Today I want to talk about the things you need to think about when considering putting together a telesummit. First of all, if you have done a telesummit before, you know, but if you have never done one, you may not have a realistic picture about how much work this involves. I went into The Youth Empowerment Telesummit knowing that it would be a lot of work, but oh boy, was I surprised at just how much there was to do and how many things could go wrong. Perhaps my experience can help you make a good choice in the future.
The First Step: Finding clarity.
You must start with being clear about the following things before you do anything else: your purpose for the telesummit, your topic or theme and who your target audience is. Everything else is built around these three questions.
I would have done things a bit differently for The Youth Empowerment Telesummit if I had known what I was doing. My purpose, which I am happy with, was to bring current trends, strategies and action steps with regard to training life skills to teens and young adults. That will remain my purpose for the second annual event next year (yes, I am going to do it again).
What I would do differently is to stick more closely to my theme – to be laser focused on it. I ended up with too many parenting experts talking about parenting strategies rather than life skills strategies. The guests were all fabulous and I love each and every one of them, however, I allowed the telesummit to get off track by adding the parenting topics. Well, it was a good lesson learned. I believe the outcome of that is that some of the content wasn’t that interesting to the life skills professionals in the audience and the life skills professionals are my main target audience for my business, at least for now.
Had I stuck to my topic like super glue, I would have brought in less parents and more life skills professionals and perhaps increased my list much more than I have or at least in a more advantageous way. And while I have new names on my list, I am concerned that some of these people will never be my clients as they aren’t interested in teaching entrepreneurship to teens and young adults from a life skills perspective.
On the other hand, I did attract some fantastic life skills professionals and a few coaches, one of whom is interested in my coaching program and we have sold several recording packages because after all is said and done, the interviews were really good and had great content, even if they were somewhat off topic.
My advice, if can’t already guess, is be clear on why you are doing a telesummit, what you hope to accomplish and who you are doing this for, and what will it take to get them to come to the event.
More on lessons learned from the telesummit tomorrow. Thank you for dropping in.
If you are interested in hearing some of the speakers from the telesummit, there are a few more days left and the replays will be available until until April 14th. We are also pre-selling the recordings with three options at discounted prices. After April 14th, the prices go up significantly. The CD package would make a great unique gift for anyone parenting (Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are coming up), teaching or otherwise working with tweens, teens and young adults. It would also be perfect for counselors, therapists and coaches who work with families. You can find out more at http://TheYouthEmpowermentTelesummit.com.
In another note, I am offering a deep discount on my coaching program “The Monetize Your Passion Blueprint – Empowering Young Entrepreneurs” for anyone registered at the telesummit. That discount is good through April 14th as well.
