IAM1801 – Coach Helps Business Owners Achieve High Conversions Through Virtual Summit

Krista Miller Teaser 00:00

Are those things actually, do they matter? You're coming to me because you want to grow your audience. That means that the other things you're doing aren't growing your audience. So why are you doing them? So setting aside time to revisit what you're doing, whether it is business or personal that matters.

What are things you want to get rid of just to make the time you're spending on whatever it is more worthwhile and helping you live the life you want to live and run the business you want to run.

Intro 00:00

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information. You're in search of.

This is the I AM CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:53

Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I appreciate you listening to this episode. If you've been listening this year, you know that we hit over 1600 episodes at the beginning of this year. We're doing something a little bit different where we are repurposing our favorite episodes around certain categories, topics, or as I like to call them, the business pillars that we think are going to be extremely impactful for CEOs, entrepreneurs, business owners, and what I like to call a CB nation architects who are looking to level up their organizations.

This month we are focused on the visibility game, a.k.a. Marketing, Advertising, PR, and Sales. I often say the name of the game is being found in these tools will help you to do that. We have heard the philosophical question; If the tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound? If there's a really, really great product or service and no one knows about it, how great is it really? What impact does it ultimately make? This is where we will go into this month, looking at visibility, branding, marketing, public relations, sales being the lifeblood of businesses, building media companies, and so much more.

This is probably one of the most exciting and probably the most excruciating topics, but we hope this month to demystify and maybe even vanquish the fear and help and arm you with the tools to be able to increase your visibility. So buckle up and sit back and enjoy this special episode of the I AM CEO podcast.

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Krista Miller of Summit in a Box, Krista, excited to have you on the show.

Krista Miller 02:22

Thank you so much for having me. This is gonna be fun.

Gresham Harkless 02:25

Yes, absolutely. I think it's going to be fun indeed. Of course, before we jumped into the fun and all the awesome things that you're doing, I wanted to read a little bit more about Krista so you could hear about some of those awesome things.

At Summit in a Box, Krista helps you replace slow growth and costly marketing strategies with high-converting virtual summit that will multiply your revenue and lead to your biggest course membership or group program launch yet.

Her method incorporates highly targeted positioning and feel-good engagement-based strategies that lead to higher-than-average converging rates, true connections, and making a difference through your summit in a way that creates ongoing benefits for months after the event wraps up.

Krista again, excited to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Krista Miller 03:08

Absolutely.

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Gresham Harkless 03:09

Let's get it started then. So to kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit, and hear a little bit more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

Krista Miller 03:16

Yeah. So I started in 2015. I'd been working a full-time corporate job doing Web Development and Software Development. And just got into where the corporate vibe wasn't loving, the vibe on the team I was on and just wasting time on Pinterest, I saw people running their own businesses and doing like design and stuff like that. I was like, I can do that. I do that every day. Yeah, I can start this business. So I did, I started as a WordPress developer, went full time with that within about six months, was able to quit that job, and in trying to grow that business decided I'm going to try hosting a Virtual Summit.

This was in 2017, I made this decision. At the time it was a lot of the biggest names in business hosting summits and I was like, I don't know if I should do this. Like people are going to laugh when I pitch them. Who am I to do something like this? And it was just like a realization I had one day after throwing this idea around for way too long. Like I can do it my way. It doesn't matter if I have a couple hundred people signed up, even that's going to make a big difference for me and we can do this differently than all the other people are doing it.

So I did, I went ahead and hosted my first summit in 2018 and blew my goals out of the water. I was hoping to have a couple of hundred people registered, and maybe make a couple of thousand dollars. We had 1500 people registered and made 16, 000 with that first summit. At the time I was making like 3000, maybe 4000 a month. So to bring in 16K with one thing, literally life-changing. Like I know that's dramatic, but it felt dramatic. Like this changed my life and I didn't plan to do anything with it. I was not like, okay, I did this thing. Now I have to go teach it. I was just going to stay in my lane, keep hosting summits to grow my own business.

But my speakers and attendees had different plans and for the next few months, I was just getting constant, like emails messages on social media can you teach me how to do this? Do you have any resources for this? Leave me alone. Eventually I just gave up. I was like, fine, here's the Asana template I use. I took my Asana template that I had used to plan my own event, made it a little prettier for other people to be able to understand, and I was like, here, you can buy this if you want and they did and after that, they just kept wanting more. What did you say in your pitch to your speakers? What was on your registration page? I was like, all right, here's that template. Here's that template. And eventually, like you can see where it's going. It just exploded.

So now I have literally thousands of virtual summit trainings and templates everything someone needs to host a summit. So I feel like I fell into the role I'm in right now, just by listening to my audience and what they wanted. And it made it a lot of fun.

Gresham Harkless 05:46

Yeah, absolutely. I absolutely love hearing that, especially the organic nature of everything and how it just came about. And, you said, who am I to do the virtual summit? I think there's this motivational quote or something. It was like, who am I? Sometimes we get that imposter syndrome and those questions.

Then a lot of times we hear or we hope to hear answering back who are you not to? And I love that you took that and you ran with it from everything you've been able to do.

Krista Miller 06:10

Yes. Oh, my gosh. Who am I not to is like one of the things I tell my students and clients now when they are doubting themselves like you can make such a difference for your people.

Who are you to hold that from them? So I love that you brought that up.

Gresham Harkless 06:22

Yeah, absolutely. A lot of times we have those gifts, those things that we learn, that we acquire, whatever it is. And they're not often for us to just hoard and not share out. They're actually for us to do some of the awesome things that you've been able to do and make that impact in so many ways.

Krista Miller 06:35

Yes. I love that.

Gresham Harkless 06:37

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I know you touched on a little bit on how you're working with your clients and how that process works. Can you take us through a little bit more on how you make that impact and how you are helping people to be armed to be able to make those impacts?

Krista Miller 06:48

Yeah. Yeah. So we have a couple of programs, but our core program is like a group coaching program called The Launch of the Summit Accelerator and we help people through that who are already established in business. So they have the course membership group program that sells, but are in the place where I can sell this, but I don't have people to sell it to. We take those people and help them host a summit that converts highly, gets them the audience, gets them the subscribers and the revenue through the event itself. But also we teach them how to use that summit as a launch mechanism for their course membership or whatever it is.

So we have all of the templates and training and everything, but we also work really closely with them in a coaching capacity where we're chatting back and forth with them daily. A lot of it is like going through the mindset stuff. Like I promise you can do this, just follow the process. You are good enough. Your people need you. It's just so fun and so rewarding to be able to help people make this impact and see how it continues beyond them. So we are able to encourage this person to make big moves in their business.

By doing that, a lot of times are like changing the industry as far as their speakers go, they're making a huge impact for their audiences. Then their audience, like thousands of people now know what they learned at the summit and can go on and spread it from there. So it just makes it also rewarding to see that impact continue to spread.

Gresham Harkless 08:02

Yeah, absolutely. I just imagine there are so many different ways that impact can happen. It's almost like I don't wanna say required, but it should be required of us to actually take that step and do that.

Krista Miller 08:14

Yes. Oh my gosh. I agree. Like a lot of times when I'm talking about, like our approach to summits, it's easy to focus on like the benefits you're going to get. You're going to go through all this work so you can grow your email list and you can make all this money. But when you actually focus on the other people first, it always comes back to benefit you.

When you go in with, how am I going to grow my speakers? Email us. How am I going to make sure my speakers make money? How am I going to get them in front of these people? How am I going to change my attendee's lives or businesses? When you go in with that first, it always comes back and means bigger results for you as well.

Gresham Harkless 08:47

Yeah, that's so powerful. I wonder if that's like even like part of your secret sauce, the thing you feel sets you apart and makes you unique because I almost feel like a lot of times when you have people that are truly givers and they often will do things for other people prior to themselves. So I'm sure that it probably does help them to actually put the pedal to the metal for lack of a better term.

Krista Miller 09:07

Yes. Oh my gosh. So true. So true. Like, for example, it makes your speakers want to promote when you are like leading, when you're giving first, it makes them want to support you however they can.

Gresham Harkless 09:19

Yeah, absolutely. Like you said, it ends up coming back in so many different ways and I imagine to even having some of you and being able to help and coach people and help to support them, it probably also creates benefits that sometimes you don't always expect to see initially. Like I imagine your first time did for you.

Krista Miller 09:37

Oh my gosh, I feel like it still surprises me every time. That's also one of my favorite things about coaching people is they expect the summit to be like the big thing that they get and afterwards you're like, oh my gosh, like I wasn't expecting all this momentum. I wasn't expecting like these speakers to want to keep collaborating with me or this person that attended the summit to hire me for this thing.

It opens so many doors that no one ever expects. And I can be like, this is going to happen, but I think they just don't believe it until it actually starts happening. So yeah the good stuff just keeps coming.

Gresham Harkless 10:10

Yeah, I absolutely love that. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. This could be like an app, a book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Krista Miller 10:21

Yeah. So something I have been doing for the last couple of months, I have it sitting next to me for the people lucky enough to see the video, but I have this daily planning pad and the exact pad doesn't matter, but I am someone who always has lots of things on my to-do list more than I should have but I'm a planner. So everything I want to do ends up there. If I just sit down in the morning, which is what I was doing, I would sit down and I would look at my calendar and what I needed to do for the day.

I would just sit and look at it. Okay. I don't know what to do first. I'd pick something and I'd go do it and then I'd come back to this calendar and be like, okay, now what I'm going to do and go sort through those things. Now I have this daily planning pad actually get an actual pen out, which I know is wild in the digital age. But I brained on what all I need to do. So sometimes it's literally just copying the list from my computer to this pad, but it lets me run through in my mind what all could happen today and then underneath that, it asks for the top three action items.

So that forces me to narrow down, what are the three things I have to get done today to really feel like I accomplished something? Then there's a section where I can map out the day. For me, I have two little kids at home. So I have three distinct times of the day I work. I work before they wake up. I work in the morning while the babysitter is here and then I work during the nap time for the youngest. So then I take it and I sort those tasks that I identified I needed to work on into those three areas.

So I can sit down at each of my distinct sections or sessions of work and look at this and be like. Okay, this is what I'm working on during this session. I don't have to go revisit my task list. Every single time I sit down to work reorient myself with what was I working on? What am I supposed to be doing? All I do is glance down oh, okay. I'm getting on this call right now and go do it. Just makes me so much more effective and helps me make sure I'm getting the most important work done every day.

Gresham Harkless 12:08

I absolutely love that. So I want to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this is a little bit more word of wisdom or a piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell your favorite client or potentially if you were to hop into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

Krista Miller 12:22

Yeah. Oh my goodness. This is such a good question. I think I would encourage myself to often look at the things I'm doing that are actually, and I guess this just ties right into what we were just talking about the things I'm doing that are actually mattering, like with this, I'm speaking more in terms of the marketing stuff I'm doing, what I'm focusing on in my business. But I am someone who, when I see someone talk about a new strategy that they're using, I'm like, Ooh, that looks fun. Let's try that. I do the thing, but then I don't have, or in the past, didn't have a way to go review that and be like, okay, is this thing actually working? Instead I would just keep doing it because now it's a habit. It's on the to-do list. It's a repeating task. I'm going to keep doing it.

For me, that's how you get real overwhelmed is when you just keep adding all these new strategies and never stop to be like, what actually matters? What does it matter? So something I would tell myself and something I work with and this comes up a lot with what I do because hosting a summit is like a big project. A lot of people are like, I don't have time for that. I'm like, okay what are you doing? Let's look at what you're doing. Those things actually, do they matter? You're coming to me because you want to grow your audience, that means that the other things you're doing aren't growing your audience. So why are you doing them?

So setting aside time to revisit what you're doing, whether it is business or personal, that matters. What are things you want to get rid of just to make the time you're spending on whatever it is more worthwhile and helping you live the life you want to live and run the business you want to run.

Gresham Harkless 13:50

Nice. So I want to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote and quote CEOs on this.

So Krista, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Krista Miller 13:59

Yeah, I think being a CEO to me really focuses on how I'm running my business, not necessarily what I'm doing, what strategies I'm using, even like how much money I'm making, how much I'm checking off my task list, but like what kind of business I'm creating for myself and my employees and our clients and students and just making that the best it can be. I'm so thankful for the time I spent in the corporate job that I didn't love because that helped me know what I don't want to make. I know I want to stay away from those things.

My husband has had a job that wasn't so great recently and now he's in a great job. So it's for that, even it's so nice for me to be able to say, okay, that experience was terrible, this one's great. What's the difference? What do I want to create from that? So for me, being a CEO is creating a company that I can be proud to run that I would want to work in that people want to be a part of. Because it's run with integrity, strong values, and valuing people as people.

Gresham Harkless 15:00

Yeah, I absolutely love that. It sounds like having those experiences of less than ideal jobs and opportunities allows you to really, I think, love, care for what you have, but also want to recreate that for many people that you work with I imagine too.

Krista Miller 15:17

Yes. I love that. And even though I have been able to look at the not so great pieces and make good out of it, like hearing you actually call that out, like the hot and the cold makes it like even more worthwhile. So thanks for that.

Gresham Harkless 15:32

Yeah. Thank you for sharing that with us. For people that want to reach out to you and find more about you, I wanted to see if there's anything additional you want to mention to our listeners and readers. And of course, how best people can get ahold of you about all the awesome things you're working on.

Krista Miller 15:45

Yeah. So you guys can find me at summitinabox.co. We have over 200 podcast episodes about running summits. I'm over on Instagram way too much at summitinabox. Would love to hear from any of you who are listening to this.

We have all kinds of like freebies and resources and checklists and all the things you need to get started with the summit. So would love to connect with anybody.

Gresham Harkless 16:03

Yeah, absolutely. And to make that even easier, we're going to have the links and information on the show notes as well, too, so that everybody can follow up with you, subscribe to the podcast, all the awesome things that you're doing. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Krista Miller 16:14

Thank you so much for having me.

Outro 16:15

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast, powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community.

Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Subscribe and leave us a five-star rating. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast Jr. Thank you for listening.

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