I tell my students that you already know everyone you need to know to have at least one successful online course launch…
But every course creator hits a moment — usually around the 3rd or 4th launch — when they need to grow their audience to start making more sales and ultimately scale their business.
Because — at this point — they’ve put the same offer in front of the same people several times in a relatively short window of time and those people have either already bought or aren’t interested in buying.
That’s where I was in 2013…
I had made my way through 2 failed product launches — Build Your Site, Launch Your Business and the 30 Day Challenge…
And now had 2 courses that were performing relatively well (not the blockbuster hit products I have today), but they were making sales every time I launched them — Message to Money and Hidden Story Power.
It was time to grow my audience and expand my reach!
So when a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to produce an Online Summit with him, I said yes.
His name was Matthew Peters and he was a video marketing expert, so he had the idea of doing a Summit called, “Video Marketing 2013.”
He wanted to use the Summit to launch a new video marketing app that would allow people to create different kinds of sales and marketing videos from their cell phones using pre-built templates.
I had heard Summits were a great way to build your audience, but I wasn’t a video marketing expert and apps weren’t something on my radar at the time.
My business model was coaching and courses and building an app felt too techy and too overwhelming.
So I told him, “I’m in” if we can a) use the Summit to build an audience for our courses (rather than using it to launch an app) and b) find a good hook for the Summit.
I had seen so many people launching different versions of the same boring summit where they interview 20 guests and you don’t really learn anything…
And — if I was going to do this — I wanted to do it differently.
I remember mulling on it for weeks — asking myself, “What’s the hook?” over and over again…
“What’s the hook?”
Until I saw the latest Superhero movie poster and thought — that’s it!
Let’s bring together an all-star line-up of video marketing superheroes and call it the Video Superhero Summit. We can even turn all our presenters into superheroes — because, who doesn’t want to be turned into a superhero?
That was the hook!
You see, I was a newbie at the time. Just a year and a half into my online business journey and I didn’t have the relationships or the reputation to attract the superhero line-up I imagined.
But I did have ONE relationship!
In 2011, I had bought Don Crowther’s Social Profit Formula program, which came with 2 tickets to Don’s live event.
Murray and I went and — when the time came for Don to do hot seats — I reluctantly raised my hand.
I’m not sure what possessed me to do that, since I’m not the kind of person who puts my hand up in a room like that. But something compelled me to raise my hand.
Don quickly vetted each person with their hand raised and chose to bring me up on stage. Apparently our conversation was so interesting, that everyone was buzzing about it afterward…
But that was just the beginning.
I had invested $20K in Brendon Burchard’s Empire Group and it came with a ticket to his 10X event in New York City.
Tickets were selling for $10K a pop so I felt chuffed to have a ticket.
And guess who else was in that room?
Don Crowther!
I remember approaching Don on a break and asking, “Remember me?”
He said, “Of course,” which completely shocked me.
But that was my “in”…
I can’t remember exactly what I said next, but it was something along the lines of “Your website sucks” — in nicer words. 🙂
And, bless his heart, he said, “Tell me more.”
One thing led to another and we agreed on a trade — I would lead him through a personal branding VIP Day and guide him on developing his online presence — and, in exchange, he gifted me a year in his VIP Mastermind…
I felt like I had gotten the better end of the bargain, but that kicked off our friendship and partnership.
So, he was the first person I invited onto our Video Superhero Summit and he not only said yes, but offered to introduce me to his friend Andy Jenkins — the late great “video boss.”
OMG OMG OMG, I had the proverbial foot in the door!
Andy was a LEGEND and this was my chance…
We had found an artist on Upwork who could draw epic superhero characters for 30 bucks a pop…
So I went ahead and paid for Andy’s character to be drawn in advance so — when Don introduced me — I could “future pace” his experience on the Summit by showing him what he looks like as a Superhero…
I also recorded an audio complete with superhero-themed music to make the invite feel really epic.
Here’s a screenshot of the email:
And wonder of wonders, Andy wrote back that very same day:
Hey Marisa!
Sounds SUPER cool!
Can we connect the week after next and you can give me full lay of the land?
P.S. Friend requested you on FB, cause that seemed like a good thing to do.
🙂
AJ
Of course it took me a couple weeks and a couple more messages before I actually got him on the phone…
But, once I did, he was in! And he introduced me to Maria Andros, the Video Queen…
Within a couple months I had my superhero line-up: James Wedmore, Jason Fladlien, Pete Williams, Andy Jenkins, Don Crowther, Jody Jelas, Marshall Wayne, Steven Washer, plus me and Matthew Peters.
(Once we got into the actual planning, Matthew realized he didn’t have the bandwidth to go all in, so we moved him into a Summit guest position and I became the organizer.)
I started the Summit as a total newbie with no relationships, no reputation and an email list of just 3000 and ended it with a list of well over 10,000 and an “in” to all the major players in the internet marketing space.
I was even invited to a Thanksgiving potluck dinner with Andy, Mike Filsaime and Frank Kern! (I was in charge of the mashed potatoes lol 🙂
I’ll share more details on our unique Summit model in the next edition of Throwback Thursday — since, based on the success of this first Summit, I did a grand total of 5 Superhero Summits over 2 years…
But I did want to say that I bundled all 10 Sessions into my next digital product, the Video Superhero Pack. We sold 133 copies and brought in $18,451, which I split with the partners.
I also got affiliate commissions on everything our partners sold through the summit and I also sold my Hidden Story Power course from my Summit Session…
I’ve lost track of exactly how much I sold from my Session, but I ended 2013 with 291 sales of that course (and $54,521.00 in revenue) — way more than the 40 I was able to sell to my own audience in my first launch.
All in, I made about $100K from that first Summit while adding 10K people to my email list…
So you better believe I was going to repeat it!
Throwback Thursday Series
Throwback Thursday #1: Build Your Site, Launch Your Business
Throwback Thursday #2: Strike Two — As If One Failed Attempt Weren’t Enough!
Throwback Thursday #3: My First Semi-Hit — Insights Gained From My Message to Money Program
Throwback Thursday #4: The Win That Came Disguised as a Fail
Throwback Thursday #6: This Put Me On the Map
Throwback Thursday #7: Me? Do a Live Event?
Throwback Thursday #8: My First Upsell
Throwback Thursday #9: Course ✅ SaaS Next?
Throwback Thursday #10: 1 Launch > 4 Big Lessons
Throwback Thursday #11: Message to Millions
Throwback Thursday #12: Website in a Weekend