Hey hey, welcome to the Summit Host Hangout Podcast where you'll learn how to host a high converting virtual summit that leads to your biggest signature offer launch yet. I'm your host Krista from Summit in a Box and I am so excited to feature another one of our incredible Summit in a Box students and B2C summit hosts today in Episode 204. Abbi, the creator of Abbi Kirsten Collections is a self made a creative entrepreneur on a mission to nurture the creative magic inside you with easy to learn tutorials. She is on a mission to make the world a more colorful place one craft at a time, through sharing her Cricut tutorials, paper craft projects and handmade gifts. She is the host of the Cricut Craftfest Summit, which currently holds the record for all time largest summit out of all of the clients and students we have ever worked with. And that is without having any type of product launch on the back end that we're figuring into those numbers. I cannot wait for you to hear about this event. Welcome. Abbi, thank you so much for being here.
Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be talking with you today.
Yeah, this is gonna be fun. So before we dive into the summit side, tell us a little bit about you and your business.
Well, like you said, I'm the creator of Abbi Kirsten Collections, and I'm pretty much all about just crafts, and Cricut crafts and anything that you can make with your hands. That's basically what we're all about on my blog, and I have a passion for helping others learn how to master their Cricut machines. If you don't know what that is, it's an electronic die cutting machine for crafters, and it just helps them build out an array of projects. And a lot of times people will get stuck using their equipment, so I have a passion for helping them understand that so that they can unlock their creative potential.
Oh my gosh, so okay, the first time I saw your summit registration page, I had like a total oh my gosh moment, because something I read in your bio was like, colorful, you love the color. And I remember going to your registration page and like, oh my gosh, this is so much fun. And I feel like your passion to like help people with that, and just have fun doing it just shows up in everything you do, as well as your Summit. So I would love for you to tell us a little bit about your Summit.
Yeah, so it's called the Cricut Craftfest Summit. And we have two versions of it. So we have the original one, which I did for the first time in February 2022. And then we decided to do a holiday version of the Cricut Craftfest because we cut so many requests for a holiday version, we're like, alright, well, let's just dive back in because y'all are asking for it. But it's just all about focusing again on that Cricut crafting helping newbies overcome that overwhelm, I can't tell you how many times in my community, I hear, I bought a Cricut, I want to learn how to use it, I want to learn how to craft more. And then they get overwhelmed, they put it the back of their closet, they never touch it again. And I hear that all the time. So that's one of the things that we work with in that summit is we just tell people, we're going to bring you on board to the summit, we're going to walk you through step by step. So everything we do in the summit is set up for beginner. And if you're not a beginner, there's still loads to enjoy and learn. But if you are, you're not going to feel overwhelmed. So we're going to help you go from Cricut in the back of the closet to I love my Cricut and I can't wait to make all these crafts. But that is our sole focus of that, you know, we've worked to bring speakers on that are really great at teaching the the technical side and the details of that all the way through the project assembly, and just a whole host of that just to get you from that unstuck place. And if you're not, you know, you're not a beginner and you're experienced, there's a really supportive community where you can meet new people enjoy, you know, new crafts and all of that. So that's what we're all about at the summits.
Yeah, no matter how experienced you are, it's always fun to get in a huge group of people who are obsessed with the same thing that you're obsessed with, so I love that. Do you you follow the Summit in a Box model for the most part free summit all-access pass pre recorded presentations, all of that?
Summit in a Box is yep, totally follow everything in your model. Yeah, pretty much down to a T. I couldn't have done it without you. Like I love Summit in a Box is so organized. So detailed. My favorite part I think of the entire course is the Trello board because I use Trello. So I copied it. And then when I don't remember like, am I forgetting to do something before the summit starts? I just go to the Trello board. I look at that section. Oh, yeah, I forgot to do this or I need to check this off. And it's right there. So yeah, definitely all about Summit in a Box.
I'm so glad that's helpful. That's my favorite part two, I still live by that. So okay, we know about your business. We know about your Summit. What made you decide it was time for a summit? And like How long have you been in business before you went for the first one?
Yeah, so, I'm going into, I always say seven but it's actually eight years now, seven years, eight years, I guess in December. Eight years in December of owning my blog, and my business, my craft business in general. I think I really started taking it seriously probably about four years ago, five years, five years ago now where I really started to dive into like, okay, this is a full time thing. This isn't kind of just on the side. So I would say full focus five years, but I didn't really actually plan to do a summit at all. I I'm trying to I was thinking about this before I got on the call with you because I was I was trying to remember where I found Summit in a Box initially, because that's what started me on the summit journey, just finding you. I think I think if I remember correctly, it was somebody talking about you in one of the Facebook groups, I was a part of like it was a blogging group or something else, and someone was recommending you and talking about it. And then I just went to Google and I searched you. I went and I searched Summit in a Box, and it was like, saw your website. And then I started, like, looking at it and reading it, I think I listened to some of your podcast. And then you know, of course, found the whole Summit in a Box course. And I was like, Oh, my gosh, this is such a great idea. I could totally do this. I was like, I had no idea what I wanted to do the summit on. Really, I bought the course, and I was like, I don't know when I'm gonna do this, but I'm going to do something. So we're buying Summit in a Box. And I really just, I looked at the course. And I was like, even before I bought it, I looked at it, and how everything was like laid out with what was included. And I was just like, there's been very pivotal points I can see in my business where I've invested in something, and then it takes me to the next level, I could tell like in my gut, when I looked at Summit in a Box like this is going to be the thing that helps me get to the next level helps me grow. My brand helps me grow my community, my business connections, all of that. And I knew that was going to be the case. So even though I wasn't sure what it was gonna be the summit on, I just snatched it up. I was like, that's me, I'm gonna get to this might be next week might be next month? I don't know. But we're gonna do this. So I dove into that. And then, given how much I got questions about cricket people being overwhelmed to use it. I was like, Alright, this is a great topic to do this on. Let's go for this topic. And that's pretty much how it came about. I think that answered your question. I
hope it did. Yeah, oh, my gosh, I was not expecting that. So it was more like we kind of sucked you in not like you being like, I need to host a summit for these specific reasons. I love that. I'll take it. So I think my next question might not even apply then I usually like to ask like, did you have any hesitations or fears before running your time and before joining Summit in a Box because I know a lot of people aren't feel held back by certain things. And I kind of like to share those stories. But it sounds like you just kind of dove right in.
Well, I didn't really have hesitations before purchasing Summit in a Box because I just, just I could tell it was going to be one of those next level things for my business. And I did, you know, look at all your wonderful testimonials and things like that. I felt confident before diving into there. I really did. And I mean, I could even find testimonials on Facebook and things like that, with people recommending I'm like, Okay, this is legit, real deal full, you know, like, I had no hesitations there. So that was not a problem. Once I got into the course, I was a little like imposter syndrome and overwhelmed. I was like, can I really, am I really the kind of person who can do this? But again, like as I went through the course, and I saw the detailed level of organization, I was like that really helped calm that because it was a very much like, okay, just take this little step, take this little bite one step at a time, and you'll get there. And it was, that really helped, that but I did have I guess you could say a little bit of impostor syndrome and fear as far as like, Can I really host something like this, I'm, I'm a learned extrovert, but I am an introvert by nature. So it is very difficult for me to put myself out there. It's really just in the last two years that I've actually been able to even do like calls like this, it's totally out of my comfort zone. So it was definitely a challenge on on that aspect. But when I saw the response, after I kind of just pushed past that, and I saw the positive response come from it, I realized how much it was worth it, and all the good it would bring not only for my business, but also for others as well.
I love that. I'm glad you're able to push past it. And yeah, those feelings of impostor syndrome is so real. And like, even now, I still like having those things come up when I'm hosting new events. And it's just part of the process that you learned to work through. It is did you have any goal set? Or like was there anything specific you were hoping for or working towards for that first summit?
Honestly, as far as like financial or conversion goals, like in your course you say to write things down and I'll admit, I think I scribbled something down like maybe, like I was hoping for like 10,000 registered maybe like I was like, kind of like my big number or something like that. So I think I scribbled that down. Honestly, the first one though, I was the most, my biggest goal for the first one was just to have a smooth experience for speakers and attendees. That was just really important for me, because I figure you take care of your speakers, they're going to want to promote. You take care of your attendees, and it's a good experience, they're going to want to come back, they'll buy the pass. If you wrap everything up in that little bow right there, the rest with conversions that's just going to fall in naturally underneath it. So I told my husband he asked me that too, is like you really should set goals and like no, my goal is just good experience for everyone speakers and attendees. And I guess it worked. Yeah, I did better than I expected. So that's the motto I still live by, you know, I mean, I I probably should actually start writing down the actual number eventually, but I really just live by the motto of the experience for everyone for and just taking care of them, because I feel like if you do that the rest takes care of itself. Honestly,
Oh my gosh, I love that so much that aligns like so perfectly with my beliefs behind it too. And I kind of feel that way about goals as well I set goals because I tell other people too, so I feel like I should, but like, I agree, I feel like as long as you're putting your all into it, and then supporting your people, everything else is gonna fall into place. I love that. So tell us a little bit about what happened.
Alright, so with my first one, February 2022, we had let's see 27 speakers counting me, I was aiming for about 25. So we were in that range. I didn't want to overwhelm myself too much with the first one. So there were some, you know, speakers I probably could have invited that would have said yes, but I sort of put the brakes on because I was like, I don't want to, this is my first time around the block, I don't want to screw this up. I don't want to end up with like, oh my gosh, mass technology problems, and then I'm affecting all these people's community. So I was very conscious of that going into it. So we only had like 27 speakers counting me. And right out of the gate, like first day open registration, things were just like, the first day we did more registrations and conversion rates than I was expecting to do for the entire event. Yeah, so okay, goal one, if I had one, I guess it's met, you know. And it just kept going better. I mean, like, definitely the first opening days of Summit were very high. And then it kind of has its roller coasters, which we went through ups, peaks and valleys with, you know, the registrations and the conversions. But after the the entire event, we ended up with 247,000 in gross revenue before, you know, anything was paid out of that. But that was what we generated for the event, which was like, I still say that number when people interview me and asked me about that, and I'm like, I don't even know, like how that's really possible. Because I, you can look at the numbers and the conversions. And you can be like, yeah, it's there in black and white. But it's so surreal, I'm like, did I really do that? Let me double check for like the 10th time because I don't know if that's true, I must have miscalculated and added an extra zero. So I mean, that's what we did, we were running about just under an 18% conversion rate on VIP pass, or it was the All Access Pass, originally, we tweak the title to VIP pass for the second event. And then we had very similar results for our second event. We did, actually with the first event we did 31,000 registered was how many people were registered for the entire event. And then a second event was 35,600, and change registered for that event, our conversion rate was a little bit lower the second event around I think there's some outside factors that influenced that. But it was still 221,000 gross revenue generated, you know, that's still an incredible result coming out of the first one, with the bar that high. I was like holy crap. Like I was, you know, when you hit that goal in your business or anything in life, and you're like, Okay, I did it once. Now I'm in competition with myself, I don't know if I can keep myself, right? So I kind of felt that way. And I was like, alright, just just do what you did before. Just follow the model, follow Summit in a Box. And you'll still produce a great result again, and we still produced a great result. And I'm kind of in that same place again, as we're going for our third Summit. And so you're kind of like, oh, gosh, I hope I can do this a third time. It's not just a coincidence, you know.
There's that pressure, it's a different kind of pressure when we are basing our goals like on our own proven results, rather than like something random that we're kind of aiming for. Like, it's a different kind of pressure. So but yeah, those results are absolutely incredible. Have you like keyed in on anything that you think could be part of the success that you've seen with that or why it worked as well as it did?
Well, I know you teach us in the course. But definitely going after the right speakers was so important. There was like we had for the first one, 27, but like the top, I think even the top five generated, gosh, probably 30% of the revenue like just the top five. So making sure you're going for the right speakers is the first piece of advice I would give to anybody to see good results. As far as more specifics on that I really can't say I've pinpointed an exact thing other than maybe timing. Looking at the two that I've done. I've done one in February, I've done one in October, October was a little bit lower than February. With my specific niche. It's all about crafting and cricket specifically, I have a feeling I don't and hopefully I'm not wrong, because it's going on record. Now. I have a feeling that the February events will always perform a little higher than like my October Christmas events. And the reason I think that is is because people coming off of Christmas with people who get crickets for their Christmas gifts or going by themselves when there is a huge panic. I see that with my other products that I sell might have courses and things like that. And I see a higher conversion that time of year than I do in like October, September, fall time. So I think timing is important. I think if I could give anyone at vise on that, take a look at your audience. If you have an established business and audience and you're, you're looking at your data, and maybe you have another product that you launch a certain time in here, and maybe you do it multiple times a year, look at the timing of that which one performs higher, there could be corresponding seasonality to it to where things are going to perform differently, differently at certain times of the year. So I would say that that is something that could have been a contributing factor. As far as specific magic that I've worked. I don't think there's anything that I've done really, other than buy Summit in a Box, which was a huge part of my success. That would probably be my only advice.
Yeah, no, that is really interesting to pay attention to. And I'm, like, super interested to hear. If you do notice that ebb and flow. And I think that totally makes sense. Like, I would be someone who would get a cricket for Christmas, be so excited, and be like, I don't know what I'm doing. I give up. And like, that would be perfect timing. Like, I'm gonna go ask for a cricket for Christmas now. So. So, one thing that surprised me a ton the first time I hosted a summit bigger than I was expecting. And for me, that was 6500 people, you and you know, exceeded that. But just a tad, something I wasn't expecting was the level of support and how many people? And like, there were some growing pains for me. So I'm curious, were there any growing pains like that for you, with all of a sudden having over 20,000 More people than you were planning for?
Yeah, there was definitely some growing pains there. Fortunately, I have an amazing assistant who basically takes my business as seriously as if it was her own, so having a support system is very important, and she worked around the clock to help me with customer support. But yes, there was tons of tickets, you know, there wasn't even any major technological issues. It was just people asking general questions, you know, how it is with someone say ask, even if you provide the info, they don't find it, you need to help them that kind of stuff. So yeah, there was a huge spike in that. And my my sweet husband, he even took a week off work, because I was panicking about that. It was like I have feeling there could be, you know, a lot of extras there. And I'm like, I can only do so much. I'm still trying to manage other aspects. You know, I have my assistant, Susan, but she's got to sleep some time. And I need some extra help. So he took a week off, he helped answer questions. Our second one was obviously even more people registered. So we were prepared for that we had to, we hired somebody else to support Susan with the customer service side of things. So yeah, we definitely saw the need for like, can we need to make sure we have enough customer service, we have a very high like goal of responding to things very quickly in my business. One of the things we do is, you know, if it's something related to a purchase, especially we try to respond within like an hour or two, if it's working hours. So having a lot of tickets coming in like that you're like, Okay, there's a lot to manage. But yes, we definitely had some growing pains with that. I feel like it went a lot smoother the second time, though, because we had an extra person, we knew what to expect. Definitely, if you're kind of unsure what your summit is going to look like, find a VA to help you make sure you get like canned responses and things set up because that will help you so so so much. So yeah, definitely experience some of that.
Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm glad like overall, it went smoothly. But yeah, there's just even with smaller summits, people just have all the questions, all the questions, no matter how many times you tell them the answer, they still have all the questions. But yeah, perfect for assistants and canned responses and all that stuff. My next question, people are always like, pretty skeptical of like, running summits for B2C business to consumer audiences. And this might be kind of hard for you to say for sure. But do you feel like based on your experience, there's any major differences, you would point out running a summit for a B2C audience?
I would say you might run into like more questions from a technological perspective for people. So if you're doing like a b2b, you're dealing with people who are probably already technologically savvy on some level, they maybe have purchased other courses, they know how to log into these platforms they're familiar with, like Kajabi and teachable and think of all that stuff. If you're dealing with a business to consumer, they may be very like out of their element trying to deal with that, which is obviously even one of the aspects we touched on with the summit is helping with the technological side of owning Cricut as well. So you kind of have to help them with the technology of the summit before you actually do anything with the technology at the summit, if that makes sense. So like, you have like we did videos for everything. So when someone signs up, there's a video to guide you on what to do next, when someone purchases a pass, here's how you get to the pass. If you don't, you know get the email. Here's how you cut like just videos on everything instructions on everything we went like super in detail. Don't assume that they're going to open the email that's sent to their inbox, they might be looking for something else. So I think there's a little bit of a difference there because there's a little less like familiarity with the process of doing a summit for these people who some people don't even understand what the word summit means I've noticed that their like event or virtual conference or something like that, you know, so they're not even familiar with the process in general. Whereas if you're doing a b2b, you probably are going to be dealing with people who understand, at least on a basic level, kind of what is going on to some extent behind the scenes, or they can at least empathize with owning a business. Right. So there is definitely a different aspect to dealing with a B2C. On the positive side. I think, with certain niches, there can also be a bigger pool than when you're doing the summit's because not everyone out there, of course owns their own business. But when you're talking about crafters, in general, you could be talking about an even bigger audience. So there is a positive aspect to that, but then managing that can be a little bit different, I think. So that would just be my not really sure if I'm right on that. That would just be what I think I've experienced in my own.
No, I totally agree with that. We are working on a summit right now for a client, it's my first experience of the B2C summit, and even for the speakers, we're only in the speaker pitching stage, but like after I sent the first round of pitches, I backed way up recorded videos for everything like added call, booked me for a call links to the emails, like when it's people that aren't familiar with this, you need to like, walk them through the process. So I thank you for your tips that you just shared with me about like, give the attendees all the videos, all the things, I'm just gonna go add tasks for that right when we're done here.
Absolutely. It'll save you some headache. I did with our VIP pass, I walk them through everything. And then we have like, a contact on it as well. And every time they click on the Contact, It comes up to like, make sure you watch this first and watch this video before you contact us because it'll probably answer your question, you know, like pointing them to because most people will click and click and click and you'll present it like it's not until like the third time he presented that they'll actually click on it. So really reached honing in and presenting the solutions wherever you can can save a lot of headache.
Yes, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, so I feel like you and one other student and Accelerator client of ours really like paved the way for summits in the entire crafting space. And I'm curious now, how are you standing out now that there are more and more crafters going, Oh, look at what Abby and Brandi are doing. I want to do that. Like do you? Have you addressed that at all?
Well, when I when I get see more of that coming up, the first instinct is like, "Hey, get off my lawn." But you know, I think we all deal with that in our businesses, it's natural. But after you work past that, as far as like your specific question, what to do to stand out? Because let me tell you, yeah, you're right, there is a lot more coming out. I think right after the last summit I did, I think I got seven invites in less than two weeks to seven different craft related summits, I was like, Oh, my gosh, I've had several of my own speakers end up doing their own as well. So if it's somebody who supported me, I do my best if my schedule allows to return the favor. So like I do, try and take that into consideration. But as far as standing out, I would say it all comes down to the experience, honestly. Like if you are going to support your speakers, like go all the way. Don't, you know, don't do it halfway. You've got to communicate, you know, if you mess something up, get out in front of it, fall on the sword be like, Hey, I screwed this up. Let's fix it. You know all that, being transparent with them is very important. With my second summit, we had a lower conversion rate, for various reasons that could be affecting it, but we did a little bit less. And some of our speakers were like, hey, I noticed I have a lower conversion rate this time than with the last summit. And they were just asking for more information on that. The first instinct with that as a host is to kind of panic, because you're like, oh my gosh, I don't want you to have a bad experience. But what I did is I figured you know, if there was a couple speakers asking me this, there's probably other speakers thinking the same thing and they're not asking me so I jumped into my speaker Facebook group, I highlighted the reasons that I thought were there I was transparent with just conversion numbers and things like that, and general things, let them know it was across the board for everybody. It wasn't one person versus another. So really like being loyal to them in that way. They're gonna give that back to you when it comes to Hey, you want to come back to my next summit or something like that they're gonna they're gonna do that same for you. I've had several speakers of mine say I've gotten more invites, but I'm gonna make sure it doesn't collide with yours because I prefer your Summit, and I see good results. So really first experience with speakers, experience with attendees goes a very long way. If you are organized, efficient, everything is like clearly laid out. We get usually tons of reviews in our Facebook group of people saying how happy they were with the organization of our summit. So again, I know it said it earlier but experience for attendees great experience for speakers that's going to stand the test of time because there's going to be you know trends where people will jump on the bandwagon for summit for a while and then they might do it then they might not but the ones that are going Stick around, they're gonna be the ones that really hone in on that experience and go above and beyond.
Oh, my gosh, I love that. And I totally agree. So, last question for you. I feel like I've drilled you a lot, and you've given us so much good stuff. What advice do you have for anyone looking to host their first summit?
Well, my first piece of advice would be to get Summit in a Box, because you got to get it because you can't do it without it seriously, like the level of detail is there. Like, when I was thinking about my summit, like I purchased Summit in a Box, and then I was just like, kind of jotting down like ideas of how it might work before I even open the course. I don't know why I did this. But before I even open the course, I was like jotting down how the process could work. And then when I looked at my notes, and I looked at all the details in the course, I was like, Oh my gosh, I didn't even think about like 75% of those things that she's got. Oh, thank goodness, I found this because I would have totally screwed it up. And we wouldn't be where we are now without it. So that would be my first piece of advice Summit in a Box, you got to get that and go through it. My second piece of advice would be, you know, find the right speakers, and give them a great experience. And when you're going into your first one, don't bite off more than you can chew. Like, I could have pushed it with my first one. And I'm glad I didn't. Because I mean, we had great results anyways. But I know that especially if you're going into it like where you don't have as big of a team or support system. I mean, it was only me and my husband and my wanna system. So we didn't have like this massive team or anything, we still don't have this massive team or anything. Just make sure you have support and don't bite off more than you can chew because you will regret it and then it will affect that attendee and that speaker experience, which will affect running another summit or having those people want to return and come back. So that would be the thing I just lean on the most I told myself, that's still all the time the next summit we have coming up, we jumped up to 45 speakers now we're more prepared for that this time. But still, I I tell myself that all time like are what are we doing to make sure that this is going to be a good experience? So definitely, that would be my advice.
I love that. I love that you're focusing on other people. And I feel like you're doing that with no expectation. But also you can't you can't have one like when you love on other people, they are going to go much harder for you. Oh, absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing all of this. Can you tell us where everyone can connect with you and learn more about what you've got going on?
Yeah, absolutely. So you can connect with me on my blog at Abby Kyrsten collections.com and on social media at Abby Houston collections, and we have our next Cricut craft fest coming up in February February 6 to the 10th. So anyone out there who wants to learn to craft with their Cricut come and join us. It'll be lots of fun.
Oh my gosh, so fun. We will link to all of that in the show notes. Thank you so much for being here, Abby. And thank you everybody for tuning in for show notes and resources mentioned and link links to all of our stuff head to summit host hangout.com/ 204. In the next episode, we'll be chatting about the biggest changes I've seen in virtual summits in 2022. So be sure to stay tuned for that. Now go out and take action to plan, strategize and launch your high converting virtual Summit.
