Latest / Your Mic / My Thoughts on Speke Fest 2025

Transcript

My Thoughts on Speke Fest 2025 · Your Mic

• 0:00
  I host to my first ever podcast event, and it was both eventful and uneventful.
• 0:06
  I'll explain on this episode of your mic.
• 0:11
  Ready cruise back on the founder of Speak Podcasting, and as you know, your mic is a biweekly
• 0:16
  podcast, which means you probably noticed that I wasn't around on Tuesday.
• 0:23
  And that's because the past week and a half, past two weeks, past two months, past three
• 0:27
  months, past four months have been nothing short of insane planning, Speak Fest 2025 at
• 0:32
  the National Museum of Funeral History.
• 0:34
  And I decided that as I was catching up with the day-to-day operations of Speak Podcasting,
• 0:40
  I decided, well, you know what, give yourself some grace, Freddie.
• 0:45
  Also it's 11.45 and you're falling asleep at the desk and you should not record an
• 0:52
  episode talking about Speak Fest.
• 0:54
  And so I decided to, well, not record and publish an episode on Tuesday.
• 0:59
  The day got by and that's where we are.
• 1:04
  So here I am, talking about the first ever podcast event that my company has put on and a huge
• 1:11
  shout out to everybody who attended.
• 1:16
  We had all and all and just over, I believe 25 people total could be more, but that's
• 1:23
  my estimate.
• 1:26
  And that's obviously way lower than I had anticipated, expected, wanted.
• 1:34
  I was pretty sure that, well, with all the people that we're working with, certainly we
• 1:42
  can shoot for 200 to 250 on a low end.
• 1:45
  We could probably expect 100.
• 1:50
  Boy was I dead wrong.
• 1:53
  Now remember, and let's back up here a few months, I was talking to my business coach,
• 1:57
  I have a monthly call with a coach shout out Jim.
• 2:01
  And when I told him about the event, he asked why and I'm like, well, because all the technological
• 2:07
  advances, the one thing our AI overlords will never replace is human connection, human relationships.
• 2:16
  AI doesn't have a soul, not yet.
• 2:21
  Although I'm pretty sure some people might disagree and say, yes, AI has a soul.
• 2:25
  And that's why they're going to overthrow humans as the alpha species on earth, but
• 2:30
  whatever.
• 2:31
  Different conversation for a different episode, different podcast altogether, if you ask
• 2:34
  me.
• 2:35
  So yeah, I explained that to my coach and he was like, well, you know, having an event
• 2:41
  is a lot like having another business and he was a thousand percent right.
• 2:47
  But that doesn't mean I didn't go full throttle on promoting, on advertising, on marketing,
• 2:55
  the event.
• 2:56
  We did our organic social through the speak podcasting social media accounts, primarily
• 3:02
  on meta.
• 3:03
  So Instagram and Facebook, we did some LinkedIn, we ran some YouTube shorts, whenever it was
• 3:08
  an Instagram post, I added my own Instagram account as a collaborator to get more views.
• 3:14
  I had some just fantastic help with my friends like Brittany Croson, founder of fun love
• 3:22
  media.
• 3:23
  I had some help from the museum, obviously, loaning us the place at a steep discount
• 3:30
  when they did not have to.
• 3:33
  So we got the museum for two days and it was so much fun.
• 3:38
  And yeah, just so thankful to everybody who helped out, thankful to our sponsors, Dr.
• 3:47
  Sturm, who made an in kind donation, who also hosted a launch party at her practice.
• 3:55
  Shout out to Dr. Beatta Lerman, who made an in kind donation.
• 3:59
  Some speak podcasting and speak fest themed chocolate bond bonds, which were amazing
• 4:06
  and a total hit shout out to Movo, who was a sponsor and made an in kind donation donated
• 4:12
  some gear to give away to aspiring podcaster shout out to another one of our sponsors, Roger
• 4:17
  I go shout out to JCMM dot social for helping us create some unforgettable reels.
• 4:25
  Shout out to again, fun love media, my friend Brittany Brittany, who also also agreed to do
• 4:32
  headshots for everybody on day number one.
• 4:37
  And so we had we had some fun and we made some connections and we laughed and we learned
• 4:43
  a lot of we had some we had some some speakers come in from out of town all the way from
• 4:48
  New Jersey from Austin and yeah, it was great.
• 4:53
  The numbers, Paltry at best, you know, if we were to break down what all I did to
• 5:02
  kind of give you an idea, we advertised in 11 different newsletters and I feel like
• 5:11
  this is a lesson learned and something that I'm telling you this because maybe you have
• 5:19
  a business and maybe you want to launch an event and have something for you and whether
• 5:23
  or not that's podcast related, you know, podcasting is my business.
• 5:27
  So obviously was a podcast event, but we advertised in 11 different newsletters.
• 5:33
  We had just over 229,000 impressions from all the placements of the 11 different newsletters.
• 5:44
  We advertised in five different ones, okay, total reels and post views were 48,000 just
• 5:51
  over 48,000 between June and September.
• 5:56
  So this is not counting the first half of October.
• 5:58
  So realistically looking at about 50,000.
• 6:07
  And so I'm telling you this because it is hard.
• 6:12
  It is harder than you can ever imagine.
• 6:14
  And that's not even counting, managing schedules and arranging and curating your speaker list
• 6:24
  and print out, print items, signage, your agendas that are printed out.
• 6:36
  And so speak fest is definitely going to be back, it'll be back.
• 6:39
  It will most likely not be two days if at least if I have it my way.
• 6:47
  It'll still be at the National Museum of Funeral History.
• 6:51
  We're going to do more panels and apparently I had no idea what a keynote speaker was.
• 6:56
  Some of the feedback from the event was we were a little heavy on keynote speakers and
• 7:02
  perhaps those speakers I could have made them workshop hosts.
• 7:09
  So these are all things that I learned along the way.
• 7:13
  Also learned that I need to really learn how to do meta ads.
• 7:21
  And the whole thing, the whole reasoning behind newsletter ads was that, well I know what
• 7:29
  I don't know and I do not know how to run meta ads because I always get my ass kicked
• 7:34
  whenever I do try and run them.
• 7:36
  And so I figured, well this is a super niche event and I'm going to go where I know the
• 7:45
  potential audiences and that was podcast and creator specific newsletters.
• 7:52
  And I was wrong, dead, wrong.
• 7:57
  So there's some things that I'll need to really reflect on in terms of marketing and advertising.
• 8:05
  And I want to read to you a very nice text that I got with some really valuable constructive
• 8:12
  criticism.
• 8:13
  I'm scrolling down my messages as I speak because this was just so kind and priceless.
• 8:23
  And the writer of this feedback shall remain nameless.
• 8:28
  It reads, it's hard doing events and I think you know that by now.
• 8:34
  Yes, I do.
• 8:36
  Tip, well attended events are a spectacle carnival and attendees need a guaranteed return
• 8:44
  on three levels, immediate near term, long term, immediate returns are like just attending
• 8:51
  the event has to be a vacation, which is why a lot of events are in Vegas, Disney or
• 8:57
  on a cruise ship.
• 9:01
  Intermediate returns, excuse me, intermediate returns or that speakers give real action
• 9:06
  blangles to audience that are bankable books, training downloads, podcast editing workshops,
• 9:11
  AI editing courses, all this requires good internet computers, workstations, et cetera.
• 9:16
  Long term returns are from networking and business outreach.
• 9:22
  Techfest lacked immediate and intermediate return and long term was sparse.
• 9:31
  Good well financed or I'm sorry, good well financed events take 18 months minimum planning
• 9:38
  and a ton of industry support.
• 9:43
  And as much as I heard to read that, I loved it.
• 9:47
  Some all about tough love, please do not tell me my baby is pretty when it's not.
• 9:53
  And so there were some things, obviously some things that I dropped the ball on that
• 10:00
  will not happen again.
• 10:02
  And I will not bore you to tears with some of the backend stuff that I learned that needs
• 10:08
  to be executed way better anyway.
• 10:11
  And that's the cold hard truth because I want to keep it real with you.
• 10:15
  And all of that to say, all of that to say is that my friends who were there and the
• 10:21
  people who bought tickets seemed to enjoy themselves and did do some networking.
• 10:29
  And so that's the one thing that I will push back on in terms of that feedback that I
• 10:33
  read to you was that I'm convinced there was some immediate payoff.
• 10:41
  It was inside a museum, an entertaining venue and speakers gave actionable advice.
• 10:50
  I stand by that.
• 10:51
  And the networking, that's the long term, there were some pretty meaningful connections
• 10:55
  that were being made.
• 10:57
  I know this because I was asked more than just a few times, hey, can you send me so and
• 11:03
  so's email address, hey, can you please send me so and so's number, hey, can you please
• 11:07
  do an email intro, hey, can you do this, hey, can you do this?
• 11:10
  So I know firsthand.
• 11:14
  Does that mean it's perfect?
• 11:15
  No, it doesn't.
• 11:17
  It does not also mean that there was no benefit.
• 11:22
  This was not a complete waste of time.
• 11:26
  And I'll tell you right now, if anybody was disappointed and speak fest, I don't know
• 11:33
  about it one and two, nobody is as disappointed as I am.
• 11:45
  I spent much of the time on the way back from the museum.
• 11:49
  I went to have dinner with some friends who were there.
• 11:56
  I spent much of the time on the way home crying.
• 12:03
  And my wife probably thought I was crazy because I was a little over emotional too when
• 12:10
  I walked in the living room.
• 12:15
  They're very popular business people who will tell you that the most successful people
• 12:25
  in life are the ones who are willing to embarrass themselves.
• 12:30
  And boy, did I embarrass myself, such as life, I embarrass myself on the radio, going
• 12:44
  all the way back to when I first started intentionally unintentionally.
• 12:53
  I embarrass myself when I wrote my first book, got lamppooned by the Houston press.
• 13:03
  I mean, absolutely murdered by them, actually, that review was terrible, embarrassed, embarrassed
• 13:12
  by the lack of sales of my second book, embarrassed by the lack of sales and by getting dumped
• 13:20
  by the publisher for the third book.
• 13:25
  Even though publishers weekly had some very nice things to say, still wasn't enough.
• 13:32
  I can't help but have an inferiority complex.
• 13:38
  But for some reason, I'm just a glutton for punishment.
• 13:48
  And I just don't know how to quit.
• 13:53
  I don't.
• 13:55
  So what do we learn today?
• 13:58
  What do we learn?
• 13:59
  We learned that if you're going to have an event, you don't double down on one channel of
• 14:08
  paid ads just because you don't know how to set up a pixel on meta.
• 14:15
  That's for me.
• 14:18
  You go ham.
• 14:19
  I mean, hard as a mofo on organic social, I did that.
• 14:26
  When you push forward with absolutely zero regrets, zero, hey, if you're listening to
• 14:35
  this and you haven't yet told me your full thoughts on how speak fast went, please, please
• 14:43
  reach out to me, Freddie with a Y Freddie at speakpodcasting.com.
• 14:49
  Thank you so much for listening.