36:5 Getting the most from an online event

Lee Jackson:
Welcome to the Agency Trailblazer podcast. This is your host Lee, and on today’s show, we are talking with Jan Koch:. We will learn how to get the most from attending an online summit and also what goes into planning an online event. Before we get started, I just want to say thank you to Cloudways for sponsoring yet another episode of the Agency Trailblazer podcast. You can find them over on cloudways.com. Now on with the show.

Lee Jackson:
Welcome to the agency Trailblazer podcast. This is your host Lee and on today’s show, we have the one, the only back for his second time since 2016. It’s Jan Koch:. How are you?

Jan Koch:
Hey Lee. I’m doing amazing. Thank you so much for bringing me back on.

Lee Jackson:
Mate, I’m just so sorry that it’s been since 2016 was the last time I had you on the show. Folks, if you want to learn a little bit about Jan head on over to episode number six. That’s incredible. We are on episode two hundred, I think this is episode two hundred and eighty five you are on with us now mate . So just about two hundred episodes was the last time you were on the show. And I remember the conversation well, we were saying becoming more than average and you were talking about how you had planned the WP summit back then and got some amazing speakers together. And thankfully, that’s exactly what we’re going to continue to talk about today. So before we deep dive into the world of summits, how to get the most from attending one and also what’s involved in creating one, could you just give us a little bit, maybe a 60 second biography of Jan for everyone who was not joining us for Episode six all those years ago?

Jan Koch:
Absolutely. So I am from Germany. I started using WordPress as a WordPress developer in 2012. So I’ve been using this tool for quite a while and then I went the usual route. I started freelancing, then I started hiring some additional assistance to build up my small agency. And at some point I hit that plateau where I felt that I wasn’t growing as a business and that is when in 2015 I ran the first summit, the WP summit back then. From then things just skyrocketed for me and in twenty nineteen I’ve decided to run the second summit, the agency summit, and this is what is happening again this year on October 12th, the second version of the wp agency summit launches. And that’s also why you reached out to me to bring me back onto this episode. So I’m super excited to talk more about what attendees need to know when going to virtual summits because they are popping up everywhere these days.

Lee Jackson:
Well, that’s the exact reason. Obviously, I’ve got my Agency Trailblazer Conference, which is a physical conference every year, which we had to take online and that was a massive shift for us. And what I’m seeing on social media is every single advertisement is for some sort of free online summit from people I’ve never, ever heard of before. It feels like people are jumping on the bandwagon and throwing together a quick summit in order to attract people.

Lee Jackson:
So I begin to worry about the quality of some of those summits and also worry about the time wasted that people might be wasting by attending those without some intentions, if that makes sense. So when we did the Agency Transformation Live event last year, we asked everybody before we started to write down what intentions they had for the summit, what did they want to get from it, and then how could we measure that and ensure they got that from attending the overall conference? I know that’s something that’s really, really close to your heart, which is ensuring that people get something from attending your summit. So could you just maybe give us a little bit of background first on how you plan your summits for your particular target audience? And then what we’ll do is we’ll flip the conversation to the target audience to help them understand how they can get the most from a summit.

Jan Koch:
Sounds good to me. So my target audience is WordPress professionals. So that is anybody who is running a business selling either websites that build with WordPress, building plugins for WordPress, setting themes, doing consulting with WordPress customers, WordPress users. And that’s also why I’m branding at the agency’s summit, because most of these business types are agencies. And what is, as I said, what’s near and dear to my heart is giving back to the community by sharing as much value as I can. To be perfectly honest, I’m running these summits in a selfish way because I’m the guinea pig, if you will. I’m the one that I use as a target audience and I run my own WordPress based business. So I know from firsthand what types of questions do I have on a day to day basis. What am I struggling with, what am I wanting to learn to scale the business without burning out? And that is the angle I take for the wp agency summit.

Jan Koch:
So every speaker I bring on has to teach from real world experience and has to be related to building recurring revenue in their agency or having a super efficient email marketing process or knowing how to work with enterprise clients or the opposite, excelling and working with charities and nonprofits. That is something that I think is really important when you are hosting a summit is always have the attendees in mind and know exactly what you want your summit to be remembered for and what you want people to say about your summit after the event is over. Do you want them to say it was just a podcast on steroids or do you want them to say it was kind of like a real event where they made new connections, they learn new stuff, they met new speakers and then they hopefully they implement stuff they learned to actually scale their businesses.

Lee Jackson:
I agree 100 percent have the target audience in mind. Who is going to be consuming the content of your summit and then really understand what are the burning questions? What are the burning outcomes that they would have? And I love what you say here. You’ve built this selfishly for yourself as well as for everybody that you’re targeting because you yourself are an agency. And that’s exactly how this podcast started all those years ago. So when you join me on Episode six for myself, I was an agency. I wanted to learn from my guests and also to grow my own personal brand and attract other potential clients to my brand. So it’s exactly why I started. So I think selfish is OK, but what you’re doing at the same time is giving immense value. You’re building an audience, you’re bringing together incredible speakers from all around the world, and you are focusing the content on some very specific areas that you understand that agency owners struggle with.

Lee Jackson:
So let’s flip that script now. So if you were going to attend a summit, so for example, you came and joined the agency transformation live event, what process would you go through to ensure that you’re going to get the most from attending some form of online summit?

Jan Koch:
That is a really good question, and I think it’s something that is overlooked most of the time. If I am or when I am attending a virtual conference like yours, which was excellent, by the way. Kudos for that.

Lee Jackson:
Well, thank you.

Jan Koch:
I want to make sure that I have very specific questions and very specific topics in mind that I want to learn about. So usually when I decide to spend my time and money on a virtual conference, whether that’s a paid one or it’s a free one, doesn’t really matter. I’m in a position in my business where I know that I have this roadblock and I know that the people speaking at the event will help me overcome that roadblock in my business. So I’m always attending these events with very specific goals in mind, and that can be learning something that helps me break through a barrier. It can be also making new connections in the community. And I think that is something that the physical world can really excel in when you just go through the hallways and you bump into people randomly and you meet friends from all across the globe and you are able to, for example, work in Berlin, last year was amazing for me because then I was able to meet with all those people I knew from Facebook and Twitter, from all across the globe and then it’s a fantastic feeling to finally see you in person for the first time. This is kind of what I am looking for, for virtual summits, too, when I evaluate them as what is the interaction in between attendees like? Can I when I attend the summit, am I forced to just consume the talks that are given or can I engage in a live chat shared? Can I engage in a video chat? Do I have roundtables like you had on ATL, which was a fantastic concept.

Jan Koch:
It’s just there’s this feeling of connected-ness in a world where we are all restricted in what we can do these days that I think need to be incorporated in virtual summits. And that’s why I’m building these, which are networking lounges to on the WP Agency summit is all about bringing people together in the end. And that is as true for virtual summit as it is for a physical conference I think.

Lee Jackson:
I remember the I think the e-commerce summit that you did a few months ago. You did the same, didn’t you? Had the lounges that people could meet up and you did a bit of a launch party and people could meet up, get to know each other. And it’s a great way to network with other agency owners or other people in your industry and you build those relationships. You can become a supplier, you can find suppliers, or you can just make some amazing friends and sometimes I think that’s probably just as important as anything else that you can get from a summit is making new friends. I am absolutely reliant nowadays on a very close circle of friends, including Jan yours truly, whom I’ve met online, I’ve networked with and we’ve all become friends. We lean on each other for support, for advice. We talk to each other about personal things as well as business things. So I would definitely encourage people, if you’ve not attended an online summit, find something like WP Agency summit.You can find that on wpagencysummit.Com. Go ahead and check that out, because you will get to meet other people. You will get to network with other people.

Lee Jackson:
Now, what I really like about what you said was going in with something in mind, like obviously networking, but equally choosing a subject that you want answers on. And I know for myself, I want to grow the audience of the Agency Trailblazer podcast. So, for example, we are going to be sponsoring your event so that your audience can become aware of the Agency Trailblazer podcast. We’re also sponsoring the Page\builder summit that Anchin and Nathan are running again so that we can get that in front of the people. I’m also attending your summit because I specifically want to learn about SEO and content marketing to grow my audience. And that is something that you specifically have on your list of things to learn.

Of course, I know how to create content. I can do that till the cows come home. But what I don’t understand is good SEO and I know you’ve found some great speakers to help on that. So there is a real importance there, isn’t there, on going with some sort of intention? It would be pointless for me to attend all of these summits and there are literally hundreds I could fill every single day with them if I’m not going with an intention. That intention for me is to learn about SEO and to grow through content marketing. And it’s also to network and meet other people. And of course, to sponsor the outcome there is to hopefully get the Agency Trailblazer podcast into the ears of more agency owners around the world.

Jan Koch:
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more with it. The reason for being intentional is quite simple. I mean, we are all running businesses and you know as well as I do how stressful it is to run an agency and how difficult it is to set aside time when you are consciously not working on a project, you’re not communicating with your customers, you’re not managing your staff, but you are dedicating time to learning. And that is something that I have to make very, very conscious efforts for to incorporate that in my calendar. So I know that I’m not the only one with these challenges and I’m not the only one who would rather get something done than learn something by watching a video or presentation. And that is why you have to know what you want to get out of attending a virtual conferences. If you just go into the WP Agency summit and yeah, it’s cool. And I’d like to see what’s going on there. At least set aside an hour every evening for that week when the summit is left to join the networking lounge and meet new people.

Jan Koch:
You won’t be surprised on the feedback summit, which we did with the WP feedback team in April. We had these networking lounges for the first time and it was super cool. I got booked on a podcast because of a connection that I made and the networking lounge. BobWP actually recorded a podcast episode, live in that Networking Lounge, which was super cool. So you never know who you bumped into in these conversations. I get that it can be intimidating. I’m not that guy who bumps into a table with ten people already on it and introduces myself as the eleventh one trying to take over the conversation. I’m more of a lurker in those situations. But it is worth getting out of your comfort zone and what you also can do in these situations, if you’re not comfortable jumping into a Zoom call or standing with your call with thirty people in it, you just deactivate your camera and mute your microphone and you just listen to the conversation. And if you feel you have something to contribute, then you start entering the conversation at the spot that you feel comfortable with. So it’s all about, yeah, as you said, meeting new people, making new connections and trying to find ways to scale the business.

Lee Jackson:
One of the things I like about lurking and I’m clearly not a lurker, I can talk and I will definitely inject myself into a conversation. But when I do take time to lurk and listen, I find that people are often asking the exact same questions I would be asking. And others are giving such incredible well thought out solutions that would never have crossed my mind. And it’s all simply because everybody is having a free and an open conversation. So there are definitely advantages to lurking and listening because you’ll probably pick up some gold just from the networking alone. Again from the summits that I’ve had advertised to me, especially through Facebook, retargeting, et cetera, it seems to be just a bunch of content that will be fed out with no real networking. It’s I guess it’s kind of like a glorified content series over the course of a few days, as opposed to something that’s much more thought out now with regards to thinking things out. Obviously, you’ve approached your summit in the mindset of your attendees with the questions that your attendees would have. How do you vet the speakers who are going to speak at your summit to ensure that they are good quality, but also to ensure that they will cover the relevant subjects you want covering?

Jan Koch:
That’s a really good question Lee. The vetting speakers is probably amongst doing the actual interviews, the task that takes up the most time for me. And that is because I am very, very picky about who is speaking. And I want speakers who can teach from experience. As I’ve said in the beginning, I want speakers who have walked the walk and not just talk the talk. I’m in the fortunate position that I have run multiple summits now. So I do have the feedback and the email list of people who I know are interested in my events, fellow agency owners, fellow freelancers. And I reach out to them when I start planning new summits and I ask them what types of topics do you want to be covered and who would you like to see on the stage? But then I also have the research process in which I search for the thought leaders and the WordPress community who then match the topics that I have received and from running my own agency I know what things are currently on my mind and what types of areas I need to improve my business in.

Jan Koch:
So that comes into the equation as well. Then I go through this process of analyzing the businesses that the potential speakers run. And I will probably for this summit, I will have around 35 to 40 speakers. And that means that I had a list of 150 in the beginning. So I have a virtual assistant who does the initial research for me. And then I go through the list and I check all the credentials reel. So what what’s the business website look like? Because after all, we’re talking about business and making money, so you need to have something to show for. Then I want to have a mix of really, really popular people, but then also community members who aren’t as well known, because I think there is when you see multiple summits coming up these days, they all have these really, really fancy names like I think I remember a teachable summit coming up with Gary Vaynerchuk or something like that. That is not what most people can relate to because I mean, he is Gary V, he has a whole different set of resources at hand and also different goals than what your average entrepreneur has. So I try to incorporate this mix of high level people from agencies who are succeeding, who have like 50 plus employees, who work with brands like Microsoft and Audi and all the good stuff. But then I also have the CEOs from smaller agencies and I also have freelancers on. I have support engineers on because I think as a business you need to excel at customer support.

Jan Koch:
So it’s really about bringing on experts. First of all, in a diverse speaker lineup. That’s something that I totally missed in the 2019 WP Agency summit where I had like 30 males and three women or something like that. I’ve paid much more attention to to the diversity in terms of gender and also color of skin and location. But then besides those demographics, the speaker’s first and foremost need to be able to teach from experience and to share real lessons.

Lee Jackson:
With regards to any of the summits you’ve done over the past few years, have you ever had a speaker that you’ve done a recording session with where you’ve just felt that’s not really going to make the cut? I know I’ve certainly experienced that with this podcast where I have done interviews with guests and then decided not to air that and to remove that from the roster.

Jan Koch:
Yeah, yeah. In the first summit, I had that experience yeah. For the last summit that I’ve done since 2019. I’m lucky that my vetting process seems to have worked and I was happy with all the interviews that I got. But there were definitely in the first summit there was a learning curve yeah.

Lee Jackson:
I guess the reason I ask that is from my own experience in the early days of the podcast, that happened quite a lot. So I didn’t have a good handle on who would make a good guest and who would be able to provide the most value. I imagine for yourself, that was back in 2015, that very first summit that you did and over the years you have grown, the expertise in understanding who will make a good guest and also how to get that information from them, because in a lot of circumstances, you actually interview and you guide the conversation and you pull all of the value out of them during the summit, which I think is phenomenal. I guess for me, that also then highlights the importance of attending a summit where the organizers have credentials.

Lee Jackson:
So you were on our podcast in 2016 sharing your experiences of arranging online summits, a summit that you had done in 2015. We are now rocking 2020. We are mid covid and suddenly it’s cool to run a summit. However, the summits that I choose to attend other summits where the organizer has skin in the game and you Jan have skin in the game. So obviously the first thing I went and did was went and got my free ticket. We forgot to mention that was free, but equally, I know the content you have will be awesome. So I bought the upgrade so I could watch it at my leisure for the next few months because I know there is no chance on Earth I’m going to fit 30 tokes into a week or however long it is.

Jan Koch:
You bring up a really good point. First of all, thanks for the kind words. And you are right, I’ve been interviewing people since 2013 actually. So that that is even though I’m not a native English speaker, that is why I am able to or I think I am doing a good job at extracting value from the people I am interviewing. But then also you brought up that the summit is free, which is again, that’s great to highlight. And the summit is starting October 12 to October 16th. So for that week, you can get all the content for free. And you’ve mentioned the upgrades and that is because I have to pay my bills, too. You can buy for a very, very affordable price, lifetime access to all the sessions, transcripts and some other bonuses. So there are various models in a way that that attendees should be aware of on how summits are monetized.

Jan Koch:
One of them is the one I use. You can sign up for free. You can watch all the contents if you like. You can spend however many hours you want on the content. Then either you think the pre launch phase already of the summit is good enough to pay for lifetime access or during the summit you can make the decision to upgrade. Then you have events that are completely free, which essentially means you will be bombarded with upsets afterwards. If the summit is not doing it ethically, then that’s the tradeoff that you have to make. Or the summit is monetized through sponsorships. And lastly, you have paid events with no free content and you have to pay to see the sessions in the first place. That is just three models I see most commonly in the virtual summit space.

Lee Jackson:
I do like the approach you’ve taken. It’s quite low risk. So I can go and I can attend for free. I can network for free. So I can meet people. If that’s my intention, that’s awesome. I can go hang out with some amazing people and equally I can go and watch the specific talks I want to watch on the specific days that they are available. For me, though, I do recognize that I’m one of those people that will be way too busy. Plus it’s slap bang in the middle of when our baby will be born. So I doubt I’m going to have time to jump on those particular days. So I just got myself a little insurance and I bought in advance so I knew I could watch it at a later date at my leisure because I do really want to consume all of it, if I possibly can. I would warn against that. Obviously, don’t try and spend an entire week watching every single talk because you will wear yourself out. And like Jan said right at the very beginning, go with a particular intention to a summit, write down what it is you want to get from it. Look for the speakers and the subjects that resonate with what you are looking to achieve in your business and then go and consume those first and learn from those first and take action from those first. Folks, if you do attend WP Agency summit, then please do let me know. Maybe tweet him. What’s your Twitter?

Jan Koch:
@iamjankoch.

Lee Jackson:
There you go. Nice and easy. We’ll put that in the show notes. So tweet him, let him know that you are attending. Tag him into a Facebook post. You can also join his group. How do they find your group mate?

Jan Koch:
The group is WP Mastery. That’s quite straightforward.

Lee Jackson:
Very easy. Just go to his group WP Mastery and join in. Ask him questions. Let him know that you are excited to be a part of his summit as well. Remember, you can find out more information over on wpagencysummit.om. Check it out. There are a large line up of speakers. I’m just going to let you know who I am excited to hear from. One of those includes Brent Weaver. He’s been on the podcast many, many, many moons ago he’s a good friend. He was on the Cloudways Mavericks with us, wasn’t he, as well. And he absolutely blew was away. So, folks, if you check out that Cloudways Mavericks talk, I will also put a link to that. You will get an idea of the caliber of speakers going to be a part of this. Also, I’m looking forward to hearing from Kim Doyal again, long, long friend for. Many, many years, loads and loads of experience.

You’ve got John White on here, I’m looking forward to listening to. I’m looking forward as well to Diane Wallace, who again, has been on some of those Cloudways Mavericks calls with us. And like you said, there is a large variety of speakers here, some from large backgrounds, some from freelance backgrounds. I am liking what I see mate. So I feel like I’ve just done you an advertorial now.

Jan Koch:
I should sponsor your podcast.

Lee Jackson:
Probably should mate. Yeah, tell him, folks, if you came to his summit from mine, let him know and then you never know he might sponsor me in the future. All right then we are coming in to land. Let me just do a little recap, because I love to recap. We’ve essentially learned two different strands here. We’ve learned how to organize a summit, and that’s very much focusing on the quality of speaker, the quality of content and focusing on the person who will attend and working out what their problems are and creating content that will help solve those problems with then also flip the script on the attendees and said, right what does an attendee need to do when they are looking to attend some sort of online summit? Especially right now because so many people are doing summits of some sort. And what we’re saying here is go with some particular goals. If networking is your goal, great. Jump into the summits, join in with the networking. But also, if you have a burning business problem that you want to solve, then write that down on a piece of paper and then focus in on that content first.

Lee Jackson:
Like me, I’m focusing in on SEO and content marketing, which is going to be a big part of the WP Agency summit. That’s the content I’m going to be focusing on first, because that’s the biggest itch my business has to scratch. So write down yours. Check out WP Agency Summit. Also the Page Builder summit is out, I think, a week before. So go ahead. Check that out of a UN summit camp. There are summits everywhere.

So, folks, with that said, Jan, thank you so much for your time. And we really need to have you on again in less than two hundred episodes time.

Jan Koch:
We’ll make that happen Lee. Thank you.

Lee Jackson:
Take care, buddy. Thanks for your time.

Lee Jackson:
That wraps up today’s show. If you are not part of our community, head on over to trailblazer.fm/group to join thousands of design agencies from around the world who are there to support one another. Again, thank you to Cloudways for sponsoring this episode. They are my cloud provider of choice. Be sure to check them out on cloudways.com. If we don’t see you in the community, folks, we will see you in next week’s episode.