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193: The reality of hosting an online summit (and what I learned) · Online Business Uncovered: Simple Strategies for Female Entrepreneurs

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to Online Business Uncovered.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is episode 193, and in today's episode, I'm going to be talking about what hosting my first online business summit taught me about building a scalable business.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: So let's jump right in and let's get started.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Online Business Uncovered, the show that lifts the lid on what it really takes to turn your brilliance into digital products, passive income, and time freedom.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host Karen, an online business strategist, course creation expert, and your go-to for building a business that works for you and not the other way around.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you are an ambitious entrepreneur feeling overwhelmed, burnt out, or maybe you're just ready for a smarter, more sustainable way to grow, then you're in the right place.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because each week I'll be bringing you inspiring conversations, practical strategies, and step-by-step guidance to help you create scalable, repeatable digital products that sell even while you sleep.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're ready to stop trading your time for money, reclaim your time, and finally build a business that gives you the freedom that you deserve, hit subscribe and tune in every Thursday.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Let's uncover what's truly possible for you starting now.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to Online Business Uncovered.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host Karen and I really appreciate you hitting the play button to listen to today's episode.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: After months of planning, organizing, promoting, inviting speakers, creating content, and having moments of wondering what on earth I'm I've taken on.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: My very first online business growth summit officially happened in October this month.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it was an incredible experience.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Over 300 people registered for the event.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: I brought together some absolutely brilliant experts, and across three days, we explored what it really takes to build, sell, and grow an online business.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: But in today's episode, I don't want to tell you how wonderful the summit was because there were some absolutely fantastic moments, and I'm really pleased at how it all came about.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: But there were also challenges and things that didn't go to plan and some really interesting lessons that I've learned that's made me think differently about my own business.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And in today's episode, I want to share those with you.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think one of the problems with the online business world is that we see so much of the finished product, we see the successful launches, the impressive numbers, the beautifully designed sales pages, and the celebrations when everything comes together and it all works.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: But what we don't see is the work that goes on behind the scenes.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: We don't see the decisions, the uncertainty, the things that don't work, or the moments where someone has to figure out as they go along because something's not quite worked, and they've got to figure out how to make it right.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a real shame because it's often in those experiences that we learn the most.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: So in today's episode, I want to take you behind the scenes of my very first online business summit.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to share why I decided to host it, what actually happened, the biggest lessons that I've taken away, and why this whole experience has reinforced something that I feel more passionate about today than ever before.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the fact that your knowledge, skills, and experience are some of the most valuable assets that you have in your business.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: But the question is, are you making the most of them?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: So let's dive in.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to start by just sharing with you why I decided to host this summit in the first place.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now, for me, this wasn't about just putting on an event.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been listening to this podcast for a while and I've been behind the mic for over four years now, you know that I'm really passionate about helping business owners create more freedom in their business.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that has stemmed from my own personal experience.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: For years I ran a branding studio where, like so many other service providers, I was selling my time.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now I love the work that I did, but the problem was the more successful my business became, the busier I became.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: More clients meant more projects, more projects meant more deadlines, and more deadlines meant that I was spending more and more time delivering work.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually it all caught up with me and it burnt me out.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I reached a point where I just didn't really want to continue.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to just close my business down and give it all up and go back and get a sensible job.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember in those darkest moments thinking that there had to be another way of running a business.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because a successful business shouldn't mean sacrificing your time, your energy, and your sanity.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's not freedom, that's not a reason to run a business.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the experience that I had completely changed how I viewed my business, but also the direction I decided to take it.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because it got me thinking about how I could really leverage my knowledge, my skills, my expertise, and turn them into repeatable offers that I could scale.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now I already had an online course, so what I will caveat this by saying is that in 2018 I was already selling my first digital product, which was a branding strategy planner.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: It was just a simple A5 that helped people really define their business and the brand that they wanted to create.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I sold that I sold a load of hard copies, I sold it digitally, and then I created an online course called Crafting Your Brand.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I was making sales.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: So through lockdown, I was making sales.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: But if I'm honest, my attention wasn't in my course, my attention was serving my clients.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: And when I was in that state of burnout, I was making money.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because it was scalable.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: And what felt easy was that I'd created it so I didn't have to be there to deliver it every time it was sold.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I think when I when I realized that actually I could build a profitable business based on my knowledge, skills, and expertise that didn't require me to have to give my time all of the time.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's when I realized that the model of business that I'd been building wasn't sustainable.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there are so many incredible talented business owners out there that have years of experience, they're brilliant at what they do, but they are relying on selling their time.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: They know they want to do something different, and maybe they've thought about creating a course or a membership or some kind of product, but they don't know where to start.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And there is so much information out there that it almost becomes overwhelming because people are telling you to do all these things, build a sales funnel, build your email list, build a course, do this, do that, and it just becomes noise.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so, what I wanted to do is create an event where I could break it down, I can simplify it, and I can give accurate information that would simply help somebody take the next step.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so I wanted to bring together people who could share their knowledge and expertise in a way that help business owners see what is possible.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted the event to have a really clear structure.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I created three themes.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Day one was build it, day two was sell it, and day three was be seen.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you think about it, those are the three fundamental parts of creating a successful online business.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: You need something valuable to sell, you need to understand how to sell it, and you need to get in front of the right people.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, there's other things involved, but I really wanted to simplify the journey rather than make it feel even more complicated.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted people to leave the summit feeling like creating something of their own was genuinely achievable.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Not something reserved for people with huge audiences or massive marketing budgets or with teams of people behind them, but something that a micro business owner who is running their own business can do.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk about what actually happened because this is where it gets interesting.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: When I decided to run this summit, I knew it was going to be a big project, but if I'm honest, I didn't fully appreciate just exactly what was involved.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: There were so many moving parts.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: There were speakers to organise and sessions to um outline and promotional materials to create, emails to write, landing pages to build, and of and of course, tech to set up.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And there were so many decisions to make all the time.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: So there was a lot of moving parts that I had to really think about.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: How were people going to access the sessions?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: What was happening on each day?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: What if my speaker was running late or God forbid couldn't deliver the session because they became ill?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: What if tech doesn't work?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that was a big one.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: I had to deal with that because my tech did decide not to work.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: How do you keep it moving while still giving people the opportunity to engage?
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And how do you manage all of that without completely burning out?
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: It was so challenging.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, one of the things that I had to also deal with were speakers letting me down.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: So the saving grace was that I'd started the organization of this event really early on.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: I started back in January, so this event literally was a 10-month project, and I knew that I wanted certain speakers to speak.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I reached out to my network and I invited uh certain speakers to speak at the event, and everybody said yes, it was brilliant, it was so exciting, and I was like, that that's great, and then unfortunately, one of my main speakers decided to ghost me.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I had four months where I heard nothing, despite multiple emails and LinkedIn messages being sent, and I was really disappointed with that because this person I'd held in really high regard, and she was one of the first um people that I actually invited to speak at the event, and she was talking on a really important subject, it was one of my main subject areas, so having the right person to deliver that was really important.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I didn't hear from her for four months, and in the end, I ended up having to um send her an email um saying that I had to find somebody else, but I didn't understand why, after like four months to go someone, even though she had agreed to speak at the event, and then a couple of weeks later, I think I think this was in August or whatever, I got an email from her inviting me, because I was on her email list, inviting me to purchase her online course that she'd been working on over the summer.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that was a really disappointing experience.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: I had another speaker that decided to book in client meetings throughout her session.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: So she took ages to send me all the information that I needed.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I needed bio, I needed headshot, I needed social media links, all of the information because I because I wanted to add it to the website.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it took over three months for her to send it to me.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then in the April, I had created a speaker schedule so everybody knew when they were speaking and what time, you know, what day, what time, and what their session was about.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: And all my speakers were invited into this hub where they had access to everything, so promotional materials and email templates and all the things needed to be able to be involved in the event.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: And after three months of chasing this speaker, I got an email to basically say that she wasn't going to be available during her session or the discussion at the end of the day because she was in client meetings.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: And this was weeks before the event itself.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: So again, that was really disappointing.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to share this because they were only a few examples of of some of the really stressful moments that kind of went into this event.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm fortunate, I have to say, I have a big network.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: I have networked for over 10 years.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: I know a lot of people, I know a lot of brilliant experts, and I very quickly was able to replace and get other people in to speak that were equally brilliant.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: But if I'm honest, those experiences left me really disappointed because I didn't expect them.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: I went into the experience of this summit expecting a lot of things to go wrong.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Not the people that I'd invited to speak letting me down in the way that they did.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if anything, if I'm honest, it kind of got me into a place of really kicking me up the ass to kind of make sure that the event was as good as I could make it, because I just didn't want anything else to go wrong.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to share this because um these lessons are really important, and at the time, obviously, I was really frustrated and disappointed, but afterwards, what I kind of realized was that I was creating this event, I had hundreds of people sign up, over 300 people sign up.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was building a platform for other people to kind of shine on.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like every speaker had ample time to speak.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: I did loads of promotion, I mean, they all they were all came on the podcast, they all had YouTube uh interviews, I did spotlights, I did everything to promote my speakers.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I put all this work into the speakers, and that was a privilege for them.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: They were promoted.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: And after the event, I had many of my speakers come back to me to tell me that they'd got new business from it, or they'd sold products, or they built their email list with new subscribers from the event, and that that was what I wanted to happen.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to create an event that everyone benefited by.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I think one of the lessons that I would take on board next time is my speaking slots are really valuable, and I will go above and beyond to promote my speakers, but I have to choose speakers wisely because it is a privilege to speak at an event to get that visibility to be able to build your business and to be able to be positioned in a way that solidifies you being the expert.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: And before the event, I didn't really think about that.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't think about how valuable my speaking slots actually were.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: I just wanted to get the right speakers in place so I could deliver the sessions.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: So that was a real learning thing for me, is maybe is going forward when I when I run my event again, is to have more of a criteria around the type of speaker to to have at my event.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't think things happen against us.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: I actually think things happen to help us grow.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: And there were a lot of things throughout the the 10-month project that I learned as I was doing it, and I was very much running this in plain sight of everybody else.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: I tried to be really honest about everything involved and where I was at, and even as I was bringing everything together, I felt the fear, I felt the nerves, I felt that feeling of being an imposter of who am I to host this event?
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Who am I to think that I could carry this off and to do it all on my own?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I did, and it was brilliant, and I got amazing feedback throughout every single day.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: I had people emailing me and I shifted things through the days.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like I initially planned for 15-minute breaks after every session, and then what I decided to do was have a conversation with my speakers to keep the conversation relevant, to make sure that it was on track.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: It always went back to the core concept of the event, which was how to generate income beyond selling your time.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I on the go kind of decided to make those decisions to reduce down the breaks, to still give a good 10 minutes, but to have that two-way conversation after a session so that I could ask questions that I knew my audience would be wanting to ask.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: So there was a lot of stuff going on, and the feedback that I got was amazing, and it's really interesting because we worry, don't we?
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: We when we do something new, we have this fear.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Is it gonna work?
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: Can I do this?
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: What if something goes wrong?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: All of these perfectly reasonable questions, and it just brings that fear to the forefront.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I think again, something that I very much take away from this experience is that we can do whatever we want to do.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: We if we set our mind at something, we can do this.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for me, it's a summit, for you it could be an online course or a membership or a program or creating your first digital product.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't really matter, it doesn't matter what the thing is.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: If we want it badly enough, we will find a way to make it work and we will put the work in and do what is necessary to achieve our goals.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the brilliance of an entrepreneur is that in what we do, we build resilience, we build tenacity, we build this inner strength that when things do go wrong, we can dig ourselves out of that place and we can turn things around.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's why I'm so fascinated by entrepreneurship because it's a certain skill set to be able to, when the going gets tough, not to chuck it in and just walk away and say, I can't do it, it's too hard.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: And trust me, I have had moments, even very recently, moments where I have questioned my own ability, my own capabilities, because I've been tested.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then you dig into yourself and you're like, Yes, I can do this, yes, I have what it takes, yes, I am the expert, I know my stuff, I can do this.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I have to learn, I have to figure things out.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I have to adapt what I do, how I do it.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I have to tweak my message in, maybe I have to learn to sell, maybe I need to develop a skill, but when all said and done, I can do this, and I think that that's one of the things that I've walked away from the summit knowing.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it's been 10 months of a lot of work, and I have to say, I have done it pretty much solo.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: I made the conscious decision to do it solo.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: My VA has been supporting me with sort of business stuff, but the event itself, I what I decided to do it solo so that I can.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: I can control it the way that I felt it needed to be controlled.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so glad I did because I was able to bring a vision I had that I've been sitting on for many years, I was able to bring that to life.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, despite all the work involved, it happened and I made it happen.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I think now that I'm at the other end of it, I look at that bulk of work and what was involved and what it took to bring it to life, and I kind of feel like I can do the next project, I can continue, I can show up for myself, I can be that person that I need to be to make this happen.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: And there is power in that.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: There is power in knowing what you are capable of.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I speak from where I'm at right now, which is having hosted this summit, having delivered it, having done all the work for it, knowing that I can now move forward in my business, knowing that I can make it a success.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because if I've done that, I can do the next thing.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's for me.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: But for you, what I want you to think about is where are you right now and what has it taken for you to get to where you are?
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes that becomes overlooked.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: It is not easy starting a business.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's not easy growing a business, and it's not easy staying in business.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm 10 years in, and even now I have those moments where I still suffer with those those doubts.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I think it's important to recognise how far you've come, what you've achieved, and what you're capable of.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: It is not an easy path to take.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: It requires so much of us all of the time.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not talking about work, I'm talking about that inner strength, that inner belief, knowing your capabilities, knowing that you're going to show up for yourself even when things get really tough and you do want to chuck it all in and you do want to walk away.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's worth taking a moment just to recognize your brilliance, what you're capable of, and what you have invested to get to where you are.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think it is something that is massively overlooked, it doesn't get talked about, and I think we should.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's just about recognizing our own brilliance.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: I hope it's given you some clarity and spark some new ideas for your business.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you found this helpful, I would love you to share it with a friend or a fellow entrepreneur who is also building their online business because this episode might be exactly what they need to hear today.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if this episode also has you thinking that you're ready to start turning your expertise into income, I would love to invite you into my community.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's over on the school platform, it's called Sell Your Brilliance Hub, and it's where we're having these conversations.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: My plan is to grow a thriving community where we can show up and we can share what we have so we can actually create assets that work for us in our business.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: And this community has been designed to show you exactly how to do that.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Head on over to school.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: So it's www.school.com forward slash sell, your hyphen, brilliance, hub, 2808.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: I will also put the link in the show notes so that you can click on the link and head straight on over.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: But come and join us, it's a fast growing community.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: I will be back next week with another episode.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: But until then, have a wonderful week.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for tuning in to today's episode of Online Business Uncovered.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: If today's conversation has sparked an idea or gave you a dose of clarity, then please make sure to check out the show notes for all the links and resources mentioned.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: New episodes land every Thursday, so hit follow or subscribe to stay in the loop.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're loving the show, a quick rating or review goes a long way in helping more brilliant entrepreneurs like you find this show.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, keep showing up, keep sharing your brilliance, and remember freedom in business is possible, and it starts with taking the next right step.