Is a summit or bundle right for your business? — Quietly Extraordinary
Towards the end of last year, online summits seemed to be all the rage. There were online summits popping up like crazy in my inbox. I get why. They are often great list builders (at least in terms of numbers) and they help you build relationships with other people. Collaborating in your business can be a game changer. It can also be a profitable undertaking.
In many ways the course bundles I’ve run and helped organize for others is not dissimilar in its benefits. The list building may not be quite as good as a free option but it can be a great way to collaborate and get in front of a new audience.
I didn’t run the Introvert Marketing Bundle last year as I reassessed what a good collaboration looks like for me and my audience. The bundle was a nice cash injection into my business when I ran it but it doesn’t feel aligned to one of the things I help my clients with — feeling less overwhelmed.
The traditional summit or bundle can be a firehose of information and while there is no expectation that people listen to every presentation or sign up for every course, there is still the need to look at what is on offer and then make a decision about what you need in your business at this moment in time. This at a time when I think we are already feeling overwhelmed and suffering decision fatigue.
Plus there is often an element of the fear of missing out they can bring up. You sit down and listen to a presentation or take a course on something you have no plans on using in your business in the near future. Time you could have spent taking action or resting, both of which are probably more valuable right now to your business.
There is also the imbalance in the benefits to people collaborating, especially if a big name is involved. People sign up to see the main person speak, which is great for building the organizer’s email list but then other presenters get a bit lost in the process. While this idea isn’t dissimilar to a keynote speaker at an in person conference, with in-person conferences people have made the effort to attend. They are in the venue already so it makes sense to then attend other presentations. Whereas online you see the keynote and then just log off and go about your day.
There is also the question of quality over quantity in terms of your email list. Yes if you organize one your list grows, but do those people turn into clients? I suspect this depends on a whole lot of elements: is the summit closely enough lined to what you help people with, is the audience made up of your clients, is the summit an amazing experience and so much more.
That isn’t to say that a summit or bundle isn’t right for you to offer your audience — it depends on what they are looking for from you. I’ve helped with a bundle for a homesteading audience and it felt aligned in that people were thinking about homesteading and wanted a low cost way of looking at their options.
The traditional summit or bundle doesn’t feel right for me at this point in time. Not saying I would never do them again as never feels like a way too big a call!
But I love the collaboration aspect and not just for me. I know the Introvert Marketing Bundle helped people find the right marketing expert for them to work with. I’m just not sure it’s the best format for the people I help.
I’ve been thinking about other ways of collaborating and have started to come up with some criteria to use when thinking about what I want to do in my business:
01. Does it need structure? Here I’m thinking about the Introvert Marketing Bundle. That you’ll get so much more out of some of the courses if you first have your marketing strategy, niche and messaging in place. Having these elements in place means you can then decide which courses in the bundle make the most sense for you to dive into. Whereas I could see having a craft bundle aimed at people looking to try a range of new crafts that wouldn’t need the same structure. I’m thinking about how I could add in structure to the Introvert Marketing Bundle.
02. Diverse range of views? For me hearing different opinions on an idea helps me to refine or challenge my own thinking on that idea. Plus the algorithm so often limits what you see. Visit a website on creating a membership and all you will see in your feed for the next month is how creating a membership is the solution to all your problems, when there are so many options out there, many of which may be better for your personal circumstances.
03. Sharing of experiences. This is similar to the diverse range of views but focuses on experiences rather than opinions. Hearing about what worked well and where things didn’t go to plan helps me look at options and decide what may work for me. Like with the opinions, the context is important. Understanding where the person sharing is coming from, how they like to work and who they help. I’ve recently signed up for a summit for the first time in ages because it’s people sharing what has worked for them recently in respect of launches.
04. How does my audience want to hear about things? Does my audience want to binge or do they want to take things in smaller chunks? And does it depend on what they are learning about? Needing structure fits in part to this — if you need to stop and think about something before moving on to the next piece of information then the traditional time intensive summit of a series of presentations with no time between is not the way to go.
05. What is the purpose of the collaboration? If it’s mainly about raising my profile then would it make more sense for me to not have my own collaboration project but to look at what others are already organizing. Being on a podcast would fit in to this. But if I want to help my audience with something in particular then arranging something targeted makes more sense.
06. What sounds fun to do? One of the collaborations I’ve done in the past is a written interview series and on a superficial level it met the purpose to raise my profile and those I interviewed. But the way I conducted the interviews — through written questions — just didn’t bring me that much enjoyment. It was just something I did for my business. Whereas I love actually talking to people about their businesses. It doesn’t mean it couldn’t then be presented in writing but I missed the element of joy which is the talking to others about their business.
What could this collaboration look like:
I’m rethinking what this collaboration could look like. These are some options I’m thinking about or have seen recently:
01. Running a much smaller more targeted summit. Still a summit but with much smaller number of speakers, on a very specific topic. That way your audience can decide if the summit is relevant to a particular challenge they are having or if it supports implementing an idea they have (because I’m a bit over everything having to be about fixing a problem). There is no real need to make a decision about which sessions to attend as there isn’t a smorgasbord to choose from.
02. Spreading the summit out over a longer time period than a few days. The summit would go over a longer period of time with less presentations per day to allow people to attend all the presentations without having to give up a large chunk of a work week (or pay to watch them later).
03. Panel discussions talking about a specific topic. You see these as part of in-person conferences but they rarely appear in online summits. These are often the places where I’ve gotten the most from attending a conference. When I see others discussing a topic it sparks ideas for me. Getting different perspectives helps me see how I can apply something to my business. I’ve seen more of these recently including on podcasts where there is more than one guest.
I like the idea of it being a conversation rather than someone telling you how to do something. They can also be particularly useful if they come after a couple of presentations on the topic. The conversations can help you put the presentations into context.
04. Sharing of experiences. I’m not sure what to call this option! Possibly it’s a community project. But rather than teaching something people share their experience with a particular issue. This is often not related to what they sell. For my business this could look like a group sharing their individual experiences on what has made their business work for their introversion. I’ve seen one recently on people sharing what is working in marketing at the moment for their clients.
05. Incorporating thinking time/activities. Are there activities I could schedule between presentations to help people absorb and take action on what they are learning. I’m thinking here that in between presentations I could do a co working session or a workshop where as a group we take action on the previous presentation. This would mean working to get people to attend live rather than watch replays but I think that is not impossible if clearly explaining the benefits (and scheduling at suitable times etc.)
06. Making it a paid collaboration. (By this I mean charging for people to attend — not for the other collaborators to pay to participate.) Collaborations are a lot of work if they are going to be done well. If I’m going to set aside a big chunk of time to make this a wonderful experience do I want to make some money from it directly rather than just using it as an audience building option.
07. Does it need to be time limited? Or could it be something like a podcast or written series where I interview other people. I’ve done a bit of this in the past with a written series and it raised my profile and those of the people I was collaborating with — which was the main purpose.
There is such power in collaborating in your business not just in terms of income but also in terms of joy and community. Business can be a lonely endeavour, especially if it’s just you. Making sure that collaboration is in alignment with you and your business will help you get the most out of all the effort you put in to it.
Originally published at https://quietlyextraordinary.com on February 5, 2023.
