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Verbatim text
Lee:
Welcome to the Agency Trailblazer podcast. This is your host, Lee. And on today’s show, it’s a conversation, well, at the moment, one-sided, but you can have your say as well. And to do that, please join our free Facebook group. You can find out more information on agencytrailblazer.com/group, and that will redirect you to our Facebook group. If you’re on Facebook right now, just tap in Agency Trailblazer and you’ll be able to find our group and join because this should be a conversation as well as me just chatting for the next few minutes. Now, in today’s show, I want to share with you all about the event that we just had, talking about why we did event even in the first place, how we planned it, why we chose the venue, some things that went right, some things that went wrong, some things we learned, all that stuff. I thought it would be really useful, especially if you’re looking to perhaps launch your own event in the near future, or perhaps you are involved in event planning, or perhaps you’re interested in being involved in our event for 2020 as well, then this is probably going to be a great episode for you to listen to.
Lee:
Now, with regards to why we started the event in the first place, this goes all the way back to October the sixth of 2018, not very long ago when we were in a room, me, Chris Ducker, and a whole range of other masterminder’s, and we were trying to work out how we could take things to the next level. I’ve had an event on my heart and on my mind for a very, very long time. And I’ve also had a mission on my heart and on my mind for a very long time. You’ll all be aware that I want to help agency owners create businesses that they love, that gives them time not only on the business itself, but also time with their family, time doing this, things they love outside of just agency life, etc. It’s so sad whenever I see an agency closing down. I don’t want that to happen. It is a stressful life, but we can change things. And if you listen to episode 200, you’ll learn a lot about what fuel that. And my mission has always been to try and help people, but how can we do that? The platform of the podcast has been great.
Lee:
If you are aware, I’ve been writing a book. I’m still working on that at the moment. That will another platform that I can use. There’s our YouTube channel where we give away information, but we wanted to really help people transform their agencies in a setting where they could get together and learn from people within the industry, but also learn from each other as well and build friendships that can hopefully last a lifetime and make some real change. So the purpose of the event was to try and level up and start to help people to put action in place. And we called it Agency transformation life for a very specific reason. That reason being is that you can make some changes, some small changes over the next three days and months that will have a massive impact on your business. So again, go ahead and listen to episode 200. If you never listen to that episode, it’s telling you how to transform your agency. And one of the biggest takeaways you can take from that is that those small actions, small achievable actions, will result in big change in your business. So we decided We were going to put together an event that would focus on helping people work out what those next small changes that they needed to make would be so that they could affect that next stage of transformation in their business.
Lee:
Something that frustrates me is we’re always looking around. There’s all sorts of courses available. There’s all sorts of things that we can do to shove into our brain. But the problem is, is we consume and consume and consume, and we don’t necessarily have the ability to take action. I think half the time is there is just too much information out there. So this event was primarily focused on getting people who wanted to make something happen in their business into a room to make it happen. So that was the mission and the plan. Holy moly, you should see how long the plan was. The plan was this. Number one, validate the event for the idea. Number two, sell early bird tickets. That was literally the plan. I’ve still got the notes from our meeting in October the sixth, and we had a great conversation about how we could find a venue and get people to the venue, how we could find the right speakers, and how we could communicate those five stages of transformation, again, in episode 200, that I’m really, really passionate about. So that was the mission? Get people in a room who wanted to make some change in their business and actually help them work out what it is ASAP so that they can start making those small changes.
Lee:
So like I said, we validated the idea. We put it out there to our community. We did that to our paid community, but also to our free community as well. It was very quick to see many, many tickets going. It was wonderful to have over 80 people in the room on the day. Now then, with regards to how we planned it, I did obviously let in that we only had two lines initially of we need to validate this and we need to sell tickets. That was the plan. If it validates, we’ll sell the tickets and we’ll make the event happen. So very quickly, I recognised that I wanted to make sure I understood clearly what the message of the event was so that I could then put some landing page out there to start to validate the idea. So we refined our messaging from the book that we’re working on, the Five Pillars of Transformation, and then we went from there. What can we do? What can we build into our landing page? We built out our landing page and tried to describe those stages of transformation and that mission as clearly as possible, as well as laying out all of the problems that we believe people might be struggling with.
Lee:
Then what we did to start to get the speakers involved, we connected with people that we knew had specialisms in those particular areas. So for example, with regards to your identity or your value, etc. Then I reached out to people like Samantha Hearn, who could help people with their mental health, etc. I also reached out to Troy Dean, for example, because I thought he’d be able to help people with the future element of transformation where people are looking to develop processes and then grow. So started reaching out to all these speakers and saying, Hey, look, if this event is going to happen, are you up for being a part of this? Now, some of the speakers we did a deal with where I paid them to come over with regards to their flights, etc. And then other people volunteered as well, which was phenomenal to just be a part of this first event to see what we could get happening. So we got all those agreements through Messenger, through emails, etc, through telephone calls, and then we were able to go ahead and start to put it out there. So landing page went out there.
Lee:
We announced it on a livestream on Facebook. We let everybody know. We put a special offer up there for people to grab tickets early. And that’s exactly what started happening, which blew me away. And that’s when I started getting scared because I realised that, number one, there is an appetite for this. But number two, People they want to do it. They want to do it. It’s going to have to happen. So that obviously freak me out. I was like, oh, wow, I actually now have to do this. We are going with it. So a big part of my My personal mission in life is to make sure that I am organising myself really, really well. So it became very, very apparent that I needed everything in one space that I could organise, that I could control. My CRM system wasn’t going to cut it because an event is Very, very different. And also spreadsheets weren’t going to cut it. So we jumped onto Airtable. I think you’ll all have heard me talking a storm about Airtable recently. And we essentially built our own application, which we are going to share in a few weeks time, to manage our event.
Lee:
That was allowing us to manage our run sheet, our schedules, the speakers we could manage. We could manage all of the tickets that we’d sold. We could work out who was going to get what type of ticket. We could manage everybody’s dietary requirements in there and everything. So it just allowed us this one big space for us to work with. And we also then did all the automation as well to allow us to not get stressed out with tonnes and tonnes of admins. So for example, every time somebody paid on the website, that went into the database. So we had a ticket ready for them. We could send out an email for the dietary requirements, but equally it would send things off into Quickbooks and then it would automatically add them as a client in Quickbooks, create an invoice, create a payment and reconcile that as well against the bank. So we had all sorts of automation as well so that we could focus primarily on making sure that we had a really well-planned, organised event and that we weren’t feeling flicked out and stressed on the day when it came to delivery. Okay, so so far we’ve had our mission.
Lee:
Excuse me. We’ve felt the fear and we’ve done it anyway. We’ve validated that idea by, first of all, refining our message, getting it out there and pre-selling some of those tickets which happened, which meant we were going to go ahead and do it, which meant we then started to plan lots of things very, very seriously and very, very carefully. Now, There was a few things that we had to choose with regards to the venue. We obviously were aware we were going to have to keep costs slow. We weren’t charging a lot for the tickets. This was our first ever event. We have to show credibility. We have to show that we can pull this off. We have to prove ourselves we get that. We were unable to spend loads and loads of money on all sorts of big flashy venues, etc. But at the same time, our mission with the event was to transform your agency into something that you love and something that works for you. So if I was to, therefore, go ahead and pick a venue down in London and have to sell hundreds and hundreds of tickets so that we could at least just break even, that’s not being true to me.
Lee:
Whereas what I could do was simply choose the venue of our church in Wellingborough. It sounds nuts, but you can actually fit 300 to 400 people in that venue if you want to. Although I wanted to go for a more intimate setup where there were tables. So we actually had 80 people, although we could actually fit 100 to 200 people in there in a table arrangement. So we picked that. And I got to admit, I had massive imposter syndrome over picking that as the local venue because you’re thinking, well, who the heck is going to come to Wellingborough? And I’ll tell you one thing now, if you’re listening to this, Wellingborough, okay, it’s just a little town in the middle of the UK. No one’s heard of it apart from anyone who lives nearby. And yet industry leaders from all around the world came to Wellingborough and over 80 people started to transform their agencies. And that blew my mind. I could not believe that I was able to attract people from all around the world to a place called Wellingborough. But I hope that helps to smash your preconceptions of what an agency should look like, because this event for me was to also smash the preconceptions of what an event should look like.
Lee:
It shouldn’t have to be down in London with expensive hotels in the area, with expensive restaurants in the area. Some of the most biggest, awesomest feedback we had was number one, awesome location, great lighting, great sound. We loved everything about it. Number two, great hotels in the area, really low cost. Number three, everything was walking distance. We loved it and it’s a beautiful town. Number four, the beer was cheap, which was obviously the best feedback that we could possibly have. So what went right? Well, of course, we’ve already highlighted that we had a great venue. This venue has 300 people every single Sunday. I’m part of the leadership there, and we have a great time together. It works. There’s a great coffee shop, etc. So having 80 people in an intimate table arrangement was a fantastic environment. So that was kudos to Larissa as well for helping convince me the church was going to be the right location. The location outwardly in Wellingborough was actually brilliant as well because the hotels are within walking distance. If you’re for, say, an up to 20-minute walk, then there’s several hotels in Wellingborough that worked really, really well and people could walk to.
Lee:
But also there were Airbnbs, there were also lots of restaurants, takeaways, etc, that people could go and use. And one of the best location hotels, well, two of the best, one was the Hind Hotel, which had mixed reviews with regards to the quality of the hotel, but the location for people was great because it was very close to Costello, which is a restaurant, etc. But equally, the Premier Inn as well was a great location, which was further away from the venue, but still only a 20-minute walk. It also had a pub. We did the speaker’s dinner there as well, which was great, great price. But there was also the pub with a Starbucks and lots of other takeaways and restaurants in that particular area and a large supermarket as well, which was, again, really useful for people who were staying in that location because I remember hearing one person had forgotten their toothbrush, another person, Paul Lacy, had forgotten their pants, I mean, their trousers, so they had to go and buy some, et cetera. There were the facilities or the amenities out there, which was great as well. We also had amazing speakers. I made sure that we picked speakers who were, first and foremost, friends and people that I’ve either done business with, people that I’ve consumed content from, or people that are doing what they talk about.
Lee:
So not people who will maybe sell us snake on the internet and say, Hey, we will 10X your income or whatever. But people who I see on the day to day living out what they teach, applying what they teach, and can really, really help people. So I reached out to a whole range of people. We’re really lucky in this community to have such great friends and such a great community where people just want to come and help. So thank you to all of the speakers who got involved. Many of you who came for absolutely no cost whatsoever because you wanted to help and you wanted to share in this mission and help change people’s lives. I am so, so freaking grateful to you. You just don’t know. Thank you. You made it fantastic. So yes, we made sure we asked those great friends of ours, those great speakers, and everybody delivered, which was phenomenal. And then finally, the other thing that went right. Well, there’s a few other things, but the other most important thing for me was that there was the right atmosphere. I was really worried that there might not be the right atmosphere in the room.
Lee:
This is a different location. This is a different type of event. We all know each other on the Internet, but how is it going to be in real life? And I should not have worried. Excuse me. It was a phenomenal atmosphere. There was energy, there was excitement. People were friendly. Those people that may be struggling in this environment were made to feel welcome, etc. And it was just a brilliant vibe. I really, really enjoyed it. Lots and lots of chats with coffee and food and people arranging outings afterwards to go pubs, go to restaurants, etc. It was just a wonderful, wonderful atmosphere. And even during all of the talks as well, people were engaging, people were asking questions, people were being supportive, etc. So that was also phenomenal. And I really, really enjoyed that aspect of things. The other thing as well that we loved was that we used local businesses. So we had local businesses cleaning, local businesses providing the tables, et cetera, the cloths, and also the venue, and equally, the food as well. And we had great feedback feedback from the food. The restaurant that did that was Milligan’s Kitchen, who is the kitchen I go to in Finden to go and get my morning coffee.
Lee:
They do the best coffee in Finden. I’ve been saying that for the last six years. And I asked them if they did catering as well because I wasn’t 100% sure. And they were like, Yeah, of course we do. And they made phenomenal food. They did these rice bowls and I’ve forgotten what they call, but they are the best thing ever. And I’ve pleaded with them to do those for next year’s. We’re bringing them in for next year’s catering. Now, with regards to a few things that did went wrong, this was, of course, our first ever event. So it was probably going to be the case that the odd thing would go wrong. And we did have a few unexpected issues. The first thing was unexpected gremlins with the sound system. Now, we’ve had no problems with the sound system to date over the last few months. We did a few tests beforehand as well to make sure that everything was going to be okay. But unfortunately, during the event, we had one case where one of the microphones started crapping out on us, so that had to go out of circulation, and we had to keep that off of circulation, which meant we had one less mic to deal with, which wasn’t too much of a problem, but it did mean some of the panel discussion was a little more difficult until we sorted out the issue there.
Lee:
We also had issues with recording of the sound as well. Now, they have solved that problem since. Unfortunately, though, that meant that we were reliant on for many talks on the cameras picking up the sound, which meant we’ve since have to invest in some software to help try and improve the quality of the audio of the videos that we took so that they are at least easy enough to listen to without too much reverb, etc. They’re not terrible recordings, but we can definitely improve on them and then get them over. So obviously for next year, we’re going to make sure that we actually have backup sound as well from outside of the sound system. And we’ll actually be working with Tristan and people to have recording packs on our speakers. We’ll have a couple of recording packs on our speakers as well as their microphone so that we’ll have sound recorded through the sound system. That was the bit that didn’t work properly. And then we’ll also have sound recorded locally on the physical person as well so that we’ve got that back up. We also had a presentation compatibility glitch. Now, I thought I’d covered this off.
Lee:
I thought I was good. I’d received all the presentations in advance and opened them up and they all looked okay, etc. So we rolled with it. But unfortunately for one of our presenters, when they were trying to present, there was actually a compatibility issue from the conversion of their Google presentation to be a PowerPoint presentation. That did mean that when they were clicking through, certain animations wouldn’t trigger unless they clicked a few times. And at first, we thought it was a technical issue and I was running around with a laptop back and forth, unplugging things, and feeling pretty stressed about the whole thing, to be honest. In fact, at one point, I just had to go and walk outside and just have a little walk in a few circles just to calm myself down because being the perfectionist, I wanted everything to be perfect and everything had felt like it had gone perfect to that point. And then I could see that it was obviously putting pressure on our speaker who did a great job carrying on anyway. And I could also see that other speakers were looking a bit worried whose turn it was coming, thinking, oh, no, is that going to happen to me?
Lee:
So next time, what we will be doing is we’ll have our speakers submit them a little earlier so that what we can do is do a call with them and actually go through the presentation together and click through every single slide so that we can be sure. What we’ll also do is move the IT from the front so we have the laptop at the front so that the speaker could see it. We’ll move all the IT to the back so that they can then rely on the confidence monitors at the top, and then we can solve any problems at the back of the room rather than people having to run backwards and forwards as well. The other thing I learned from that as well is that for next year, I need to make sure that I actually have a full-time IT person who will be looking after that so that I’m not the runner. As I’m obviously the host, I need to be focused on hosting the event and certainly not being the guy who runs around also fixing the IT. Of course, it was my first rodeo. This is my first event. We weren’t going to have the budget necessarily to start having lots of extra team members for the first year.
Lee:
But certainly something that’s at the top of the list for next year is to make sure that we do have that technical person who will be involved to run the IT. I already know who that’s going to be. A chap called Ian is one of my best friends, and we’re already planning what we’re going to do with that with regards to making sure all the IT is from the back and all looked after, and of course, everything tested in advance. The only other last issue that we had, and none of these are really huge because I don’t think people really noticed them. I noticed them because this was my event and I was involved in every single detail, and I was passionate about everything being perfect. But the only last thing I noticed, and I’m sure other people can email in and give me some other feedback on things that they feel we could improve on, and I really do welcome that, was that on the day one, when the caterers put the food out, it was a little noisy. So we worked out on day two that what they’ll do is prepare, unpack all of the food that is being delivered in the kitchen at the back where no one can hear them, and then they will just quietly bring the food out, which we actually did on day two.
Lee:
And we got some feedback saying, Hey, where did the food appear from? We didn’t even hear it come in. So that was good. All right, so that’s what went wrong. There was a few things, but obviously we had loads of things that went right. We picked a great venue, a great location. We had wonderful speakers, a wonderful atmosphere, a wonderful audience. We had a few minor issues, really, that went wrong with regards to the sound, which is all fixable. We can improve the audio quality. We had a temporary laptop glitch for a couple of talks, which was fine. No one really cared or got upset. The other issue was me running around a little bit too much with the IT as well as hosting, so we can fix that. And finally, a bit of a noise on the first day with regards to food, which was also actually not… I don’t even know if anyone noticed, to be honest, only me. But I thought I’d share it because this is an open, raw and honest conversation with me and you. All right, so what things would we change? I think I’ve already highlighted it, but we’re going to test the sound system in advance and we’re also going to have sound recorded on the physical person as well.
Lee:
So we’ll have two backup machines or recorders that will actually sit in the back pocket of each speaker, which will be connected to another microphone so that we’ve got backup for the sound. We’ll be testing all of the presentations, we’ll be moving the tech to the back, and we’ll also be getting a tech person to look after all of that. All right, well, let’s talk about how we validated/sold those tickets in a little bit more detail. So there was two ways that we did this. Now, if you’re listening to this podcast, you are a part of our community in some way. It doesn’t matter if you’re not part of the Facebook community, you are at least part of our listenership, you follow us and you are consuming this content. So you’re part of the community. And the first thing we did was we put it out to our community. First of all, to our paid community over on agencytrailblazer. Com, and we gave them a special discount. And And then also to the wider audience as well in the Facebook group, as well as advertised it on the podcast, etc. And we actually sold a large amount of the tickets via that way to the people who are already invested in our community who already want to come to the UK, or if they’re already in the UK, come to this one space and learn how to transform their business.
Lee:
So that was phenomenal. But we also wanted to attract new people as well who’d maybe never heard any of our messages before. So So what we did was we engaged with Dave Toomey and we did a special Facebook campaign. And this was essentially in three stages. Stage one for the first month, this was three months of this right up till the day of the event. And stage one was to essentially build up the pixel. And to do that, you can do it at a very low cost, a few dollars a day. I think we were spending about $5 a day building up our pixel for 30 days. And we were selecting specific audiences like people who like the. Net magazine who have the characteristics of a small business, etc. And we had lots of different audiences, and we would then put particular messages out like, Do you have this problem? Or, Download this white paper? Or whatever it would be to start to attract people to our website so that we could build up that pixel audience. Then what we started to do in month two was to start telling people about the speakers and the content that would be there.
Lee:
We could now remark it to that pixel that we’d started building which meant our cost for conversion was a lot cheaper. People were already aware. People were therefore coming back and checking out. Oh, Troy Dean speaking. I’ve heard of Troy Dean. Let’s go and have a look at his profile, et cetera. So we were able to direct people there. And then in the final month, we were able to ramp that up with regards to a countdown, only so many days left to buy your ticket, only so many days before the event, et cetera, so that we could keep being front of mind with the pixel audience, that they would be aware we were there, aware the event was still happening. And that was also very successful. And it’s actually something I’d really recommend you do if you maybe connect with Dave Toomey over in the Beaver Builder Facebook group. He’s very, very clever when it comes to explaining how to use Facebook ads to start to grow your audience. So We’re very lucky. We get thousands upon thousands of downloads every single month. We’ve got loads of people following us across loads of different social platforms, etc.
Lee:
But even we still needed to build our audience further using Facebook ads because this was a very a location-specific event, and our audience are actually spread wide across the world. So it was a great lesson for us in how to use Facebook ads to actually build our audience further and actually increase our reach over here in the UK and in it because our biggest market is actually America. You guys over there in America are 70% of our audience. That’s phenomenal. So I think I’m going to have to put on an American accent more. All right, well, now we’re coming into land, and I just want to wrap up with discussions about the future. How have we continued to sell the tickets for next year and what are we doing? How are we planning it, et cetera? We’ve been able to learn an awful lot from doing our first year event. We have established that we’re definitely going to do it again in the same venue because of the amount of positive feedback that we got and the fact that we can still fit more people in there while still having the same environment, et cetera.
Lee:
We’re going to go ahead with that. We’re already having conversations with speakers. Certain speakers already confirmed will be coming back, which is wonderful. We had great speaker feedback for those guys, and they have confirmed they will be coming back. So we’ll be announcing a lot more of those speakers soon. You can check that out on agencytransformation. Live. But also with regards to selling the tickets, what we did was offer a time limited offer to everybody who was at the event to say, look, guys, if you want to lock in next year at a ridiculously low rate because it will be more expensive next year because we do need to invest more money in next year with regards to team, staff, etc. Grab this rate and you’ve got 48 hours to do so. And 50% of the room booked in for next year, which blew me away. What we’ve then since done has launched a limited early bird, and you can actually find out more information on agencytransformationlive/register2020. As of this recording, there are only 14 early bird tickets left. So the purpose there was to just limit, because we’re limited on space in the room, was to limit the lower cost tickets to 30 so that we could sell those.
Lee:
That is helping us, obviously, make sure there is enough budget in for next year, along with all the stuff that’s going to be coming in from the sponsors, etc. So we can put on a great event and then we will be spending the next year selling the higher price version of the tickets. Another thing we’re going to be doing next year is a third day, which will be our implementation day. So that’s going to actually take the message further and help people not only work out what stage they need to be focusing on on their agency journey, but also to help them to start to apply those things. So for example, if somebody is stuck at the platform stage, they already understand their identity and their value, all of that stuff, then how do they engage with social and marketing platforms? If they’re not sure, then the implementation day would help them do that. And we would have experts helping people maybe implement social media profiles, going through workshops, etc, so that people can start to get further on that stage. So that’s what the implementation will be there for, to help people at certain stages come in and actually start to apply some of those small changes that they can apply to their business.
Lee:
That’s something else that we are doing different for next year. I think you can tell I’m pretty excited about 2020. We’ve also got plans for this year to do something else really special, and that’s all I’m going to I’ll tell you just as a tease, but there is more to come from Agency Transformation. So do keep your eyes and ears filled. That sounds painful, but do keep your eye out because we have more things to announce in the very near future, which we are very excited about. But I just want to wrap up with some encouragement on how to launch an event. People will very often say to me that they are impressed, and I hate saying that because I feel a bit embarrassed by it, but they are Tell them how I will often come up with an idea and then go ahead and do it. And I don’t say that to show off. I say that because that’s the feedback I have. And I got to be honest, I often look at what I’m doing and think, what the heck are you doing, you nutter? I’ve launched a podcast. I’ve launched the YouTube channel.
Lee:
I’ve launched what we’re writing this book that’s taking loads and loads of time and that’s going to be launched very, very soon. We then went ahead and launched an event. We went to the States for a couple of months. We do all these big things which are really scary, but we still do them. And a lot of that has been fuel by the book, Feel the Fear, and Do It Anyway, because I don’t want to live my life thinking, Well, what if? And I want you to be encouraged, therefore, If you have ideas, you absolutely are equipped to go ahead and do them. I am a guy who lives in a two bedroom terrace house with an old 10 year old car. I’ve got a small family and my office is in the same village and my town down the road called Wellingborough and we’ve got a big church. But I’m a guy who’s been able to follow my dream, build up an audience through the podcast, encourage people in my industry to come and meet with me in my hometown and have an amazing event together with it. The point is, you don’t have to be Gary Vee.
Lee:
You don’t have to be Grant Cardone. You can be you yourself. You can be true to yourself. You can have a passion and a mission that drives you, and you can go ahead and go for those ideas. Sometimes they all work and sometimes they won’t work. But it’s fine because you’ll always learn something from it. You’ll always enjoy the fact that you’ve created something and you’ve done something about what is burning inside of you. If you are thinking of launching an event, if you’re thinking of writing something, if you’re thinking of launching a podcast, whatever it is, nothing disqualifies you from going ahead and doing that. Feel the fear and do it anyway. If you’ve got something burning inside of you, do it anyway. Anyway, with excitement because life is too short for us to sit around thinking, Well, what if I had to run that event? Now, I did have a wobble. Back in October, November time, I thought, I’m not going to do this event. I nearly pulled out. And I’m so glad I didn’t because today I’m recording a podcast telling you about what we learned and looking forward to new experiences in 2020, as well as new things that we’re going to do this year as a result of that event.
Lee:
I’m glad I never pulled out. Why was I going to pull out? Because I feel like an ordinary guy, and I feel like I have no right to be doing this. And yet that is complete and utter bleep. I’m not going to swear. We are all people who have our own passions, our own desires, our own missions in life. And if there are things that you want to achieve, if there are things that we want to achieve, then I’m going to quote my mother-in-law who passed away last year. And she says, he who hesitates or she who hesitates is lost. So feel the fear, do it anyway, and go ahead and follow your dreams. If there’s something you want to do, then I would say, go ahead, validate it and see if you can make it happen. So in a nutshell, if that might be an event for you in your niche, in your industry, then here’s how to launch your event. Number one, relisten to this episode because I’m pretty sure I’ve just told you. But number two, here is the bullet point checklist. Number one, have a mission. So you’ve got your mission for your event.
Lee:
Number two, have a desired outcome for the people who are going to to your event. Number three, you want to then write out your messaging, your wording, so that you can understand as best as possible what it is you’re trying to achieve, and you can understand how to communicate that to people. Then, number four, you want to validate the idea. So build a landing page, put that messaging together, maybe get a few people to give you a tentative thumbs up of coming along and speaking at your event if you’re going to get speakers involved, and then put it out there and pre-sell to your audience to see if there are people that want to part with money to be a part of the mission and the idea that you have. And if yes, then go for it. Find a system that you can manage your day to get the right people involved. Find the location that’s going to be cost-effective. Do your maths, all of that good stuff. And I would say, really, really importantly for running an event, make sure that you are absolutely organised when it comes to things like your schedule. Certainly don’t Try and wing anything.
Lee:
Make sure you’ve got your schedule nailed. You can use spreadsheets. You don’t have to use Airtable like we did. I’m just a database guy and I love that stuff. But just make sure you have everything listed out. Now, with regards to Airtable and the documentation that we use to plan, we will be launching a free pack on Airtable for people who want to grab that to launch their own events. We’ll be putting that in there in the next few weeks. I will make sure that I announced it on an up and coming podcast. I’ll also make sure that I a link to that in the show notes of this episode. But thank you for bearing with me and listening to my rambles about how to launch an event from a guy who’s literally just done it and learned a lot along the way and is looking forward to the next event over in 2020. Remember, if you want to be a part of 2020’s event, then check out agencytransformationlive/register2020. If you are not part of our online community, check out agencytrailblazer.com/group. If I don’t see you at the event in 2020, or if I don’t see you in the group, then we will see you in the next episode.
