The Virtual CMO

How to Use Virtual Summits to Engage Your Target Audience with Dr. Mark Wade

November 30, 2020 Eric Dickmann, Mark Wade Season 3 Episode 12
The Virtual CMO
How to Use Virtual Summits to Engage Your Target Audience with Dr. Mark Wade
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode, host Eric Dickmann interviews Dr. Mark Wade. From a brick-and-mortar business to an online multi-millionaire, Dr. Mark is an inspiring and entertaining speaker. Coming from the healthcare industry with two Doctorates, he created the American Posture Institute, which became an industry empire built on the strategy he created called the “One-Day Summit Formula.” 

After his first successful venture, Dr. Mark created the Virtual Summits Software – which is the only software in the world designed to specifically host a virtual summit, making it possible to have a new summit up and running in under 10 minutes. 

Shortly after, he founded the brand HustleAndScale.com where he helps side hustlers become six- and seven-figure “Scalers.” Using his knowledge of online business combined with his proprietary One-Day Summit Formula, Dr. Mark has helped thousands of online entrepreneurs build successful, scalable online businesses.

Eric Dickmann can be found on Twitter @EDickmann and LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/edickmann and my website https://ericdickmann.com

Dr. Mark Wade can be found online at https://virtualsummits.com/ on Twitter @VirtualSummits, and Facebook @VirtualSummitsSoftware

Episode Summary: The episode summary can be found at https://fiveechelon.com/virtual-summits-engage-your-target-audience-s3e12

If you'd like to contact us with feedback or guest inquiries, please visit:
https://fiveechelon.com/podcast

For more information about Virtual CMO strategic marketing consulting services, visit The Five Echelon Group at https://fiveechelon.com
 
Episode #43

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Carla:

The Virtual CMO podcast is sponsored by the strategic marketing consulting services of The Five Echelon Group. If you’d like to work directly with The Five Echelon Group and receive personal coaching and support to optimize your business, enhance your marketing effectiveness and grow your revenue, visit Five Echelon.com to learn more and schedule a free consultation.

Eric Dickmann:

Welcome to The Virtual CMO podcast. I'm your host, Eric Dickmann. In this podcast, we have conversations with marketing professionals who share the strategies, tactics, and mindset you can use to improve the effectiveness of your marketing activities and grow your business. This week, I'm excited to welcome dr. Mark Wade to the program. From brick and mortar business to online multimillionaire. Dr. Mark is an inspiring and entertaining speaker coming from the healthcare industry with two doctorates, he created the American posture Institute, which became an industry empire built on the strategy he created called the one day summit formula after his successful venture. Dr. Mark created the virtual summit software, which is the only software in the world designed specifically to host virtual summits, making it possible. to have a new summit up and running in under 10 minutes. Dr. Mark Wade. I'm glad you could join us.

Dr. Mark Wade:

Hey, Eric, super excited to be here.

Eric Dickmann:

So I have to start, by asking anybody who's got a doctor in their title, there's a story there. So you started out in the healthcare profession and ended up as a, a software guru. Ah, how did this all happen?

Dr. Mark Wade:

I like to usually just say I'm most likely the biggest nerd in the room when it happens. I actually have two doctorates. I started, I did start in the healthcare industry. I'm a postural neurologist by trade, ran a brick and mortar practice. One of the largest posture correction clinics in the country for about a decade. And wanted to help more people, but I didn't love the idea of opening up more clinics. as you're well aware, running a business, especially a brick and mortar business can, it can be challenging at times. So I started looking at other options and opportunities. this is now we're talking like seven, eight, eight, nine years ago. And at that moment, at that time, I heard about this strategy called a virtual summit. And that's what actually led me down this entire route. I didn't. Ever kinda. Think I would end up as a SaaS founder or software founder, but I've loved every moment of the journey and looking forward to the next part.

Eric Dickmann:

No, you don't regret that decision. Do you now, because everybody's been sitting at home in front of their computers, hunched over watching zoom conferences. I bet pasture guys are in high demand.

Dr. Mark Wade:

Yeah, I think on both sides of the business, we are primed for perfect real estate right there. So my business partner in the health side, so we did start an online company in the health space called the American posture Institute, which is still today, the world's largest provider post-graduate posture, online posture education for healthcare professionals. So we train the doctors essentially. And right now business is good over there as well, because as you mentioned, everybody's at home, they're needing ergonomic advice, postural correction, got the aches and the pains going on, but then on the other side of it as well, everybody in the business space is going, how can I go more virtual? So the virtual summit software company definitely has seen some uptick as well as we help companies take their expertise virtual.

Eric Dickmann:

Hey, that's a great segway to where I wanted to go, because there are so many people now, whether it's because of COVID or just because of technology and what they want to do that really want to build their own business. Obviously we've got this whole phenomenon of influencers right now, but I look out and I see so many people really don't know how to build an audience. Do you see this as well?

Dr. Mark Wade:

it's actually, I see it all the time and it's not without lack of trying. Building an audience is actually pretty difficult. it's, one it's hard just to build an audience. What do you do? Do you do a podcast? Do you do a live stream? Do you do a blog? Do you do a YouTube channel? what's your venue or method to build some type of an audience? But an audience in and have it by itself is not the end all be all. You also need a qualified audience. if you sell shoes, having an audience of people, looking for hats is not going to help you out very much, And then the third aspect of that. So now you have to have a qualified audience, but you don't just need a qualified audience. You need an audience that's actually engaged with you that looks to you as the expert or the authority in trusts you and is open to going further in their customer journey with you. it is a common struggle, no matter what type of business and no matter what type of industry we're talking about.

Eric Dickmann:

That engagement is so important. I've been around far too many salespeople, but think you can just go out and buy a list of names and that's really an audience, but that's not an audience because there's no engagement there. You really have to build that engagement over time.

Dr. Mark Wade:

Yeah, no engagement. And honestly, there's very little know or trust in a list that doesn't know you. Now you can build that up, but that's assuming they'll stay with you long enough to have that trust in that light.

Eric Dickmann:

if we take a step back and we look at how COVID has changed things, trade shows were a big deal, especially a lot of industries that face to face networking, getting out, shaking hands, those steak dinners where you can wine and dine your clients. So much of that is changing. Do you really think that we'll come back at some point? Or is the virtual world, the world of the future.

Dr. Mark Wade:

I sure hope it comes back. I love those steak dinners. I tell you what, it will come back, but it's never going to be the same. Let's put it like that. So there's always gonna be those of us who need and want that in-person connection. That let me be there. And those extroverts in the room like myself now, my beautiful girlfriend of 10 years, who is an introvert she's begging and praying that they never come back because she's just as fine staying at home. I'm handling it there. But I think where we've seen the biggest light bulb go off in most of the industries is from the owners going, do I really need to spend that amount of money? On this event, this venture, this, even like office space when my teams and my employees can get just as much done, if not more done from their homes. So that's been the biggest thing we've seen here, especially those in the event space. Here's the other side of the coin is those Indian event space. The trade shows the conferences they've converted to virtual. So most of them have done some sort of virtual component to fill that gap before the next one happens. that's their main source of revenue for a lot of them. And what they've actually found out most of those events. Did as well as their in-person the virtual component, as well as their in-person. Except at a fraction of the overhead, a fraction of the cost. So they're going okay. I can either spend five to$600,000 in venue costs and, coffee that costs$25 a person or whatever. And then, make maybe 10, 20, 30% margins on that or. I can do this virtually spin, maybe 20 to$50,000. It makes 75% margins, okay. Like where. From just a financial perspective. So when you ask the question, is it always going to be like, this is not always going to be exactly like this, but you are definitely going to see more virtual in your world moving forward, just because it's a smarter economic. direction for businesses and then two, you got technology. just because of COVID, as you had mentioned, we saw at least three to four new platforms popping up every month. It really, it was like, it was incredible. Now they're not all going to last it'll, the tee times will tell, but with that, what this has done is forced us to start honing those, like sharpening those acts is what's, how can we improve this? How can we make it better? And so technology is going to make this more, is gonna make this a better experience for people to be able to stay and do things virtually as well.

Eric Dickmann:

I'm glad you mentioned technology and platforms, because for those people who haven't experienced a virtual summit before they might be thinking, I've been on a webinar, I've been on a zoom call. What's the difference between that and a virtual summit.

Dr. Mark Wade:

Excellent. Excellent question and there's actually different components of summit. So first, a virtual summit is not a webinar. It's not a, it's not a course. It's not just a zoom call. As you've mentioned. and there's different types of aunt, let's say VR. So there's virtual events under virtual events. We have different types of virtual events. The ones most people are seeing happening right. This moment because of the transition that we've seen in the last, six to eight months. Is what's called a live streamed conference. So it's essentially just a conference that went online. So I still like the speaker speaks from eight to nine and then another one from nine to 10, you pay to attend it. So that's a live streamed conference. we have other types of virtual events too, like a virtual workshop where you can, you know, just like you would do an in person workshop. They've now gone to virtual. we've seen virtual retreats, virtual masterminds and every everything else in between, but a virtual summit is a little different. These have been around for awhile since about 2005 is when the first virtual they actually called it a telesummit happened. And that actually was an offspring of teleseminars if you get, I don't really remember them. It was a little bit before my time, but I'm a nerd like that remember biggest nerd in, so I've done my history lessons. Man tell us seminars where, people would hop on the phone and there'd be one or two people teaching a seminar to this group of people who are listening on the phone, like how cool. Is that like to think of that first off, back then, and then it got to the point when there was text messaging. So people would message their questions into the, to the speaker and the speakers. And then we went to a tele summit, which was not one or two people. It was multiple people over multiple days. And again, this was virtual. They, at the beginning, it was telephone. Now it's virtual. So a virtual summit is essentially. it is when we solve a problem or a series of problems for a specific audience by bringing together niche or topic experts who have the answer to those problems. And we release it over a set period of time. So two days, three days, etcetera. this is pretty cool. Cause historically or traditionally virtual summits are prerecorded. They used to be all prerecorded, which is great for those people who are like man of a livestream. Common seems like a lot of moving pieces. A lot of risk, a lot could go wrong. What if the speaker doesn't show up? What if the tech goes down? so this kind of mitigates a lot of that risk, but still gives you a lot of the benefit. Now we see now we actually recommend you have 15 to 20% of it live because it is so easy to do some live stream components. but that is essentially what a summit is. And mostly it's free to attend, which is wait, what, like I get to hang out with is a, there's guru is going to answer my problems and it's free to attend versus a livestream conference, which is essentially paid access. The point though, the reason we run summits is their incredible way to build your audience, which is what we were just talking about, which is one of the most difficult things to do. So when you can build an audience and we're talking most summits average between one to 2000 people. Now there's about 50% of the summits, which we'll go 5,000 to about 10,000 people. And then less than 10% of the summits are what we call mega summits. And they have over 10,000 people. Now with that being said, if we circle back to those in person events, we were talking about. A lot of in person events are lucky if they get to two to 500 people. Okay. And then you got big ones that are out a thousand or 2000, and then you have a handful across the country, depending on which niche, your industry you're in that ever reach. If they ever do reach 5,000 people. if I'm saying we can bring together five to 10,000 people, this is a, if you're a marketer or you've got a company that needs to be in front of people, this should be setting off some bells right now, because the other part of this is you don't have to travel. You don't have to send a team anywhere. And for the most part, it's relatively inexpensive to do so within a virtual summit, just to quickly clarify, the most common type of summit is what we call multi-day summit. So you see these a lot. They're typically three to five days. Although some people. Do what we call summit show, which means more than seven days. and then the other style is what we call a one day summit. So these are real, these are just like a sound one day, but it doesn't mean it's a full day in content. It just means your audience has one day to consume it. And the power of this is one, it overcomes that issue of attention span. we've seen that in recent years, attention span, decreasing. so it allows them to get a solution to their problem in a very short amount of time. So it increases conversions essentially. And. It's a lot less work to a one day summit has anywhere from about five speakers, upwards of maximum 15 with kind of eight to 10 being the sweet spot. Whereas a multi-day summit starts off at about 25 speakers and couldn't go up to her. 80 speakers. So those are the different pieces to the virtual event. And then virtual summit, a ladder, if you will.

Eric Dickmann:

So one of the things that they always talk about, With a paid event is that you've got a commitment, right? If somebody put some money on the table, they bought an airline ticket, they booked a hotel. There's some commitment there. And we still know that there are a lot of no shows, but for something that's free for something that's online, where the kids are running around in the background or the dogs barking, what do you do to make those micro commitments work so that people stay tuned?

Dr. Mark Wade:

one of the things with a summit. So if we're talking like in person conference, and I know how those work too, I run an in person conference called summit Fest live. I know it's like. Wait, how, why do you run an in person conference for virtual events, but I love people. I'm an extrovert. I understand with that, you've got to start marketing that months and months out, right? You got to you, you're pushing hard. You've got early, super early bird and then early bird offer. And then it's still a, no matter how hard you try. Most of the sales come 30 to 60 days from the event. your heart's beating the whole time, a lot of stress, etcetera, but we thrive for that. If we're being honest there now with a virtual summit, you would never start advertising it. Six months out or three months out, or even two months out with a virtual summit, you're actually primer. You could, and we have other promotional strategies that we recommend, but they don't directly relate to promoting your summit directly. Primetime for summit promotion is two weeks before because this is when the conversions increase. Even if people did sign up for your summit, let's say. Three months before they've forgotten about it, by the time it comes. So you need to have a lot of, that communication sequence from then till your summit starts. But two weeks before it's still on their mind, you still need a communication sequence. But actually we see it like a hockey stick curve, anywhere from around 10 to 20% conversions, two weeks out. By the time it gets to the summit, we're looking at 40 to 50 to even 60% conversion. The closer you get to the summit, the hotter and the higher your conversions are going to be.

Eric Dickmann:

Now does a virtual summit work better for, individual companies. So what I'm thinking of is the difference between something like what we think of as a traditional trade industry conference, where you've got a number of keynote speakers, but you've also got vendor presentations, you've got trade show booths and things like that versus something that may be one company is putting on, on a certain topic area. But obviously they're factored into most of the content. Does this work for both? Is it more geared toward one or the other?

Dr. Mark Wade:

It definitely works for both the ladder. The first one you mentioned is going to be a lot more work moving pieces. You've got a lot of different people in it. You're satisfying the needs in the interest of all of the companies involved, all the booths. But we see that happen. I wouldn't say a lot, but it does still happen. And again, one of the benefits to that is you can do a lot of it in advance. And for those companies that you're bringing in, if it fits into their schedule, because they don't actually have to be there. Even if they're, let's say they're speaking or they're at a different trade show, let's say if it was, back to where everybody was having in person events, they could be at a different trade show in person and still participate in your virtual one. So we see this with a lot of speakers. They love it because they're like I can be on multiple summits at the same time and still at home with my family. So it will work. Now we see it a lot more commonly with an individual company. Or an individual brand or an individual, for example, even entrepreneur, reason is because we can get a lot more honed on what's the purpose of that summit. So when we talk about creating a summit, it doesn't matter industry, business corporation, whatever it is, you always have to start with the end in mind when you're creating a summit. Is what's the end goal. Cause if your summit is about bringing together an audience, remember we want to qualify and engaged audience. We have to then make sure that this qualified and engaged audience is aligned with whatever our next part of our customer journey is. what is the next thing you're planning on selling? Let's. If you had a weight loss program, you don't want to beat bring people in because they're looking for hair growth, right? There's a, the conversions just aren't gonna match. So if we do have, a company that has a weight loss supplement or something like that, then we can bring people in who have the challenge, of I would like to lose weight. I'm trying to lose weight, for example. So that now aligns with what happens after the summit, which is where the monetization is. So this is a key thing. A summit is re is not your monetization strategy. Yes. You'll make money on your summit, but the summit is the relationship building strategy. Remember we talked about, you got to create, know, and trust you buy a list. They don't know who you are. They're not gonna buy anything from you. This audience that's coming to this summit. It's the same thing. They don't know who you are most likely yet. The summit is what allows them to create that relationship with I foster that authority where they see you with all these other experts, it's what we call expert leverage, and then go, you know what? This person must know what they're talking about. I liked them. I have a relationship with them. Let's see. What's next. So you always start with the end in mind and the second part that is where your monetization strategy comes in. So it works well when we have an individual company or we see a lot of times, like co-host too, that have aligned relationships or relined in aligned interests, because then the next aspect of that is who do you bring on? what w. who do you bring on to speak on your summit? Now, again, remember you can have live components of your summit, but most of this is prerecorded. So when I say you're bringing on a speaker, I could reach out to Eric and say, Hey, Eric, I'm doing this summit later this year. I'd love to feature you as a speaker on it. When are you available to hop on and we can do an interview and record it so I can work around your schedule now, which means I have a lot more opportunities to bring people on, but the key is bringing on the right speakers. Remember it goes back to who is the right audience. You want to bring speakers on? Who won? Can solve problems for this topic, but to who also have audiences or air in audiences and niches that are the ideal audience you're trying to bring on because when they promoted out to their audience or into their spaces, that's who we're going to be attracting to this summit. And so it's really important to understand and put some thought effort into the speakers you're going to bring on as well.

Eric Dickmann:

Hey, it's Eric here and we'll be right back to the podcast. But first, are you ready to grow, scale, and take your marketing to the next level? If so, The Five Echelon Group's Virtual CMO onsulting service may be a great fit for you. We can help build a strategic marketing plan for your business and manage its execution, step-by-step. We'll focus on areas like how to attract more leads. How to create compelling messaging that resonates with your ideal customers. How to strategically package and position your products and services. How to increase lead conversion, improve your margins, and scale your business. To find out more about our consulting offerings and schedule a consultation, go to fiveechelon.com and click on Services. Now back to the podcast. So one of the things that I heard you say there is that oftentimes, maybe as a CEO or as a founder of a company or an entrepreneur, whoever you are, you might not have a lot of brand recognition of your own. And at the same time, you might not have a very robust list that you can market to for summit. So you have something that's called, what is it? You're a one day summit formula. And I'm assuming that what that is, is sort of a step by step process has to how these kinds of businesses or individuals can build a list using I'm assuming advertising and other tools to get that message out there, to find their audience, and then pulled in the name recognition. at the same time. Talk to me a little bit about what that formula entails.

Dr. Mark Wade:

Let's draw. Let's jump into that. Let's take one step back. I want to talk about the CEO's aspect of this because you bring up a great point. Here is depending on the size of your company, once you have once you, if you're a startup or your solo preneur, or maybe your team attend, the entrepreneur, the CEO is probably to some degree, the face of the company, they're doing a lot of the marketing, they're doing the interviews, they're doing the lives in there doing the speaking. Once that company starts to scale that CEO is probably not doing as much of that. And then they probably don't want to do as much of it, honestly. And it's great. And so this I'm going to give you a perfect example of this. This is one of those opportunities where if you have like a marketing team, for example, this is a project that they can take on and run with one. It also helps build a little bit of that community, that team building inside of the company, which is fun. We always see some really great things come from that, but it's also an opportunity. One of two things to give somebody inside the company, an opportunity to shine, let them be the face for a moment. Or, this allows you to bring people from outside the company and create collaborations too, with other aspects of the company. the two companies, relatively large companies that I'm aware with aware of. and friends with their CEO's is one think ethic. It's a online course creation, SAS company. So their founder, Greg Smith. Has been running summits for years. And now they're a pretty large company. They're actually voted one of the top companies to work for in Canada. last year, and I think there's somewhere around 200 employees. Now. He used to be the face. He used to be the one doing the summit, but he's not doing that anymore. So we actually gave it to his marketing team and they've created a variety of different summits. One. He had, their partner, the relationship managers had two of them. They had them cohost one of their summits, so that made them one feel more special and involved in the project. And which increased the success of the project. Of the summit and another one they just recently did, I think six months I was one to foster. It was not so much directly in, okay. It's one step back. The first one they did was bring on course creators. People who want to buy courses or create courses, because then they'll eventually use our software. So that was very much aligned with what they're trying to do. Another one they did was let's do some Feelgood's cause they're very, they're very much, attentive to cultural basis is, and things going on in the world. and it's something that is part of their core values and they believe very much into, so they decided to do one that would be good for the world in general, but also would be good for their brand. So they did a think in color. So think ethic thinking color, they did a summit for diverse persons of color, a minority based course creators. And they brought in somebody that is in their community, but wasn't a part of their company that is that's one of the messages, that's their platform, their brand. And they brought her in to be the host of this summit and they essentially partnered on it. They got a lot of great press, a lot of great initiatives and things out of that. So those are a couple of examples, one other examples, Ray, and he crushes all of these types of stuff. Now he's in the marketing space, but Russell Brunson last year with ClickFunnels, the founder of ClickFunnels did the one funnel away challenge, which was a 30 day virtual summit. And in the first 14 days, they did over$1 million off of that summit. So those are two big businesses and how they're actually using a summits as well. And of course, Russell wasn't the face of it. He hired somebody or had somebody in his community come on and be the host of the summit. And same as Greg with Thinkific. So if you're a CEO, if you were. listen, I go, man, I don't have time to do 35 interviews. There are ways around that as well.

Eric Dickmann:

When you're talking, one of the things where I could see this being very applicable for companies is if they're entering a new market, or if they're doing a product launch, this seems like something that would really be good because you can get some external validation from some outside speakers. And at the same time, weave your message about whatever that new product or service is. Do you find that this is used oftentimes for product launches?

Dr. Mark Wade:

It's not used enough for product launches, for sure. in my health company, anytime we had a new course or program that we're launching. Two one to two months before that we had a summit and it may have just been a one day summit, or if we had a big, we were hoping for a seven figure launch or things like that, or multi-day summit to bring in an even larger audience. But if you just think about it, it makes perfect sense, right? Let's say we want to launch this product day. What do we need to launch product A? We need an audience who wants product day. So we can either go out and try and advertise product day to them. And they feel like they're being sold to, or we can add value to their lives by solving a problem that relates to product a and now we have an audience who needs and once it. And has again, no, and trust with us and sell it to them. The other part of this that you mentioned is entering a new niche. I've started multiple companies. Now we have a variety of six and seven figure businesses all going at the same time. And I would never, ever try to start a company again, without using a summit. It's you can either go, one to two years trying to build up that audience, that based that those relationships, or spend three or four to six months planning a summit, bring on 35 people who, after that summit, you will have relationships with and probably partnerships with. And build an audience to then enter this new niche. And we did that with our health company. when we went from just working with doctors to wanting to go to general consumers, we did it with a virtual summit. It was called the digital dementia summit. It generated. Almost 30,000 leads. So we now have 30,000 potential customers and went on to do over a quarter of a million dollars just from that audience base, with that summit. I don't know why, how I have yet to hear of a better way to injure a marketplace or launch a new product. Then having a summit somewhere in the beginning of those plans.

Eric Dickmann:

You've talked about summits that are both educational and ones that are maybe a little bit more sales focused. Do you find that. Having a very compelling offer at the end of your summit, or maybe woven throughout the program is the key to really making a summit profitable. If you're looking at it as a real sales opportunity.

Dr. Mark Wade:

So I would say for most people, if you're doing a summit, you should want to make some money off of it. It should be a goal. Now I do know some, we've had some ins that have been done for charity and everything donated. And those actually do very well because they're feel good summits. Now, even if you're doing an educationally based summit, I would assume you probably have something in your pipeline that you could sell to somebody afterwards. So it's okay for the summit to be educational. Just make sure it's aligned with whatever you're going to sell afterwards now for all summits educational and non-SAP and non-educated I actually, all summits are educational. The problem we actually see Eric with summits is most of them are too educational. They're no longer entertaining. When people want information, they want to be educated. And we see that the problem is people also want to be entertained now, too. So your summit needs to have a good blend of information or education and entertainment. We call it edutainment style summits. With that being said, one of the best ways to get to that sale after your summit. Is not by doing a random summit with random speakers on random topics. It's actually to put a little forethought into the summit and we call it the summit story arc. So it's the arc that you want to take this audience from where they're at with whatever problem that they have. To this journey of where they want to go in across that summit, you're solving a lot of those problems, but what you're actually doing is building a relationship and demonstrating that you can help this audience. And then when they get to the top of this, the next thing that awaits their journey. Is whatever you have after the summit, we call it the post summit profit strategy or the post summit offer. So your summit story, art takes them from where they're at. And it also helps you determine who and what are you going to cover in that summit? So we break it down before we ever even think of speakers. And this is actually one of the most common mistakes some hosts do to go. I'm going to do a summit who can I think of that as big names and that I know that I can bring on to my son and they just start reaching out to people. You may have this kind of hodgepodge of different people on there that don't fit. Or don't align and it's all over the place. And said, start with the problem that your audience has, the way you do. This is what it is, whatever your thing is, we're going to call it the post summit offer, whatever you're offering after the summit. It's a solution. It solves a problem. whatever that is, it's solving a problem for somebody or they wouldn't be buying it. So identify what those problems are that it's solving. Those are the problems you're going to talk about in your summit. And ideally, you're going to line them from smallest problem. To largest problem. So it's going to take them across this tension, this journey, and then as you've identified the problem you now go, what are one or two things that this person is audience needs to know? To solve this one problem. Kids we call micro solutions. That's now your sessions. And that then tells you what speaker you have to speak on that session, solves that problem and moves them along this again. Summit story arc.

Eric Dickmann:

And then do you find that, many of these summit hosts, participants. then they will create some sort of a time to offer at the end of the summit that says, here's something you can take advantage of for the next 48 hours or something like that. What I'm trying to do is differentiate that from collecting a lot of names throughout this process, dumping it into your CRM system and then going through some completely different marketing process.

Dr. Mark Wade:

Yeah. So I would say if you were going to look at it like that, it would be a separate marketing process after the summit. Because you want to make sure whatever message you're talking to is now. Is direct to the post summit offer. However, let's paint the whole picture here. When I say it's free to attend the summit. You still monetize the summit in a variety of different ways. The most common way is selling something which is called an all access pass. It's free to attend the summit right now. But each day as the summit, as day one ends, those sessions are now closed and over, just like in a normal conference. Like that session ended, you can't listen to him talk anymore. Cause it's over. However, if you want to rehear that or maintain access to all of them, you can buy what is called all access pass, which allows you to keep access to those recordings. Now, of course, you need to put extra stuff in it. We call it a summit offer, put some extra things in there that make it sound appealing and interesting. And that's where monetization happens on the summit. But you really don't want to hit them hard with that. That's just, they're more for the people that want it. it's what we call a soft sell. So it's really great for people who don't feel good or comfortable eye camera and a hard sale. So it's Hey, if you like that, you want to keep access to it. No problem. We have these here. They're usually smaller price points of depending on your audience or niche, but they're what we would consider a lower tier offer. However, on the final day and their strategy, like you mentioned, in the one day summit formula strategy, we do to take them through each part of that aspect of that summit. Journey. The final day we do something called the halftime talk. So this is okay, you're here, you got all this information, which is great. You're way better off than where you were, but it's not over. We still have a lot more work to do. Let me tell you about this thing. Okay. And that's your posts. I'm an offer now. We don't sell the thing. There were, cause we don't want to break that trust. We've just built. But what we do is we tell them about it. We put it into their mind. We let them know it's there. And then typically we will sell the post summit offer either on a live stream webinar or masterclass or a product launch formula, or like an email series essentially. what I like to do, depending on how high level the offer is, if it's a higher ticket, like some of ours are anywhere from 10 to$15,000. What we'll be selling afterwards. Is, we will do a live what we call a workshop and we'll teach them the solution and then sell them how to actually have it done for them, sell them the, how the done for you version. And we'll have a sales team ready to feel calls and things like that. And then of course, like an email sequence that backs that up.

Eric Dickmann:

And I know there's so much great content here, but obviously in the time limits of our podcast, we can't get to it all. But I know that you also host your own podcast. You've got a ton of information up on YouTube and your own webpage. I'd love for you to be able to, just to share with the audience where they can learn more about virtual summits and the kinds of things that you do.

Dr. Mark Wade:

Absolutely. the main center hub I'd say is our website, which is virtualsummits.com. We got free resources there. You can check out our podcasts, and as well as got information about our software, the virtual summit software platform there, if you're on Facebook, if you do Facebook, we have a really cool group called viral summits, which has a lot of summit hosts, aspiring summit hose. And we do a lot of free trainings and things there. So those be the two best places to get access to information.

Eric Dickmann:

I'll make sure we get all that linked up in the show notes. it wasn't that many years ago that I remember, I think it was on 24, that was offering something like a virtual trade show. And it was a little clunky for what it was, but we're rapidly getting to a point where technology and VR glasses and all this other stuff is coming. And so the things that you're doing today, I can only see, growing over time, becoming more sophisticated and feeling more need in the marketplace for content that people can consume, right from their own homes without having to do the traveling. it sounds really exciting.

Dr. Mark Wade:

It is an exciting world to be in that's for sure. I know. again, hand raised over here, big nerd when I stopped to think about what is possible and where we're going and what we can do. it's hard not to be so excited. Like I want to do it all right now, but, with the technologies and also the demand and desire for these. technologies, you're just going to see greater and better things. And here's the other thing that I, that we should just mention as well is the audience is now your customers, your clients, your prospects, they're now way more open to taking things virtually. And some of them are actually like; If you're not going to give it to me virtually, I don't even, I'm gonna find somebody else who will. So it's actually at a point now where, two years ago you were the progressive, you were the, you were the head of the curve. If you were providing virtual components to your business, it didn't matter what business or industry you're in now. Your audience is actually expecting it. If you do not have a virtual component to your business, they're starting to look at you as the dinosaur in the room.

Eric Dickmann:

So are you going to follow a Tony Robbins lead, take over a warehouse and build a huge wall of screens so that you could interact a dynamically with your audience.

Dr. Mark Wade:

That is an aspiration, but I know who actually built that for him and the amount of work and costs that go into that. So that's not going to happen in the next month or do.

Eric Dickmann:

That's crazy. I saw him do some of that and it was just a crazy setup.

Dr. Mark Wade:

Yeah, it's a, and again, that's just setting the example of what can happen and what will come.

Eric Dickmann:

Yeah. Hey, this has really been fascinating. I appreciate your time today. I know you're down here in Florida visiting. So good luck with your conference. I think it's going to be great for everybody who can attend it. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts with our audience today.

Dr. Mark Wade:

Thanks, Eric. Absolutely. I'll just leave you with this is you have a message that matters. I believe it. And one of the most powerful and impactful ways to get that message out to the world is with a virtual summit. If I can ever help you in any way, please don't hesitate to reach out and let me know.

Eric Dickmann:

I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us on this episode of The Virtual CMO podcast. For more episodes, go to fiveechelon.com/podcast to subscribe through your podcast player of choice. And if you'd like to develop consistent lead flow and a highly effective marketing strategy, visit fiveechelon.com to learn more about our Virtual CMO consulting services.