S1E12: Live Event Pivots & Moving Forward Through COVID-19
Welcome to the Women Rocking Business podcast, because there’s never been a better time to be a woman entrepreneur. I’m Sage Lavine and I am here to call you forth to rock your business, sister. Let’s dive in.
Hello, women rocking business! Welcome, welcome. If you, like us, have had some major pivots in your business and with live events being canceled, how has COVID affected your business?
Sage Lavine
00:00:26
Because you’re not in this alone, I’m imagining for some of you, it might feel that way, but you’re not in this alone. You actually are part of the global family of women who are stepping up to lead at this time. Even if you’ve had bad days, even if you’ve had moments where we call it being in the lower loop with our emotions, right? The grief, the sadness, the shame, the frustration, the anger, the rage, right? Even if you’ve spent some time in struggle in grief and sadness for what you might be going through, what your family might be going through. I want to really affirm right here, right now, love coming through the virtual connection that you are not alone, that your business is needed now more than ever.
Sage Lavine
00:01:13
I want to share just a few pivots that I recommend you consider making in your business right now, so that we can all thrive through this time, rather than pulling back. We’ve heard from many of you that you were in the process of going virtual, doing more Zooms, doing more Facebook videos, doing more social media videos. There’s several things that you can do to pivot at this time.
That being said, I want to really speak a word into this moment, being an incredible portal of possibility opening in your business. For those of you that might not have heard this. The coronavirus actually came from a bat and I find that to be so symbolic because that literally represents rebirth.
Sage Lavine
00:02:03
The animal symbolism of the bat represents us rebirthing ourselves at such a time as this, such a time in history, such a time in the evolution of our lives as entrepreneurs, as our lives, as leaders, the rebirthing process that happens when you start a business, when you pivot a business, when you recreate a business. The rebirthing process that happens is unlike any other. I personally haven’t given birth. I give so much acknowledgement to those of you that have birthed human beings through the vessel of your body. What I’ve come to understand is that birthing a business, isn’t entirely different than that.
Sage Lavine
00:02:44
It takes some time. There are labor pains, right? You’re not going to get that business out into the world without pushing in the same way that you have to push a baby out. You’ve got to push that fricking business out of your soul. For those of us that are on this path of bringing a business, that is not just a product that you’re pedaling, it’s a greater message for the world. It’s a greater transformation that you’re bringing on behalf of what you see humanity needing right now. You’re not pedaling a factory of widgets.You’re literally taking the thing that’s nearest and dearest to your heart.
Sage Lavine
00:03:24
You’re putting it out in the world for people to invest in. That process is one that will require you to do your personal work, alongside the commitment to serve people. As your leadership elevates, so must your personal inner work, your personal development, elevate to match that elevation that you’re saying “yes” to in your leadership. If your personal development, if your personal work, if your attention to your own thought process, your ability to love yourself through the hard moments. If that doesn’t keep up with what’s being asked of you in leadership, then you will end up with a gap, right?
Sage Lavine
00:04:09
It will be tricky to continue on that trajectory that you would ultimately like to be on. Now is the time to call yourself forth in your personal practice, as well as your or Business strategies. So what do I mean by that? I mean that there is this moment between external stimulus and response. There’s a moment between the thing that triggers us and the way that we respond. In that moment, there’s this little bit of space in, in mastering that space, Viktor Frankl tells us with his poem, lies freedom. In between stimulus and response, there is space. It’s in that moment of space that lies our freedom.
Sage Lavine
00:04:51
So now more than ever with everything that’s happening on the planet, we’re being tested. We’re being asked to use all of the spiritual practices that have led up to this moment. Ask me how I know. In the last few weeks my companies had to cancel our live event, hundreds of women flying in from all over the world, almost 700 women registered, and take the event virtual. We had less than three days to get everything ready for the virtual event. The good news is that the event was about 80% as successful as the live event would have been. Can Women Rocking Business thrive on 80% of our revenue?
Sage Lavine
00:05:33
Abso-freaking-lutely! Can you thrive on 80% of any revenue you are going to make for a live event that you were going to do? Could you thrive right now on 80% and make that up later? Abso-freaking-lutely. 80% is a heck of a lot better than 0%. We have the opportunity to make money at a time when many people don’t any choices at all. Because we have a message. What do you need if you have a message? You need a phone, you need a computer, that’s all you need. You can go live on Facebook. You can sign up for a Zoom account for 20 bucks a month or whatever it is if you haven’t already.
Sage Lavine
00:06:14
Remember that everything that you’ve learned to do live events is not gone because you’re now virtual. Have the last couple of weeks been hella hard? Yeah, it has. It has, for myself, it has for my team with the shift of not doing our live event and then doing a totally virtual event… It’s like every system that we had put into place needed to change. Every onboarding process had to change. Every way that we were caring for the hundreds of clients that we already had had to change. It had to change quickly because we’re living in a time where it’s even more important to take care of our clients.
Sage Lavine
00:06:56
So have I worked long days? Yes. Have I had moments where I’ve been pulling my hair out? Yes. Have I had moments where I wished I had just gotten laid off from my job so I could focus on painting my bedroom or organizing my garage like some of my friends are doing. Have I lost it on my team? Yeah. I’m not proud to say I lost it in tears and frustration. You know, I said to my team last week, I’m in the lower loop. I’ve been working around the clock and everything that we had put into place for this moment in time is now different because of the virtual launch. They all were right there with me with frustration and overwhelm.
Sage Lavine
00:07:36
What did we do together? We talked it through, we had our feelings. We didn’t keep it pent up inside, by the way, never keep this stuff pent up inside. If you have not cried on somebody’s shoulder in the last few days, it’s probably time that you did that. We have to feel it to heal it. How do you think we stay on a trajectory as leaders of consistent increased responsibility, increased risk-taking, increased willingness, increased commitment to get out there and give in the face of a challenging moment in history. We have to continue to support ourselves. We have to have places and spaces where we can show up and just be how we are. We can’t have it together all the time. That’s not our job.
Sage Lavine
00:08:19
All right. So if this content is resonating, I’d like to invite you to consider attending our exclusive Women Rocking Business three-day training, which you can attend virtually, or at certain times of the year, you can attend live. This is a three-day business building rite of passage that thousands of women have attended from all over the world and used as a launch pad for their greatest entrepreneurial dream. Throughout the course of the three days, you’ll actually create your individualized launch plan to launch your business in the next 90 days and to grow it in a way that’s aligned with women’s values, you’ll get our entire system for finding your clients online.
So you can go out there and confidently enroll the perfect high paying clients, even if you’re just starting out. This is an experiential event where you’re actually interacting with the content all three days of small break-outs and meeting with our coaches. It’s amazing. You can get all of the details, the dates, and grab your discounted VIP seat at www.womenrockingbusiness.com/rocksales. I can’t wait to see you there.
Sage Lavine
00:09:37
Our job is to be willing to do our own work in the moment of stuff happening so that we can keep getting out there, so that we can resource ourselves again, so that we can fill back up and then give it forward in the way that so many of you are doing. Taking your live events online… There’s a few things you need to think about.
Number one, you’ve got to think about pre-qualifying people somehow. If people are signing up for some kind of a online virtual event, letting them know that they need to complete some kind of an application process to be eligible to attend online, right? Because it’s not the same kind of commitment level as a live event where people walk in and they’re not going to walk out and go change their laundry, or go make a phone call in the middle of your live event.
Sage Lavine
00:10:26
But is that easy to do in a virtual event? Yeah. So in some of our virtual events, you’re going to notice we’re charging like 10 bucks for some of our virtual events now, so that we just know that those of you that really want the information, you’re serious about being there. You know, you’ve paid a little bit of money to get in. It’s not just a free event. That’s one option. You can have people just pay a little bit of money. You can have people fill out a short application process with one of the questions being, ‘Can you attend all of the sessions of the live event? Yes or no.” Then if it’s a, no, you can actually let that person know that this might not be the right time to attend the event.
Nine out of 10 times, when we let people know we’re going to ask them to be present for all sessions, or this might not be the right one, they clear their schedule to be there. And now are they more committed? Yes. Is there more intimacy? Yes. Write this down. Connection is currency. You’ve got to create that kind of connection in a virtual environment. If you’re not creating it live. So get people’s commitment somehow from the start, even if it’s just a yes. On the comment thread, give me a yes if you’re here, give me a yes if you’ve had this issue or this issue over the last couple of weeks, right? Creating engagement in the way that you see us doing here at Women Rocking Business, there’s no accident that we’re doing this. We’re training you guys to do this to because, write this down, content is a dime a dozen these days. Context matters 10 times more than content.
Sage Lavine
00:11:56
So what do I mean by that? What I mean by that is that people aren’t just looking for content these days. If they want the answer to a question, they can literally just Google the question and as much content as they could ever possibly consume is going to be waiting for them at their fingertips. What people are looking for these days is somewhere to belong, somewhere to engage. People are looking for being a part of a community. They’re looking to be able to have a voice, right? So when you do your videos, asking people to respond, challenging people to post about a certain experience that they’re having, we always implement the three to one role. You guys have seen us do that at Women Rocking Business where, you know, go post and then comment on three people’s posts.
Sage Lavine
00:12:41
The three to one rule creates automatic community. So you guys can even play with that here, instead of just posting your biggest challenge for your business in the time of coronavirus, respond to a couple of sisters underneath this thread. Let’s create an actual dialogue between the incredible women that are here because a virtual event doesn’t have to be as different from a live event as you think it’s going to be. Your opportunity is to engage people, to create a container where people can actually interact with each other, to give great value and great information. Do not start doing live videos or Zoom trainings or webinars where you’re not actually giving people good solid content. Practice your content out here on us.
Sage Lavine
00:13:31
Practice it in our Women Rocking Business Sisterhood group. Practice sharing some of that content here, because the goal here is to future pace your potential clients. Write that down. Future pacing, your potential clients is an opportunity to give them a win before they even hire you. The more successful you can make people, the more ready they would be to then invest in themselves through your services, because something that you taught them to do was actually effective. I think the opportunity here is to not live in the lie of isolation because of this moment in history, but to instead lean into the global brain, lean into the oneness that is connecting us.
Sage Lavine
00:14:21
I don’t know about you, but I’ve actually felt the connection that I have to my sisters and my brothers and my friends and my family all over the world. I’ve felt that connection so pure at this moment than ever before, just the energetic connection. So guess what? We have the opportunity to feel that too, and your clients have the opportunity to feel that too. What that means is that because we’re hyper aware of everywhere we put our attention right now, anything that you do online is going to be that much more effective. It’s going to convert that much higher.
Sage Lavine
00:15:03
So now is the time to not think you need to be perfect, to not think you have to have it all figured out. Now is the time to go, to make a video, to bring a message, to bring a powerful tip or a strategy or a piece of content that you know the world needs to hear right now. Because the true meaning of an entrepreneur is not somebody who asks, “What am I most passionate about? I want to bring the thing I’m most passionate about to the world.” That’s not the true meaning of entrepreneur. The true meaning of an entrepreneur is someone who looks out into the world and sees what is being asked for and who is willing to deliver that thing.
Sage Lavine
00:15:50
I’ve had some colleagues and clients have tremendous success just in the last few days. One of my clients just launched a parenting training program, $30,000 in revenue flying into her bank accounts, 32,000 flying into her bank account in one day. She didn’t even have the program created yet. She literally was just responding to the needs of parents that she was meeting with on a Zoom call. You know, host the Zoom call, host the video where you ask people what they need and let them know there’s more where that came from. I’d love to give you more. Here’s how to get more now is not the time to overthink it. Now’s not the time to think that you need to be a perfectionist.
Sage Lavine
00:16:31
Now is the time to pivot, to give the world what the world needs, to not live in some place of social distancing. No, no, no, no, no….to live in a place of social intimacy, create the physical distance, but social intimacy. Social intimacy is happening now more than ever before.
So my challenge to you over the next week is to get out there and bring an imperfect message that you know, is a message that people need to hear right now. What’s being called forth during this global reset is this moment where the Earth is taking her exhale, right?
Sage Lavine
00:17:11
We have less pollution, less materialism, less consumption. We have the opportunity to rebirth, to rebirth ourselves, to rebirth our message, to rebirth our commitment, to make a difference through our businesses at this valuable moment in history. Let’s do this together. Let’s rock this. Mwah!
You’ve been listening to Women Rocking Business. I’m Sage Lavine. The next step is to join our private Facebook group. The Women Rocking Business Sisterhood and introduce yourself over there for the real and vulnerable conversation of what it really takes to launch and scale a business you love in that Sisterhood group. We have each other’s backs, each other’s sides and each other’s fronts. This is true collaboration. So go grab a seat in the Sisterhood because we can go so much further when we go together, you’ll find a link to the private Sisterhood group and do our upcoming events in the show notes.
And if you have a woman in your life, who’s growing a business or starting a business, please share this podcast with her so she can create her big dreams and take a moment to subscribe and rate and review the podcast, which helps us get our message into the hands of women who need it. I’ll see you on the next show and don’t forget, your clients are waiting. They’re not just waiting for someone like you. They’re actually waiting for you.
