S1E21: Live Virtual Event Hacks
Sage Lavine
Welcome to Women Rocking Business, where we are here to help you rock yourself, rock your life, and rock the world as a woman entrepreneur, because the world needs you and the time is now. I’m Sage Lavine, CEO, trainer, unretired camp counselor, and best-selling author of the Hay House book Women Rocking Business. We had the honor of serving over a hundred thousand women entrepreneurs around the globe, just like you, who are here to do more, be more, and have more by giving your gift to the planet. Let’s do this.
We are talking about Virtual Event Hacks. How can you guys take the magic that happens in a live room and take it virtual. Vuyanzi, tell them what you do.
Vuyanzi
00:00:44
I am a life coach and I’m a TV host, I’m a podcast host. The point is – I am a life coach and everything stems out of that.
Sage Lavine
Thank you, beauty. What about you, Kathleen?
Kathleen
Sage, I’m a business strategist and I help women develop their influence, their income, and their impact.
Sage Lavine
Mmm fist bump for powerful women. Let us know what’s your next step with virtual events? Do you have a virtual event coming up? Are you excited to lead virtual events? Have you ever been to a retreat that changed your life? Now that we’re living in this new craziness, you’re like, ‘Can I actually create the magic that happens at a live retreat?”
Sage Lavine
00:01:30
You know, I’ve led my retreats in Bali and the big Island and you know, all over the planet. I will tell you that the virtual event that we just had last week was every bit as powerful and transformational and magical as the events that we’ve done in person. And I wasn’t even a full believer until I got to orchestrate it for nearly 200 women. We are here today to tell you just a few of the things that we did so that you too can take your events online. You can take your events virtual and make a big difference in the lives of your clients and continue to make amazing money and your business. So, Rachel, do you want to dive in and just let everyone know?
Sage Lavine
00:02:10
We were at a three-day event last week. It was a client retreat – clients only – about 200 women and our year long programs. It was called the wealth retreat, right? Rachel has actually been to this exact retreat in person and she got to come virtual. What was that like for you?
Rachel
I have to say Sage, despite the fact we weren’t literally in person, I felt like we were in person together. I felt such cellular connection with you, with our coaches, with all the sisters. It was truly magical and so special.
Sage Lavine
Oh, I’m so glad you felt that. I felt that too. I even felt like you guys were all around me. I go to sleep at live retreats and I see a pool of women’s faces like hundreds of smiling women’s spaces and in the audience.
Sage Lavine
00:02:57
I was going to sleep at the virtual and seeing a grid of women’s faces on Zoom. I was literally seeing it and my dreams and it’s like that same level of connection and service and everything’s energy, right? We’re operating in an energetic world.
So Rachel, you were speaking before about a couple of specific things that we did. What would you say is like one specific thing that we did that helped you feel that connected?
Rachel
00:03:22
I felt really connected throughout the entire thing, but especially connected to my fellow sisters, when we went into our breakout rooms. The breakout rooms were amazing and I met women I might not have met otherwise. It was really special, the magic that happened and brainstorming together to support each other with our businesses was awesome.
Sage Lavine
00:03:42
Cool. See you guys, here’s what we did. We basically divided the event into two or three sessions each day. Each session had a teaching component and a breakout component. Right? So for those of you that are planning virtual events, write that down. You want to sandwich your breakouts by some teaching, right? Because it doesn’t make a lot of sense to just send people into breakouts with no context. Write this down: context matters 10 times more than content. So you can bring great content to a virtual event, but without the context, without the container, without creating the experience, it can just fall flat and be like, “oh, people are just watching another video.” You need to get them connected.
Sage Lavine
00:04:22
And Zoom has an amazing feature now where you can put people into breakouts on video cameras so they can see each other. It’s so exciting if you haven’t used it yet, or haven’t experienced it, you have to come attend one of our virtual events. We’re doing one next week where you guys will experience breakouts. We’ll tell you about that in a moment, but you want to divide your virtual event up into two or three sessions a day. Keep it simple. If you go more than two or three, it’s just going to be too complicated. Do you know what I mean? You want to keep it simple. When you guys are planning these kinds of events, you want to keep it simple because you want to get an assistant on board to help you. You need to be able to communicate the schedule to your clients. So if it’s too complicated, you don’t want to lose people. Then there were always two links, a LINK to the main room and a link to the breakout room.
Sage Lavine
00:05:05
So it was very clear where people should go. We were doing everything inside of the Facebook group, just like we do in our Women Rocking Business Sisterhood. When you guys are doing events connected to a Facebook group, that’s awesome because you can communicate with people in real time through the Facebook group. Do you know what I mean? You can always send people back into the Facebook group to say, “If you want to find out whether we’re in the main room or whether we’re in the breakout room, you want to go into the Facebook group to find out.” One of the benefits, you guys, of moving people from a main room into a breakout room is that some people are multitasking. Let’s just be honest. Like not, everybody’s sitting there waiting to engage on camera.
Sage Lavine
00:05:45
You’re always going to have, you know, once you get more than 12 or 15 people, you’re always going to have a few people that might not be fully ready to go. So going over to a different line for your breakouts is going to clean that up. Only the people that actually want to do the breakouts will go over there. Then you don’t end up with a bunch of breakout rooms with people in the breakout rooms that are multitasking and folding their laundry in the background. Not that anybody would do that when we’re teaching because we are hella interesting and profound. Right? But thank you, Rachel. Kiss for Rachel. I’m so glad the breakout served you. And what about you, Vuyanzi?
Vuyanzi
00:06:24
Well, really, to piggyback on what Rachel was saying… If you think about the big breakout rooms for me, that’s where the magic happened. That’s where I took away the marketing language that I was suffering in before. Suffering in silence and the sisterhood and the magic in the breakout room produced language for my program that’s now starting to fill up. Literally every time I get a potential client on the phone, all I do is pick up this book, and I literally read what I got from that breakout room.
Sage Lavine
We’ll read it, give it to us! We want to hear.
Vuyanzi
00:07:06
I’ll pretend like you’re them. Listen, what’s going to happen is you’ll be able to step up and step out with clarity, confidence, and passion. So you can move into your life that you desire, knowing you’re next. You’ll go from here to clear so that you can unlock the chains holding you back from your true desire. That’s pillar one, I’ll stop there. I’ll just wet your appetite. But that’s all I do is I read this and people are like, I feel that. So there was magic in those breakout rooms.
Sage Lavine
00:07:37
I loved how engaged the women were last week around their marketable program and their marketable language. So I did a basic training on how to uplevel your marketing language and we gamified it for the first time. So write this down, you guys. You split your days into two or three sessions, right? You have a breakout in every single session and you gameify each session and you’ve got clear outcomes for each day. So last week at our retreat Vuyanzi talking about day one, which is about offers, making hot offers, right? Understanding how to describe the program that you’re offering your clients. DAY two is about starting to calendar and get to the front side of your launch and your schedule and start to look at well, “What would I do that for the next six weeks?”
Sage Lavine
00:08:25
Like, “What exactly what I’d be doing each week for the next six weeks to put this thing together, this virtual event together?”
Then day three was all about really deciding on at least one collaboration partner. I think you guys all remember we had contests and prizes for each of the three days. So when you guys posted your marketable program, we chose one of the most creative ones. We gave you guys some prizes in the mail. You guys won coaching sessions with one of our coaches, like the collaboration prize. When you guys put your Virtual Event together, you just need two or three teaching sessions per day. You want to have a big outcome that they’re going to get out of those teaching sessions, a chance for people to go into the breakouts, at least once during each teaching session, because, write this down: impression without expression leads to depression.
Sage Lavine
00:09:21
If you just keep teaching for more than like 20 or 30 minutes, and you don’t give people a chance to actually interact on your teaching, the gamification is what is what also really, I think inspired women to play harder when it came to developing their marketing language, drafting out their calendars, because they weren’t just doing it by sitting by behind their computer alone, they were doing it in community and then they were posting it in the Facebook group for visibility. That’s another tip you guys. This is a super hot tip. Whenever you can get your participants, that instant visibility everything’s going to uplevel. They’re going to be that much more engaged.
Sage Lavine
00:10:05
I think that’s the future of internet marketing. It’s not just content. It’s what we call experience gamification.
Sage Lavine
00:10:10
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 right 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.
Sage Lavine
00:10:58
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 in 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 giving people an experience
Sage Lavine
00:11:30
Right? Rather than them just sitting behind a computer screen. We’re going to do this all week long next week. I can’t wait to have you guys, but Kathleen let’s give a kiss to – mwah! Vuyanzi and Kathleen, what about you? What would you say was your biggest takeaway last week?
Kathleen
Yeah, Sage, it was really terrific. The engagement and the involvement of everyone. This was like, everybody was all in. It was really good. It was just not a webinar or a seminar. It was just, everybody was, we were a tribe, a community that we’re all moving together. One of my biggest takeaways was really the whole idea of upgrading my concepts around money, and then that upgrade philosophy around every other area of my life. What I love about the work that you do in the teaching is we learn it, there’s a story, and then we apply it. So that’s what’s really different. And so wonderful is it’s not just theory. It’s okay. “How am I going to get on the court and really do something about it now?”
That’s why here it is a week later and I’m still like, you know, in the afterglow and still in the seminar and workshop. It was so great. Yeah. So thank you. It was wonderful.
Sage Lavine
00:12:48
You’re so welcome. And how would you say that’s going to affect your relationship with money moving forward? Because you were saying earlier that you had this big just kind of up-level around money. Is it about your own havingness or is it about charging what you’re worth?
Kathleen
00:13:05
Yeah. All of those, all of those things. You know, I think most importantly for me is challenging and encouraging and guiding the women that I work with to upgrade their point of view, upgrade the work they’re doing. So I’m a guide that helps them do it, so therefore I get to do it too. Right? As a woman entrepreneur, this occurred to me last week, “How can I command higher fees and have a bigger purpose for those fees?” Because it’s not about the money per se. It’s about like the cause. It’s about the MISSION and the purpose, and then pay all that forward, Sage.
So it was awesome.
Sage Lavine
00:13:47
This is so good. This is something I’m inviting each of you to write down: money loves order. Right? When you guys are ready to go out there and charge more money. There’s so many coaches out there and being like, “Oh right, high paying clients, charge more money, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” Well, guess what that starts with the thing that you’re selling. That starts with your program, right? We don’t want all of that energy on us. People aren’t investing in us, that doesn’t feel good. People are investing in themselves through the programs we create through the services, through the products. So it’s just an opportunity for each and every one of you to get even more clear about describing what it is that you have to offer, right?
Sage Lavine
00:14:28
Because when you actually can show people like, “Here’s what we do in the first month. Here’s what we do in the second month. Here’s the structure that’s going to hold you all the way through that.” Whether it’s a three-day program or a 30 day program, or a 12 month program, it’s about having that structure because, write this down: money loves order. In fact, some version of that money loves order is in almost every spiritual text. It’s literally in the Bible. Regardless of your spiritual orientation, money moves toward places where it can be organized. Right? So what an awesome opportunity. Speaking of organization, I’ll say one more thing about the breakout rooms that when you throw people into a breakout room, you want to think through how you’re setting that up.
Sage Lavine
00:15:24
Really set up that breakout from a place of, “How is each person in that group of three or four, going to share something about their business, share something about their spirituality, share something about their leadership? Then get feedback from the group in a short amount of time.” So you want to think through how much time they are going to have in there. What are the instructions? Really make it clear what they’re doing in their breakout. So one of the ways we did that is we posted a clear instruction about what to do in the breakout, right in the Facebook group. We would screen share the instruction. What happens in breakouts, often, if you don’t set it up, right, is people are a little confused and it falls a little flat.
Sage Lavine
00:16:06
So you want to practice setting that up with specific questions. Then we would do some fun breakouts where we would throw quick questions at people. We would be like, okay, you guys write this down. “What does financial freedom mean to you? You have two minutes ready? Go, go into your breakout. Ready GO.” “Financial freedom means this to me. Everybody’s going to complete that sentence and then you’re going to acknowledge each other. Don’t switch partners before you acknowledge each sister who shares.” What would you guys say that acknowledgement does? Because it does something, right? The acknowledgement and the sandwiching a breakout are the ending or breakout by making sure you love on each other.
Sage Lavine
00:16:47
It does something to the vibe. Like, did you guys experience that? And what would you say it does?
Vuyanzi
I experienced that Sage and it really uplifted me. It made me feel seen, heard, and loved.
Sage Lavine
We don’t get enough acknowledgement. Right.
Vuyanzi
00:17:02
A sense of also sisterhood right? Because then you’re getting that love. One of my love languages is words of affirmation. So when I hear that for me, literally, my tank is like going up and I just automatically feel closer to those people that are saying this thing to me. And so it became a sisterhood.
Kathleen
00:17:28
Vuyanzi, you are so right. Especially in the world today, we are all sisters and we’ve got sisters with brothers. That’s what that exercise really demonstrated, Sage. Just this beautiful, loving community of support. It was just really good. Really, really good.
Sage alvine
00:17:50
So good. I want to say hi to Ida from St. Martin and Kathleen from Tucson, Lisa from North Carolina. I’m glad you guys are appreciating this training. Kathleen says impression without expression leads to depression. So let us know any questions you have about virtual events, but I’ll just say this one piece too… Especially as women, we actually learn from being celebrated and witnessed, right? The feminine in us grows from being celebrated and witnessed. The masculine in us actually grows from being challenged. We need both. We need to feel challenged in life, but we also have to feel celebrated and witnessed.
Sage Lavine
00:18:35
Most of us didn’t get enough of that growing up. So then we put ourselves out there to go make videos and go do webinars and go put marketing materials together, and we’re wondering why it all feels so hard. Sometimes, you know, it’s just because our sort of love tank isn’t fully enough. We’re not necessarily feeling safe enough in the world to put our necks out there. It can feel like you’re out on a little bitty branch. For every single one of you, that’s leading events, you know, work in ways to actually allow people to see and acknowledge each other. What other questions do you three have about putting your own virtual events together?
Vuyanzi
00:19:15
Speaking of containers and structure and things being hard, I’m just wondering about that transition. I find just the thought of live seems to be so much easier, but what was it as you moved forward that helped keep things so crisp? What mindset, whether it’s a mindset or literally, “I wrote this on a piece of paper” that helped to create a crisp, solid event?
Sage Lavine
00:19:40
I would say two things. Number one, getting organized, you know, so we had a couple of Google Docs where the whole team knew here’s what each topic, here’s what each session is about, and here’s the call to action in each session. I got to hold the teaching pieces, but you guys noticed I had support. I had somebody starting us off and welcoming everybody. We had an MC. Clare played music. Clare was always gathering the energy at the beginning of the day. Because I’m on their training all day long and that’s a lot of energy. You know, they put a pacemaker on Brendon Burchard when he was on video and on stage. Teaching all day, even if you’re teaching into the camera, it’s the same thing.
Sage Lavine
00:20:22
It’s the equivalent of running a marathon. It’s like, no joke. So you want to get yourself supported. Each day I had another one of my coaches come on and do the games. So she would be the one on Facebook looking for everybody’s posts. She would be the one I’d say, okay, when we were wrapping up the teaching session and be like, “Okay, I know you guys are posting your marketable programs. Shannon, did we find a winner?” Shannon was standing by ready to help me hold that energy so that I’m only holding so many details at once, right? So first of all, you want to get organized. You want to have at least one or two people supporting you. Then for me, the mindset was just, look, I know where I want to take people, right?
Sage Lavine
00:21:06
I want women to have clarity around their marketable programs and their offers. I want them to feel confident in putting a plan together for their business. Each time I sat down to work on the event, those were the outcomes. That was my focus. So what do we need to do today in order to have them leave, feeling clarity on their offers, confident about their planning, right? So doing things in person too and putting those marketable program components together and a breakout room where you can get that real time feedback…. That’s what gives you the clarity and the confidence that I know I’m creating and the event. So as a trainer, I want to invite every single one of you guys to just get clear.
Sage Lavine
00:21:49
You don’t want more than one or two clear outcomes per day because it muddies the water. If you try to teach too much, write this down: It’s about the quality of people walking away with some tangible outcomes and not the quantity of how much you teach. Are you guys picking up what I’m laying down? So that’s a big piece. So we just have a couple of minutes left. We probably have time for one more question. Kathleen wrote in, “How much time do you spend getting folks and alignment with the event at the beginning? And what do you cover?” That’s a really good question, Kathleen, I’ll let you guys speak to that. Do you guys remember what we did before the event even happened?
Sage Lavine
00:22:32
There was something that was required for each of you to do, to attend the event. Do you remember what it was?
Rachel
We had an assignment. We had preparation to do prior to coming in and the things that you asked us to make sure we had with us.
Sage Lavine
Yep, exactly. Yeah. Anything else?
Kathleen
00:22:49
A survey, even before that, so that you and the team were really aligned with what it is that participants wanted and needed. That was really brilliant, Stage. That was great.
Sage Lavine
00:22:59
You nailed it. Both of you. So you want to have your participants bring something to the event, right? We had a little list. We had bring a draft of your offer, you know, use this training call that Sage did earlier this year and draft out your offer, bring some post-it notes, bring a marker. So you can literally like, you know, put a little post-it note up to the screen with a one word of how you’re doing. We can even do that right now, if you guys want, right. It’s like, we actually were able to ask a hundred women on the screen for a temperature read… one word, what are you feeling? Right. Then everybody would do this and write, we would get a chance to just go around and be like, okay, what’s our temperature read.
Sage Lavine
00:23:45
Vuyanzi is awesome. Sage is feeling joy. Kathleen is feeling happy. Rachel is also so awesome. Okay. I would say that so far, this has been a success, right? Like you, I mean, think of what you can do in just a few moments if everybody has a marker and a post-it, you know what I mean? Then lastly, Kathleen, the survey. Super important. When you have people showing up for something, survey them ahead of time, and I’m going to be teaching you guys the mindset and the philosophy behind how to survey and what to ask during the Seven Day Stand Up and Stand Out Online Facebook challenge.
Sage Lavine
00:24:26
The survey creates a dialogue between you and the participants. That’s what you want with all your marketing as much as you can all the time, rather than just a one-way message. Anytime you can create two ways, again, that’s the future of digital marketing, right? Because content is a dime a dozen. Anytime you can create that two way communication, you are creating connection. Write this down: connection is currency. So we had people fill out that survey and one of the questions on the survey was super hot and it was…
Sage Lavine
00:25:08
Here’s what the content of the retreat is going to be. You’re going to get your marketable program. You’re going to schedule your launch plan. You’re going to, you know, leave with the collaboration partner. Each session builds on each other. This is the important part. Are you willing to attend every session of the retreat, clear your schedule because again, each session builds on each other? Please contact us if you’re going to end up missing a session ahead of time. What do you think that does to people’s commitment to actually being there? Way through the roof, right? So even if it’s a free event, I highly recommend you guys send a survey out.
Sage Lavine
00:25:48
Not everybody’s going to take it. That’s OK. The people that do take it, guess what? Those are your best customers. Ask people to set aside that time for their learning, because every session builds on each other, you’re taking this seriously. So why shouldn’t they? Right? When you prep them that way ahead of time, then the commitment is already there, right? Then you start out the training and every day you want to lead with, “Here’s what we’re going to go over today. Here’s what we’re going to cover. Here’s the topic. Let’s rock this out together.
Sage Lavine
00:26:18
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.
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