S. 2 Ep. 34 – What It Truly Takes to Put On Your Own Events

Taylorr: Welcome to another episode of Technically Speaking, we’re your host, Taylorr and Austin, and today we’ve brought in event-producing expert, Shay Wheat. Shay specializes in helping people put in, in-person and virtual events from 200 to 4,000 plus attendees. She’s collaborated with celebrities, such as Dr. Oz, Lisa Nichols, Josh Turner, and many more. Shay helps speak to sell clients be extremely profitable with their events and her company, Grace and Ease has helped its clients make over 25 million in revenue, gain over 3,500 new clients, and have helped change the lives of tens of thousands of attendees. 

Their team handles all of the planning, speaker, and sponsor support, as well as the production of the entire event. Least to say, Shay is a true expert in her craft, and this week she’s sharing with us what it takes to put on your own events and how to know if you’re ready for one. So, without further ado, let’s get into it. As always stick around until the end for some awesome resources and we hope you enjoy this one. We made it. We are live. Austin, you good over there? What’s up?

Austin: I’m good. Just adjusting the headphones and stuff.

Taylorr: Adjusting. Yeah, for sure.

Austin: Yeah. Recording is like there are a million moving parts. There are lights and cameras and audio.

Taylorr: And action.

Austin: And yeah. Yes, thank you. But anyway.

Taylorr: Really excited for today’s episode. Shay, welcome to Technically Speaking, it’s great to have you here.

Shay: Thank you. Thank you. I’m super stoked to be here with you both.

Austin: Ah, I love that excitement. If I could just take 10% of that, that’d be great. I have to drink 11 cups of coffee to get to that level.

Taylorr: See this is relative to my face.

Shay: How about that.

Taylorr: Unhealthy.

Austin: This is going to be such cool a episode. I know our listeners are always loving the sort of behind-the-scenes look and because so many of our listeners are primarily professional speakers, they work with people like you all the time. But I don’t understand you really, at either a logistical level or an emotional level, so we’re really happy to have you and your perspective here today to share both of those things with us.

Shay: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it’s an interesting world that we live in for sure and hopefully, I can give you a little bit of insight into what my world looks like and then in return, what you should not know about my world.

Taylorr: There you go.

Shay: Because you can stay in your genius zone, not coming into my space.

Taylorr: Yeah, that’s right.

Austin: Half of our audience just breathed a sigh of relief having heard you say that.

Taylorr: Yeah, that’s right. Just like, oh, listen today. That’s right. So, we like to do some research, Shay, ahead of our shows just to kind of get a lay of the land and see if there’s anything fun and exciting. And one of the things that stood out is your brand, Grace, and Ease. So, where did that come from? How’d you land on that? What does it mean? And why?

Shay: Yeah. So, back in the day, when I’m trying to figure everything out, you try and think about what is the business and who is it, and what is it becoming? And I just started with Shay Wheat International because I wanted to be an international business and that was as creative as I got, right.

Taylorr: Nice.

Shay: I was like, just start, just start and it’ll show up. And so, just a little background on me, I’m also a Reiki master.

Taylorr: Whoa.

Shay: Which is, yeah, an energetic healer. And with that, I would say part of my special sauce or that sets me apart is really grounding. So, I can ground the client, I can ground the energy in the room, I can ground anything that’s popping up. So, whether or not I’m working with somebody that is working with B2Bs and Brick & Mortar and LinkedIn, or working with somebody that is doing high, emotional support, energetic, woo, woo things. I can do the gamut and make it feel like it’s a container that’s nice and safe that people can come into. And so, that’s kind of how Grace and Ease came about is we know events can be crazy, they can be chaotic, but we really look at doing it with as much grace and ease as possible.

Taylorr: Nice.

Austin: Man. Yeah. That benefits everybody too, obviously, the person who’s on the stage can communicate what they need to communicate in an environment that allows them to do so and the audience can receive it the way that they expect to without the chaos in the background. I feel that here and I understand that here, so good combo.

Shay: Thank you. Yeah, I kind of liked it.

Austin: Totally.

Taylorr: Nice. So, how did you find yourself in the world of event production? Were you five and said I want to put on events or did you kind of stumble into it?

Shay: Yeah. I think I kind of stumbled into it. So, I was a speaker, I was a Reiki master, I was in network marketing, I was finding myself. So, I was doing a speaking gig at the beginning of the year. It was the new year, new you, and so I’m like, perfect, I’m going to talk about appreciation marketing and loving on people and sending out to give, all of this. So, being a multi-speaker event, multiple speakers. So, we kind of switch off the microphones. And so, I was joking with the guy ahead of me. I’m like, Hey dude, don’t go spitting on my mic. He’s like, you’re funny, who the heck are you? And come to find out, he was the head of education for Dr. Oz’s nonprofit.

Austin: Oh wow.

Taylorr: Cool.

Shay: I was like, oh, that’s cool. I actually met his sister, Seval at Maria Shriver’s women’s conference when she was the first lady of California, because I live in California. And he’s like, you’re kidding. She’s best friends with our CEO and we’re doing a women’s conference, you should help us. It was like.

Austin: Wow, that’s serendipitous.

Shay: Okay.

Taylorr: Sure, you can’t say no to that offer.

Shay: Right. And so, that’s how I became an associate producer. My very first event, I was in charge of over a hundred volunteers and over 70 speakers.

Austin: Your first event.

Taylorr: Wow.

Shay: The first event. Yeah.

Taylorr: Thrown into the flames

Austin: Seriously.

Shay: Yeah. Learning the ropes, right? Associate producer, not full-on, but, yeah, it was like, okay, this is really kind of cool. I love events, I love everything about events, I’ve always gone to events. Why not go and get paid to be at events? Okay, let’s check it out some more.

Austin: Yeah, man, what a good combo. Holy cow. It’s kind of interesting to me too, because you started on one side of the fence if you will. And maybe this isn’t a proper assumption on my part, but when I think about putting on an event, I just think logistics, the number of moving parts required to tie all those things together. But that headspace is very different from the headspace I tend to encounter when we’re talking to the creative visionary types that speakers tend to be. So, you’re blending two personalities together it seems to bridge that gap, which is pretty cool.

Shay: Yeah. Yeah. So, I understand that I work with a lot of visionaries, a lot of creatives, a lot of speakers, coaches, experts, thought leaders. And they have to be in that space, because you’re attracting your tribe, you’re attracting your community and your audience, you’re downloading things, you have the goods. And you need to stay in that space. You should not be thinking about logistics and is lunch showing up and is the next speaker ready and do they have the offer ready to drop on the tables? Or are they going to play that video on time or whatever? 

It’s a totally different, as you said, headspace, and I’m able to kind of bridge that gap and speak both languages to tell the team what they’re supposed to do as well as support you as the visionary of what you need to know, so you can do what you do best. Show up, shine on stage.

Austin: Wow. And valuable.

Taylorr: Yeah, for sure. Well, I can imagine that being, yeah, as I was going to say, so valuable, especially I know so many of our clients and our listeners, not only do they love speaking, but naturally because you’re speaking at other events, the thought often pops in your head, man, I’d love to put on my own event. And event size ranges, some want to do hundreds of people, some want to do retreats or masterminds or something, but something I think many people desire to have as a part of their business. And then all of a sudden, they find themselves putting a date on the calendar and then now they’re kind of like, oh, man, this is how putting on an event is. 

Now, we have to actually do the thing, the dreaming was great, but now they actually have to put it together, which I can imagine is pretty intimidating once you get into the weeds, if you haven’t done that before.

Shay: There are a lot of moving parts. When we’re doing some of our events and we’re planning things leading into it, we’re putting in a good hundred, some odd hours pre-event just in the planning.

Taylorr: Whoa.

Shay: Right.

Taylorr: Yeah.

Shay: And then if we’re hosting one of our three-day sales and enrollment events, then you’re looking at another 12 to 15-hour days. And it’s not just the three days, it’s at least the day before, if you’re in person, you’re setting up or if you’re virtual, you’re doing your tech check, you’re just collaborating and making sure all the stuff comes together so that you can show up and shine.

Austin: My engineer brain is just like, how in the hell do you organize yourselves to achieve that? Which is just amazing to me, but…

Shay: I love my spreadsheet.

Austin: I have a question. Whoo, man, I love spreadsheets too. What the heck would we do without our spreadsheets? I want to talk to you about your spreadsheets, but I also want to contextualize this a little bit because there’s a million, okay, that’s an exaggeration. I think before the show you were telling us you identified what, 17 different types of events out there.

Shay: Right.

Austin: So, to understand your perspective a little bit better, can you help us understand the types of events you’re typically involving yourself in?

Shay: Yeah. Exactly. So, 17 plus, I think there are probably more than 17, but I’ve just looked at about 17 of them. So, it can be a 90-minute workshop, it can be a summit, it can be a retreat, a mastermind, a one-day sales and enrollment event, a three-day sales and enrollment event. There are seminars, podcasts. So, this is an event right now, right? You had to do your tech check, you had to find your speakers, you had to look through the topic, this is an event. You have meetups, Facebook lives and Instagram lives, people may not think that those are events, but they are. The same thing goes for your Clubhouse rooms, conferences, most people know about those, challenges, hackathons, conventions, trade shows. 

That’s just a sampling of the different types of events that you can be utilizing in your business. However, you should not be doing some of those events depending on the phase of business that you’re in. So, that’s the distinction, is to take a look at only using the events based on where you’re at in business and what your intention is with that event.

Taylorr: Fascinating.

Austin: I have questions around those phases.

Shay: Okay.

Austin: Let’s go before the phases. If somebody’s listening to this and from your perspective, they are just not ready to even consider events, period. What is that threshold?

Shay: Yeah. So, you want to do events because you love events, right? But your business has to be able to support the event, because they’re not cheap. I have clients that have budgets that are 75K, 150K for one event and that’s, it’s a good, decent-sized budget, but they’re also looking to make 2 million on the backend, so it fits. But if you’re somebody starting out and you’re like, how do I fit this into my scope of work for the life of my business, you need to first bring in the income. 

You need to make sure that you actually have something that is valid, that validates your offer, that you have people that are actually buying it, you have proof of concept, and you can get 8 to 10 full paying clients. So, once you do that, then you get them crazy, awesome results, and you rinse and repeat. Your main objective in phase one, as a validation phase, is to get people and get them crazy, awesome results. That’s it. From there, then you move into phase two, which is your visibility phase, but you want to make sure that what you have is actually what the audience that you’re speaking to wants. That’s the most important thing.

Taylorr: Right.

Shay: No events.

Austin: There’s a gap there.

Shay: In phase one. No events. You are just finding the people, loving on your people, getting them crazy, awesome results. That’s it.

Taylorr: Nice. Well, that’s going to make finding the people for your event a little easier.

Shay: Right. Yes.

Taylorr: A lot of folks.

Shay: With all layers on itself.

Taylorr: Yeah. Right. And honestly, I think sometimes there’s a build it and they will come kind of mentality, we were talking about this a little bit before the show, you know? And so, you kind of have to know who you need to target to be able to put into the event in the first place and how you can provide value before even putting on an event, let’s say, so super, super helpful. The threshold, just having a black and white line of knowing when, okay, now is the time to consider an event is pretty helpful. So, there’s been a thought that’s been kind of in the back of my mind and I think this is kind of the behind-the-scenes kind of question that I kind of want to pull out of you. 

I think many of our clients, say our clients or listeners, so many are just used to kind of being on stage, they’re a part of an event that’s already kind of being produced, they get to show up, get on stage and speak, they’re also considering their own events. But I think few really kind of understand, you kind of alluded to this with a hundred hours of pre-planning or of planning, I guess, before the event, pre-event; that goes into this, but what are some of the things that are involved in planning an event? Because I think sometimes people can anticipate like, oh, it’s just a stage and pretty lighting, so obviously, it’s more than that. 

So obviously, this is a loaded question, but unpack for us, what are just some of the things that you go through when producing an event?

Shay: Yeah. So, I’m actually going to grab one of my call schedules here.

Taylorr: Cool.

Shay: So for, let’s say, a virtual event, we have about 17 different calls that we do with our clients. For a virtual event. Okay.

Taylorr: For a virtual.

Austin: Whoa.

Shay: Yes. Right. Okay. So, everybody deep breath, this is just going to be high-level. Okay. Remember, you don’t have to do all of this; there are people like me out there that can help and support you. But the first call is essentially our kickoff call. It’s the vision, right? What is the, why? What are you wanting to do? Is this a revenue-generating event? Is it a lead magnet event? What are we doing? We’re going to then start taking a look at what I call a ticket map, is all the ways that we plan on filling the room. Okay. 

We’re going to take a look at your organization. Who’s on your team? Who’s going to be supporting during the event? Do we need to bring in extra people? Do we need to find AV teams? Do we need to find sponsorship support? Who are the players in the game? And then you want to take a look at once they join, do you have a funnel system, an email system that’s going to be staying in touch with them on the backend, right? So, it’s just a general overview vision, what are we working with here? Then we move into your marketing strategy and swag, for call number two. 

We’re going to move into three, is your enrollment strategy, because every single event should have a CTA. Whether your CTA is going to be, get my lead magnet, buy my ticket to an event, buy my program, put something in chat, how much you love this, whatever, it has some type of CTA. Okay. The fourth one is your budget. Because that’s important to look at, even though you may not want to look at the numbers, I want to look at the numbers to make sure we’re all on the same page and we just don’t believe it’s going to be like, oh, it’s just going to happen. Everything will work out.

It’s like, no, no, let’s look at the numbers. Then we’re going to do our AV and our tech requirement call. What’s entailed with it. Then we’re going to do our simple run a show. And your run a show is your agenda. What is happening in the event? And how are we setting it up for success? In your run a show, there’s an arc. It’s kind of like a movie, there’s this flow that you end up taking the audience on and it’s very experiential. I don’t want to do an event where it’s just you talking at the camera. That’s not fun and people will leave. Especially after the past few years. 

We’ve experienced people that are yearning for the thing that it is that you are offering. But if you’re boring and not engaging and keeping them with you, they’re going to piece out. So, then we’re going to take a look at your print and product design. If it’s in person or if it’s virtual, are they getting virtual backgrounds? What do we have to design? Then we’re going to look at your detailed run a show. So, this is where we get nitty-gritty, to the point where I have it in my spreadsheets. And I do this part. You tell me what it looks like, and I do it. But it’s minute by minute, we open up the doors, we’re playing this slideshow, we’re playing this video, you come on stage, this is your walk-up song, nitty-gritty. 

Okay. Yeah. So, then we move into AV run a show. So, they have all of the assets in order to play it for you. Okay. Dream team is volunteers or team members, who is doing what so they’re on the same page and can support you. And the event itself. Then we do our dry run. We actually push all the buttons and play all the things and do it as a rehearsal. Then we do the actual event and then we do a recap, so we’re looking at what worked, what didn’t, how do we make it better? We go back and do another call wrapping up the budget, wrapping up the sales, and just kind of putting a bow on it, so then when we look at the next event, we’re already prepped and ready. So, that’s high level.

Taylorr: High level.

Austin: Wow. So, what’s the timeframe here? How long does it take you to get through that?

Shay: Yeah. I like to have three months if I’m doing a three-day sales and enrollment event. That just gives you time to fill the room. It also gives you time to get the swag, because swag, if you’re mailing it or you’re having it come to your location, it just gives you time to do that and source it and print it and all that fun stuff. I have done virtual events in a month, but it’s that condensed.

Taylorr: Wow.

Shay: So, it’s like, we’re moving and shaking. I tend to do that more with my repeat clients because we already have a lot of these things in place and their team’s already been working and prepping on it. But, yeah, I like to have a little bit of space.

Austin: Gosh. Man.

Taylorr: Oh my goodness.

Austin: I’m so not jealous of your job.

Taylorr: Yeah, for real. That’s the thing I’m realizing. I’m like, thank God there are people like you, and now I know who to call, geez.

Shay: Let me take that off of your plate. So, you just fill the room and show up in your genius and give us the vision, and then we can run with it.

Taylorr: Wow.

Austin: Yeah. So, valuable. Holy crap. It’s so funny, because I’m sure you can get on these shows and just give away your process, because it’s not like anybody that’s listening to this is excited about trying to replicate that. Oh my gosh. Yeah. You’re amazing. So, do you do this solo, or do you have a team of consultants? How does your business work, I’m just curious?

Shay: Yeah. I started out solo, for sure. And completely referral-based, right?

Taylorr: Yeah.

Shay: So, I went from that Dr. Oz show, did a couple of events with them, and was like, oh, I’m kind of good at this; I should probably formalize it a little bit and figure out what my niche is and who I can support. Found an event, found a sales and enrollment event that I went to and I was like, okay, yep, they can help me figure out my niche, figure out how to use speaking, all of these things. And then they turned around and said, so can you help us run our events?

Taylorr: That’s when you know you’re onto something.

Austin: Yeah.

Shay: I was like, yes, I can. And completely referral-based, they sent me to all of their friends and from there I was like, fudge, I need more of me.

Taylorr: Yeah.

Austin: Yeah. Right.

Shay: So, I started a certification program to become a certified event producer, literally took everything in my brain, my entire business in a box, and brain dumped it into a program. And since then, had people go through my program and then actually stay with me because they don’t want to do the sales and the marketing and finding the clients.

Taylorr: Yeah, of course.

Shay: They just want to run the events, and so I’m like, well that’s fine, you’ve been through my process, you know exactly what we’re supposed to be doing. So, just last weekend I had two events happening, one on each coast of the United States.

Taylorr: Wow.

Shay: Really cool. One in Tahoe and one was in North Carolina, of my team running it. And I was just on my phone watching behind the scenes, making sure everything was happening the way it was supposed to and if they needed me, but they didn’t, it was really, really fun.

Taylorr: Wow.

Austin: Wow, that’s amazing. Congratulations.

Shay: Thank you.

Taylorr: Delegate and elevate.

Austin: Yep. Delegate and elevate for sure.

Taylorr: So, can I ask maybe an ignorant question? I am not very familiar with events language and so on, I feel familiar with the events in the sense of speakers and stuff, but sales and enrollment. My understanding of that language is that it’s an event geared to make more sales and roll more people into your program, am I gathering that right? Is that the definition?

Shay: Yeah.

Taylorr: Okay.

Shay: Absolutely.

Taylorr: Okay, sweet.

Shay: So, it’s a way to scale your business. So, when you get to the phase where it’s like, okay, I’m getting to a point where I really can’t keep doing one-on-one sales calls, discovery sessions, whatever you want to call it, then you’re looking to scale it. So, we’re going to do an event, which is a one-to-many. And so, this is where my clients are filling their year-long program in three days. So, that’s exactly what it is that we’re doing.

Taylorr: Well, that’s a hard value proposition to argue with.

Austin: Yeah, right.

Taylorr: Okay. So, I want to tie back to the five phases now, because we talked about phase one, I think earlier in the show, kind of like, you’re not really ready to start running events until you don’t really have a proof of concept, you have to validate the thing first. Was that the first phase, is validate, was that the right word for that?

Shay: Yeah, absolutely. It’s all good.

Taylorr: Okay, great. Okay. Awesome. So, phase two then, and then through five basically. Could you help us understand those and the varying degrees of events within each phase?

Shay: Absolutely. So, phase two is the visibility phase, right? So, now we have proof of concept, we want to make sure that we start getting visible. So, you’re starting to do a little bit of leveraging where your primary goal is to get visible. So, you’re going to use the free platforms, because you’re still trying to make money. So, they’re your Facebook lives, your Clubhouse rooms, your Instagrams, you’re going to want to start looking at being a guest on other people’s stages. So, you’re going to do your webinars, your podcasts, other people’s summits. And then you’re also going to want to start taking a look at being a sponsor for events. 

So, this can be somebody else’s sales and enrollment event or something along those lines where they’re gathering the people and you’re essentially paying to play. So, you want to look for the platforms where maybe you are right before their audience needs the person that’s putting them on the event or right after the audience needs what’s happening, they need you. And that way you’re not competing with the person putting on the event, but you’re supporting the audience all the same. So, for instance, if I was putting on an event, I would look for sponsors like AV companies, because they don’t do what I do, but they support my audience where they’re at. 

So, you want to look for that kind of joint venture type of partnership. And so, you do these kinds of things in phase two, in order to then move to phase three, which is the grow phase. In order to move to the grow phase, you need to be making a consistent income of about $5,000 a month. So, in grow, we’re going to do essentially the same thing, but just bigger. Bigger speaking opportunities, bigger sponsorships, this is also where you’re going to start creating your own stages, creating your own master classes, your own webinars, your own summits. 

And you want to do that in order to move into phase four, which is scale, and then phase five, which is leverage. So, you want to start reaching that $10,000 a month consistently in order to move into the next two phases.

Taylorr: Interesting. So, I have a question for you? Obviously, that’s the whole point of a podcast, Taylor, so moving on. Okay. So, you give us these income thresholds, and I’m going to put this in the context of maybe where a lot of our listeners are at, so they’re individual speakers and I think a lot of folks, they have kind of two maybe markets that they might be serving. They’ll sell their keynotes or their talks to B2B and then they kind of have this B2C segment as well. 

So, courses, books, maybe their own coaching program, for example, are we talking about income from that component of their B2C portion of their business and that’s the thing? Because it can be pretty easy for somebody to say, oh, I’m making $10,000 a month, so am I automatically at phase four? Where’s that?

Shay: Yes, and.

Taylorr: Do you know what I’m saying?

Shay: Yeah.

Taylorr: Okay.

Shay: Yeah. I think it’s a yes, and. So, if you have your programs, you have your books, you have your courses, or what have you. And that’s what you’re looking to grow, you still need to make sure you have proof of concept; you still need to make sure that people are actually going to want to show up; you still need to get the visibility from that, versus just the keynote.

Taylorr: Right.

Shay: The keynote money will help you, because what you do need, as well as you’re moving through the phases, you need to start bringing on team. Because you can’t be a solopreneur growing and scaling this side of the business without a team. You need somebody that’s going to be maybe a program manager or customer service or helping you with your CRM or behind-the-scenes stuff, things that are not the best use of your time. So, that way you can talk to more people and have more sales conversations, and book more speaking gigs. Taking those things off your plate so that money will help support bringing the team in faster, so you can progress through the phases faster.

Austin: Okay. I’m with you there. So, is there ever a world where the event that you’re putting on is serving B2B ventures? Do you ever see that happen, where it’s not necessarily trying to sell books or courses, but they are trying to sell keynotes to other associations for example? I’m just trying to paint the picture for both sides of the spectrum.

Shay: I guess if your business was a speaker agency, you could showcase all of your speakers and those people would come in going, oh, yeah, I like that one. I want that one to come and speak and I want that one to come and speak and this one later on in the year, I could see that happening.

Taylorr: Yeah. That makes sense.

Austin: That’s a cool idea.

Austin: Okay. And then a follow-on question to what you were saying.

Shay: Feel free to take that one, guys.

Taylorr: Yeah, Sure. Great. Thanks.

Austin: You mentioned that it’s really important to have a team behind you, which makes complete and total sense. Have you ever seen anybody do it without a team?

Shay: Yes.

Taylorr: Oh, that was a sigh.

Austin: Yeah.

Taylorr: Did you hear that? I felt some emotion behind that one. Tell us that story.

Shay: It’s a little more straining, but it can happen. It depends on the size of the event and how many people we’re looking to serve and if it’s something that I can bring in with my team to handle things, what I don’t handle is your emails behind the scenes. But I can take over your slides, I can take over creating dashboards, I can take over sponsorship packets. I can take those things on as an add-on, that if you don’t have it, we can make it happen. I can help bring in volunteers if you, or help you set up volunteers within your own community. 

So, a lot of my clients, especially if they’re doing speakers or they’re supporting business owners, they want to see the behind-the-scenes of how events are run because they want to do it themselves down the road. They’re all for going, yeah; I’ll volunteer for your event, because I want to see how you do it. And so, they’ll be on the team, they’ll support, they’ll get to be a part of it and go, okay, I get it. It’s worth trading my time in order to gain that knowledge, right?

Austin: Yeah.

Taylorr: Yeah.

Shay: So, that’s another way that we can bring in support that you might not have to necessarily pay for. Or if you don’t have a large enough team.

Taylorr: Nice.

Austin: Yeah.

Taylorr: So, is there a certain scale of event that you would recommend? So, let’s say, Austin and I, we have these conversations with our listeners all the time. I don’t want a team, I want to be a solopreneur, but they still have this desire to put on events, so what scale of event would you recommend for a solopreneur and what scale of event would you not recommend for a solopreneur?

Shay: Well, as a solopreneur having any 1099s, they might not have employees, but are they having 1099 people?

Austin: Maybe? Let’s say no, let’s say for the sake of this thought experiment.

Taylorr: Let’s say no for the sake of example. Yeah.

Shay: Okay. So, they are somebody that, what do they sell, a six-month program, a year?

Taylorr: Probably, primarily. Yeah, they probably have keynotes, they could do coaching, let’s say. Yeah.

Shay: Okay. Keynotes, absolutely, you can do without a team, you have to do all the research and find the keynotes and do the legwork for it, but you could do that without a team. If you were selling a program, you can do that with no team, you could still be making six figures and not have a team.

Taylorr: So, probably masterminds and retreats and things, those smaller-scale events probably rather than finding a place and trying to fill a giant. Yeah.

Shay: Yeah. It would be those smaller ones. It would be war room kind of things, where you’re just around a table and you have maybe 10 people and you’re kind of doing hot seats with everybody around the table. I still would suggest you have at least one person there that can check people in and make sure that there’s water and help make sure that food’s showing up, but you just have to hire them for a day.

Taylorr: Yeah. Because those are the things, I don’t think a lot of people think of when they’re thinking I’m going to fill a room with 10 people, then they have all these other logistics that have to be accounted for aside from the actual delivery, so just that alone was really helpful. Man, Austin, I got an education today, what about you?

Austin: Yeah. That’s great, for sure. I don’t even think I had a box for this before this episode, so thank you. Yeah. I feel way more clear about this. I also know our people are also very excited to hear this, so thank you for sharing your wisdom with them. You made a lot of people happy today, Shay.

Shay: Good. And hopefully not too overwhelmed.

Taylorr: Oh, no, no. I think they’re just happy that somebody else is willing to help them sort this stuff out, you know? Because it can be, for just like us, kind of a black box. So, as you know, we’re all about providing value for our listeners, so what are you working on right now that everyone can benefit from?

Shay: Yeah. So, really, the phases of event leverage and scaling your business are kind of my jam, after talking to so many people and them coming to me and I’m like, ooh, you should not do an event right now. And turning business away because they’re not set up for success. So, I ended up putting together a gift for your audience and they can actually get the five phases where it’s laid out, where they can actually go through a flowchart and figure out where they’re at, as well as take a look at what are their next steps for success and how to move through the phases.

Taylorr: Sweet.

Shay: So, the best way for them to get that would actually be to go to fivephases.info, and that’s spelling out the word five, forward slash speakerflow. fivephases.info/speakerflow.

Taylorr: Sweet.

Austin: Boom, look at that, link tracking.

Taylorr: Love it. The link will be in the show notes, folks, go click it, download it. It’s going to be awesome. Austin and I got a chance to go through it; we were even like, okay, great, phase five, check. So, we’ll see what phase you’re in. I kid, I kid. Okay. So, go download the thing, guys, if you like this episode, don’t forget to rate it, like it, subscribe to it and if you want more awesome resources like this, go to speakerflow.com/resources.

Austin: Bye, everyone.