Get Radical With Your Business
This show is for content creators who want to monetize their passion by embracing their profitable superpowers. Whether you're starting your entrepreneurial journey or want to take things to the next level, this podcast will help you Get Radical with Your Business! Join host Heather Zeitzwolfe, long-time vegan, Gen-Xer, cat mom, drag queen enthusiast, and collector of weird dolls and lunchboxes. Using her professional background in business, marketing, design, and finance, she's here to help you get off the cash flow rollercoaster and have smooth-sailing profits. If you're ready to crush your fears, take action, and do things scrappy, then pop on your headphones! (Podcast formerly known as Get the Balance Right)
Get Radical With Your Business
Leveraging The Power of Events to Drive Profits (Guest Shay Wheat) Ep. 119
Get ready to ignite the profit in your business with the power of events! In this episode, Heather is joined by Shay Wheat, a certified event producer and CEO of Grace and Ease Productions Incorporated. They discuss a step-by-step guide you can use to craft unforgettable events to captivate your audience and boost your brand visibility.
Don't settle for boring business as usual! It's time to turn heads, make waves, and create events that leave a lasting impact. Tune in now to uncover the keys to event mastery!
SHOW NOTES:
Shay Wheat: Linkedin | Instagram
Grace & Ease Productions, Inc.: Website | Linkedin | Instagram | Facebook | Free Gift
Contact Heather: Instagram - LinkedIn - Email: heather@GetRadBiz.com
Get Radical With Your Business: Facebook - Website
Book a Discovery Call (via Zoom) - Schedule
Zeitzwolfe Accounting: Website - Facebook
Are you using events as part of your business strategy? Today on the show, we are talking with Shay wheat. Who is a certified event producer. And we discuss. How to leverage events to drive profits in your business. Hey there. This is Heather's eighth Wolf and you are listening to get radical with your business. I love today's topic. It is all around events. I love planning events. There's so much fun. I love having a party. Well, we can have a party in our business by having events on a regular basis. It's a great way to get people to know who we are getting into our world and have a little bit of a flavor Of how we do business. You want to check out my flavor. please check out my events on, get read biz.com forward slash events. That's with an S get read biz.com forward slash events. And I've got a whole bunch of free events coming up. Along with some group programs and workshops and all kinds of great stuff there. So be sure to check that out and now we're going to go into our topic for today. Events. All right. Shea is a certified event producer. She's also the c e O of Grace and Ease Productions Inc. And through her company, she helps her clients create. Powerful and profitable events. Shay. welcome to the podcast.
Shay Wheat:Oh, I'm so excited to be here. I can tell we're gonna have so much fun.
Heather Zeitzwolfe:Yes, I love putting on events. There's all these moving parts. I used to be a project manager, I love all the things that you gotta like plan and when people think of events, they probably think of a bunch of things it could be like putting on a wedding, it could be putting on a conference. It could be a training for employees, but your focus is, I'm gonna call it more like a marketing type of event. How would you describe the type of events that you put on?
Shay Wheat:Yeah, absolutely. So our events are actually a part of our client's business strategy. So what happens is there's actually phases of event leverage, and depending on what you're at in business, you are going to be doing different types of events. Heather, There's 17 different types of events that people can be doing in their business right now, whether they're, starting out and they're newer to been in business for a long time and making six and seven figures, different types of events you use at different parts of your business.
Heather Zeitzwolfe:You mentioned one, when do you know when you're ready for an event? And two, what types of events. So let's break these down. You mentioned 17. And are these virtual events that we're talking about,
Shay Wheat:They can be. They can be either virtual or they can be in person. So you can do a 90 minute workshop. That can be either, you can do a summit, you can do a retreat, masterminds one day sales and enrollment events, three day sales and enrollment events, seminars, meetups. Back in the day, we were doing a lot of meetups before, pandemic you may not realize this, but Facebook lives, Instagram lives are also events. You've got your conferences, your challenges hackathons, conventions, trade shows. I'm sure there's probably more that your audience has experienced, those are the ones that are top of mind for me. for a lot of my six and seven figure clients that are utilizing events as a part of their business strategy, I.
Heather Zeitzwolfe:When business owners are starting out, maybe their list isn't as big they're gonna probably leverage things like Instagram Lives or Facebook Lives. If they really wanna do it correctly, it seems like they have to treat it as an event they need to have strategies behind it.
Shay Wheat:Yeah, let's start with your Facebook lives, your Instagrams, these are all free platforms. And when you're really using these pretty heavily is phase two of event leverage. The reason being is you are looking for visibility. Your goal in phase two is to gain visibility. You can also do this by being a guest on other people's stages. So you are on other people's webinars, podcasts, seminars. And then a third way to really gain visibility in phase two is being a sponsor at event. you are going to somebody else's event and you are speaking on their stage to an audience that is the same audience as yours. That's what you wanna be doing when you are gaining visibility.
Heather Zeitzwolfe:Let's back up to phase one. what would phase one look like? you're just starting out your business and you don't have much of a following,
Shay Wheat:yeah. Phase one is the validation phase. Your primary goal is to get. Clients and get them crazy awesome results. The way that you do that is you start out with market research. You wanna make sure that you can actually validate your offer. You wanna modify your offer based on what it is that you're learning, and then you wanna make more offers.
Heather Zeitzwolfe:Phase one is you're starting your business, you're getting your clientele, and maybe you're starting to build your list at that point, right? Then you go into phase two and now we can start utilizing these things.
Shay Wheat:Yeah, so you move into phase two you're gaining more leads, you're increasing your visibility, you're making some offers, right? Anytime you do an event, you make some type of offer. So in order to move from phase two to phase three, you are wanting to. Gain more leads. You're wanting to book more strategy sessions, have more conversations, make more offers until you reach about$5,000 a month consistently. Then you can move into phase three, so you just kinda rinse and repeat all the visibility pieces in phase two to move to phase three, which probably makes sense now that why in phase one we validate. That our offer is actually something that people need, want, and require. In the validation phase, part of your market research is you literally ask them the questions, what is the thing that keeps you awake at night so you can utilize these questions to ask your potential clients what it is they want, and then literally create a program, a package, and turn around and go, here, I listen to what you said. Here's what I've come up with. Would you want to move forward? And you use their words in your marketing. It's so common sense that I don't think people actually realize that it works.
Heather Zeitzwolfe:actually, I have a group program right now where I'm having everyone in the group do, informational interviews and they record them to get the answers in the words of their target market, so that they know, how they speak about these things
Shay Wheat:oh my God. I'm so glad you're teaching that. Not everybody teaches that. That's phenomenal.
Heather Zeitzwolfe:What type of marketing type events are we doing in phase three?
Shay Wheat:phase three is the grow phase. And so what we're doing is we're continuing to grow your list and increase your visibility by creating your own stages. Where you're gonna wanna start doing like your masterclass and your webinars and your summits. You can take a look at some challenges as well. There's a lot more logistics behind some of the challenges, but you wanna start looking at creating your own events. And continue to obtain those larger speaker sponsorship opportunities.
Heather Zeitzwolfe:Some of these organizations, make you pay a fee to apply, to speak. What are your thoughts on pay to play
Shay Wheat:Look at it from this perspective. If you are going to somebody's event and they're going to bring, let's just say a hundred people in the room, that is your ideal audience. There's some type of joint venture partnership, there's some type of synergistic pieces where it makes sense for you to go and speak to this list of a hundred people in the room. especially If you have an opportunity to make an offer, whether it is a free gift or it's a paid offer, we know that a percentage of people will say yes. Because you are the expert in your field. You've already done your market research. You already know what it is that they are showing up with what the pain is and you know how to support them in moving through it. It might make sense to go ahead and pay to play for a sponsorship if they bring a hundred people into the room. Let's say you make a paid offer of.$300 for a low level package of yours for a hundred people, we would expect probably a 20% conversion rate. So you're looking at 20 people times$300 package. You just made$6,000.
Heather Zeitzwolfe:Yeah. And I guess it would depend on if you feel like you're gonna actually get that speaking gig or not,
Shay Wheat:I personally jumped on stages that cost me$7,500 and I was on a panel Now, granted, I was in front of, Probably 500 people of my ideal audience I was on a panel with. four other people and we got to make a free offer. I also knew on the backend, what that would look like for me. So it was beneficial if I could bring on just one client, it would be well worth that investment for me.
Heather Zeitzwolfe:Yeah, that is a key thing when you are going to speak somewhere find out ahead of time if it's okay to sell from the stage or if you can, let people know about where to contact you.
Shay Wheat:Absolutely. Super important to know all the terms associated with it,
Heather Zeitzwolfe:What's phase four?
Shay Wheat:Phase four is the scale phase. Your goal is to scale your business and your systems. So when you're in grow, your job is to start making a consistent$10,000 a month. Having more strategy sessions, having more conversations, you move into phase four. We're looking to take your sales conversations from a one-on-one to a one to many model. where you're really gonna start to take a look at a one-day enrollment event, a retreat, a workshop, and you're also starting to grow your team. Because you're not gonna be able to do all the things. You're not gonna be able to do customer service. You're not gonna be able to do fulfillment of your programs. All by yourself, You need to have a team that's supporting you and your clients so that you can really focus on generating more leads and filling your events and filling your programs. So to get to the point where you're starting to now make a consistent like$20,000 a month before you move into phase five. So you've now built the business to a place where you realize your zone of genius is connecting with the audience and letting your team handle everything else.
Heather Zeitzwolfe:What is phase five? What? What is that about?
Shay Wheat:Phase five is really where you are absolutely staying in your zone of genius, and you need to just continue to grow your client base. you really accomplish this by delegating to your team and establishing systems and leveraging things for your time. Phase four and phase five is where you're really looking at three day sales and enrollment events. Those marketing events where it allows you to go from one-on-one conversations to one to many. This is where our clients are making, with 50 people in the room, they're making six figures, and with a couple of hundred people in the room, they're making one$2 million. these can be extremely profitable for your business. And again, you don't jump there right away. You go through the phases in order to get to this point, but it's been strategic in your growth that's why we utilize the events that we have in different phases. you build your rapport relationship, you build your. Community. You build your list, you build your team, and you start bringing in the income accordingly to support these types of events when they're supposed to happen.
Heather Zeitzwolfe:Yeah. Okay. A lot of times I hear, coaches they put on a webinar and a couple of people show up. Maybe it's just premature, they think, oh, no one showed up. But they're just not in that right phase yet.
Shay Wheat:That, and I think this is a good time to wrap around with that ticket map.
Heather Zeitzwolfe:Okay. Let's talk about that ticket map.
Shay Wheat:Okay. One of the great things I love working with our clients on is actually, how the heck are we gonna fill the room? Now? We don't just go, okay, great. I'm gonna have 50 people in the room. It's okay, tell me more. How are we having 50 people in the room? I wanna see the numbers. So what we do is we create what's called a ticket map. And so if your audience were to grab a piece of paper, and let's just say our goal is 50 people, you're gonna go ahead and draw, a box, and you're gonna have about five different columns. The first column is going to be the opportunity or the ticket source. The ticket source is all the ways that you plan on interacting with your audience and giving them an opportunity to purchase an event ticket from you.
Heather Zeitzwolfe:Okay. So it could be like a newsletter a social post,
Shay Wheat:How webinars. Sponsorship referrals, speaking gigs, podcasts, joint venture partner calls, past clients, strategic networking, all the different ways that you plan on interacting with your audience and presenting an opportunity for them to purchase a ticket from you.
Heather Zeitzwolfe:we want a nice mix of those, don't put all your eggs in one basket. Like, Hey, I put it in my newsletter and nobody signed up.
Shay Wheat:I sent an email list to my webinar. It's that's great. Only 30 people opened it,
Heather Zeitzwolfe:We want a nice mix of those things, and so I love data and I love tracking this stuff. I would wanna do a spreadsheet where I could track this and then each time change the mix of how I wanna do this what is giving me the best result.
Shay Wheat:I love my spreadsheets and we do this on a spreadsheet for our client.
Heather Zeitzwolfe:we wanna track to make sure that they actually come to the event.. So what are all the little phases in the map in between?
Shay Wheat:The second column is going to be your anticipated number of prospects. We do this kind of in two phases. We've got our kind of like our budget and then our actuals, so we're anticipated number of prospects. So let's say you send an email to your list to join you on a webinar. We anticipate that 30 people will, show up from the mailing list, Not say they're gonna come, but actually show up to the webinar.
Heather Zeitzwolfe:Is that based on data from the past or is that industry averages, or do you use a mix of that? How do you get to those percentages?
Shay Wheat:So we take a look at what the numbers have been in the past for our clients, we can utilize that into your ticket map. Then also we just know what's happening in the industry too. So that second column is. The anticipated number of people. The third column is going to be the anticipated conversion rate of them being in the room, actually hearing the offer to pick up a ticket and what is that percentage that they actually purchased the ticket. so the anticipated conversion. The fourth one is gonna be that projected ticket sales, and then total projected tickets.
Heather Zeitzwolfe:when we say purchase, it could be a free ticket.
Shay Wheat:Yeah be aware though, when. You have free tickets, you have to sell a lot more because there's no skin in the game for them. When they put money in, then they're committing not only with their time, but with their funds that's why we wanna look at all of these pieces of it. It's what is the intention? What is the purpose? What are we looking to do? How many people are you wanting to, in the end result, let's say move into your program and we back out the numbers.
Heather Zeitzwolfe:If we're putting on a webinar and our intention is to sell somebody on like a much bigger program at the end of that webinar, we still charge to get into this webinar, and is there a sweet spot on that price? If it's like a one hour, 90 minute webinar, is it like$47,$97? What should people be thinking about?
Shay Wheat:The more time people spend with you, the higher the program you can offer, the ticket price you can offer. So if somebody was with you for a three day event, you're gonna be doing a high ticket offer, you're gonna be doing something that's 8,000, and I've got clients up to$20,000
Heather Zeitzwolfe:That's the end result
Shay Wheat:yes, that's the end result. That's them being at the event with you for three days, getting them crazy awesome results, whether they do business with you or not, you must have an event promise, something that they can walk away with, that they can implement on their own. And really what they're paying for is to go quicker and faster and not fall into all the pitfalls that you possibly fell into. If you're doing like a one day event you are gonna wanna look at a low ticket item, something that is about$4,000 or under as your end product that you're selling from the event. Anything below that. If you're doing 90 minute Masterclass or a workshop or a webinar, those are likely going to be free events that you offer, like a ticket to your one day event or a ticket to your three day event, where then you can make the larger offers.
Heather Zeitzwolfe:You don't necessarily have to charge them for a webinar or something like that, okay, so let's get back to this spreadsheet
Shay Wheat:yes
Heather Zeitzwolfe:What is the next column that we're talking about here?
Shay Wheat:So that's all the columns that you'll need. That's all the columns. So that is the projected number. For instance, if our goal is 50 people, we're now gonna go through all the ticket sources. So You'll do, let's say an email list to webinar one, email list to webinar two, email list to webinar three. Sponsorships, referrals. Products, speaking gigs, you'll list out all the ticket sources and then you fill out each of the columns to the point where your total projected tickets. That last number is adding'em all up. First line webinar one. 30 people in the room anticipated conversion to buy a ticket's, 10% projected tickets is three. Total tickets is three. Webinar two, we'll use the same numbers, but now your total tickets is six because we've added three and three, so you do that for all the rows leading up to it in order to go, Out of all these opportunities and all these ticket sources, I've got 60 projected tickets. And then I wanna add like a bringa friend as another opportunity ticket source. And we know that they convert at about 10%. So now I've got 66 tickets. Remember, my goal was 50. Why am I having 66
Heather Zeitzwolfe:Because people don't show up.
Shay Wheat:Because people don't show up even if they pay$47,$97. Not everybody's showing. That's why we essentially oversell our goal number and our ticket map.
Heather Zeitzwolfe:Makes complete sense cuz you always wanna overbook what are some things that people can put in place when they're in that phase one through phase two and a half? Strategic wise?
Shay Wheat:You still wanna take a look at some form of the ticket map, even though you're doing a Facebook Live, maybe you're doing an email, maybe you're doing a couple of posts maybe you are on a couple of podcasts that end up. Going to a lead magnet, and then in the lead magnet, you're gaining the lead and then they see you on Facebook Live and you invite them via your email, so you still wanna do some type of marketing to funnel and channel everybody to where you're going to be engaging with them further. you still do a form of it, just not as crazy in depth, you wanna make sure that you're not in the situation where you don't have anybody joining you live.
Heather Zeitzwolfe:When people are putting on maybe these webinars and all this in the beginning and they want people to get into this larger ticket thing, they're gonna have people that are gonna be like, yeah, take my credit card right here. And, but then they're gonna have the people that are like I need more time with you, or I need to think about it, When they do these events, they should have something to give the audience, right? Some kind of takeaway besides just the verbal takeaway. What would you recommend people do to stay in their sphere?
Shay Wheat:I always recommend at a bare minimum is having some type of lead magnet, some type of c t a, where it is a downloadable, it's a guide, it's a spreadsheet where they can put in their date and it'll automatically kick out for them the posts that they're supposed to be making or. Something that's like super juicy and they can utilize it right away. It gives them the next best step to move them forward, since they're then on your list, Then you can continue to engage with them, that's where, you end up saying an email going, Hey, I'm going live on Facebook for 45 days. I'm going to be covering these things. If you wanna come and join me and cheer me on because I'm really super nervous. Then they'll be like, oh, heck yeah, let's do this. Heather, come on, I'm with you. I'll back you up.
Heather Zeitzwolfe:Yeah.
Shay Wheat:You're starting to create community, and that's really what you're looking to do is create your little posse of peeps that you can lock arms with and create a wave of change together.
Heather Zeitzwolfe:Yeah. And when you have these events, it seems like the ones that are the most impactful have a lot of community around it. Like maybe they might have a supporting Facebook page or like a follow up call with people. What are some ways that people can infuse some community or get people more jazzed about what you're selling. Is there like different things that you can give them?
Shay Wheat:love the Facebook group. We use the Facebook group for a number of different things for all of the, like the one day events, the three day events that we intend up doing, the workshops, the retreats, those types of things. But we also will use a Facebook group for when we're doing our master classes and our webinars just to start creating the community in one place. One, that's one location that you can go ahead and market. That your Facebook live is coming up or your masterclass is coming up and two. You can have people that are just gonna be interacting with you when you're not doing any, those particular marketing things at that moment you can just be simply asking questions, engaging questions, still doing market research. You never stop doing market research, especially if you start hearing people go, why have you not taught us about X, Y, and Z? And you're like, Ding ding, ding. I'm now adding that to my program, We love the Facebook groups. We use Facebook groups for our events and if you have team members, you can introduce your team members in it and they start to know behind the scenes, behind the curtain, what actually happens in your life and in your business, because most likely your audience you are just a few steps ahead of them and they want to get to where you are. just showing them a peak of what life can be like if you continue to join you and working with you and support, moving in the direction that they wanna head in. So we love those Facebook groups.
Heather Zeitzwolfe:That's such a great option. People are on Facebook, which makes it easier to. Access them and get them to join. This is all very cool. So let's talk about how people can work with you because, when it comes to these virtual events, you see people doing'em all the time, and some of them are like, they have a real wow factor. Like you're just like, oh my God. Because they have the help of you, Shea, because you will bring that sizzle to it that maybe the average Joe doesn't know how to do. So tell us how people can work with you and what are the services that you provide?
Shay Wheat:Yeah, absolutely. So we end up handling all of the planning speaker, sponsor support, as well as the production for virtual live, as well as in-person events to create that experiential. Revenue generating and exciting events for your attendees. We'll look at it from the perspective of, what's happening with your audience? What's happening with your ticket sales? What is your run of show? What does your agenda look like? What is your offer strategy? Who's on your support team? What is the budget? What are the numbers? Cuz I We look at everything and we walk you through the process. So really your job is to show up, find the people, get'em crazy, awesome results, and we work with your team to make everything behind the scenes work pretty seamlessly and done with as much grace and ease as possible.
Heather Zeitzwolfe:Shay, thank you so much for being on the podcast today.
Shay Wheat:Thank you so much. It's been an honor.
