Summit Host Hangout Podcast Ep.263

Krista - Summit In A Box22min

Krista - Summit In A Box00:00

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 today I get to bring you behind the scenes of an incredible Summit. And I think it's easy to look at other summits happening, and feel like you have to do things in a certain way to be successful, even if they don't feel great to you. And honestly, that's why I put off my first time at for as long as I did, there were so many pieces that just didn't feel true to who I was and my beliefs around on my business and what felt good and my values and it just all felt off. So I didn't do it until I did until I figured out I could do it my own way. And today we get to hear from someone I had the pleasure of working with in our Launch with a Summit Accelerator program who stayed true to herself niche down more than she was comfortable doing and saw just really incredible results with her event. So to give you some background on our guests, she is a certified peaceful parenting coach, speaker and educator. She is the founder of reimagined peaceful parenting. And in case you're not familiar with the term peaceful parenting is a non punitive connection based approach that uses firm limits with a lot of empathy for your kiddos. So she works one on one virtually with parents all over the world to help them go from frustrated and overwhelmed, to feeling like they've got this and she has helped 1000s of families. She has a top rated podcast called The peaceful parenting podcast, she rents a peaceful parenting membership and she hosted the flourish with your complex child Summit. I am so excited for you to learn more about her and her Summit. So let's dive in and talk with Sarah Rosen. Sweet. Welcome, Sarah. Thanks, Krista. I'm so excited to have you here. And it talks about this. And before we dive into, you know, the summit specifics, and you know, the topics we had identified today, can you just give everyone a little overview of you and your business and what you're all about? Sure.

Sarah Rosensweet01:42

So I've been coaching for about 10 years, I decided to do a summit because my business had been growing really well. And I actually like train to people to work for me. But I realized that I'd kind of gotten as far as I could get with organic reach, and that I needed to do something that was going to sort of give my business a bit of an injection of new people and just kind of reach a broader number of people. And you know, I You can't sell the same thing to the same people over and over. So, so I really want to reach more families and you know, have more people join my membership. You know, basically my, my business is sort of three main prongs, I have my like courses, I have my membership, and I have one on one coaching. And you know, one on one coaching is I'm about at my maximum of what I want to do for that. But I really would like to other bits of my business. So that's sort of a little bit about my business and why I wanted to do a summit.

Krista - Summit In A Box02:37

I love that. Oh my gosh. Okay. Tell me, I guess let's talk a little bit about your Summit. Who was it for? How did it help them? What was your vision behind it? Well, when

Sarah Rosensweet02:45

I started following you, I don't know I don't even know how I first heard of you. But your the name of your business Summit in a Box is so good. And it just stuck with me. And when I started thinking about doing a summit, I was like, Oh, I have to look up that Summit in a Box person. So I did your Is it your chocolate? Is it your challengers, you've got like a 10 part series where you go through and I forget what you call it. But when you go through and like identify what your niche is going to be and who your audience is going to be. So I did that which I found really helpful. And I've been I was tempted to just do it on my own. Because I've been a part of so many summits that I felt like, I know how they work. I understand like the behind the scenes, and I'm really comfortable with online marketing and all of that. When I did that series of years, I realized that I wouldn't have thought to do the niching in the same way that that you did and also realize how many moving parts there were to the summit, which you kind of don't see when you're a guest in a summit. Yeah. So my summit when I thought about who my people are and who really needed some more support. It's like the what I call complex kids are kids who are strong willed, spirited, sensitive and or nerd divergent. Neuro divergent is a term that encompasses ADHD, autism, sensory processing stuff, gifted learning disabilities, like a whole bunch of stuff. So those people are the people that you know, need a parenting coach when I remember when I would, I don't know, I guess I haven't gone to a cocktail party since COVID. I used to go to cocktail parties. If I met someone and told them I was a parenting coach, some people would look at me like I had two heads, like why does anyone need a parenting coach? And other people would be like, Oh, I could have used you and my kids are small, right? So there are some people that just have easier kids who are not those complex kids. And then there are other people who just really need they they feel alone, they feel like they're failing because they're struggling even though they're doing all the things that the book says. So I realized when I thought about a niche like Okay, those are the people like I want to reach the parents of those kids. So that's that's sort of like who that summit served.

Krista - Summit In A Box04:44

And I had our niching topic a little later in this episode, but I think it just flows so well to talk about it a little bit more now. Your business and your membership and your podcast. Those are all more general for people interested in peaceful parenting. Is that correct? Yeah, it is correct.

Sarah Rosensweet05:00

And I do think that most people who do end up working one on one, I mean, there are so there are people who just they've been practicing conventional parenting that's, you know, the more sort of fear based like timeouts yelling, like that kind of thing. And they want to learn something new. And so they learn about peaceful parenting, and then they then they go away, and they're like, all good, right? So there definitely are people in our community who are just they're new to peaceful parenting. And then once they've kind of got it, then that's good, or there are people who are maybe having a little bit of a hard time, situationally like they have a new baby, and their older child is having a hard time adjusting. And those people generally don't need ongoing support. Right. So there is that, that side of my business that's just like, Okay, let's just do a little work here. And then Okay, off you go, and you're all set. And then there are the people who stick around who still need that ongoing support. So yes, I would say that, in general, my business is for everyone who wants to know about peaceful parenting. And then there are the people who just still need ongoing support.

Krista - Summit In A Box05:57

Yeah. And what made you decide that you needed to or wanted to niche down? Or was it the summit to sales?

Sarah Rosensweet06:04

It was that yeah, oh, really? Okay. And

Krista - Summit In A Box06:06

how did you feel about that? Were you nervous? Are you excited?

Sarah Rosensweet06:10

ell, I believed you thought it was a kind of 18. So I wasn't that I It wasn't that I didn't trust it. And once I sort of started getting going on the niche that I knew that the niche was good. And I felt really good about that. Where I found that my doubt came up was that there are a lot of people like I've been doing this for a long time. So I have a lot of really good connections in the parenting world with more like, quote, like, famous or well known experts, who are more generalists, right? Who would not have fit into my niche. And I knew that I could have asked them, like, do you want to be in my Summit, and then I would have this like, little, you know, my little poster with all of the faces on it, someone would look at that. And they would think, Oh, she got so and so. And she got so and so and she got so and so. So that must be really good, right? When you get those those big names. But I, you know, I really followed what you said in terms of and not only because of what you said, but just was really important to me to create something that's really, really got a lot of integrity in terms of like the product and like I want, you know, I want someone who's really good to talk about this topic. So what I did was, I made a list of the topics I wanted to cover rather than the people that I wanted to have. And then I just tried to find the best person for that topic. And some of the people that I invited had no audience like they were people that I knew would be really, really excellent, because I'd heard them on another podcast, or I knew about their work from something else. But they weren't. They didn't have online businesses, and they didn't have an email list and whatever. So I just kept going back to like, who's the best person to have in, you know, to have in the summit, who would be the best guest who would give the best experience for the audience. But then when I had my whole sign up, and everyone committed, and I was starting interviews, I got an email from somebody who's actually who I was in their summit. And their summit was like two weeks after mine. And I looked at her lineup, and she had like, all the names, right? And I had this moment of like, Oh, my God, have I created something that is completely not commercial enough at all? Like is it going to be a giant failure, because I didn't get this person in that person. And instead, I got all these less, you know, I did have a few names. But that wasn't what I was trying to go for. So I was upstairs in my office, and my husband works from home too. And he was downstairs in his office, and I actually didn't know that he could hear me in my office. And I had this moment of just like total doubt and panic, and like, I'm created something that's not gonna work at all. And I laid my head down on my desk and started to cry. And he heard me and he came upstairs. And he was like, What's the matter? And I told him, I'm like, that's not gonna work. It's gonna be a total failure. And

Sarah Rosensweet08:44

he gave me this really awesome pep talk, which was in his career before he he's a corporate lawyer now, but before he was a lawyer, he was a filmmaker. And the first film he ever made, he spent like a year and a half on it. He was working like nights and weekends, because it was like his passion project that he did. And he said, You know, when I was making that film, I didn't think once about like, what do the film festivals want? What's going to be marketable? You know, what's going to make money? I just kept thinking, what is the audience gonna love? Like, how can I make the best thing for the audience? And his film ended up winning a prize at the Cannes Film Festival. So like, he reminded me of that, and I was like, okay, like, with it. So that's, I mean, that was a very long answer to like, how do I feel about niching? But, you know, the short answer was, I knew it was the right thing. But I felt nervous about really staying true to the integrity of the idea and in the end that I was glad that I did. Yes.

Krista - Summit In A Box09:38

Okay, now that you're talking about that, I remember you coming into Slack to in the Accelerator in telling us about the situation and the other Summit, and it's easy from my standpoint to be like, No, you got this. This isn't incredible. I've never seen anything like this but also I don't get like I don't see, at least for most people, the speaker lineup and their email Liz sizes and you know, things like that, like, it's so hard for me to judge on the outside looking in. So I knew that your concept was great. And I knew, just based on the fact that you have this podcast, you have this established successful business and connections that you're gonna be bringing in awesome people. So it was easy for that, from that standpoint, for me to be like, This is wonderful. But I totally get how in the moment, being the one doing the thing, oh, man, stuff like that is so hard.

Sarah Rosensweet10:25

So I am so glad it's not this other person's list of speakers. And I was like, I could have asked so and so and I could have asked so and so. But they didn't really have anything to do with the ideas that I was talking about. And it would have been a total mistake. And, and she, you know, they didn't really have anything to do with the ideas she was talking about, either. And I you know, I recognize that at the time. Yeah, but it's really hard to, it's hard to trust that, you know, I don't know, I was an English major. And they always say, like, in literature that we say like, the more specific you can make your story, the more universal it is. And I think that that really is the same idea with a summit like the more the more like granular and concentrating on like really specific problems that people have, the more people can actually relate to, or relate to what you're teaching. Absolutely.

Krista - Summit In A Box11:10

I know, I remember, you're stuck out to me so much. Because at the time, when you were figuring out your messaging, I was just starting to figure out that one of my kiddos fits the complex child description, like just in the early stages of it. And when you were talking about your son, I was like, I need that, like that is what I need. And that's what you create, when you make something suppose is so specific, it's not something that people like, oh, yeah, that could be cool. It's like, oh, no, I need that. That is for me. And I think you did just such a beautiful job of, of doing that, and putting together that experience for the people that you were meant to help in that way. And it was so great. I love that you keep talking about how you were, you know, you were seeing these other things, but you kept coming back to your vision you kept coming back to the integrity of of the event. Were there any other aspects other than the speaker situation that had you, you know, keep coming in and doing those gut checks, or were there other things going on, too,

Sarah Rosensweet12:05

I have to say like, I have a little bit of an issue with the you know, the fast action pricing, you know, the when people sign up, they have 20 minutes to get the fast action. However, I also know how online marketing works. And I trusted that I knew that was the right thing to do, even if it didn't feel like super great to do it. And you know, so I just kind of, you know, I just went with that further to that. What made me feel okay about doing that was I also knew, like, if somebody didn't buy the past, they could still get a lot of value out of the summit. So I felt good about, you know, charging for the past and having sort of a little bit of stronger, you know, selling techniques, knowing that somebody could just say no, and they could still watch as many interviews as they could into 24 hours each day. Absolutely.

Krista - Summit In A Box12:52

Absolutely. Did you stick with a 20 minute timer? Did you end up to get 20 minutes to do? Okay, awesome. I love that you kind of you kind of balance that

Sarah Rosensweet13:00

out. Although in one thing I changed from your model was you suggest to raise the price to the second level the day before the summit starts. And that didn't feel good to me. Like I didn't want to raise the price before people had a chance to see what it was all about. So I decided to raise the price at the end of day one, which felt really good for me to do that.

Krista - Summit In A Box13:18

Yeah, I loved that change, too. That was I mean, it's smart. I like it,

Sarah Rosensweet13:22

a business coach I used to work with would always tease me about how I always do things my own way. Like they'll take in advice. And then I'll be like, No, I don't think I'm going to do it that way. And I have to make it work for me. Yeah,

Krista - Summit In A Box13:34

I love that. I mean, I really think there's a lot of strength in that of doing things in a way that feel good to you. And there have been plenty of times where I have joined someone's program and taken their strategy and done things that didn't feel good to me. Because that's what it said to do. And like I'm all about learning from other people. I don't want to figure things out on my own. But every single time I forget something that doesn't feel good. I regret it, you know, every single time. And like, No, I know enough when I feel that when I'm about to put something out there and I can feel a hesitation. Listen to it and balance what you know about your business yourself, your audience with what this person who knows the strategy, you know, totaled out and yeah, before things happen. So I'm glad that you did that. It was it was fun for me to see the tweaks and shifts you're making throughout as well. Yeah. Okay, so we've talked about the summit, getting uncomfortable with the niche staying true to your vision. Are you comfortable sharing results with us at all of how the summit went?

Sarah Rosensweet14:29

Yeah, I mean, it went so well. Like I, I had in the end, I had 8100 registrants, which I just checked before we came on this call. You know, I know in the program, you say expect 20 to 30% of people to drop off pretty quickly. It's been a month since the end of my summit and out of the 81 people. I've only lost 600 people off my email list. So you know, I don't know. And I didn't I gave people the opportunity to leave right away. You No, I said, if you don't want to stay on click here, we'll you know, won't bug you anymore about it. And I also said another, I did another segmenting, saying, like, let me know if you want me to tell you about next year's summit. So I have like a good list of, you know, a bunch of those people who left this list, but said, Tell me about next year. And so I feel like the people that I attracted are really the right, no, they're their actual good leads for me, like the right people to be in my community. So that was really that was it. So I had basically three goals. When I when I set out to do the summit. One was to grow my email list. So that definitely like double check, you know, that pretty much doubled my email list from like, it was about 8500 When I started, and so like, pretty much almost doubled my email list. My second goal was make something awesome. And I knew that I was doing that, like all along, ya know, I knew like, like, I just, you know, I do this work, because I have a lot of empathy for parents and kids. And, you know, I just really saw, like, in my membership, I see people every day who are just like, you know, I'm doing this wrong, like, why is this so hard, and the people automatically think it's because of that, right? They're a failure. So I really wanted to make something for people for parents so that they would not feel alone. And that's the other thing too, is people don't share often don't share the struggles that they're having at home. And often they don't show up outside of home, right the struggles that people have. And so they feel like they're the only one, there's must be something wrong with them or something wrong with their kids. So I really, really wanted to make something to make people feel supported, and not alone and seen and that I mean, I Krista, I got so many emails and comments on my Facebook, and my Facebook group of that we did exactly just that. So like not my imagination, like that was definitely double check on that one, too. And then my third, my third goal was to make back obviously make back the money that I spent, that I invested in the program and your program, and then make it worth my time, you know, probably I can, I'm happy to share the results. I mean, probably for how much work I put into it. And I definitely didn't make like my normal hourly rate. But it definitely wasn't nothing either, you know, because I did have to take a lot of time off from doing my other regular income generating activities to do the summit. But I also think, you know, next year, I think a lot more people will probably by the end, I could be totally wrong. But I think if we have a lot of returning people, there'll be like, Oh, I'm definitely buying the all-access pass in the first 20 minutes, because I really wish that I had bought it last time. Now that they know what it is. So I have a feeling that, you know, if I have even similar numbers of people signing up, probably my revenue will be higher the next time around, and I won't have as many expenses to the next time around. So yeah, I was really happy with I feel like all three goals got, you know, accomplished. Yeah, I'm

Krista - Summit In A Box17:49

excited. I'm excited to see and hear how you feel like those 8100 subscribers now kind of feed into your business and the momentum you feel, you know, throughout the next throughout the next year until your next summit whenever that's going to be because you're having 8000 extra people to launch to or do different promotions to or to get feedback from like, that's a big deal. So

Sarah Rosensweet18:09

I'm excited. Yeah. And I was telling in our like closing call that I had with Ellie, who's you know, one of your coaches, I was telling her that, that I did do like a membership launch off the back end of the summit, it was not a very good, it was not a good launch. Like, I think I had like seven new members or something. But a I was exhausted by the end of the summit. And so I didn't like put a ton into it. And be I've got a couple let's see 100 People took me up on the offer from the all-access pass to try the management for a month. So we kind of have to wait and see at the end of November, which is the month we're in right now how many of those people end up joining. But the other thing that I know about my business is that I have a very, very slow sales cycle. People really have to stick around for a while before they buy something. I mean, there are occasionally there are people who just come right in and buy something. But because it's parenting, what I've learned is that a lot of parents feel like, you know, if you knew you wanted to like redecorate your house, you wouldn't have like this or you know, rewire your your, you know, layup or something, you wouldn't be like I should really just know how to do this naturally, you would think fine, you would be fine to get an expert to help you or advise you. But for some reason parents think they should be able to just do it all themselves and they should know how to do it or they should be able to read a book and figure it out. And it takes a while for people to kind of go okay, I actually do need some help. Because they kind of struggle along and struggle along and struggle along until they finally decide okay, I'm going to hire someone or join this membership or this course or whatever. So I think it will take at least you know, at least a year to really see what ends up happening with those new people.

Krista - Summit In A Box19:51

I'm excited to to hear an update and see what you think of that. Yeah, thank you so much for sharing. I hope anyone listening is like it Inspired by like how Sarah took this strategy and did it like also made it her own felt the process but made it her own and work through the discomfort and the scary feelings that can come up throughout the process whether it's your first time or your 10th time like things happen things come up and it's up to you to have the resilience and the support around you to push through and and do awesome things for your people. So Sarah, I guess what would you say is like your biggest takeaway you'd want listeners to get or anything else you kind of want to add to round out the episode? Well,

Sarah Rosensweet20:34

I know you didn't have beyond so that people would so I can advertise your brand, but it was really good. Like, I have made my own art like I have my own online courses and at then Cory who works with me, I was constantly be like, Oh my God, you should see what Krista has for this. Oh my god, you should see this thing that's in the thing. And like I mean, it must have been a beast to put that together like an absolute beast and every single time I needed a resource for something you had it and I just I just want to say I was so grateful for your program and so impressed by it it was so well done and so easy to follow and really I would not have had as successful of a summit without it just really appreciate it that anything else people want to know I mean I think I really think like having a vision and and sticking to it really did make mine extra good. And you know, there were there were people that I kind of felt bad like even friends of mine who are coaches who I was just like, I'm really sorry, but there's not a place for you in this summit or just just kind of you know, staying true to your vision. I think it just really worked well for me.

Krista - Summit In A Box21:41

I love that all thank you so much for coming on. I love this conversation. Where can people go to learn more about you and what your offer and follow you and your summits and get help for other other families with complex kiddos?

Sarah Rosensweet21:54

Well, as you said, I have a podcast called The peaceful parenting podcast and that's a you know a good place to learn about peaceful parenting if you don't know about it. My website is currently Sarah rose and sweet.com I'm in the middle of a rebrand and it will soon be reimagined peaceful parenting.com But I think both will be sort of frozen sweet.com is probably the place to go for now. I have a Facebook group, which is really a really lovely place. It's called peaceful parenting with Sarah rose and sweet there's about 10,000 parents in there, I really support each other and help each other out. So those are probably the best places to go. And on my website or all my socials too

Krista - Summit In A Box22:29

perfect. We will link to all of that in the show notes. Thank you so much for coming on. And thank you so much everybody for tuning in. For the show notes and all the links Sarah mentioned be sure to head to the link we'll have in the episode description for you. For now go out and take action to plan, strategize and launch your high converting virtual Summit.

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