SHH Podcast Ep. 207

Krista - Summit In A Box19min

Krista - Summit In A Box

00:00

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 in Episode 207, we have a bit of a different topic, in that rather than teaching some kind of strategy about how to host a great summit, I wanted to share a bit about how I actually sold my original summit brand. And really, to me, this just goes to show the power of summits even more. So not only did that summit bring in over $220,000 in revenue for me over the few years, I ran it, but it was a valuable asset I was able to sell once I decided it wasn't the best fit for the way my business was going anymore. Like how freaking cool is that? And as a disclaimer, before we start, I'm not saying this process is the way to do it. Okay, I will talk about a resource and link to it in the show notes where you can learn more about selling your brands and businesses and get the support you need around that. I'm just sharing my story of what it looked like for me. So we're going to cover what made me decide it was time to be done with a brand. What gave me the initial idea that I could sell it the process, I went through what I think made it sellable. And I will even bring in Shannon, the wonderful person I sold it to to share a little bit of her side.

Krista - Summit In A Box

01:14

So let's start with what made me decide it was time to be done running a successful summit when I could have kept going and hosting it year after year. The biggest thing was it all came down to the fact that it didn't feel good to me anymore. So you know, I'm here full time at Summit in a Box. And this, this summit was for another brand. So it was for the first brand that really got me off the ground with online business where I was doing WordPress development for designers, and this summit was for that business. I'm not doing anything with that business anymore. I haven't taken a client in maybe two years now, my full focus is on Summit in a Box, and I really don't have any connection left with that audience or other people in that niche other than like the people I was close friends with. I felt it, and I think the speakers and audience felt it too. Pitching speakers was harder and just felt weird. Like it was harder for me to pitch because I was going in blind to my speaker search every year, I didn't know who had, you know, made an impact in the industry over you know, the past few months. I didn't know who was still in business or not in business, all I had was searches to go off of and some recommendations from people I knew which were the most helpful thing, definitely. But connection is also really important to me, and I didn't like the feeling of making cold pitches that I knew going in I wasn't going to take any further after the summit like it felt transactional. And like as someone who values relationships, as much as I do, it just felt gross, quite honestly, like it gave me a lot of anxiety, I did not feel good about sending those pitches. So that was probably like the biggest factor for me that that part just felt transactional and gross. And I didn't like it. But I also felt disconnected to the audience. So I wasn't in the industry anymore. But yes, yet I'm supposed to be an expert during that event. Now, you know, I think you can host summits around topics you're not an expert in but it's not for me, I know that now. I always thought about hosting summits for kind of random niches that I thought sounded fun. But now I know that's not something I'm going to do, because it doesn't feel good to me. Overall, hosting the summit just had started feeling really like disjointed and just I felt disconnected, it made me feel more anxious about the process. And I just didn't enjoy it as much I literally dreaded going in to planning the next round, we still saw great results. But after the most recent two events, I knew it was time to move on.

Krista - Summit In A Box

03:42

So my original plan here was actually just to stop, I was just going to stop running the summit. And two past speakers who always saw really great results got wind of that after my second to last event, and they were like whoa, whoa, like hold up here. And they encouraged me to continue, because it's such a great event for speakers, and they saw how transformational it was for attendees. And they're like you can't just stop like, this is the thing in in the design niche. As far as far as online events go, you can't just stop. So I agreed to let them help me plan, that summit. And the plan was that they were going to do all the work and I would kind of direct behind the scenes and we'd all collaborate to be the faces of the event with a thought that every year I would have, you know less than less than I had to do. But like I learned in my 2020 co-hosted summit co hosting is not for me. And I learned that all over again very shortly into the planning process and kind of called it all off and this was before I think either that really had even had to do anything. So I actually continued and hosted the event this last year on my own bringing both of them in as sponsors with discounted packages just for being so amazing.

Krista - Summit In A Box

04:54

And I knew that that I was completely done with it. I was not doing it again. But through seeing how much they and other speakers wanted the event to continue, and seeing that someone else could run, it led me to the idea of selling. And I also know Chelsey Clark, who teaches blog flipping and owns a site called blogs for sale. She's also been on his podcast, we'll link to that episode. In the show notes. She was talking about sponsorships in that episode. So throughout the process of hosting this event, myself, I also worked with Chelsea to get the site listed on her platform and I learned so much through the process of working with her. And honestly, I wouldn't recommend selling a brand without their help, okay, they are amazing. They know what goes into pricing, making listing, the legal side of actually handing it off and getting payment, and they lead you through every step of the way. So you don't have to figure it out, you don't have to do it yourself, we will link to her site in the show notes. So I had my site listed with her, I hosted the 2022 event because we wanted to keep the engagement going, we wanted more numbers to show for someone who would be interested in buying and it went great. And I let all the speakers know it was going to be the last time that I was selling it. A few showed interest, but didn't want to move forward.

Krista - Summit In A Box

06:08

And then it just kind of started approaching the time that I would need to start planning again, if you know if it didn't sell. And I just didn't want to do that. And Shannon and I just stayed connected, we were in contact, you know, she had been a sponsor, she'd been a speaker for three years, we've known each other forever, you know, friends in the online business space. And after some discussion, we came up with the option that she can basically run the summit, while, I'm still the official owner, and she would just overtime use the profit to pay me over the next couple of rounds of the event. It was a great option for her because based on her results, when she sponsored for me, she'll still make a ton of revenue through launching her high ticket program on the back end. And she will also be able to pay me over time rather than having to come up with a big lump sum right away or take out a loan or something like that. So that's how it's happening. We've worked together to get all the information assets and tech she needs handed over, she also joined our Launch with a Summit Accelerator program to get extra coaching from me and my team for this first round. So it's working really well and feeling good for us.

Krista - Summit In A Box

07:09

However, please know that I would 100% not recommend this for someone, you don't really have a super, super solid relationship with like, overall, this is a risk for both of us, right? She has access to everything for the most part and could do like some interesting things with it. I did keep access to some key pieces for now, like the hosting and domain. But like she can log into everything. She has all of our, like design assets and everything like that. And we also agreed that she'd pay me from the summit profit. So if she doesn't host the summit, or it doesn't go well, it could either take me a really long time to get paid, or I could never get paid, right. And we've also known each other for years, we've collaborated in all kinds of ways, and I'm just really not worried about it. But please go through Chelsea, they make it so easy. they market it for you, they walk you through the process. They're really amazing. I'm just kind of sharing my story of how we are doing it.

Krista - Summit In A Box

08:03

But next I want to talk about what I think made the brand sellable. What made this summit that I built something that someone else would want to buy for a very decent chunk of change. The first thing I think made it sellable was the fact that it was just known in the industry. Experts in the industry know that summit, they know the name of it, they know what something people go to, and they want to be a part of it. Like we had some very big name people in the design industry who would approach us and be like in the next round, I would love to speak, like it's on my bucket list to speak at your summit. Can you put me on your list for next round? So that definitely helped, the fact that we hosted it over and over again, it had a very good reputation, all that good stuff. Speakers also got results from it. So when speakers came and they spoke and they you know, contributed to the all-access pass, they had a good freebie they were getting hundreds and hundreds of email addresses making sales directly from the event. And it was just something that it was good to have their name associated with. So that definitely helped as well. It definitely or the event also saw really great profit year after year. So the the success was proven, we had really carefully tracked books, we could show exactly what the profit was the fact that it was growing for the most part, year after year. So obviously being able to show that it was a profitable business already ready to go was helpful and being able to sell it right. It also came with all of the tech and website stuff as well as an email list with about 10,000 people on it. So that also helps you know people if you can make something easier, giving someone a nice email list and having the tech ready for them definitely helps. But how cool is that not only can a summit grow and support your business, but it's an asset you can sell if your business changes. So that's my side of the story. And I want you to hear from Shannon so I'm gonna roll a clip of us talking about what made it feel like something she wanted to do on her side. So let's hear from Shannon

Krista - Summit In A Box

10:00

Shannon, thank you so much for being willing to chat with me about this a little bit more. This is all like still very fresh. We just got off of a podcast recording for Shannon's podcast, and she ended by telling everyone to like, sign up for the next round of the summit. I was like, Oh, my gosh, it's happening. You're doing it. But I just shared in the beginning of this episode, kind of my journey of coming to terms with the fact that it was time to sell this brand. What led me to that decision, and what made it feel like a good fit for me. And I basically just wanted everyone to hear your viewpoint as well, like, what about this summit caught your attention enough to be like, I want that that's an asset I want for my business, and I'm willing to put money behind it. Like what all went into that?

Shannon Mattern

10:48

Yeah, that is such a good question. So there are several facets to my decision. And, you know, one is my experience as a speaker at previous Simply Profitable Designer Summits. I don't remember the first year I started speaking, but I remember you reaching out to me to invite me to speak and having the process of not only participating in your Summit, be so easy. But the actual, like results that I got, as a speaker, from participating in the simply profitable designer Summit, actually be tangible. Whereas I have spoken, I've been invited to speak at numerous other summits. And it feels like you, you know, you provide your presentation, you never hear anything ever again. And you don't even really get email subscribers from it. And so my experience in speaking a lot of different summits is that not only the Simply Profitable Designer Summit was one that actually created momentum and results and revenue, significant revenue for my business. But speaking at other summits that use the Summit in a Box model also created engagement, and email lists subscribers and revenue for my business. Whereas like I said earlier, other summits didn't. So that was that was one facet of my decision.

Shannon Mattern

12:17

And I had also hosted my own summit previously using Summit in a Box for a different audience for my DIY, like business, you know, non techie business owner, audience, that is the audience I started out with back in the day. And I hosted what I called the Side Hustle to Self-Employed Summit, I bought Summit in a Box used it to host and we made $20,000 off of that. And so I was like, the I don't I don't run that side of my business anymore. That's not my focus. I'm focused on web designers. And it's like, I wanted to do a summit for web designers. But like, why? When Simply Profitable Designers like the premier summit for for that, and so I kept either being invited or soliciting an invite to speak at the at the summit. And then Krista and I had talked, you know, when she, she mentioned that she wasn't going to do the summit anymore. and myself and another one of our colleagues, Sarah Masci approached her and said, Hey, we will do everything for you. Like you, this brand is like too important to our businesses to just kind of like, let it stop, we will run, we'll get all of the speakers, we'll do everything. And we the three of us worked together to like, talk Krista into doing it one last time. And then you ended up doing it yourself that one last time, which totally was totally worked out, I got to sponsor the event.

Shannon Mattern

13:54

And I was like, Well, I'm absolutely willing to pay you money to sponsor this event, because it is so beneficial to my business. And, you know, from from my perspective, you know, I was like, you put it up for sale. And I was like, if I literally had that money, it's like I would I would do it. Like if I could find a way to make that happen. I would buy this tomorrow, but like it just didn't make financial sense for me with like, my financial position in my business to make that type of investment, even though I knew that over time, I would create a return. And so I said, I was like, I can't remember I'm sure I have this email. I was like, Oh, if I had that kind of money sitting around right now I would buy it, you know? And I said like if anything changes, like keep me in mind or something. And then months, several months later, I think and we were just chatting about this on my podcast when you said it was coming time to either like plan this again, or close it down, you reached out to me and we came up, we came up with an agreement for how we could really make it a win win for both of us for me to acquire the Summit and the assets and the brand. In a way that was wasn't gonna, like, be too risky for my business financially, because I could like, if I was going to put myself in a bad financial position to start, I don't think that it would be good for running, running the summit. But we came up with an agreement that I think is like, it's a huge win for me, but it also is like, there's a huge incentive for me to do it well, I guess. Not that I wouldn't do it well, but like, I have big shoes to fill with Krista. And like, there's also like a massive incentive for me to run an incredible event, not only for like my brand, the Web Designer Academy, but to maintain the Simply Profitable Designer summit brand, and to be able to give Krista a pile of money at the end, ticket sales as we fulfill our our agreement. So it just was a no brainer for me. And truly, it's like the Summit in a Box structure of the event that makes it such a no brainer for me, because it's not just the brand. It is like how highly functioning this has been over the years that has turned it into the asset that it is. That is really a massive piece of the value behind it, if that makes sense. So multifaceted decision there.

Krista - Summit In A Box

16:34

Yeah, I love it. Thank you so much for sharing that, too. I just wanted, you know, I can share my standpoint. But I really wanted people to hear from, like the buyer standpoint of what, what is it about a summit that would make someone want to buy it from you. Because I feel like that just adds a whole nother layer why summits are so beneficial to your business, not only do you get the incredible benefits while you're running it, but it's something you can sell at the end, when you position it well, when you have good systems in place, and people can see that. I feel like you saw that more clearly than anyone you know, through the years I ran this event, but you were like, this is an asset that benefits my business. And I want that. And I thought that was really cool. And I just wanted to share your side of the story as well. So thank you so much for being willing to come on and chat with us about it.

Shannon Mattern

17:19

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, yeah, being able to get in front of 1000s and 1000s of my ideal clients, like already done for me amazing, you know, but done in a way that people are excited, like people are already excited about next year's summit. And like, it just goes to show, like how strong of a brand you've built. And I think it's so genius for someone to build up a brand around a summit and then sell it to someone out like it's yeah, it's kind of genius. So kudos to you.

Krista - Summit In A Box

17:55

Thank you so much for coming on. Shannon. This was great. Yeah, absolutely. So I hope that was fun and interesting for you to hear. I just think that it's so cool that a strategy as powerful as a summit has this extra opportunity built in all my goodness, I've been talking over the past, I don't even know how many episodes have the fact that summits are so much more than the immediate revenue and list growth you see from it, it's something that will build your business and pay off for years and years and years. And this just adds to it and it's so cool. But you need to host an event that's positioned to be profitable, and has proven results. So get that incredible summit out into the world and see where it takes you.

Krista - Summit In A Box

18:42

If you're ready to host a high converting virtual summit to replace your slow growth marketing strategies and use it to lead into your biggest course launch yet, I've got an exclusive training just for you. This training is for those who are interested in working with me and our Launch with a Summit Accelerator to host a summit that blows industry standards out of the water, uses feel good engagement based strategies to create an amazing experience for everyone involved, seamlessly leads into your biggest course launch yet, and sets you up for additional posts on my profits on the back end. Inside the Accelerator, we help our clients consistently host life and business changing virtual summits and in the free private training. I'll show you exactly how it works along with all kinds of examples. So apply for an invite to the Launch with a Summit Accelerator and the training at Summithosthangout.com/apply.

Krista - Summit In A Box

19:37

Thank you so much for tuning into this episode For show notes and resources mentioned head to summit host hangout.com/ 207 and the next episode I'll be sharing some more behind the scenes information this time related to the summit we ran last month so be sure to stay tuned for that. Now go out and take action to plan, strategize and launch your high converting virtual Summit.

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