For most entrepreneurs, 2020 was a challenging year – to put it mildly. Many of us, myself included, had to make tough decisions and difficult changes to navigate our way.
In my case, my entire business model for almost 13 years had been built on hosting live events and retreats. That model was my bread and butter and – as you can imagine – I was kind of “attached” to it.
In March 2020, everything feel apart. I had a retreat coming up that I either needed to cancel, or take virtual. But how was I going to transform my incredibly effective and lucrative, LIVE event to a virtual experience and provide the same value, if not more? And could we maintain our price point, given that virtual events are considered, by most people, to be less valuable than live ones?
Watch the video below, or keep reading, to learn how we transformed into a virtual business – almost overnight – without dropping prices.
Fast forward to the end of the story, and then I’ll tell you the 4 virtual event strategies I discovered along the way:
- As of April 2021, we've done FIVE virtual retreats, each one so successful, that we’ve decided to continue offering virtual retreats (as well as live ones) for the foreseeable future.
- The virtual experience inspired several new adaptations to our signature event, which we love so much, they’re here to stay.
- I now believe that you can maintain and even increase the value of your events by going virtual, and charge just as much or even more than for a live event.
Through this experience, I've found 4 major strategies, to help you make this transition from live events to virtual events and do it without compromising price or profits.
#1: Sell the Promise not the Production.
When hosting a live event, it's so easy to get caught up in the event details. The big production, the beautiful location, the venue, the food & beverage and all of the elements that go along with planning a live event.
While a necessity for a live event, amenities can become a distraction from the actual value proposition.
When you strip away all of the live event details, you are left with something really powerful. The outcome, or the Promise; AKA: that THING you are committed to delivering to our clients.
The promise is what they walk away with. Nail down your event promise, and strip away the “fluff,” and you may even be able to RAISE your price.
#2. Reimagine Your Event
With a virtual format come new ways to deliver value, that you could never do live.
If you're not investing all that money in the production of the event (and we all know how live event expenses add up) you have a bigger budget to invest in the actual content and value proposition of the event.
Maybe you want to revamp your speakers and now many speakers are actually charging less for virtual events because they don't have to travel. Better speakers at a lower cost, total win, win!
#3 Consider Raising the Price.
Yup. You heard that right!
I know that sounds pretty crazy because most people initially think of lowering the cost when transiting from a live event to a virtual one. But bigger is not always better. It's exactly the opposite, really.
Think deeper and more profound. You now have the opportunity here to create a more intimate event. Something really transformative where you can be fully engaged with each attendee on new levels.
This is the model that has been a game changer for me. I used to do events for up to 600 people and it became exhausting!
When I made the decision to switch to a small event model my business blew up. It went so much better, generated so much more money and it was so much more joyful and energy-rich for me.
So, instead of having a virtual conference at $100 a ticket for 200 people, what if you did a virtual conference that was $2,000 a ticket for 10 people? Same revenue, WAY easier to manage. And then at the event offer a “Big Back End…” More on that next.
So, think about things in a new way and challenge your own beliefs about what's possible.
#4th: The Real Money Is In The Big Back End.
The “Big Back End” is what comes after your virtual event. There's only so much you can accomplish in 1, 2 or 3 days, during which you can have a really important breakthrough, but you can't fully master anything.
Mastery takes time.
That means that you can use your virtual event to generate enrollments into a longer-term, mastery level program that drives monthly recurring revenue (which leads to a more stable, sustainable business).
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If you're excited about the opportunity to create virtual events and retreats, and use them to drive Big Back End revenues, let’s connect! Perhaps my team and I could support you in building and growing this model.
You can set up a time at superstaractivator.com/go.
See you soon!!