SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders 720: How Wealthy People Put On a Conference
Jul 14, 2017
22:46
Steve Olsher. He's the chairman and founder of Liquor.com. He's a New York Times best-selling author of What Is Your WHAT?: Discover The One Amazing Thing You Were Born To Do. He's also hosted the number 1 radio show, Reinvention Radio, and is a national keynote speaker and creator of the New Media Summit.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? – The $100 Startup
- What CEO do you follow? – Giovanni Marsico
- Favorite online tool? — io
- How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7-8
- If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I wished I would have trusted myself more"
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 01:10 – Nathan introduces to the show
- 01:35 – Steve was in Episode 342
- 02:02 – Steve is still in the process of selling Liquor.com
- 02:14 – Liquor.com is on ad revenue but is moving into the monetization strategy in Q3 and Q4
- 02:20 – Monthly impression is currently $3M
- 02:32 – There's nothing in the bottom line revenue because it just goes back to the business
- 02:45 – Gross margin varies
- 03:51 – The company's valuation
- 04:07 – Average open rate
- 04:14 – Depending on the promotion, the click rate varies
- 04:41 – People are more interested with contests than new products
- 05:26 – Steve has been doing events
- 06:24 – Liquor.com was like a family business
- 07:04 – New Media Summit does live events for different types of viewers
- 08:00 – The idea is to connect with people who have high-visibility platforms
- 08:34 – New Media Summit is bringing in icons and influencers to events
- 09:06 – Most people are podcasters
- 09:25 – The people in New Media Summit are focused on understanding the value of teaching and sharing their knowledge
- 09:47 – New Media Summit takes care of the podcasters hotel accommodation and meals
- 09:57 – The event will accommodate only 150 people
- 10:17 – There will be an influencer and mastermind on the last day of the summit
- 10:49 – Attendees can pay in full which is $4997—the early bird price
- 11:10 – The marketing just started and they have sold 2 tickets for the early bird
- 11:17 – There are some who invested in Steve's products and services and paid a seat deposit to attend the summit
- 11:30 – Minimum price to attend is $1300 plus the seat deposit
- 12:28 – Part of Steve's revenue comes from buying stage time
- 12:44 – Steve can easily pay $10K for a highly-curated event with 100 people
- 13:19 – An event should have a revenue model or plan of action in order to recoup
- 14:44 – There are some events that people don't want to go back to because they are just pitch fests
- 14:49 – Steve doesn't speak at events where 1-10 people are selling
- 15:22 – Steve's call-to action during his speaking is to sign-up on an order form which has a lot of bonuses
- 16:34 – An event venue is quite expensive which can average to about $150K for a whole day event
- 17:00 – Steve is also making money from the events
- 17:28 – They've got everything covered before the event starts
- 17:38 – There will be services and products offered during the event
- 18:03 – Steve will also pitch to future speakers
- 19:35 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
- An event should be well-planned and have a revenue model where they can recoup expenses.
- The main challenges in having an event is ensuring people attend and to have speakers who will NOT just sell during the event.
- Ad open rates always vary depending on the promotion.
Resources Mentioned:
- The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
- Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
- Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you're doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
- Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
- Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
- Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
- Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives