things you can add in. But you really don't need to you absolutely have no need for it. And it's so much simpler when you don't have to worry. Like the more stuff you have, the more stuff that can break, right? So the more stuff you have, the more issues with integration. The more stuff you have, the more you have to keep an eye on and honestly, the more you're paying. So I like a clean step like a clean tech stack stuff that I'm going to use POST summit that I'm going to continue to use that you know, and the other thing post summit for engagement that you really should be keeping. And this is why I'm keeping Click Funnels. And this is why I'm telling you to is you should be starting to think about your five day challenge or your three times you know, your 3x webinar series where you're doing three webinars to sell a product. Click Funnels will support you doing that. These all in one summit software's they're not going to because they're all in one summit software's that's what they're meant for.
Alyson Lex 39:32
Well, I can't thank you enough for breaking all of this down, because I know all of this, but it is really nice to have a list, right? Just a list of the things. And if it's not on this list, it doesn't exist. Who is it was not on this list. It doesn't belong in your your summit strategy. So I'm going to kick off the takeaways from this episode. sodo since I'm kind of in charge of it today, my takeaway that I love is keep it lean. Look at stuff that you're going to use in your general business, not just one function things.
Jennie Wright 40:22
Yeah, that's a good one. And then whatever you get, whatever software you get, make sure it communicates with all the other software that you use. Don't make sure you don't want to get something that's not going to work with everything else. So be really cognizant of that.
Alyson Lex 40:33
My next takeaway is, if you don't know how it adds to the experience, or the bottom line, don't get it. I really liked how you gave us that benchmark. If you can't figure out how this is going to make a difference. It's not worth it.
Jennie Wright 40:57
It's totally not worth it. It's not worth having it if it's going to cause that kind of a problem 100%. And then my my final takeaway is, you know, you really got to choose the right tech to help you grow not just the shiny stuff 100% Like it just and make sure it's something that you're going to use for the long haul.
Alyson Lex 41:18
I really like that. And in a rare turn of events, I am going to encourage everyone to visit our website at system to thrive.com. The show notes have all of the links to the resources that Jenny has talked about today, because I took incredible notes as she was speaking. So the show notes for this episode will have links. Some of them might, you know, give us a little love if you buy but you can Google to. The other tab that I want you to click on is the work with us page if you're thinking about running a summit. If you're curious about whether our list build is right for you, check out the work with us page schedule a quick 15 minute call and talk to Jenny and I about this about what it might look like about what those expectations are for you and see if we can help you. Alright, so thank you guys for listening and we'll be back soon with another big question next time.