You're listening to Cubicle to CEO, Episode 251. If you're a longtime listener, you know getting in front of borrowed traffic is our favorite audience growth strategy. And today's case study on hosting roundtables affirms why women's leadership expert and founder of Safi Media Eleanor Beaton has successfully hosted 14 roundtables since quarter four of 2021, inviting aligned speakers to join her for hot button conversations and growing her email list by 2600 plus highly vetted subscribers in the process.
The roundtables may be free to attend, but they have collectively driven $884,000 in post event sales from attendees. We ask Eleanor all the questions you want to know to replicate the strategy in your own business, from the logistics of promoting inviting speakers and facilitating roundtable conversations effectively, to which roundtable topics drew the biggest crowds and how to best approach the post event sales process without scaring your new leads away.
Welcome to Cubicle to CEO the podcast where we ask successful founders and CEOs the business questions you can't google. I'm your host, Ellen Yin. Every Monday go behind the business and a case study style interview with the leading entrepreneur who shares one specific growth strategy they've tested in their own business, exactly how they implemented it, and what the results and revenue were. You'll also hear financially transparent insights from my own journey bootstrapping our media company from a $300 freelance project into millions in revenue.
What would increasing your current yearly revenue by 40 times look like for you? That's exactly what happened in Nikki's business after applying her own circuit sales system. By the way, Nikki didn't build her company by selling a course on how to sell courses. She had a course teaching people to become professional copywriters, and then she developed the circuit sales system to sell it. Now she's teaching you how to replicate this same system. No matter the topic of your course or program. Circuit sales system combines the excitement of live launching with the predictability of evergreen without their respective downsides like chaos and low conversions, head to circuitsalessystem.com/ceo to watch Nikki's free training on how to scale and sell your course or program on autopilot every single day. Again, that's circuitsalessystem.com/ceo or click the link below in the show notes to watch this eye opening training right now.
Hey everyone, welcome back to our show. Today I have my friend Eleanor Beaton here with us and loving the big hoops. By the way, I'm such an earring gal. So I always noticed some people have cool accessories on. Thank you for being here, Eleanor.
It's so awesome to be here.
Well, Eleanor's case study today is really fun. I was telling her before we hit record because I have actually been on the the other side as a speaker for one of her roundtables and today we're going to dissect tau roundtables, specifically hosting roundtables, has helped Eleanor add 2655 subscribers to her list and generate $884,000 in sales. Yes, that is a huge number. Really excited about the data. Before we get into that, though, what's your Cubicle to CEO story?
Well, I started out as a journalist, so I've been a communicator, my whole life, a professional interviewer, which is why I love roundtables so much. But I, you know, started my career in advertising and public relations and found myself constantly writing, I was like freelancing for different, you know, publications. And so I decided to go back to journalism school, and this was in the early 2000s. And I really wanted to be a news reporter. And so I was, you know, doing my internships I was doing, you know, news, I was covering everything from like car crashes and fires to elections and everything else. But this was around the time that the whole news industry and newsrooms themselves were sort of disintegrating, the model was dying. And so when I graduated from journalism school, there were no jobs in journalism. There were not any full time jobs in journalism for me, but there were sort of freelancing jobs. And so I started doing a little bit of freelancing, but it always like, I'm not a side hustle person. I am an all in girl. And so I decided, okay, I see an opportunity. Like I see the emergence of content creation. I see the strong need for communications, consulting, I mean, I put my journalism experience together with my communications, you know, consulting, and I'm going to launch a communications consulting company. And so I launched that company, and that's really my sort of Cubicle to CEO story that was my very first business.
You know, it's interesting, you're going to be our 250 Something interview, right? So, obviously, I sat across from a lot of women and ask them their Cubicle to CEO stories at this point. It's so interesting, the recurring themes on our show, I've noticed the two most common unconventional cubicle disorders are cubicle to stories. The most, most unconventional cubicle stories or origin stories, if you will, have been people in our community who used to be actors or actresses and worked somewhere in the entertainment industry, or maybe as a dancer, a performer, something of that nature.
And then I think the second most frequent one is the media news reporter journalist kind of angle and as someone who grew up wanting to be a journalist, and still very much desires to be a TV personality someday, not so much in hard news, but you know, more in that lifestyle, conversational, sort of interview format. It's just really interesting to see like the different skills and pads, especially anything in the creative realm, that really lends itself well to business.
Well, I think there's an aspect to it, which is the ability to pitch something, you know, you have to be able to pitch either yourself, which is really key. Yeah. And, or an idea. So for instance, when I was a freelance journalist or pitching, you know, when I was doing that, and you know, doing communications contracts, I would have to come up with a story idea, find the right editor for it, pitch it to that editor, do the follow up. So what it is, is sort of amazing trial by fire sales training, you're really used to pitching yourself, which I sometimes lament today. I am a coach. And I think there's tremendous things in the coaching industry, but I feel sometimes there's a bit of a lack of resilience or lack of what Marie Forleo would call like figure out ability in terms of just learning how do I take an idea, pitch it and be relentless in developing a sales pipeline?
Oh, I love that. I feel like I might need to have you back on to talk to us about that piece. Or we can have a roundtable about it, right? That's exactly because I am so on board with that. I totally agree. Pitching is one of the most underutilized and underrated skills and that resilience in being able to accept rejection as not a finality. But rather, I guess, like an invitation to get creative is how I think about it. So so powerful.
All right, one more question for you. That is unrelated the case study, before we get into the case study, I had to ask you this, because you have advised everyone from multi six figure entrepreneurs bootstrapped doing it themselves all the way up to billion dollar CEOs. So I'm very curious, what have you found is the biggest difference in terms of the problems that billion dollar CEOs are thinking through versus your target market today, which, you know, are primarily women making $200,000? Or more like, what are the differences in the challenges that they're thinking through and working through?
I think it's one of timeline and scale. So for example, so let me give you a classic example. So one of my clients was a woman who she was a billion dollar CEO, when the US President was trying to put together they put together sort of this consortium of women leaders to really help advise on things like what's going on in the economy, how do we promote, you know, Canada, US relations, like she was at that table in the White House, so amazing, amazing leader. And one of the big things that you see, is a leader like that is thinking 1020 years down the road.
And so for example, she had exited one organization and was starting her next startup. And her customer research was taking a trip around the world, looking all around the world and asking herself, where are the big needs? Where are the big needs, you know, and she was like, we there's definitely huge needs around climate change. There's definitely huge needs around energy. And that's ultimately where she started her next business. And so what struck me was the scope and timelines that they are looking at. And they're really looking at where are sizable opportunities? And where will the needs be in 5 10 15 years, versus the ones that I primarily work with today. As you're sort of scaling up from 200,000 to 2 million, it's still you're still very much in eat what you kill mode.
Yeah.
Which is, you know what I mean, there's an immediacy. And I have often felt that I think, and I love that you asked this question, because I do think there's such an opportunity for us as women to have some of these bigger conversations about scope about you know, because a lot of times the size of your business will be determined by the industry you choose.
Totally. And to your point, this conversation is very timely, because earlier this week, I actually had a conversation with a friend of mine who is one of those unicorns has built a business that has been valued at a billion or above. And it was interesting when we were talking about, you know, media businesses, and you know, my business and businesses like this in the online industry and how, you know, she comes from the world of enterprise business where everything needs to be like you said, this giant problem with a giant need that can be scaled up to a billion dollars, it is very rare.
I think, for anyone in the industry that we tend to frequent more often, like online coaching online education, to really have that same, that same vision, it's not to say it's impossible, but I haven't yet seen it done. And so it's very interesting to think about that, like, what's an enterprise vision or enterprise problem that you're solving versus like, here's a person I can help with my skill sets and knowledge and like, what does that look like? So very interesting conversation. Thank you for thank you for entertaining me with that. I just, I had to ask because you know, it's such a unique position for you to be in.
Let's get into this case study, because I know our listeners are dying to hear this. Okay? So a little background, you started hosting roundtables in quarter four of 2021. You have now done 14 Total roundtables. Do you happen to remember what your first roundtable topic was about? And then more recently, what was your most recent roundtable about?
I sure do. So the very first roundtable I ever did was called How to sell to women. And so I had done like a podcast episode, and I was really looking at, you know, selling to women. And I thought, you know, there's some nuances here. And I know as a as a, as a woman who buys things, there's some interesting nuances about how I buy how I make decisions, a lot of our audience sells to women also. So I thought, let's come together and have a conversation with people who also sell to women about some of their biggest insights in terms of selling to women, decision makers, both b2b and b2c.
So that was like, the very first one. And then the most recent one, was it my anti hustle manifesto, it may, or impostor syndrome, it might have been the imposter syndrome round, I'm forgetting, but it was all about so bringing together folks to talk about the impact of impostor syndrome, you know, on women entrepreneurs, how we lead how we make decisions, etc.
Super interesting, super different topics. I love themed conversations, by the way, like when I'm looking at events to attend, I really, like super specific topics, like when there's a panel, if someone's like, having a panel on, you know, general marketing, like that doesn't interest me nearly as much as what you were just describing, like, let's really, really dig into this one specific layer of you know, of a topic of interest. So, thank you for sharing that I want to walk through the logistics of hosting a round table just in case some of our listeners have either never attended one, or never hosted one themselves or spoken at one.
First question that comes to mind is how many speakers do you generally include in your round table? And are you always playing the role of host facilitator? Or have you ever kind of handed that baton off to someone else?
So I've never handed off that role? Because I think that host facilitator role is a big part of what makes it magic. So as I'm doing a roundtable, I'm always looking at attendee numbers, and are we keeping them to the bitter end? And we do, you know, and that has a lot to do with the ability to host a conversation. We'll get into some of those details here in a minute. But I always play the role. And I would say the number of guests, you're going to sort of balance two things.
So one is your experience at being able to facilitate a valuable, lively discussion between multiple people and being able to skillfully cut people off, bring people in? Patient, right, right. And creating rapport quickly, especially if you have women as guests. We are very polite, and we won't cut each other off usually to the last 10 minutes of the conversation and then we're then we're scrambling. So we've had anywhere I would never have fewer than three, including ourselves is that three including yourself, three plus myself three plus yourself. Okay. And I have I think we've maxed out at six plus myself.
Got it. Yeah, great point. By the way, I love that you brought a layer of context into that because you are so right. And especially with your training as a reporter, it makes sense you're but moderators of panels of roundtables, facilitators, hosts, whatever you want to call them, they make or break the conversation for sure, like a skilled moderator can elevate the same panel of speakers to a totally different level of detail and engagement, all of those things that you mentioned, since you did talk about cutting people off and that being a skill set. I'm sure many of us struggle with myself included.
What have you found is like the best way to if someone's rambling or just like going off on a tangent that you can tell the audience is losing interest? How do you insert yourself without, I guess, rubbing your guests the wrong way?
Yeah. So I always pre frame it. And I always tell them both in the greenroom. So I tell them look, my job is to really make sure this is valuable. And here's what that's going to look like, sometimes I'm going to cut you off to bring somebody in, sometimes I'm going to ask you for more detail. So I tell them there and really set that expectation, then when we start the roundtable, I generally will set up my introduction to let people know that as well, hey, we're coming together, we're gonna have a really valuable conversation about that. We're going to cut each other off, we're going to interrupt each other, this is welcome here, because we really want to have a lively value packed conversation.
So I sort of set the tone and normalize, I will start to use body language. So I will start to as the person is talking, and you usually don't want someone to talk for more than two minutes. More than two minutes, you're really stretching. Somebody, and some people are just long winded. So what I'll start to do is I'll start to sort of sit up in my chair a little bit, and kind of lean in a little bit, I might start to start to be like, you know, go like this, like put up my hand like this is exciting. I just have to stop you there.
And even if the point that they made like one second ago, was it fascinating? Yeah. I'll be like, I just have to stop you right there. And this was a fascinating point. And it makes me curious, and then I might and then I'll like transition the conversation, so are always trying to do it in a way that injects some energy doesn't make them feel bad that I cut them off, but also level sets at the beginning that this is what's going to happen because it is the audience that has I have to they're the they're the priority.
Yeah, yeah, totally. i Okay, love that. So jot that down. Listeners, you want to get closer to the camera and literally take up more space on the screen. Yes, use verbal or sorry, nonverbal cues to kind of indicate you might have something to add, like raising your hand or pointing a finger affirm them. And then segue beautiful love that. And you know, I keep going back to your media background. But I do feel like it's important. And, you know, when you first hopped into our green room for this interview, you're really kind and congratulating me on, you know, the recent Mrs. Oregon and my whole pageant experience.
And I will say one thing I have learned very recently, because of the pageant experience is, when I went on my little mini media tour, you know, I had several television interviews. And, you know, as a viewer, you notice how short segments are on TV. But it's even more apparent, I think, when you're actually there live. And most television interviews, guys, they're like five minutes, maybe seven minutes maximum, sometimes even as short as three minutes. But you have to still get through quite a bit of content, quite a few questions. And just sitting there realizing Wow, it is possible to actually get a decent amount of information out in 20-30 sound bites is really fascinating coming from a long form content container like podcasting, where I can't imagine having a podcast conversation with you in only five minutes about this topic.
And so I just think that's something that I want our listeners to take away is thinking through if you are part of a panel or roundtable thinking through how can you concisely get your message or answer out in that two minute or less time window, like be consciously thinking about that, because it's going to make you a better guest speaker that a host wants to invite back. So thank you for giving us that time parameter, Eleanor super helpful.
Okay, so we talked about speakers we talked about, you know, generally how you can help facilitate that? Do you change the themes or topics for your roundtables every single time? Do you ever have repeat themes or topics? Also, do you ever have repeat guests?
Yeah, I have definitely had repeat guests. And these repeat guests, or repeat guests for a couple of different reasons. The first is that they're great partners. And we're going to talk about that a little bit later, like this idea of building an ecosystem of partners. So they are great partners. And there's a ton of mutual benefits. Like they really go to the wall in terms of supporting to promote this. And we want to really go to the wall in terms of supporting them and elevating them to our audience because I like them. I mean, that's like, I mean, yes, very strategic, but also I like them. I think they're fantastic.
And I want to expose them more. And usually that's because also they're very popular with our guests. They have like really interesting. So a couple of examples. One of course is Jordan from system saved me love Jordan. I mean, everybody loves her either. Like she's just fantastic. She's so real. She's so authentic. She's just fantastic. Chris Blackie from leadership as feminine as a fantastic, fantastic speaker and guest and so they're excellent speakers they bring a lot of value. They keep things lively. And they have been good speakers for specific topics that we've done.
So generally with the topics, you know, a big part of my sort of overall strategy and modus operandi is kind of, I don't know if you there was a movie that one I think the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. I think that was the Oscars called women talking.
Oddly, I've never heard of that name, even though I'm like a religious watcher of the Oscar. So I must have just totally missed that.
I dont know that it was on the one on TV, it might have been on the untelevised, you know, section of what the movie was about is is less important than this idea of women talking, it's how women get together like that it's the whole tend and befriend. So we get the way that we deal with stress with new situations is to get together and talk. And so you know, I'm a firm believer in women talking and then in conversations create, and so I choose different topics.
Because if we think about sort of the marketing funnel, a roundtable is very much at the top of that funnel, and it's about how do I start to create to center my brand inside or put them at the heart of conversations that I believe women who would want to work with us are having? And so it's very much sort of at the top of that funnel? And how do I you know, so how do I do that? What are those conversations? And based on that conversation, who would be somebody that would have an interesting take on that? So you know, if you think about the view, or like, you know, shows where you have been talking and coming together to talk about stuff? That's kind of what I am looking for in terms of topics?
That's a really great comparison to use the view. Because, yeah, there is a diversity of personalities of belief systems of, you know, between all of the CO hosts of that show, whether, whether you agree with them or not. And so it makes it for an interesting conversation, like you said, has there been a stand out? theme that in the past that was like the most well attended, or the most engaged? Or, you know, whatever you want to qualify as, like the best one?
100%. So they're the one that sticks out to me, was a roundtable that we did, which was called how patriarchy impacts women in business.
Oh,and already a hot button topic already polarizing?
Yes, totally. It was totally polarizing. It was by far our most signed up for most watched most in demand roundtable, I think by a factor of two. So it got Delvaux out of the Yeah. And the speakers were dynamite. And so the speakers themselves were a little bit polarizing. He had really thoughtful opinions on things. So it was a fabulous roundtable in terms of really, really bringing in people because, you know, again, I think it's useful to think about, what are some of the characteristics?
Or what would maybe some of the viewpoints or some of the things that our ideal clients, what would they consider to be important, and I would say that, in general, the vast majority of our clients would consider themselves to be feminists. But they would just straight up say, I'm a feminist, you know. And so this is a topic that I think you know how that sort of conditioning impacts us as a topic that's going to be interesting for many of them.
And good for you for knowing your audience on that level, right. And knowing what might really get them excited to show up to hear opinions about or perspectives about something that impacts them on a daily basis. I wanted to ask you, since you mentioned that, that one had such a high show up rate, you know, a 2x factor. What is the average expectation for you around, you know, registrations for a round table?
And then what percentage typically do still show up live? I think a lot of people are wondering that because, you know, the age of in the age of COVID, you know, in 2020 2021, it's very hard to replicate those show up rates these days. So I'm just kind of curious what those stats look like in 2024 for you.
Yeah, so that's a great question. And so basically, for a roundtable you're typically going to have or what we would typically have, and it's also going to depend on your speakers, and we can talk about that more as well. But you generally have around tables with generally attract between 300, to say, at max 1200. So 300 to 1200 is and there's a big range there, right? And there's not a ton of predictability to about which topic or which speakers are going to draw the biggest audience and so you're not sure about that.
But that's generally what it looks like. And so between 300 1200 So these are not, and to be very sort of open. Like, we've never been the company that's had when people are like I had 5000 people registered for this webinar. I had like 1200 or 1500. That's never been us. Yeah, you know what I mean? It's just I'm not saying that I'm not open to that. But that has never been us. We've generally been and more niche. So that's kind of the what we would see for registration. From a show up perspective, the minimum that we would want to see would be 40%. And so we would look at, you know, 40 to 50%, show up rate, and we're usually doing, there's usually some email sequences, like, I think that we'd normally do like a three email sequence, you know, to get them to show up.
And this is really important, especially if they don't know us, right? You know what I mean, it's coming in. And so there's that that is in place. And yeah, I mean, there's no question that we're really feeling this sort of glut of content creators, and I say that with a lot of love and respect, because I am one of them, you know what I mean, but the glut of cod, post COVID content creators that have come into the market, we're experiencing the impacts of high supply, which I think is where you know, that's why I'm saying like, I think the quality of your topics the quality of your speakers, like from my perspective, there's still tons of room provided you're willing to be at the top.
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Totally, and in a world of quantity quality is what stands out. Right. And I think, to your point, it seems like your meticulous attention to quality is not only in the room when the conversation is happening, but it's so much of the vetting process ahead of time. And that's something I, you know, wanted to ask you about is how do you invite speakers? How do you position it to them for them to see, you know, this as an exciting opportunity? Do you offer them any incentives? On the flip side? Do you require any any motion of them? Talk us through those logistics?
100% this is a this is a great question. Because I've done the summits like I remember when I first started, you know now it's so funny, but I you know, back in the day, we used to do summits, they were like three days, there'll be 25 speakers, I can remember literally having like 2000 people on my list and being like, you must have 10 because this is what I was just implementing a system, you know, so But it all worked out. So here's what I would say, for me, and this is how I look at it. And I don't want this to intimidate anybody.
I think this is an opportunity for everybody to own something. I think you're a fantastic teacher on this thing. It's really about hey, what's the value that you're bringing to the table and being very cool. We're about that and not pretending that you hosting something isn't a big deal and a big opportunity for people. So I think that's when I come in knowing that and when I am willing to highlight and showcase like, there's a reason that they're coming, and I'm going to highlight and showcase that. That helps me with the positioning, you know, and so just so I think that's something that we can all do. And I'll do, you know, some of us can pay more attention to that than others.
So when you have the energy, oh, my gosh, you'd just be doing me this big favor. That's like, non baller energy. And so I think don't bring amateur hour, although if you don't bring amateur hour energy for your first few to get over yourself do that, too. That's all good.
I think to your point, though, I think there is a difference between humility and gratitude for people investing their time or energy into your community versus that, like, Oh, I am not qualified to be asking you have this in the first place. Right? It's a difference. There's a difference.
100. Yes, amazing clarification. Totally. So the question was, how do I reach out and position it? Right? Yeah. So typically, what I'll do is there's a vetting process first. And so the vetting process is like, we did do a round table, there was a bit of a horror story where we did our vetting. But we overlooked this one thing that got this is what we did on alas, we did it when it was a brand partner roundtable. But I can tell you the horror story, like it's not that big of a horror story.
Actually, if you you can neatly summarize.
Yeah.
In 30 seconds. I would love to hear because I was gonna ask you anyways. You know, what is something that you've done in the past? That was a big mistake that you would never repeat, like? So if you want to use that as the example then that's great.
Yeah, I'll tell you, I've got so many horror stories. So but like, well, mistakes. Let's put it that way. So we had a roundtable with a brand partner. And one of the people on the roundtable is actually a great, she's a fantastic entrepreneur, she's always been a fantastic partner to us. But somebody dug up this climate change denier post that they really took, and it wasn't like, it wasn't like home, the science is dubious, it wasn't even something that it was like, something odd.
You know, and if it had been me on my roundtable, and somebody and it wasn't a brand partnership, I would have been like, but they had to really look for it, you basically would have really had to look for it. And so they went sort of three layers down. And we generally will go like two layers down.
Sure.
So that was, you know, and I think that would be if you start to do these in a brand partner, it's like actually going, I would probably make sure that we're going five layers down, going like scrolling down through, you know what I mean, really kind of take a look at the history just because.
Of their online presence. You mean like the content they post or share or engage with? Okay.
Yeah. So we vet our roundtable guests, and we normally do it in a couple of ways. Number one, is this person going to add value to our audience? You know, do they have articulated opinions? That's number one. Do I like them and respect what they do? And often I'm trying to look for a mix, like, would they stand up to somebody if they didn't agree? Could we get some lively conversation going.
So those are sort of the core things, then I start to look at other so with a roundtable, you want to have a good mix of people who you believe would be a good partner. So we generally sign up for their email list, we make sure that they have an active email list that they leverage it that they use it. And those things help us understand that they're going to be a great partner. Because the sort of business impact of a roundtable comes through email, right? It drives much more than social social, like find for brand, but it doesn't really fulfill, you know, the sort of the list growth purposes of a roundtable.
So those are the things that I am looking for in my guests. And we do you know, sort of vet that the requirements that we ask are always number one will ask for solo email, will ask for a believe, like to social posts. And then sometimes if we really want the guest, and sometimes they're like, look, would you be willing to do this instead? And depending, sometimes it's like, yeah, 100%. What's a big problem? And this does sometimes happen is when people don't honor their commitments.
Oh, so what happens in a situation like that? Do you revoke their invitation?
Yeah.
Or is it like, Yeah, well, how do you handle that?
So we have what we call the velvet hammer, okay. And everything we do, and so we assume the best and what that means is sometimes it's probably overwhelmed and forgot, you know what I mean? Like something like that. And so we will monitor, you know, it's always like, people will respect what we inspect, you know, and so, we'll monitor and make sure that that promotion happened. And then if it didn't, we'll be like, hey, you know, Sandra, I've never had a Sandra on my round table. Sandra. I mean, notice that we haven't seen it yet and your email, just wanted to get a sense of when that's going to go out.
Yeah.
You know, and so that's we've never had somebody not feel fulfill, but we haven't you know, we actually know one time we did. I'll tell you about that in a minute. But we always we sort of assume we don't make a big deal about it. We don't make them evil. We've all, you know, yet we're dealing with overwhelmed entrepreneurs, we get it, we've got you, we're not going to let you not be a good partner.
So that's kind of what the requirements and I will send a quick Voice Note, typically first. Hey, Ellen, it's Eleanor. And what I'm saying, you know, I'd love for you to be a part of this, this is who I am, this is who I've partnered with. And when we do these things, it's a fantastic opportunity to have a meaningful conversation, to highlight you to our community of highly vetted data, that data, and we make everyone look even better. That's, you know, what I mean? Like, I'm, we're going to have a conversation that you are going to be very proud of having. And here's what we ask, you know, this this just quick, just quickly, let me know, are you in.
I really liked that you refer to your speakers as partners in this collaboration that you, it really feels like, you know, we're one team working to make this really successful. I do want to hear though, that one person that didn't follow through period, even after reminders, what what is the best step to take in a tricky situation like that? Like, do you allow it to slide? Do you revoke the invitation, knowing that that may permanently end your relationship with them? Like, what what's your thought there?
So in this case, it was interesting. So this individual, fantastic individual had, you know, great social presence, she committed to doing the things and then last minute, so she didn't really have an email list, even though we. And this was like, the day of because we're like, my friend, where is this?
Yeah.
And so at that point, we were so far into it that I was like, okay, you know what I mean, this is going to create more problem than not. And so lesson learned, I will not partner with this person again, you know, and that doesn't make them a bad person. You know, business like businesses, this stuff happen, you know, if you've been in business long enough, and I've been an entrepreneur since 2003, you see all sides of people, and I no longer expect, you know, it's just stuff happens.
And so, so in a case like that, I did not I could have gone back, I probably could have gone back and been like you committed to doing this. You didn't do this. But it was more like water off a duck's back. Yeah. And you are amazing. And that was not smart, because you just lost a great partner. Right?
Right.
My mind that was in my library voice, my library indoor voice. Myself.
Right, there are always consequences to our actions, whether they are immediately seen or not. Right. So great reminder for all of us. I feel like this is a perfect moment to insert your hot take I talked to you before, you know, coming on here that that I've noticed in the online space that there has been like rumblings of people feeling dissatisfied by what they would view as a one sided collaboration.
And one of the you know, topics of conversation have been around online summits, online, roundtables, anything of that nature, where there are other speakers involved in people feeling like, hey, as the speaker, I'm being requested to do XYZ, but I don't get access to the list of email leads that the host does, even though I'm contributing to it. So what are your thoughts around this? How would you respond to a concern like this?
Yeah. I mean, I think that's a super legitimate concern, if you look at it in a transactional way, which is that this is a one and done. Yeah, so there's a couple of different ways to look at this. So the first is that I know, so I'll get really specific to us, and then I'll just be a little bit more general. So our community, I know, from my perspective, when people come into my world, we have a community of buyers.
So our community is very well vetted. These are very high level women, they invest in themselves, and in their, you know what I mean? They buy a ton of books, they invest in programs and courses, they share, they bring referrals. So they taught, they're in communities, and you know, organizations where they're going to talk about this. So if you come into our community, and I highlight you in this way, that is more than an equal partnership. And if you don't feel that way, I understand. But I'm going to try my best to make sure that I share the value of that.
So there's that part of it. But I do think the other aspect of it is that what I would love to see is that people see that they hit me back and I always say that. And so it can be little things like I'll give an example. So you were a guest on my roundtable and I'm listening to you, I'm like, brilliant, and so then I hired you for a VIP day. I'm like, Please tell me your secrets. You know what I mean?
Which was so much fun brainstorming with you about brand partnerships. Yeah.
And then I'm also like, I'm so inspired. I'm gonna make a whole reel about Ellen Yin and like making you know, if you have stuff, I'm totally going to partner. So I do think there is for me, it's like, okay, I always look at things like invite people to the table, make something exciting happen. So you know, bring something to something legitimate. And there's a big investment in making that happen.
So make sure that you get paid. And so the getting paid is like making sure, but then it's like, make sure that everyone is whole. And so from that, it's like, you're asking for something from this person, right? But in an ideal situation, you're partnering with something like the partnership is two ways. And so for instance, if they asked me, can you do this or this? Can you do this? 100% yes. But there's a bigger picture here, which I've always been one of my favorite newsletters is written by Elisa Lunan. She has a podcast called pulling the thread, she was the Chief Content Officer of goop ended up leaving that and she writes about, like feminist issues.
And one of her newsletters talked about, she's like, men have no problem, networking and helping themselves. Women can sometimes so she was talking about how she was so surprised at the places where she didn't get support for her book. And she said, you know, men can help each other without feeling like it costs them anything. That's a very interesting perspective. Right? Which is not to guess, like the people who are like, this is one sided? Because I think sometimes if you know it, that absolutely can be the case.
Sure.
But it is like, how do we for everyone who talks about you know, so in my market would be women from for everyone in my world who talks about women, elevating women, the real thing that elevates women is practical support, not just an ethos, you know, it's about like, are we actually helping so easier when you vet people? And easier when you you know, you see them as partners, and you see them as, okay, these are totally people I'm going to go to the wall for and this could be a long term partnership, not just a one time thing.
Yeah. And I think that's the approach or perspective that I really want to pull out and highlight for our listeners your explanation of how, yes, if you view as like this is a one off one time thing, then if there is no reciprocity, in that moment, then yeah, you've technically lost out right. But like, kind of, again, maybe on the speaker side, also looking at how are you getting the opportunities you say yes to and the relationships with the person that, you know, the people I should say that are offering you these opportunities?
Do you see a long term relationship with them? If the answer is yes, it may be worth depositing a few coins into that relationship bank right, knowing that at some point down the line, you may have an opportunity to withdraw that. And so I think the way that you explain that was was really beautiful, and really a very kind, but also compelling argument to that internet heartache if you again, thank you for entertaining me on that. I did want to ask you, though, since you mentioned that your audience is very highly qualified, highly vetted group who are buyers?
Do you offer your speakers an opportunity to share a paid offer or perhaps an unpaid offer at the end of the roundtables? For our listeners who are thinking about hosting their own roundtables? Anything else you might want to share about how you can attract the best speakers to these events?
Yeah. So I always sort of wrap up the event by saying, hey, where can people you know, go to learn more about you. So it'd be more like kind of like podcast interview style, got it, where they will sort of highlight will sort of link to wherever they want us to link, we'll put any links that they want to. So it's more of a hey, here's where you can go versus that opportunity. Because normally there's not enough time to do that effectively.
Or it's, it's kind of weird, because we were talking about this, and then and a lot of sales is about context. Yeah. So you know what I mean? So yes, we 100%. And what we would say is because it's such a top of funnel thing, and we don't put people right into sales sequences, right after, I mean, I suppose we probably a lot of internet marketers will be like you're wasting an opportunity. But I'm like, they're not. They just met us like Jerry. Like, it's the likelihood of that. So yeah, so we always give people an opportunity.
And we'll be like, hey, you know, where can people go to learn more about you? We hyperlink that out as we sort of send that, you know, as we do our follow up, you know, our posts are follow up, sending out the replay, et cetera. So that's typically what that looks like.
Okay, you just touched on the question I wanted to ask you next rounding out the logistics for hosting a roundtable so they do get the replay everyone gets Danny play s for attendees to get access to these roundtables. Is it free to register or have you ever tried a paid roundtable?
Yeah, no, we've never tried a paid roundtable which is not to say that we wouldn't, but we've generally always had them be free.
Okay. And there's no limit in terms of time access to the replay, like they have it forever? Or is it like an urgency thing? Where it's like, Have you missed it live? You got to watch it within certain hours or also disappears?
Yeah. So what we have generally done, we've experimented with both. So we've experimented with, Hey, this is, you know, this is here, we've forever we've also experimented with, hey, it's going to be available for the next week. Yep. You know, and so we have done both. And mostly, and I wish I could say there's like a larger well thought out strategy around that. It's been more to experiment and just kind of see, but also, there's something about, it's very valuable.
And I want to always make sure that people understand that there's value here. And part of that is, hey, it's not just available forever, like, we're going to be reasonable. This is here. And also, we might want to sort of package it up, as you know, where and I, we haven't really looked at selling them. We've never, we have not done that. But it's like, how can we package this up, and maybe have it be critical conversations around blah, blah, blah. So we've just sort of done it to give ourselves some options really.
I think you should definitely test that. Personally, I think that would be a great bundle to opt into for someone or even turning it into a private podcast feed that someone can just listen to, you know, I think so many of my favorite nuggets I've learned as an entrepreneur have not come from structured curriculum style courses, but rather just one off little nuggets of wisdom that I happen to catch in a conversation that totally changes how I approach something or think about something. So a lot of value in that.
Yeah.
And you mentioned that you don't immediately enter these new leads into some sort of sales sequence. So what is the desire next step or action item from, you know, when someone stay through the end? And they're, you know, logging off this roundtable? What do you anticipate or want these leads to do? And how do you approach the sales process?
Because like we referenced at the beginning of this conversation, you've generated $884,000 from these roundtables. So walk us through like, what, where did this revenue come from? Like, what products and services were they buying? And also, how are they coming to buy these things in the first?
So the revenue is coming from coaching programs, so we sort of track who they are and where they came from. So we can see, you know what I mean? And so, so that's, that's where we see. So sometimes it's happening. And it would depend, I think, you know, that the roundtables that are much more tactical and business focused. So they would be more I would call it sort of mid funnel, you know, what I mean it where it's much more sort of a lead conversion type of topic. Those people who are signing up for those, they typically have the problem.
And so there, you know, if it's a marketing focused roundtable example, we did one, one time, which was how to build effective women's communities. So we know that there are people who a lot of people that we work with, who also work with a lot of women and are curious about how do you build an actual effective community. And so we brought in people who had built great communities, if you're building a great community, probably a sign that you are a builder, probably a sign that you want to coach.
And so that would be an example of a roundtable that brought in quite a few customers and clients for us. So they are signing up for one of our, and in the last sort of since we started doing roundtables, we've really had like three core programs that we've done. So that's like where they're coming in from.
Oh sorry. I was just gonna say, do you tailor? Which of the three you put in front of them verse based on the topic of the roundtable?
No.
No. Okay. So it's always the same one that you pitch up front first?
No, it basically does. So that would depend on what webinar that we were having coming up, you know, what I mean? So the way that I sort of run things is I'm a very sort of routine person. And so we would always have, we were like, we're gonna have you know, every two months, we're going to have a webinar. And so our first goal after a roundtable is because not everybody is going to stay, there's definitely going to be people who only signed up for that one thing, they have zero interest in anything else. And so they're going to jet.
Yeah.
And, you know, I would say that you're probably going to lose about 30% of your people. unsubscribes you mean, yes, are gonna go away, you know, within the next sort of two, three months? And that's fine, because it's like, part of vetting right is that's part of it, you know, you're not for them, that roundtable was for them, but you are not for them, or what you generally talk about is not for them.
So there's that part of it, you know, and so what we would do is we would just plug in these round tables, and then we would also they'd be on our list, we would generally have like an initial sort of level nurture, which is just any sort of they would be in a classic nurture. Hey, this is who we are. Thanks for coming to the roundtable. Here's a little bit about us. Welcome. And then they're on the email list as part of like, general population. Yeah. And then the next, you know, the next sort of webinar that we did, they would have an opportunity to join that. We try to bring people
And then they are in our flow versus bolting on more immediate, you know, sales opportunities after that. And that is an opportunity. And I'm sure people could do that. You know what I mean? What I will say is that, you know, we, it gets back to this idea of conversations create, so we try to connect and reach out. Anytime somebody comes to our email list or comes to, you know, our community through something that's new, generally, a team member is going to try to connect with them on social media.
Oh, that's really cool. Like individually reach out to that person. Wow.
Yeah.
Love that touch.
Oh, we're super high touch. Yeah. And again, conversations create. And, you know, I don't know about you, but we I want personalized, like the kind of advisory that we do, it would make sense, you know, we're not like selling courses yet. Where it makes a lot of sense to have more automated because it's very, very specific, we're actually selling deeper business advisory. So those kinds of things, they have to kind of have a sense of connection.
So we do a lot of recall at hand to hand combat, velvet hammer hand to hand combat people like wow, this, she's terrifying. It's really, it's this idea of like this, we're going to be close to people. So we're going to actually reach out to them individually, they matter and make that connection.
I love that. I think that's really just really what helps you stand out, especially in the age of automation of AI of many shot of all the things that distance, personalization, I think bringing that into the fold is one of those things that we talked about, you know, that makes you bring the quality in a world of quantity.
So to wrap up this case study, then Eleanor, I am curious if you know, any of the data around the so the leads like that 2600 some odd leads come through these roundtables. If you know, any interesting stats about the subscriber quality you already mentioned one, like 30%, may, you know, fall off in the first couple months.
But do you know the average cycle if you're having these live webinars every month, let's say, what's the average cycle from when someone comes into your ecosystem into your flow? And to they actually convert to a customer? And do you know, what percentage of the roundtable leads who have stayed on your email list have actually converted to paying clients?
That's a great question. I don't know. But what I do know is that generally, the time to purchase is going to generally be between three and nine months. Okay. You know what, I'm generally in there. So some will be a little bit longer, almost never do we have people buying right away.
Okay.
It's very rare, you know, and that could be a function of the fact that we're not bolting on immediate sales funnels.
Right.
There is something around that there is a little piece where it's like, they've opted in, it's all about context. And so if they've opted in for something, and the whole point, because it's very top of funnel, so we're having interesting conversations, you know, for me, I really selling is about relevance. So the ability to make an informed decision around a sale.
So sometimes there could be a roundtable topic that is not directly relevantly connected to, you know, whatever we're doing, or, and so, in those cases, they may be waiting a little bit, you know, and so it could be anywhere from three months to nine months, that's sort of like if they're gonna buy there, they're often in there, somewhere a little bit longer, you know, but yeah, it's generally.
No that that's really helpful. And honestly, for your type of product suite or service. I mean, being hired ticket that doesn't feel that long, right? Three months is actually relatively short time for someone who maybe doesn't know you to actually buy something. That's a pretty substantial investment. So yeah, thank you. This has been very enlightening. I love getting to talk to you about this because I feel like you not only bring the logistical side, but you do bring in that extra layer of context that I so often crave, but not everyone offers up so willingly. So it was really really refreshing.
Thank you so much. Where can our listeners continue to connect with you, Eleanor?
Oh, I love it so they can connect with me on social so on Instagram or LinkedIn at Eleanor Beaton. And if you are a podcast listener, you can listen to the woman owned podcast.
Amazing. We will drop all of those links below for you listeners. Thank you so much for tuning in. Eleanor. Thanks for being here. We'll catch you all in next week's episode.
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