How To Choreograph An Event For Maximum Profits - Dave Woodward - FHR #269

Dave Woodward discusses his recent experience at Dana Derricks Dream-100 Event. Having a great time, Dave carries forward the momentum of his experience by discussing the importance of event choreography being critical in executing a successful live event.

Tips And Tricks For Event Hosting:

• Always let your VIP members in first.
• Make sure to control the room and the stage presence.
• Using the proper equipment.
• Setting the tone and energy during introductions.
• Creating a sales table and taking donations.
• Having the proper supplies to give the guests.
• Create an agenda to follow.

Quotable Moment:

"The choreography that has to take place at an event is super critical for you. If you don't have a checklist, if you don't write things down, you just forget about it."

"You have to train the audience how to buy. You have to train sales."

"Choreograph the content based on the results that you're trying to get."

Other Tidbits:

Dave goes into great detail on setting the stage, energizing the room, team member construction and much more. He sets the bar and challenges you to get out of your comfort zone by hosting your own event and maximizing your profits at the same time!

Links: FunnelHackerRadio.com FunnelHackerRadio.com/freetrial FunnelHackerRadio.com/dreamcar

---Transcript---

Speaker 1:   00:00     Welcome to funnel hacker radio podcast, where we go behind the scenes and uncover the tactics and strategies top entrepreneurs are using to make more sales, dominate their markets, and how you can get those same results. Here is your host, Dave Woodward,

Speaker 2:   00:17     right everybody. I was recently at a dear friend of mine's event and want to kind of talk to you about vet choreography. So recently I was actually attending day the end of Derek's dream 100 con and if you don't know Dana, Dana is. There's not a guy who gives more of himself to everybody more than data. This is a guy who is a last funnel hacking live. He won our inner circle member of the year because he literally just gives and gives and gives and gives and gives to anyone and everybody I. he's also been known as the guy who's literally have had books that sell for 2000, 4,000, 2000 and $5,000 for a book. This is a guy who knows his stuff. He is totally on top of his game and one of our two comma club award winners, the nicest guy in the world you'll ever meet, also known as the goat farmer.

Speaker 2:   01:03     A dear friend of mine and a guy I just am so impressed with everything that he's doing and he's just always out there giving, giving, giving, giving. And so I had the opportunity of just flying out there with a wrestling with melanie to wrestle with speaking at his event. And it was fascinating for me to, to see how all of us have our own strengths and when you do something new, it's new and if you don't have instructions or guidelines, it's kind of like, oh shoot, what do I do next? And so what I want to do is kind of go through some things. Um, as I was watching an event unfold, uh, the pros, the cons, and almost kind of create a checklist for you guys. If you're ever going to do a live event, things you need to be aware of. So first of all, I've, I've literally been going to events for at least the last 15 years and prior to events even before that, uh, most of the time when I first started, that was basically going as an attendee.

Speaker 2:   01:57     Uh, recently since then I've done my own events. I've done obviously a ton of events from funnel hacking live and events for click funnels. And there is, it's always fascinating for me to, to see the different things that have to take place. And I want you to understand there's an, there really is a choreography. It's like a dance that takes place whenever you're going to host an event. Uh, I saw the same thing when we went out two years ago to grant cardone's event with Russell. There is a guy, again, he's been crushing it for years, but it was his very first event and granted they were able to put 22, 2100 people in any event and literally less than 60 days, which was off the charts. Unbelievable. But there's certain things to get the maximum profit out of the event that you need to do.

Speaker 2:   02:40     So when I was at grant's event that first time, uh, we were talking about, well, do you have sales support staff there? It's gonna help us as far take an order for him. She's like, oh no, no, no, what were you. All we need is just rustled when it gets up, just sent, we'll have a booth out in the lobby considering we're not to the booth and they can, you can just swipe cards there. And I'm like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, no, you cannot do it that way. There is a psychology that takes place. Any event. And they said, oh yeah, okay, then we'll, we'll get you support. No problem. Well I got there that first time and I was like, where's all the support? And they're like, well, we got like two people for you. I'm like, no, no, no, no. You've got an audience of 2100 people were expecting on selling 20 to 30 percent of his audience.

Speaker 2:   03:22     And they're like, what, what, what do you mean? How do I just totally baffled they're mind. Fortunately Alex and Layla for Mozu were there and a Adam t came up and had a couple of other people. We literally have had like six people who just manhandled this crazy, crazy event and we ended up doing, you know, I think $800,000 out of the event and just blew, blew away grants whole team. They're like, I've never seen this done in grant was like, okay, there's something to this, so my only reason telling you this is I want to make sure you understand I'm speaking from having been to a lot of events and seeing what works and what doesn't work and the choreography that has to take place at an event is super, super critical for you. So some of the main things, and again, a lot of stuff, you're gonna go, oh yeah, yeah, of course I'll do that, but if your don't have a checklist, if you don't write things down, you just forget about it.

Speaker 2:   04:16     And it was so fun being there with Dana because some things just kind of forgot. It was like, oh shoot, I forgot about that and I want to make sure you guys are aware of this as you're pulling stuff together. First of all, I'm always make sure that the doors are not just open and people can randomly come in. This needs to be an event. It has to be something where music is playing and it's gotTa. You have to control the energy of a room. The energy of a room is one of the most important things you'll ever have happened at a live event. So you've got to make sure that the doors are closed, that there's pent up demand that people are standing outside waiting to get in. And again, if you have VIP is you always want to let your vip stand first and gives them that first opportunity to feel like I'm special.

Speaker 2:   04:58     I'm, if, if you're going to be in a situation like with grants, he was selling different types of tickets, um, where there was a section for vip section for general admission is section four a platinum. Make sure that those are roped off. There's people guarding those seats. No one else gets them. So they, these people feel special and feel like this is their thing. I'll make sure that when the doors open, people are being greeted, that there's a ton of energy, high fives, things are going on, and that the music is very, very high intensity music. Um, it, and it needs to be loud enough to make sure you get people's attention. You don't want to have just something subtle plan in the background when people are talking. You want to basically control the room. And so as people come in, that's going to be one of the very first things.

Speaker 2:   05:44     You want to make sure that happens. The other thing is you've got to make sure that the stage presence is, is real and legit and is somewhat uninspiring. Um, again, I please understand what I'm talking about, Dana. I'm not picking on. He's a dear friend and we had a ton of fun just working with them to make some tweaks out. One of the things you have to understand is if you're going to host an event and you're expecting to sell at the event and make money at the event, it's got to look right, and one of the things that really truly matters is the stage itself and the lights and the projector. You've got to make sure that you have a very, very high lumen projector and a these days. If you're playing video, ideally it's an hd projector. You got to make sure that when you're taking a look at this kind of stuff, that the screen connect screens are really weird as far as sometimes you can have a projector and even though the projector is really good that the screen is, is gray and it doesn't reflect well enough, it basically absorbs the color.

Speaker 2:   06:43     And so you want to make sure that, that you've got a very high intense ca projector and the screen will receive the light that's being projected on it and that doesn't dim it. Uh, with that said, the other things you want to make sure is, as far as microphones, there's nothing more frustrating for people if they can't hear what the person's saying. So you've got to make sure that the mix, you'll always bring literally a ton of extra batteries. These microphone batteries, they just get consumed like crazy. I don't know what it is. They'd go dead. It's so make sure you've got extra mix and they have extra batteries. Uh, make sure that you always want to have like Lisa Lav mic, if not a headset mic where the person who's speaking doesn't have to actually hand hold the mic. Also, make sure that the introductions of these people, the introduction for ever speaking on your stage is massively critical.

Speaker 2:   07:34     It's got to be an introduction where the person comes out with massive credibility. You do not want the person having to all of a sudden start to spend the first two, three, four, five minutes of their time trying to energize the room and trying to get the energy level up. Because realize, as people are listening, they're gonna. Everyone vibrates at a different level and the energy that you bring on an introduction, we'll set the tone for how people actually respond to that. Um, another thing as you're taking a look at a, if you're going to have a q and a, there's a couple different ways of doing q and a's. I've seen it done both ways. Uh, Mike runners is one way. The other way is actually just having a in like two of the aisle in each one. One of the aisles just having a mic stand and have a mic stand there specifically just for the q and a.

Speaker 2:   08:21     So what it does is it allows you as the, as either as the speaker or as the host to know how many questions people actually have. And then you can cut people off as well. So know what, we're only taking two more questions that way. More people don't get behind the line, otherwise you've got these random got random people always getting up or people trying to run back and forth or you're throwing boxes. Uh, you know, Mike Boxes. So you want to make sure that you're controlling that room on the very first day. One of the things we've found that works extremely well is you have to train the audience how to buy and when you're trading an audience how to buy some of the things that matter. You got to know, you've got to let them know where to actually go to buy and we typically will always have to believe in the back of the right of the room or in the center of the room is the actual table where we are.

Speaker 2:   09:08     That is where sales take place. You have to train sales and on the very first day I always recommend you have have some sort of charity type of donation where it, first of all, it helps people, makes them feel good about contributing to something else. It also trains them on where to go to actually submit their order forms and I know people are. I go back and forth, people will all the time said, Gosh, you know what? You guys are a technology company. You guys should just have order forms. They just go online and do the order form online or create an APP and do it that way. In fact, it grant kronos last event down in Mandalay Bay, everyone, they had all the speakers, they want all the speakers do it on an app and I'm like, no way, no way. I won't do an APP I want.

Speaker 2:   09:50     I want people to see other people coming and creating this whole stage rush or the back of the room rush where there's social proof from that you don't see on an APP. You don't see social proof. There's no urgency, there's no scarcity. You'll always think, I will do it later, so I highly recommend that you always spend the time to make sure that you have order forms printed. You want to make sure that the what they're buying is clear on the order form and that the credit card and the information is there as well. If you're putting in phone numbers in a or even on email addresses, I highly recommend even put the little boxes in so it slows people down. Otherwise they write real fast and you can't see it. So the boxes I've seen it actually slowed people down to get him more, to print a little bit more legible.

Speaker 2:   10:34     Uh, the other thing is please pay attention to when people are coming in. You want to make sure that you have a notebook and pens available for people. Don't assume that people are going to come to an event with a notebook and a pen. Uh, we actually, when we did a grant cardone's Tedx event, we actually stuffed pens into every single seat pockets. Again, we're, I'll talk more about that event later, but just realize you've got to make sure that people have a pen because you want them filling things out, especially order forms. So make sure that you always give them a pen and with that, give him a notebook. A lot of people always ask me about, well, what about the agenda? And we have an agenda all the time. I'm a huge believer if you're going to have an agenda, it's basically it starts today at 8:00 and it ends at 5:00 and that's how they need to know when to get in and when to get out.

Speaker 2:   11:23     A last thing I want is people picking and choosing which speakers they're going to listen to and then going out and doing their own business. I want them to know that, hey, I you dedicated time, you took time away from your business to come to our event. I want you to hear at the event it's, we spent a ton of time making sure that people have, are getting a lot of value out of it, but I want to make sure that they're, they're getting that kind of stuff. Another thing is understand that, um, when you're, when you're looking at at lunchtime, seen people go a couple different ways on this and sometimes people are like, you know what, we're just going to go right through lunch and people can take their own breaks or you don't. We've got 2000 people in a room and we're getting them a half hour for lunch.

Speaker 2:   12:04     Those things, they just don't work. So you need to really, you've got to look at your outline, your and your. And again, this is choreography. You've got to know what does the hotel actually have available. If you were to send 100 people down to the restaurant, can they take care of that? Could they take your $500? Do you need to actually have brown bags brought in for them? Or if you're going to send people out, what are the restaurants nearby and how long is it going to take them to go to the restaurants and come back? Uh, it was kind of fun. Funny Dana. It was like, oh shoot, I totally forgot about lunch and the rest are really. Didn't have half as much to kind of take care of him. So he just told everybody, you know what, why don't you guys all at this time just order uber eats and they can bring their lunch to you.

Speaker 2:   12:43     Which again, I love Dana because he's so quick on his feet. He's like, Oh crap, I forgot that. Well, this is how we're gonna. Take care of it, but be aware of those types of things. The other thing is understand when it comes to selling these days, people don't like to go to events to be pitched the whole time and so you really need to identify who are you going to be, your key speakers who are going to sell and then who are your speakers are gonna, provide massive content and you want to make sure that you choreograph the content based on the results that you're trying to get and usually if you're having a vet, you're going to sell something as well, so if you're selling something, you want to make sure that the other speakers are are basically amplifying your message as far as the need of what it is that you're going to be presenting or what you're gonna be selling.

Speaker 2:   13:26     I'm one of the things that I find is super critical and especially when you're first getting going, you don't spend that much time and that is the amount of of team members that you need adding me that. So you're always going to need to have. I'm. I don't care if you. If your event is a hundred people or more, you need typically at least three, if not four team members there to support you. You need one team member who literally supports you the entire event, their jobs doing nothing else, but to make sure that you are stress free and everything is going perfect, and so it literally is your assistant, your assistant at the event where they have no other responsibilities to do whatever it is that you ask them to do. Whenever it is that you ask them to do it. Some things you wanna make sure is that you've got water for your speakers up on stage.

Speaker 2:   14:11     You want to make sure that you're super hydrated yourself. These events are exhausting and you've got to make sure that you have everything that you need. Um, the other team members are going to be team members who are going to be there basically welcoming people when they first come in and there'll be team members who were there to support the sales process, uh, taking order forms. There'll be there to, for questions. They're there to run the mix. If you're running mics, you typically, again, I can't stress the importance if you're going to put on event, you're going to spend a lot of money because you want to generate a lot of money out of this and so be aware of those kinds of things. Some of the other things is you want to make sure that your order form is super, super. People know exactly what they're going to get, how they're going to get it, how it's going to be delivered, and if they have any questions about who they can reach out to.

Speaker 2:   14:59     I'm trying to think as far as anything else here I've got, uh, some of the main things I really, I can't stress enough is, is the technology and equipment that you have there, the music, the sound, the lights, the screens, all that stuff is highly, highly critical. Especially even far as backlights. You want to make sure that you've got back lighting and that the other things are for a speaker, they want to have a confidence monitor. A confidence monitor basically tells them because they've got monitored, they're projecting up onto a screen, whatever their slides are, they need a confidence monitor in front that tells them how, what is their slide there on and what's the next slide. I've seen a lot of confidence monitors where it's just a slide line there and even though they know their presentation, they. It's stressful when you're up in front of people, you're like, oh crap, I forgot what's the next slide, so make sure you have both on a confidence monitor at the bottom where it's just for the speaker to see what their current slide is and what's.

Speaker 2:   15:53     What's the next one going to be? In addition to that, you want to make sure you have a countdown timer there that people see the speaker sees no one else does and is counting that down because you want to stay on schedule. There's nothing more frustrating than getting way behind because what happens is the only person that's gonna hurt most is going to be you. So anyways, those are a couple of different things. Again, Dan did such an awesome job. I was so proud of him. The thing I love about Dana is he was out there just crushing it and, and just did it all without even worrying about anything else, but just making it happen. So take action. Put together an event. It's I highly recommend you will find out more about yourself putting together your own live event than you ever imagined. So I have an amazing day.

Speaker 2:   16:34     Again, thanks so much for listening. If you don't mind, I would love any comments you have. If you're liking this content, feel free to send me a facebook message, pm me, or send me an email [inaudible] dot clickfunnels.com, or obviously I'd love the comments or go on to itunes and rate and review this. I really, I'm trying to find out if this is the type of content and the value that you would like to receive. We're coming up on 250, 300 episodes now and I want to make sure this is the format that's really working for, for you guys who are spending the time who were dedicated to listening to this. So please, I appreciate the feedback. I literally, when I read every comment, I read every email and I just want to know, so thanks again and have an amazing day. We'll talk soon.