From List Building to Lucrative Launches: Krista Miller’s Summit Secrets

Your Dream Business

Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Krista Miller where she discusses the evolution of summits from list builders to comprehensive launch tools, detailing how they can drive successful, engaging, and non-salesy launches. I also share my own experiences with summits, the challenges faced, and the lessons learned. Emphasis on the need for adequate planning and the benefits of following proven strategies. At Summit in a Box®️, Krista helps online business owners replace slow-growth and costly marketing strategies with high-converting virtual summits that lead to record-breaking course, membership, and group program launches.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

1. Launching Through Summits Krista Miller discusses innovative strategies for launching online courses and memberships through virtual summits. She emphasizes that summits can be more than just list builders; they can be a powerful method for successful, non-salesy launches that feel good for both the host and participants.
2. Importance of Niching A critical takeaway is the importance of niching down for summits. Krista explains how targeting a specific audience with a clear, focused topic can significantly increase engagement, speaker interest, and attendee conversion rates. This specificity helps in creating summits that resonate deeply with the audience, making them more effective.
3. Membership Launch Strategies The podcast delves into advanced strategies for launching memberships through summits. Krista shares how offering trials and integrating the membership seamlessly into the summit experience can lead to high conversion rates. She provides examples of clients who added hundreds of members to their memberships using these techniques, demonstrating the effectiveness of a well-planned summit.

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LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE

How to run a successful online summit with Krista Miller Behind the scenes of my Rise Above Summit 3-day virtual summit Membership Momentum presented by Summit in a Box® Connect with Krista on Website, Instagram Connect with Teresa on Website, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter

Transcript

Teresa: As an online business owner, launching is an integral part of having a successful online business. But what if you could launch without feeling like you're launching and without that sometimes sleazy and salesy feeling that launching can have? Today, I am talking to Krista Miller, and she is talking about how to launch using summits. In the past, summits have just been seen as a list builder, but what if they could be the way for you to have a successful launch that feels good for you, your customers, and the speakers. We talk through some of the pros and cons of launching in different ways, and then Krista shares with us one of the most genius strategies for launching a membership through a summit that I've ever heard. You do not want to miss this episode Welcome to the your dream business podcast. I'm your host Teresa Heath Waring, an international best selling author, award winning speaker, TEDx speaker, certified coach, [00:01:00] and the host of this number one ranked podcast. I am so excited to guide you on the journey of creating a business and life that you not only love but one that perfectly aligns with you and the season of life that you're in. In each episode Episode I'll share with you easy, actionable, and insightful strategies to grow your online business. Plus we'll be diving into some mindset, tools and strategies that keep you focused, motivated, and are going to stop you from getting in your own way. So if you're a course creator, membership owner, or coach, you are in the right place. Let's get started. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Your Dream Business Podcast. How are you doing this week? This week I have a brilliant. Brilliant interview for you. I am very excited. And as an online business owner, you should be excited too, because there's some great stuff in this episode. This week, I am interviewing for the second time, Krista Miller. Krista is the founder of Summit in a [00:02:00] Box that helps business owners replace slow growth and costly marketing strategies with high converting virtual summits that lead to record breaking course membership and group program launches. Now, as I've already said, she's already been on the podcast, but I needed to get her back because as you well know, if you listen to this podcast, I did my own summit at the beginning of this year of 2024. And I did it with the help of Krista and her accelerator program. And I am a massive, massive fan of her and what she does. And I don't just say that from You know, she's amazing. I went through her accelerator program. I was part of her or I'm part of her world and she delivers absolute flipping genius stuff. She is so smart and the stuff she talks about, the stuff she shares is just phenomenal. So I know that you're going to love her too. And you're going to love this episode. Also, if you have a friend that has an online business, you do not want them to miss out on this [00:03:00] episode. Like I said, so much good stuff. Other reason this is such a cool episode is because You will hear a very honest account from me of all the things I messed up when I did the summit and all the things that Krista said, you need to do it this way. And I didn't do it that way. So it really is a kind of behind the scenes, not only look at my stuff, but then she shares genius strategies going forward about how you can launch using a summit. And the stuff around membership launches, boom, they are another level stuff. The other reason I'm really excited to have her on is that one, she was a sponsor of my summit, which is always kind of good news. If someone who creates summits wants to sponsor yours, that makes you feel very good. And two, I am going to be speaking at a summit that she's putting on called membership momentum. I'm going to make sure that all the links are in the show notes. So if you head to teresaheathwareing.com/351, as in the numbers three, five, one. Also follow me on social, check my emails. I'll be sharing it all around there, but I am doing a [00:04:00] session at her summit on how hosting an open house for your membership is the key to easy non salesy sales. Not only am I speaking, but there's some other phenomenal speakers, especially in the world of membership, like Mike from the membership geeks and the amazing Lizzie Goddard who spoke at my summit as well. So it's a hell of a lineup and I'm super honored to be involved. Anyway, without further ado, I will let you get on with today's episode. Here's the amazing Krista. Krista, I am so pleased to welcome back to the podcast, Krista Miller. Krista, how are you doing? Krista: I am so great. I'm so excited to chat again. It's always a pleasure. I know this is going to be awesome. Teresa: Me too. And I always like, you know, what's funny having a podcast for such a long time, there are now people that I'm like, Oh no, you definitely need to come back. Like, but you're the kind of start of people coming back. Cause it's like, It's such a lot. I can't even remember when we did the podcast first time, but it was years ago, like literally years ago. And now of course, my lovely listeners will know that [00:05:00] I have a completely different perspective on the conversation we have because I have done a summit, but very quickly, because I do want to jump straight into all the good stuff we want to talk about. Just tell people who you are and what you do today. Krista: Yeah. So I'm Krista. I run a company called Summit in a Box. I teach people how to run virtual summits in a way that are more accessible than how you're used to them being taught. I want anyone who has a business that is doing something awesome to have what they need and know they have what they need to go out and host a really incredible summit that makes them money, grows their email list impacts their people, all that good stuff. We've branched into teaching people how to launch through summits, how to launch through challenges. I just want to help people get their amazing offers out there. Teresa: I love it. I love it. And like I said, I now have a completely different perspective, not only from doing my own summits, but also working with you and your team in the sense of how you go about doing summits. Because Anybody who's been on the receiving end of being a speaker for a [00:06:00] summit would have had some real varying degrees of how summits have run. But just in case someone is listening and they're like, what do you mean a summit? What is a summit? Just explain to people like roughly what it is. Krista: Yeah. So if you, if you don't know what it is, I'm sure you've seen one before. So usually it's one person hosting, sometimes more than one, usually one person hosting, and they have a group of speakers can be as little as 10, as many as 30, I've seen as many as a hundred. It's a terrible idea, but I've seen it. So they have a group of speakers that are all coming to give a presentation on one specific topic. So it's going to be the goal of. This is a terrible example, but like grow your business. So I don't know, I'm hosting a summit for membership site owners. So maybe it's like, add a hundred people to your membership through X, Y, Z, and you bring in people who can speak to that. Summits are free to attend. There are several ways built in to make money, but they're free to attend. So it's a really great way to grow your audience with leads that you then, you know, have other things to do with, but you just give them a great experience. It brings them into your world, gets them excited, gets them some quick wins [00:07:00] and making progress, and it's just a really powerful strategy. Teresa: And I rebelled from this strategy for some time for various reasons. One of them being, man, this is going to be a lot of work. And I'm not going to lie. It was a lot of work. However, the amount of work I put into that, I've put into other things and have not seen the return that I had from a summit. So that was cool. The other thing that put me off and like, you know, this is one of the things, and actually I'm just going to touch on this. It was, was being experiencing being a summit speaker and how some summits are run. And one of the things I love about how you teach and what you do is that it's not forced upon your speakers to basically make your summit happen. And that, you know, one of the things that is the most interesting because I've done four summits since my own summit, and I worked out Like I worked so hard to promote [00:08:00] my own summit and I worked so hard to create a summit that my speakers would want to be part of and want to promote that now I'm really seeing when I'm part of a summit that some of them do nothing and that blows my mind. Like, and I think that was where I wanted to get away from, and that's why summits weren't something that I thought was for me, or are my bad impression of them, because how some people teach how to do summits, not you, is that. Krista: It's bad. Like, it gives. I know so many people who have just a horrible view on summits because of that. I've had several people come into our programs being like, I never thought I'd host a summit. I don't even want to call this thing a summit. I don't like summits, but I think this is what I have to do. And like, they try to be all crafty and disguise the fact that it's a summit, but then afterwards they're like, Oh, this is actually really great. And you taught me how to do it the right way in a way that's not. Like it doesn't need to be gross and sleazy and pushy and slimy and those summits are out there and there are people who [00:09:00] teach those strategies, like teach like your speakers have to have a list of 5, 000 and they're not even worth it. They have to promote this many times or kick them out. I've gotten myself kicked out kicked out of summits as a speaker before cause I just don't stand for it. I'm like, I am not going to do that if, if that's the requirement, I guess like, like have fun with that presentation. You can't use now. I'm not like, I'm not going to be a part of this. Yeah. Like. But that's how people are being taught. And a lot of times it's not the host's fault. Like, they don't know better. It's what someone is telling them to do. And when their eyes are open, they're like, Oh, dang, you know, but they need to be taught the right way. Teresa: And I think that's the thing. I think, so if you're listening to this thinking, I'm not sure I ever want to do a summit. I think, and like I said, that was me a few years back. I thought, no, it's not going to happen. And there was a million reasons, like I said, a couple that I've already said, ones of like, no one's going to speak at it. Like no one will say yes, like, and I had the best fricking lineup in the world. Like, I'm not even kidding. Krista: You're laughing, your lineup was fire. Teresa: I had such a good lineup, but that was one of the things that is like, it would [00:10:00] be a concern of what if people didn't want to do it, what if people didn't sign up, like there's all the concerns, but actually one of the things, the way in which you teach and the way, and I am like, And you guys are going to hear this in this episode, like I flip in love what Krista does, like love it. Like I wouldn't be having it back on. I wouldn't be promoting her stuff. I wouldn't be speaking at her. So I wouldn't be doing any of this. I wouldn't have asked to speak at mine. I swear to goodness, her accelerator program that I was in, and I didn't think I'd go down this route quite so quick, but with it was like the flipping best thing I've ever been in. And I have paid for some seriously expensive stuff, like ridiculously expensive stuff. And yet the support, the help, the guidance, the, the done for you aspect, it was so good. But I gave her a difficult task at the very beginning, because there was a couple of things that you talk about. that I just basically did the opposite. Right. So [00:11:00] one of the things that Krista says, and she is so right, is she talked about the specific nature of the summit. So just touch on like why it needs to be as niche as it can possibly be. Krista: Yeah, so I, I always say that niching is like one of those things that can make it or break it. You can have the most well run summit out there, but if the niche is it right, no one's going to show up. And like an example I can give, I'm sorry, I'm going to give this example. The example I'm going to give, because I always give it, is a summit for online business owners to help you grow your business. It's hard to catch people's attention. Teresa: Yeah, what did I do? Krista: It's hard. It's hard to get people's attention with that versus a summit to help wedding planners book out their client schedule with Instagram. Yeah, that's going to catch people's attention, right? That they're like, this is made for me. Yes. I want to do that. Yes. I have to sign up for this. It's getting specific and niching down is what lets you get speak, get the right speakers, makes them want to promote, makes people want to sign up, makes people want to buy, get you the right kind of people. [00:12:00] It benefits you every step of the way, even though it's really uncomfortable and difficult at first, like I host summits. Not very frequently. And the reason for that is because the positioning is hard for someone who has a business that's positioned very broadly like ours, it's hard to figure out how do I niche this down in a way that's going to. And just makes sense, you know, but it's important. Teresa: And the funny thing was, you had said that, and I was like, oh yeah, that's basically my subject, right? But she had said it before you had even spoke to me. I watched something you did, and your example was exactly that example, and I was like, yeah, damn it. And then like you, it was like on this training that I watched before we started speaking and got signed up and things, It was like, I, You did a laundry list of don't do this on your first summit. Don't do this. Don't do this. Make sure you do this. And it was like, Oh yeah, I basically have done the opposite of everything you've said. And there is so many things that like, you know, Krista is right. Like when she said, do it this way, even though I'd already [00:13:00] started doing it the other way and couldn't really change it the next time I will do it the way she says, like, because there is a really good reason that she teaches the way she teaches because she knows a ton about this. So one other place that I kind of, I'm not even going to say messed up because it wasn't messed up. It was just a second thought for me. And, and, and the other thing is we'd come in really quick. Like, so the timing that I wanted to do it on, I was already like way behind where...