The Dark Side of Online Summits: What No One Tells You (And What to do Instead)

Jennie Wright [00:00:00]:

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Acquire podcast. I’m your host, Jenny Wright. And before we dive in, I wanna ask you a question. And is, what do you think the dark side of online summits could be? What are people doing wrong? What have you seen people do wrong as a contributor or an expert? What have you possibly seen other people do that you think is questionable? And in today’s episode, I really want to kind of break that down. So, y’all know I’ve been doing summits for a really long time, over 12 years at this point, and I’ve completed or produced over 400. So I’ve kinda seen everything that’s happened, and the breakdown of what people are doing really, really well is good, and the things that people are doing really, really bad is glaringly obvious, and I get asked this question on almost every podcast interview that I do, so I thought I’d bring this into a choir. And so I just want to share that, you know, this isn’t me throwing any sort of like judgment at people because sometimes you just don’t know what you don’t know.

 

Jennie Wright [00:01:06]:

You don’t know that what you’re doing is wrong or incorrect and in some cases actually illegal, and we’ll get to that in a minute. But you just don’t know because you’ve not been shown or told, and so I have to say this message a lot. And I’m also gonna give you some tips on ethical ways to run your event, but still get amazing results. So, quick backstory, a little story time, I started doing summons back in 2012. So I left my corporate job, March 2012 and I took about 6 to 8 weeks to kind of figure out what I was going to do. I, started working as a virtual assistant. I was working on Fiverr. I was working for my best friend who’s in real estate, I was being her VA, that was my first, like, foray into VA.

 

Jennie Wright [00:01:51]:

And then when as I was working on Fiverr, I got introduced to this person who was like, hey, I need somebody to do research for an online summit, virtual telesummit, they called them, and I had no idea what this was, I had never been exposed to this before, because I was coming from gold mining and marketing in the corporate space. Okay? So I was investor relations and communications and and mining. I was in marketing for a large big box retailer, and so coming over into the online space, I was, like, a total noob. And this whole telemarketing, you know, instant tele what was it? Virtual online summits and telesummits, they were, like, this whole thing. It was, like, learning a new language. And so I learned how to do it, and then my 1st year, which was 2012, I had my first, I don’t know, I’d say about 18 clients, And then my my year 2, I had about 37 or 40, and then it just kinda went from there. So I I’ve seen all these different iterations, and I will tell you that back in back in 2012, you could put up the most hideous landing page in the world. Like, I’m talking really crappy colors, horrible, horrible landing page, and that was it, right? So the person that I learned it from learned from somebody else and that person said landing page is a banner along the top, a, audio clip of why people should join the summit, or just a headshot of you, and a headline in an opt in box, and that was it.

 

Jennie Wright [00:03:20]:

Join the x y z virtual summit today. Enter your name and email and be part of it. There was no bio, there was no list of speakers, there was no description of what the summit was about. I’m not even kidding with you right now. This is what it looked like, and the banners were atrocious. People were getting banners done oddly on Fiverr, that’s what we were recommended to do, and we were getting really, like, we were paying $5 for a piece of crap. So the whole landing page, everything looked like crap. The summits were done, audibly on, instant teleseminar, which was the product we were all using at the time, because this was before you could use Skype.

 

Jennie Wright [00:04:01]:

This is before you could record video. This is before you could actually get the video off of a a thing like Skype, and the first thing that actually worked off of Skype was Ecamm, and it was, Skype, you know, I think it was called Skype recorder, call recorder, and I actually had that product back in the day. ECAM is obviously evolved. I’m actually recording this podcast using ECAM, which I love. This is like the first episode that I finally got everything over into Ecamm, and I’m excited about that. But all of this to say that when I was learning summits, and I was coming through the ranks of like figuring everything out, a lot of things were not being done at the level that we do them now, and that’s okay, like it was a different honestly, it was a different world back then, but there was a group that learned from their, I’d say, like, bro marketing tactics, and that sort of ruined the reputation of summits for a really long time. And I was taught with summits that you had to have 20 some odd speakers over 20 some odd days, everybody had to have a 5,000 person list, and everybody had to send 2 emails and 2 social media posts. I frickin’ hated that model, it was so, like it was so exclusive, and so, like, it lacked inclusion for people who were coming up.

 

Jennie Wright [00:05:22]:

Like, I couldn’t, as summit host, my first summit, I had 0 people on my list, and here I am demanding that my speakers have to have a 5,000 person list and demanding that they do a certain level of promotion, But I had no list, so I’m completely relying on these people. And it felt it didn’t feel nice. So when I started to create my own summit system, I said no list minimums, no, like, promo minimums. I created like a, almost like a negotiation tactic where I would ask people, like, what would you be willing to do to promote this event as, you know, being offered a participant slot or an expert summits, not only for myself, but my clients, than following that model. So I abolished that model with my clients right away. Just during onboarding itself, I would tell my clients we’re not doing that, this is the new model, and we did that. So I, you know, it got called Summits 2.0, and I ran with that and that’s what’s been running successfully since, and I’m not claiming to have created all of that myself. I know other people who were doing summits were starting to see the writing on the wall with how summits were being done and they also created similar systems, I just happened to be doing more of them at the time.

 

Jennie Wright [00:06:40]:

So I’m not claiming position, I’m just claiming, I guess, frequency of having created them. So I saw everything. So let’s talk about this unethical piece that’s sort of developed over the past, I’d say about 15 years that summits have been happening, and it has to do with things that are really, they’re not fair, they’re just not fair. And so the darker aspects of, and less discussed pitfalls, can have a really bad effect. So, the first thing that we’re gonna talk about is list sharing and I’ll give you another story. So I was creating summits for clients, they were all within the same sort of, coaching program, and there was this one woman who was seen as the must have for a, I’d say almost like a, perspective summit, like somebody who was talking about having the ability to up level yourself in business from sort of like a mental aspect and this person demanded that if she was going to be on a summit that she would get a copy of the list. Now nobody else was getting a copy of the list because technically in Canada especially it’s illegal unless you state it, but this woman insisted on it and I called her the shark, so, and she would try and get on every summit that I was producing, and she would demand that as soon as the summit was over, within, like, less than 30 days when the summit was over, she wanted a full copy of the entire list, including unsubscribes, this is why it’s illegal, unsubscribe. So if you had, 1500 people subscribe to your summit, and 300 unsubscribed before the end of the summit, she demanded the email addresses for all the unsubscribed.

 

Jennie Wright [00:08:27]:

People who actually opted out of receiving any further communication. You can see why that’s illegal, right? So she would demand that, a lot of people felt pressured into doing it, especially noobs, she she kind of targeted the noobs, and so she was able to go on I think in one of the years I was sort of observing what was happening, I think this was about 2015, she was able to get on probably about 20 or 30 summits and she was getting the full list from every event, including the unsubscribes. And so I know for a fact because I know somebody who worked for this person that you know they ended up with a list of like 20 or 30,000 in 1 year like that would that’s what they that’s the amount of people they accumulated in a year. The problem was is around 2015, 2016 you started seeing some of the email marketing providers clamp down if you were getting a lot of spam remarks, right. So people were getting emails from this person and other people and they’re going, I never signed up for this person’s list, why am I getting an email from this person? They would mark that email as spam and unsubscribe, and then the email marketing provider like Aweber, Mailchimp, and so on, ActiveCampaign and so on would be like woah, okay, you’re getting a lot of mass spam comments and spam unsubscribes, something is going wrong here. And so they would start to throttle or blacklist those people’s lists, and you would lose access to your account like Aweber would give you a ton of opportunity and emails about it and then they would blacklist your account. ActiveCampaign a lot less, a lot less notification and all of a sudden you’d be blacklisted and and it was great. I was actually really glad they did that because they were cutting down on it and Keep, IE Infusionsoft, did that as well.

 

Jennie Wright [00:10:13]:

So, this was all happening. Mass reporting was happening and so, that was kind of squashed but people were still insisting upon it including this woman. I know for a fact that this person was actually still asking for these lists, up until the, I don’t know, 2018, I think was the last time I ever saw this person online, don’t know what they’re doing now, and they were still asking for it. And every time one of my clients was like, I have so and so, like, I e insert the name shark, on my summit, I’m like, oh boy, here we go, and I would have to tell them about it. So all this to say that there’s some really, like, really weird things that people want to do to try and get as much out of your summit if you’re the host as possible and you can’t allow it, okay. So let’s flip and talk about the host. Now if you’re hosting a summit and, like, or actually you’re not hosting, if somebody’s hosting a summit and you’re an expert or participant, things that can have a massive effect on you is levels of, organization, over promising and under delivering. I’ve seen this more times than I can count.

 

Jennie Wright [00:11:17]:

I’ve seen people, like, Promise the World, as some that’s, like, super exclusive, high value content, but they delivered like generic, low quality, like everything wasn’t up to snuff. And then it, you know, other people created a lot of misleading marketing. There was a whole time where everybody was casting a wide net, and they wanted everybody to register for their summit, and that was causing problems. And then the complete and utter lack of preparation. I increased the amount of time it would take for my clients to build out a summit from 90 days, which was the recommendation when I started doing them, to a 120 or more. So and I and I sort of stipulated that if you were multi 6 figure that you needed 6 months because at a multi 6 figure summit, we do a lot more stuff than a a first time summit person. A first time summit person, you need that to fit into your life and it can feel really overwhelming, so we wanted to have a smaller, excuse me, a larger window. So 120, a 120 days is like the minimum.

 

Jennie Wright [00:12:18]:

Okay. Then we have hosts that really are, not great with their speakers, they don’t communicate with their speakers, they get like they really are just being transactional, right, so they want you as the speaker to come in, they want you to promote, they don’t give you much in return, it’s really sort of like an email grab, and as a speaker you sort of feel like you’ve been taken advantage of, and that’s not good. It’s poor speaker treatment, I see it happen a lot. I have a lot of people who come on to the events that I organize and are on the kickoff meeting and the networking that I do with them and they say this is one of the most, you know, well planned, most, you know, well planned, well thought out, well organized summits I’ve ever been on and then I have to inquire why, like what is it about, what is it about their previous experiences that differ than the one that I’m creating? Not that I am the best, but I know that I’m organized so therefore what is happening out there like tell me, tell me your experience, if I can improve from you know improve from your story I definitely will. And I see a lot of lack of respect, and clear communication with guest speakers. I actually and this just happened to me recently, I was on a summit at the beginning of 2024 and it was a favor somebody, referred me so a friend of mine said hey my my, you know, my new friend just met her, she’s doing a summit, I’m just getting to know her too, but she’s looking for great speakers, could you be on her event and, like, you know, help her out? I said, sure, no problem. I’ll I’ll be on her event. I took my friend, I, like my friend said, yeah, she’s great, let’s go.

 

Jennie Wright [00:13:46]:

So, went with that, was on the event, I said I would promote, and I did, and I started getting abusive emails, I started getting emails where the host was saying, you said you would do this, or your contract states this, I’m like, first of all I never signed a contract at all. Secondly I said I would promote and I did exactly what I said I would do, but I’m not, you know, I’m not able to send more and then I would get these harassing emails of like hey can you just send one more email, you I don’t really think you’ve done a lot there’s not a lot of clicks on your link or whatever the, you know, whatever the feedback was. I know I was sending traffic to this person because I always create, like, a Bitly link and I always track my progress for my the events that I’m participating on and I know I was sending a traffic. So I don’t know where this was coming from but I will tell you that it felt really disingenuous, it felt like they were they were grabbing it more and I wasn’t the only one, I ended up having a couple conversations with a few of my friends who had participated in this event, all on the recommendation of our mutual friend, who all felt the same, and we were like, okay, so we’re never gonna be on that person’s summit again because that felt really gross, we didn’t enjoy that at all. And so the other thing that we see a lot of people doing that does just does not feel good in summits is the CD underbelly is the aggressive upselling. Now I’m all for having a VIP or All Access Pass, okay, and if you know me I have 2, I have a level 1 and then I do have an upsell, okay, but they’re not aggressive, they are hey while you’re getting this, would you like this? And it always makes sense, the upsell always makes sense to the original VIP offer, it’s not something completely different. But if you see a summit that is heavily pushing expensive upsells without delivering the value in the free part, run away, right? So they’re prioritizing revenue over a 10 d experience, and that is, in my world, a big no no. I really don’t appreciate when people do that, I see it all the time, and when I see it I will flag it, it’s just not, it’s not a good thing.

 

Jennie Wright [00:15:52]:

I mean, think about it, you’re being incredibly transactional, you’re only, I mean, we’re all trying to grow our list and grow our business, and we all know that exposure is the way to do it. It, but if you’re just doing a summit to get 2,000 emails that you’re then gonna try and like blanket sell everybody to for your XYZ program, that’s the wrong approach. Segmentation of your list, not only by niche or niche adjacent subject or by what people are looking for is really important. So self selection is is what I love to have done or I do surveys, but I like people to self select. You’ll see in a lot of my emails where it says, would you like to continue to receive information about X, Y, or Z? If not, click here, you just won’t get any more of those types of emails. But if you blanket sell to people, that’s gonna be an issue, right? So there’s less balance between, going back to that summit, where there’s less balance between the monetization and the providing of genuine value, and I see that as a problem. Summits should not be transactional, summits should be community building, trust building, friendship building between you and the speakers. You should be working hard at showing people what you’re willing to give in order to receive.

 

Jennie Wright [00:17:15]:

That’s just my take on it, but it works, okay, I’ve been doing it, like I said, I’ve been doing this so long that this method I know works because it just pays you back, right? And I really want people to look at the ethical side a little bit more, and I just kind of talked about creating community, but let’s talk about clear and honest marketing. Always be transparent with what attendees will gain from the summit. Don’t promise, like, the world. I totally get having a promising headline, like, if you attend, you will get, if you attend, you know, this is what we’re promising. And I don’t mind a big bold promise, I really don’t. But if you were promising people that you’re gonna take them from abject poverty to multimillions by learning your real estate method in your you know in your summit and then your post summit offer that just doesn’t feel great, right. That is to me, not transparent because that is the get rich quick, bro marketing style of things, which is still really bloody prevalent in our world. Like, I don’t understand why, but it is.

 

Jennie Wright [00:18:20]:

Okay. I want you to also look at setting realistic expectations about the content, about the speakers, about the outcomes. I want you to sort of set a clear objective, clear expectations as to what your registrants will receive and the experience that they will get. As an example, having a clear outline as to what each session is gonna cover or what each day is gonna cover so that attendees can sort of expect to learn and and make a sort of a plan from that, think that’s really good. And you’ll see a lot in my summit that I have a sort of daily agenda popped in there and right now at the time that I’m recording this, I’m actually doing a large 21 day challenge. We have a weekly agenda because it’s 21 days, it’s technically 3 business weeks, and we have a weekly agenda for each, right? The next thing is I I desperately want you to respect your speakers and to stop being so transactional, right. Treat speakers as partners, not as content providers and list givers. Provide very clear communication, fair compensation if you’re doing affiliates.

 

Jennie Wright [00:19:28]:

I know people who have offered a 40% affiliate on any VIP, and then not given the affiliate fee, to their speakers, like and the speakers know that they actually earned the fee because people within their community have said I bought the thing, and they didn’t get the affiliate fee. And always create proper, attribution to your experts. So if somebody provides you with an extra gift or content, make sure that you’re saying, hey, this is from so and so. I think we should always prioritize quality over quantity when it comes to summits, and so if you focus on delivering, like, high quality, actionable content rather than just trying to fill as many slots as possible, that’s gonna get you a better product. Okay? That’s gonna deliver a better summit. That means you’re gonna be able to repurpose those interviews. That means you build better trust. That means your speakers like you better because they’re surrounded by people who are their peers that they would like to network with and also potentially work with.

 

Jennie Wright [00:20:24]:

So you’re putting people all in the right basket together and that’s gonna get you a better result in the long run-in all aspects of your summit, and then I kind of brought I kind of touched on this a little bit earlier but ethical monetization strategies I absolutely do love a VIP but please avoid aggressively selling instead of offering have a nothing, but aggressive upselling, dozens of emails, you know, multiple pops, pop ups, like I’ll give you an example, I did a rush job for a brand new client of mine last week, I did a rush job for a brand new client of mine last week, I did a rush job for a brand new client of mine last week. The person said, hey, I need a landing page, I need it like right quick, not even within 24 hours, can you help me? This is a brand new person to me. I said sure, this is your rush price, please go ahead and pay for that and we’ll get started. They didn’t have a landing page platform, nothing, we were kinda going from scratch, no big deal. And so I ended up signing up for a landing page software that is very well known within the sort of bro marketing side of things, and we had a trial for that. Now I built the page, the webinar went really, really well, it’s all good, because they had some partners who were promoting it, and then when I went to, about a month later after we’d paid our initial payment and everything after the trial was over I went to cancel it. Five pop up screens later I felt like I was in a 90s like, I don’t know, browser, I felt like I was using Internet Explorer. Are you sure you want to cancel? Are you sure you want to cancel? Click here to sure you want to cancel.

 

Jennie Wright [00:22:04]:

And then there was a pop up that made me put in, like, can’t, like, type in the words cancel, and then another pop up said, are you sure? Come on, right, so, you know, really making sure that you have, everything really, really clear and stop the aggressiveness for having people having to, like, upgrade or even whatever, right, like it just makes sense. And then the other ethical thing that I want to wrap up with is your post summit follow-up. So if you want to keep these relationships going with your speakers, with your attendees then drop the transactional feel of the event. Make sure that everybody knows that you are over delivering for what they are receiving, they they are, you know, you’re really taking care of people, keep the relationship going with follow ups, genuine follow ups with attendees, genuine follow-up with speakers, give them additional value, all right, like almost like, shock and awe but in the good way, right, so develop those relationships and you’re going to see a much better return on your investment, some it’s our time, some it’s our money, But if you do this, you’re gonna see a much better return than if you succumb to sort of like the black hat side of summits, which I absolutely hate. So just to kind of wrap all this up with a nice little tiny little bow, be mindful of the dark side, be mindful of when somebody suggests or that you see somebody doing, a transactional event be really aware of the common pitfalls like, list sharing without telling people, unethical practices that tend to be in in some countries illegal, in the UK and Canada, they are. Encourage your summit to be completely focused on providing genuine value, fostering authentic relationships and connections, and maintaining your integrity without. You’re going to have a better result. You’re going to get paid in dividends over the long run if you do that.

 

Jennie Wright [00:23:54]:

And if you urge your listeners to, prioritize ethical practices and continuous improvement within what you’re doing and their stuff, you’re gonna build the sustainable framework and a you’ll become respected for what you’re doing in Summitland like you you’ll have a yearly summit where people just flock and wanna come to it and year over year it’ll get better and better. So hold on to that transparency, be respectful, create genuine relationships, focus on adding real value, and avoid sort of the dark side of online summits and you will be just fine. And if you want to get more information about summits and how to do them I do have resources on my website, I have my summit made simple courses you can check those out, they’re at jennywright.com, and I have my summit made simple speaker attraction bundle as well as my promotional bundle, and you can get those there, as well as you can actually have a conversation with me about what a summit would look like for you and your team and your business and you can go and book an exploratory call with me there. We can talk about what it would look like for your summit, what it might deliver for you, I can give you a really good idea as to how I think it could work for you, and see if you need any support. And if you don’t that’s fine too, go and buy the Summit Made Simple products and you can do it all yourself. Alright. Thank you so much for listening to the Acquire podcast as always brought to you by the Odd Phonic Podcast Network. If you like this episode, please go ahead and hit subscribe.

 

Jennie Wright [00:25:20]:

Leave a comment or a review. I’d love to get both, and let me know what you think, I’m always open to your feedback and I’m always grateful for your listen. Thank you so much, we’ll talk to y’all soon, take care.