6 Reasons to Host a Telesummit

Mar 6, 2022 | Telesummit

Is it time to start planning a telesummit?

Are you wanting to grow your email list? Did you know that telesummits are extremely effective lead-generating events?

Now, I’m not saying this is something you can pull together in a few weeks and make a big bang. But done right….you can add TONS of people to your list. And lately with so many unknowns in the world, it doesn’t seem like we can depend solely on social media. So an email list is important!

The number of emails you add to your list really varies with each summit. It depends on the guest speakers you have, the subject, and how much work you put into it.

And let me tell you…it is work! But the end result is worth sooooo much! (Plus a virtual assistant(like me) can help you through it and make it as successful as possible!

So questions people ask:

1. What IS a telesummit?

I like to go to Wikipedia and get that answer :-)…A Telesummit is a series of teleseminars held over the course of multiple days with multiple experts talking about a specific topic, generally in an interview format.

Also from Wikipedia: Teleseminars provide an opportunity for a host to provide information to a large number of people at one time. It allows a trainer to train many participants at once, one on many rather than one on one.[3] These conference calls are typically recorded. There’s typically a fixed period of time devoted to the presentation of information followed by another fixed period of time for questions and answers.

2. What are the benefits of a telesummit?

Networking with other experts in your niche
Exposure to a larger audience
Increase in your email list number
Increase in warm leads.
A great time to launch a new product or service
Positions you as an expert in your field

3. Ways a virtual assistant can support you from beginning to end to plan an extremely successful summit:

Create an opt-in page including speaker info
Create thank you page
Schedule emails
Create individual speaker pages
Create social media image for each speaker
Social media services
Proofread & test the entire process
Speaker management
Editing and prepping videos/audios to professional quality.
Full support from beginning to 2 weeks after the event is over.

Hosting a telesummit sounds scary, but I assure you I have supported 30+ telesummits and done right, with experienced support, it can run smoothly and have amazing results.

If you have any questions about one, let me know! You can book time with me here or follow me on social media @bigskyvs.com on Facebook and @tracey.sodt on Instagram.

Best Tools for a Successful Telesummit

Sep 25, 2018 | Telesummit

Tools for Telesummits

First things first. Find a VA. I’m being 100% serious. You cannot do this alone. I repeat….You. Can. NOT. DO. THIS. ALONE! UNLESS….you are independently wealthy, have no job and no commitments. It takes time, LOTS of time to create a telesummit you can be proud of.

Now, onto the actual tools you need to have access to FOR said VA:

Google.

Why? Because you better research the daylights out of your telesummit theme. You need to find out how to stand out, what are other people in your same field not doing that you CAN do to stand out in the crowd. This is also where you are going to research speakers. You need to have a list of at LEAST 150 people to reach out to.

Google Drive is a must as well. You need to store all your telesummit files together, where you can quickly and easily find them and use tools for telesummits them. Dropbox is another great one, although if you use too much space, you will have to pay for that one.

Aweber:

Aweber is a middle of the road email marketing tool. There are cheaper ones, there are more expensive ones. The cheaper ones, while ok if you have a small list and don’t plan on growing, aren’t great when you want to branch out a bit. (Yes, that is my affiliate link above, feel free to check it out!!)

Zoom.us.

It is how you will interview your speakers. Zoom is super user-friendly and you get some amazing high-quality videos taken. Which is one stress you do NOT need….crappy videos mean unprofessional. Your unsubscribes will skyrocket if that’s what the subscriber sees.

Video editing software.

Yes, I know, your videos are ALL going to go off and be recorded without a hitch. No hesitations. No audio issues. No internet issues. BUUUUUT……it won’t. And by having good editing software, the viewers will think they DID go off without a hitch! The power of technology!

Vimeo or YouTube.

Vimeo will cost you a fee. So I recommend using YouTube. If you have it all edited to start with, it takes a short amount of time and costs you little to nothing to upload a video to YouTube.

WordPress.

Please, if you listen to nothing else, please please please use WordPress. BECAUSE…..you really need to use their plugin for OptimizePress. Which does cost, but worth every penny. Optimize press integrates with your Aweber and makes the opt-in buttons seamless. Along with a ton of options which are all user-friendly! As far as tools for telesummits, this is a BIG one.

Facebook.

Start a group on Facebook for your summit. Keep everyone IN the conversation so your audience sees value in YOU and what you do! (And feel free to follow ME on FB!!!)

Graphic Designer.

You want your banner to look A-MAZ-ING! It needs to turn heads right off the bat. Fiverr is a great place to get one of those built for you, very affordably.

Canva:

If you aren’t a whiz at Photoshop, go to Canva. Canva allows you to make amazing images for your telesummit.

Did I mention you should hire a VA?

Click Here to schedule a time to talk about YOUR upcoming telesummit!

Have a great week!!! xoxo

Telesummit: Online Event to Grow Your Email List

Sep 17, 2018 | Email Marketing, Telesummit

Build Your Email List by Doing an Online Event…..a Telesummit

Building your list is essential in today’s online business world. The best way to do that is by hosting an online event(telesummit). This way your list is genuinely interested in what you do! When done properly, you could capture the attention of possibly thousands of prospective customers.

You may be asking what is a telesummit(or teleseminar). Wikipedia says it best….

“Teleseminars provide an opportunity for a host to provide information to a large number of people at one time. It allows a trainer to train many participants at once, one on many rather than one on one.^[3] These conference calls are typically recorded. There is typically a fixed period of time devoted to the presentation of information followed by another fixed period of time for questions and answers.”

Benefits of a telesummit:

Lead Generation: Telesummits are very effective at generating traffic,opt-ins, and sales. You get to use not only your own audience but that of at least 20 others….reaching potentially 100,000+ people!
Sets you up as an expert in your field.
Expands your market reach

A few things you need to know when beginning the telesummit journey:

First and foremost, they should NOT be stressful! They should be exciting and fun.

Next, determine your theme. Know your niche. It needs to be something that your audience will WANT to hear and be a part of.

There are a few ways to do a telesummit. Your options are audio, video, or live. Prerecorded is the best option as you can edit and everything can look professional. But the other ways work well, too!

Hire a VA. Seriously, you cannot do it all alone. Especially if you have never done one or never used all the platforms needed (Aweber, OptimizePress, WordPress, Vimeo, Pretty Links….just to name a few!) There are a lot of little pieces of the puzzle that can be overwhelming unless that is ALL you have to do. There are a lot of platforms you will need and you do not want to be working on this last minute.

Having a good email list is vital to your online businesses. You must email market to people so that they know you are there. They need to have you in the forefront of their minds and the only way to do that is by having a strong list.

I found a great article that tells more about the importance of building an email list from 7 amazing experts. Check it out here.

And contact me if you’re ready to get started or have a few questions! Send an email to tracey (at) bigskyvs (dot) com. Or schedule a time to chat Here.

Why I became a VA and more about ME!

Aug 27, 2018 | Email Marketing, Outsourcing, Telesummit, Time management, Virtual Services

Over the weekend I decided to make a list of topics for blog posts for my business. While doing so, I thought it might be nice for people to really know who I am, outside of business as well as inside. To be honest, I’m an open book. But this will be fun! And if I fail to mention something you are curious about, PLEASE ask me in the comments!!! xoxo

A little background. I grew up in a small town in Eastern Montana. It is a farming/ranching community. And I only THOUGHT it was small. Fast forward through school years and I moved to an even SMALLER town. I would say we have MAYBE 150 people. I joke that I think that number includes cats and dogs…..maybe even chickens? Who knows.

Our daughter is in high school, and she has 5 other students in her Junior Class. We have NO second graders this year. We know pretty much everyone who lives here. Our nearest Wal-Mart is 90 miles away one direction, 120 the other. And we love it! Wouldn’t trade it for the world…(not now anyway….years ago……that’s a whole other story…lol….live and learn!)

This is one of the few years we only have one child in our home. I’ve only given birth once, but we have had several kids in and out of our home. First, we raised two nephews for 5 years. Before the second one graduated, we decided to do foster care. And you know how they say, we don’t really know how long you’ll have these two little boys(ages 2 and 3) but it shouldn’t be too long. Two years later, we ended up giving them back to their mom. (side note….2 years later they are back in foster care in a different town….) After that we’ve had a few other foster kiddos. Most very temporary. One for 5 months who was just a baby, 3 months old. A charmer, I tell ya! We would have kept him forever. But of course, he went back to his mama, too. And from what I understand, she’s doing very well with him! A blessing for sure! Last year we added an exchange student from Turkey. We had her for 10 months and every one of us enjoyed her! We miss her every single day. So enough about kids…..even if they’ve never lived with me, I “claim” quite a few:-)

So onto the “interview”…..:-)

What do I love about where I live?

It is a small and close-knit town and it is safer than the bigger towns!

How did I end up where I am today:

Necessity. I live in a small town and there are very few jobs, and I love having the flexibility of working from home to be more available for my family. Before that, I ran a local cafe. It wasn’t something I loved, so I looked for something else to do. A friend I had made years before online had extra work and needed help, so I started there, and just started learning more and trying more things. Now, I have been in my business for 9 years and can’t imagine another way of life! I love helping small businesses grow and succeed!

What do I enjoy doing, outside of work?

Reading, watching tv with my family, cooking. We found out my daughter and I have Celiac Disease so cooking has taken a big, new, adventurous turn! It is getting better, but it was pretty depressing to start out with!!!

What type of work am I best at?

This is a hard one….I love doing almost everything I do, so if I had to choose a few, one would be working with blog posts, working with coaches and telesummits.

What is my favorite way to communicate?

Emails are the best. But I also love Slack!

I hope this post shows that I love what I do. I love my clients. I love learning new skills. If you sign on as a client of mine, you are signing on also, as a new friend! Your business means a lot to me. If YOU aren’t successful, I am not successful.

You can see more about me on my LinkedIn profile.

If you want to book a chat with me click here!

Webinar or Telesummit… What should you choose?

Aug 5, 2018 | Telesummit, Virtual Services

In the last 6 months, I have supported 3 people with their teleseminars and watched several webinars. I know a lot of people don’t quite understand the difference between the two. Here I will try to explain it…

Webinar:

A seminar that people listen to and/or watch on the internet via your computer or phone. Typically 1-2 hours. Teaches you something.

Pros:

Less expensive
No special equipment
Easy to produce
Can attract a large number of participants
Very visual
One to two presenters
No traveling

Cons:

Internet speed must be adequate to allow particpants to view without issue.
Body language is missing typically because the presenter is using slides. Audience misses nonverbal cues.
No editing. If you have issues such as Power Point crashing, you may lose your audience.

Telesummit:

An online multi-speaker event. It gathers several experts in a certain field to talk about a specific topic. A host interviews them and the online event is launched over the course of a series of days for a large audience.

Pros:

Email list grows with help of the expert speakers
Gives you more valuable content
Connects you with like-minded people
No traveling

Cons:

Takes longer to set up
Typically need to hire help to get all the moving pieces to be in place
Requires more paid platforms

Telesummits are my choice. They are a great way to grow your new business and have a lot of valuable content to share or sell. You could easily add 2-3000 people to your email list, in turn helping to grow your business. And never forget the value of having so many experts on as well as in your circle!

The month of August, I am running a sale on my telesummit packages. Click here to check that out! I am booking into 2019, so let me know if you want on that list! The sale is good as long as the summit is BOOKED in August, it can happen up to June 2019.

Also, know that I will custom build a package for you if needed!

If you have more questions or are interested in any Virtual Assistant work, please contact me here.