Running conferences, meet-ups, or just about any event – takes a LOT of work. And wow, it can be stressful.
That said, running your own events is not only a great way to get your audience together, it also brings many benefits to you as a business owner – potential business, recognition, brand awareness and more.
Today, I'll share 7 lessons from running Underdog Con, 7 consecutive times.
1/ 99.99% events are networking
The speakers just filter the kind of people who attend.
WHO we invite matters. Invite someone known for E-commerce, and your attendees will be those from the E-commerce space.
Simple, yes?
But truth is many event organizers never really gave this a big enough thought. They just invite anyone who says – OK. And that’s usually a mistake.
Reuben Ch’ng
2/ People will be last minute
If you run an event, there will come a time when you'll have just a handful registrants. You‘ve not sold enough tickets to break even. And in that moment, you’ll feel like quitting.
Ahh, such a familiar feeling – usually 2 weeks before the event.
We've done this 7 times. It's the same every time. 80% attendees will sign up in the last two weeks leading to the event.
3/ People don't read
You will probably build a landing page to market an event. At very least, maybe creating an event page on Peatix or Eventbrite.
What you need to know is that people don’t read. They skimp webpages. They scan and find what they want to read – not what you want them to read.
The most effective landing page is the one that uses the exact words your audience uses.
Avoid bombastic words in your sales copy. Your audience won’t make a purchase if they are confused. Be clear, not clever.
4/ People who pay, pay attention
We can dream of an ideal world where businesses give things away for free, and everyone appreciates it. Or we can wake up to reality and face how the world really works.
Air is technically “free”. But have you ever stopped to appreciate the air you breath? Probably not.
Most people showed up on time to Underdog Con. We started on time. Most of them stayed back till the end. We only had one person who didn’t turn up – because they got busy with work.
Compare this to free events. The no-show rate would be massive.
5/ You must charge for you work
Because doing it makes things better for everyone.
You’ll be able to provide a better service. You’ll be able to hire more people. You‘ll be able to reinvest into development.
We were able to provide better service, great food and overall create a better experience at Underdog Con – because we insisted on charging for tickets.
Being profitable also meant we could run the conference again, and again.
Because attendees paid for their tickets, they also paid more attention during the event and networked more attentively.
Everyone wins.
6/ Create scarcity and urgency
You know those countdown timers you see on websites? Like you, I think they look scammy and I never liked them.
But after testing a few ways of creating scarcity and urgency:
- Limited tickets / limited spots.
- Price increase after this time.
- Price increase after # of tickets sold
- Get bonuses when you register early.
I’ve found that using scarcity strategy of increasing price after a certain time, to work best. The events we sold out was the ones where we increased the ticket price by a few bucks every day.
Simple, but it works.
The events with the least attendees were the ones we marketed “limited tickets”, instead of price increases.
Results may differ for you, depending on what you’re marketing.
But no matter what you market, you’ll need to induce scarcity and urgency. Your prospects need a strong reason to take action. Absent that, and sales will suffer.
7/ Events for thought leadership
I noticed that I would receive inquiries from potential clients, every time I spoke at an event. And more, when I became the host who runs the event.
This, provided that I added value to people.
In the context of speaking or running conferences, value is provided to other people when you tell them what they don’t know.
I’ve seen speakers go on stage to yap about things that everyone already knows. Here’s the ”marketing funnel”. It’s 2024! Who the hell has not seen or heard about the marketing funnel?
Tell me something I don’t know yet. Change my mind. Challenge my thinking. Delight me. Anticipate my needs.
Coming back to the point.
Events are a great way to establish thought leadership. To build mindshare.
Digital marketing isn’t the only way to market a business. Consider hosting and organizing an event.
Re-watch Underdog Sales Con
Re-reading a great book can be life-changing. You will extract completely new takeaways and ideas, because you’re reading it as a different person the second time round.
We recorded Underdog Sales Con for this exact reason. When you re-watch the sessions, you’ll take away new perspective and strategies – that you can use to grow your business.
Sign up today and get access to all sessions from Underdog Sales Con. If you were a participant, just log in to the online community.
