7. Why Live Events Are Worth Every Penny. Attend, Host or Plan one.

Ati Grinspun  0:00  

Well, I am doing something completely different today. And I decided to sit in a different part of my office and record the podcast and the YouTube podcast here sitting on my couch. So, welcome to the urine podcast. If you know me, you know, I always tried to push myself out of my comfort zone. And this is something I’ve been wanting to try for a minute. So I hope it works out. And that in about 35 to 45 minutes, we actually a podcast episode. So welcome to the VO brand Podcast. Today I want to talk to you about the power of live events, and networking. You know that last week, we hosted bu brand live 2023 here in Las Vegas, we had about 73 beautiful souls and women attend our first ever conference like live events. So I have a ton of notes here. And I also have my math. So if you are watching in YouTube, you are going to see me drink my Argentinian Mata, if you don’t know what it is, I can tell you later. Um, but a few things that I want to talk to you about this event. And I don’t want to forget about anything. So I made sure that I have all my notes in here. So you want to listen to this episode, if you have a live event in your heart that you want to host or even if you love attending live events, and or if you never attended a live event, because I really think that they are life changing. And I’m going to share with you the aftermath of this event that we hosted. But also some of the key takeaways, as an attendee, how to get the most out of the investment that it takes to actually attending a live event. These are some of the points that I really want to share with you, I want to share a little bit of the journey of this event because these came to me during breathwork. About I think it was around March, I was trying to go through my phone and see when actually I said that I went on God the venue because this happened a few weeks prior to that. But let me give you give you a little bit of background. So I told this story on stage last week. And what happened was back on 2018, when I was still in network marketing, a friend of mine called me and invited me to a live event. And at the time, I was like why would I spend all that money to go to a live event. Now she convinced me we ended up going and that event changed the course of my life truly, because that was the first time that I truly heard about impact and mission and vision. And I think one of the things that happened to me was like being in a room full of other people that are in the same path as you this is a when you go to a concert, or when you are in a cycling class and you feel like you’re doing it all together, right and you feel like a light in and you feel like you’re all connected. I don’t know. It’s like the weirdest feeling ever. And it truly changed my life. Because from there I got the vision that someday I wanted to speak from there, I got the vision that I really wanted to make a difference. And of course, my vision changed over time. But since then, I attended several live events. And at some point, I knew that I would host my own, I just didn’t know it was going to be this soon in or maybe like I think it was super bad for the amount of the attendance and how amazing the event was. I don’t think that it was too soon. But some of the things that happened was number one, the event surpassed my wildest dreams. But the reason why that happen. There were three things that I kind of want you to keep in the back of my mind, in your mind if you have a live event in your heart. Or if you are planning to attend more events. Or maybe you want how do you want to start this right, like if you want to build more community. So that journey getting me to the actual event. So what I didn’t realize when I decided to make the event happen, was the next level of growth that it was going to require from me. So to give you a little bit of background, after the pandemic, I was hosting some local events with three friends. The event was called Power tribe. It was amazing and the energy that we brought into the room, we met so many women and truly it kind of launched my business on the local scene to a whole new level. But what happened though, it gave me so much visibility I met so many people in person. So that relationship chibs That I was fostering through this event, then not only became into business, but it became referrals. And it became, oh my god, you need to meet this girl, oh my god, you need to go to her event. Right. So when I did my vision for 2023, one of the things that I put on my vision board is that I wanted to bring the power tribe energy back. Now, that didn’t mean that I wanted to bring that event in particular. And when I kept working on this idea, I think that it’s how the idea of Buber alive was born right? Now, why am I telling you this? There is three reasons for this. So if you have an event in your heart, I think that is starting a small is very smart, right? Because what you want to do is build community. Now I’m telling you this and I’m you know that I’m all about transparency. But even in this event, we didn’t have so many local people attend, we have like a handful, but not as much as I thought that I was going to have given the record right that we had with power try. However, I already have a very established audience in other places, right? Like we even had Janet coming from France. So I urge you to really kind of Istar like the small steps of hosting something that may be local. Because what happens though, and by the way, I teach these also, when we teach networking, and when we did social media engagement, people don’t realize this. But when you have a really reach network locally, what happens is these people want to support you, these people already know you, they know you at a different level, at a deeper level than people know you just on social media. So when you post or whatever they are gonna comment, right. So the reason why this is so important is because you want to start populating your in person network as fast as you as you can, if you feel like hosting a live event is in your heart. Now, I know this may not be a popular opinion. But this is the way I think about it. Because also that will give you experience, okay, that will give you experience on what to expect on percentages. And like even we tickets over $275, which were our tickets, we had a handful of people that didn’t make it to the event, right. So these are all things that you want to keep in your mind you want to consider. So start small, maybe start hosting some local events. Now, if you never hosted an event, maybe you don’t even care about hosting your own event, why you should attend these live events. So this is what is different about live events, and networking events. Most of these events, and this is how you brand was a thought and how he was planned and how he was curated. And that is the key word they are curated. Right. So what happens is they are curated for you to have an experience of some sort. In our particular case, I know that my philosophy is you need to be open and you need to do the internal work. In this case, it’s like mindset and grow in yourself in order to then go and apply the strategies that we teach. And that is exactly how we put together these events. So on day one, we had Laura minor who spoke about mindset, she truly did a remarkable job on doing a workshop style so women could actually identify right there and then a limiting belief that they were having and how to reframe it. Then we had Aaron who talked about somatic how do those limiting beliefs are showing up in our bodies? Right? Why is this important, in my opinion, is because it was curated on the way I believe it happens. Now every event is created different but usually these events are curated in some way for you to have a transformation or break through and not just meet people now. They’re still amazing at you meeting people. Why? Because you are having these experiences. You are bonding with people at a completely different level. And this is where relationships in business are born at a deeper level. One of the things that we were really talking with some of the attendees, I was like the women in this room in that room like last weekend, these are the women that you are going to put events together with these are the women that you’re going to invite to speak maybe to your Facebook group. These are the women that you are going to maybe be speaking on stage with.

A lot of the speakers on my event either met at a mastermind or I met at a coaching program or I met at some other event. So I kind of wanted to put that out there for you. Because I think it’s so important. So just to recap, this part is if you have an event in your heart, you want to start small, so then you can grow it, and you have some insight going into it. And you can grow your local following to then add your online audience to it. Because also, that is two things that actually really caught my attention. I got deviating a little bit, but the people that actually came from out of town, they were absolutely invested, right, because they came here for that. Now the people that are local, they were not as invested on the event, they were still kind of like on their everyday life. And they were making like the event part of their day, which is something to really think about. And the reason for that is I been thinking about these for next year, we do have the data already. So save the date, September 26 27th 28th 2024. But I’ve been thinking Aton about do I actually want this event to happen here in Vegas, or do I want this event to happen a few hours away from here, the reason why I’m saying this is because the people that we hire from here, they don’t have the investment, like when you go out of town to go for one conference or for an event, you’re absolutely involved in what that event has to offer. So you’re all about the event, you’re all about getting the results, their return on investment. But if you’re still in your hometown, you might still be in Miami beauty right? In the morning, you may still have to pick up kids later on the day. And this will take away honestly, in my opinion from the experience that you can truly have, and the transformation because these events are so in medicine, but that is just observation that occurred with the local people. So the other thing that I wanted to talk about is these events really gave me so much belief so much believe in what I do so much believe in what we’re creating here, so much belief on the ripple effect that I am creating in the world. And why I’m saying this is because let me back up. Let’s go back to March, we when we look for the venue, which was amazing. And then all these miracles started happening. All these people started showing up for me in ways that I could have never expected or predicted from the people at the event venue which I never met before this event to the company that helped us with the backdrop and and I have no problem like actually sharing some of this. I had a client from when I was poetry photographer reached out to me and say I love what you’re doing. How can I support you and she is sponsor 10 tickets. So our tickets were $400 You guys, so she sponsored 10 tickets for $1,000 to another time, I didn’t know how I was going to make it a win win. And I remember I called my friend Cassidy and I was like, Hey, I have this amazing sponsor. And she was like, why don’t you do a nomination for people that maybe cannot come or that will actually help them to cover some of the costs. And that’s what we ended up doing. And there was about 10 women that were at the event that were nominated right either nominated by a friend nominated by me nominated by somebody that already had a ticket to the event and invited somebody through the nomination and guys like oh my god, right, like $4,000, when you’re putting in an event is a lot I reached out to the company to do our lettering and to do our backdrop that we had at the event and she was like what is your budget? I was like, honestly, I’m really working on a budget here because I truly didn’t have a budget that I set up last year for the so literally I was working from zero budget. I didn’t budget for this this year. I ended up then allocating some of the money but we had so many people step up and be sponsors we either have we also had sponsors in our workbooks. We had the people that did the backdrop, we ended up doing an exchange of services. What else kind of blinking out right now I reached out to my friend from amazing for the soul and she helped us with all the event coordinating there were so many things that all started coming together my friend Jackie, who’s a fellow photographer, and she did all the intro and the dancing and it was just so beautiful to see all come together and for somebody that had had a hard time receiving if you want to call it because that it’s an art especially for women and that is something that I am personally working on. This event really was so humbling and it really helped me learn how to receive, receive praise receive Help also when the event happened, receive love from all the people that were there. So wanting to talk about the miracles because sometimes when we’re in business, we think that we’re doing it all alone. And I truly after this event, I know we are not meant to do anything alone, right, Lindsey Schwartz from powerhouse. Women always say, we’re not meant to do it alone. And after this event, I know in my heart, we are not meant to do it alone. So I hope that that gives you a lot of belief, because that’s truly how I felt with this event, I know that I can pass that forward, because I had to lean in believing, right that he was going to happen a lot like our VIP tickets were sold almost right away. But then or general admission tickets didn’t start selling until a week before the event. Like it was a one ticket, two tickets, one ticket, two tickets, but then we had a huge influx of tickets towards the last week. And I knew everybody told me that was going to happen. But when you have a room that can host up to 100 people that is fucking scary, right? So this is, oh, another miracle. Another miracle. We want to look at the venue about a week earlier. And the venue originally hosted 64 people and the lady started seeing everything that we had planned, and they didn’t have the downstairs venue rented out, and we change venues to downstairs, which was double the size, literally two weeks earlier. So that’s where I started getting really scared, because we were sold out for the first venue. But then we moved and then tickets weren’t moving. But then a week before tickets start moving. So I kind of wanted to like paint this picture of you that you have to hold that belief until the last minute, the last minute, right. I knew in my heart it was going to happen. And it did. Right. And I know like back in the day, I would have thought people was crazy for saying that. Okay, so I know that. The other thing is, I wanted to talk about these because I know for sure that this was something where I had to expand. And it was the investing of the money into this event, there was a ton of money just like a lot of people we traded and stuff like that. But I’m just gonna like give you very rough numbers, we invested about $20,000 on this event. And the reason why I’m sharing that with you is because I have never made an investment like that. On something like this, I have invested in a $20,000 mastermind in a $30,000 program, but never on something like this. Right? We in my mind. For me, this is about building community. This is the growth of my own brand. This is the growth of the impact I want to make in the world and the ROI on these events. They are not seen immediately, even though we sold into our new mastermind, we sold him to be your brand. The truth is you guys that there was some sort of fear, right that I had to grow through. So the expansion and the growth that went into investing into something like this, I believe it made me such a better business owner. And this is for you. If you do have an event in your heart, this is for you to not have fear to invest in those things that maybe you know, you’re going to reuse maybe the things that you’re like, oh, do I really want to spend money on that, but like and so an example of that is like, you know, it’s dip and repeats and carpets and things that we know we’re going to use next year, but it was hundreds and hundreds of dollars, right that started going out. And that they were not budgeted for this year. So there was an expansion, and I was working with Laura minor to work through the fear a little bit to really stay anchor on what I wanted to create. So going from there, I want to talk about that I

want to talk about you maybe as a coach, service provider, whatever it is that you do, sometimes we see behind our computer and we don’t realize the amount of impact that we are having on people. We don’t realize exactly the change and the transformation. We are providing people we don’t realize the extent of what we are creating in the world. And this happened to me during the VIP day. So the the event was three days. So it was a VIP day on Thursday. And then general admission Friday and Saturday during the VIP day. It was all about going inward and really setting up the intention for the weekend. And there were cries there were labs, they were hugs, they were photos, they were like there were so many things that happened that day. And as I walked into the room while some of the speakers were doing their thing, and I looked around I was like wow. Most of the women there are my clients from RBU brand program, not all of them but most these are my people. These are the people that I am providing something that is life changing and While for many years, I would have thought and I know that a lot of you think the same that this was bragging, for the first time, I actually had a measuring stick of the difference that I’m making another people, because one thing is somebody sitting across soom telling you, oh my god, your program has changed my life or your help or whatever. And this is not coming from a place of ego you guys in the country is coming number one from a place of celebration, because we have to celebrate, right, we have to celebrate ourselves and our wins, because that’s how we keep them coming. But number two is from a place of being aware that what I’m doing is working. And what I’m doing is doing what it’s supposed to be doing. So I highly recommend, somehow you create these either for your clients or your community. Because also this is the next thing that I want to talk about is community. So let’s not lose their train of thought. But this is the thing when you can bring your community together, maybe an event is not in your heart, but a retreat is in your heart, right, you can do something where your community comes together, the connection between you and your community becomes so much stronger, but then also the connection between your community within each other. And I remember actually Lindsey shorts talking so much about these because you know, she’s amazing at building community. But one of the things that I didn’t realize, and these actually didn’t happen during the VIP so much, but during the event, what happened was people were going to have lunch on their own. And you know, when you are the coach, you are usually the conduit, right? So when we are coaching or wherever we are, you’re directing the room, if you want to call it and in this case, people were leaving, and they were forming relationships. And that is what you want. You want the community to be self sustaining. And this is the thing, this is a thought that just came to my mind. I used to think like, oh, how are people creating these communities? How are people doing this? And I know, like, we all want the how the how the how the thing is, if you’re constantly allowing yourself to grow a little farther, a little bit out of your comfort zone every single time be things start showing themselves to you? And well, yes, obviously, I’m a coach. And I teach a lot of the things right, like in personal branding, especially with disability, but some of the things you just need to give yourself also the time and the space for you to grow into the person that I can actually provide all the things I don’t know, if energetically I could have done this, I don’t know, two years ago, right? Or if I could have taken the monetary risk, or if I could have taking not knowing right, because my nervous system maybe could have not taken it I grew up and from a place of fear. Okay, so I kind of wanted to like give you that. And I’m going to have a monitor here. Okay, so completely went off script. I don’t really script my episodes. But okay, let’s talk about actually attending events as a visibility strategy. So I kind of wanted to put all these in one, which is this, I want you to think about this, when you go to these events, I made a remark about the local people, I think the local people kind of missed out a little bit on the true experience of this event. But whatever, when you go to this event, you are 100% working on yourself and on your business, not in your business. And what this means is that you’re open right. And that is two things that are amazing. So let’s talk a little bit about attending a live event for visibility, visibility strategy in your business. So we talked so much about networking, and building through the relationships but also what I find is another way for you to actually get ROI of investing about traveling and hotel. By the way, all of these is a write off, I mean talk to your bookkeeper or CPA, whatever but definitely is a write off. And for me one of the things that I have capitalized the most is not only on really working the room, but also then putting myself to speak for the events that actually are in my heart. So let me give you an example. Three years ago, I attended the pitch club and these October I am actually speaking at the pitch club now why this is important is you have to keep the big vision and the biggest strategy in mind. So what you want to truly do and this is something I want to tell you this is something that happened for me with the event as soon as I announced the event people like oh I want to talk in your event can I speak at your event? Can I do this? Can I do that? And I was like you don’t even like my fucking Instagram post. Like now like you cannot speak on my event but it wasn’t because I’m being mean is because The event is actually curated. So what happens is when you actually attend this event, and you are investing in somebody, that is the reciprocity law, that happens, this is the same that when you are giving free value on the internet, and what happens is like people want to help you. So I truly believe that if you want to start speaking in person, you have to actually attend these events. And these actually goes also to your networking events in your area. Because if you are putting yourself to go and do a workshop, and the host doesn’t know you, am I, why am I going to give you my audience? So I want you to think how hard is to build an audience. And then you’re literally asking somebody to trust you with their audience, okay, which is the most precious treasure an online business can ever have? Right. So one of the things that I know for myself is if I want to be speaking on bigger stages, if I want to be speaking in bigger rooms, I need to be part of those rooms. Because also that is how you’re going to get good. And how you’re going to start visualizing yourself speaking in these rooms, right. But the other thing is people over obsess with connecting with the speakers. But the true connections happen with the women in the room, right? So when you go and you make a point, and you go in with a strategy, I’m gonna give you an example. A week before the event, I actually went to an event myself, I went all the way to Arizona, I got on a plane, when there spent the night went for a one day event that Laurie hardware hosted, I met a ton of women. Now one of those women we kept in contact, and then she ended up being an a sponsor for B Ron only a week later, and I have an a speaking engagement. And this is on zoom with another woman that is going to happen November 6. Now this is just from attending that one event that I haven’t even had a chance yet to actually go back and connect with every single one of the women in my little book that I wrote down. Now why this is important to note is because you don’t want to go to these events and just hang out, right you want to go in there with intention and intention for yourself. So for example, this particular event that I want in Arizona do I think that I do learn a ton, I learned that it’s always something to learn, actually, Jenny Godley was there, which I’m obsessed with her right now she

is up and coming. And she’s doing a lot of the things that I see myself doing in the future. She just wrote a book that I’m absolutely loving, highly recommended when it comes out is called be seen. She teaches a ton of personal branding, social media. And we’re very aligned on the way we teach this. And her story is amazing, but and then there were other amazing speakers. But my biggest goal for that event was connections, connections, being featured in podcasts being in front of new audiences, right. So that investment is invaluable to you. So start looking for networking events, and live event experiences where people are actually fully committed to being in the room. Okay, start investing in events that people are fully committed. And there is nothing wrong with networking events you want to network in your area, but the networking and the bond building an actual live event that lasts all day or at least two days, it shows an parallel because you are going to bond at a completely different level. And those are the relationships now, I kind of want to I’m gonna do a whole episode about this. But I want you to kind of have these on the back of your mind. Okay, there is three types of relationships that you can leverage at these kinds of events because I know that most women go to this event networking or live events fixated on getting clients, however, I want you to understand this, there is so much power on Yes, clients is only one type of connection that you can do. The other one is collaborations, like the one I just mentioned with Gretchen, we She’s the lady that I met, and then she became a sponsor, right. Like she literally supported my event, not only financially not only my community, not only I gave exposure to her product, but then now we are going to connect I’m going to be okay, how can we actually leverage each other’s connections, right? So referral partners or people that also are very well connected. Remember these word for freaking ever net work? Don’t think of Are all networking events not net work, right? Is a web. So when you actually really leverage this, you start realizing that clients, it’s only one asset that you’re acquiring at this event. The other one is referral partners. The other one is also peer recognition. So this is the thing you guys peer recognition is so important as you are growing your own authority that peers in your field actually see you as credible. Because not only is important that people see you credible, but that peers also say you’re credible, right? So this is so so important in order to build your authority. So I want you to go into these events with an open mind of okay, what are some of the things that I can give, always be there and be okay, is in my network that I can offer? You said, for example, I have a Facebook group with 1800 people write their personal branding strategies for female entrepreneurs, that is an asset that I can leverage to have people come into my Facebook group and do trainings, come into my Facebook group and do interviews. That is actually one of the reasons when we do interview episodes for the podcast, we do them live on the Facebook group, because not everybody is listening to the podcast or watching the YouTube channel, right? So I want you to open your mind to the return on investment on being at these events. So ladies, this is like kind of my recap for the event. I can’t even tell you, I’m still unpacking, like everything that has happened. But if you have an event in your heart, if you have been doubting about investing in going to events, please send me a DM I will respond to it. Whatever it is that it’s in your heart with this, I guarantee you it will be worth it because your network is your net worth and you building your own community is priceless. So I would love if you can go and give us a review. Put the five little stars in wherever it is that you’re listening. If you’re hearing YouTube, share this video with somebody that maybe you want to host an event with, right? What was your biggest takeaway? Take a screenshot, put it on your social media. I would love to give you a shout out and we’ll see you next time.