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February 11, 2025
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February 25, 2025Episode 75
Summit Your Way to Industry Dominance (Plus Real Numbers)

What’s the real reason high-level entrepreneurs are suddenly investing big in virtual summits? (Hint: It’s not just for leads.)
So, here’s the deal—virtual summits aren’t just list-building freebies anymore. They’re money-making, lead-generating, authority-boosting powerhouses, and high-level businesses are finally taking notice. If you’re still thinking of summits as a cute way to grow your email list, it’s time for a serious mindset shift.
In today’s episode, I’m diving deep into the real ROI of virtual summits—how they’re generating six figures (yes, six figures), creating strategic partnerships, and driving long-term revenue beyond the event itself. And trust me, after running over 450 summits since 2013, I’ve seen firsthand what works, what flops, and what’s making businesses sit up and pay attention.
If you’re ready to stop playing small and start leveraging summits like the industry leaders do, this episode is for you.
Resource Links
Grab my free guide, “5 Game-Changing Steps to Set Clear, Achievable Goals for Your Online Event Success“
Connect with Jennie:
Website: https://jenniewright.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jennielwright/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniewrightjlw/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjGQCVDgaOGsxrqq-w0Osmw
Want to grow your email list or launch your next product to a ready list of leads? Let’s talk
On This Week’s Episode:
- The Summit Evolution – How virtual summits have shifted from simple list-building tactics to serious revenue-generating events.
- Show Me the Money – Real numbers from my own clients who have hit six figures (and beyond) using summits the right way.
- Strategic Partnerships – Why high-level businesses use summits to connect with power players, form partnerships, and create joint venture deals that actually lead to big paydays.
- ROI That Puts Webinars to Shame – How summits deliver a 4X to 6X return and why their conversion rates blow traditional webinars out of the water.
- Beyond the Summit: The Long Game – Your event is just the beginning. Here’s how to turn those leads into long-term revenue with smart post-summit strategies.
- Authority on Steroids – Why hosting (or even speaking at) a summit cements you as a leader in your space—fast.
- What’s Coming in 2025 – My take on where the economy is heading and why summits are the perfect tool to recession-proof your business.
- Live Training Alert! – I’m pulling back the curtain on the exact strategies I use to help clients run profitable, high-converting summits. Want in? Stay tuned.

Jennie Wright
Lead generation and online summit queen, the host of the Aquire podcast
Jennie Wright [00:00:02]:
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Acora podcast, where we talk about list building and lead generation scaling launches and a whole ton of other stuff. And today I want to focus in on something that’s going to make a big difference in your business, but also I would just want you to know what some businesses are doing. And so we’re really going to dive in and we’re going to focus in on why high level businesses. I’m talking high 6 figure multi 7 figure are actually super paying attention to the ROI when you do a summit. Now, if you’ve ever done a summit before. Perfect. Awesome.
Jennie Wright [00:00:36]:
But I’m going to give you some advanced techniques here. The things that I do with clients where we have a multi 6 figure launch off the back end of a summit and we make. Like really good money as you know, having sponsorships and VIP and all that stuff in the summit. And I know we talk about summits a lot. This is going to be a bit different. So listen in, we’re going to get really, really tactical. So virtual summits are just not a lead magnet. It’s not just a way to grow your list and a lot of top tier businesses since the pandemic know that they’re high converting, know that you can create high ticket revenue and understand that it’s a lot less expensive to run a summit than it is to have a three day in person conference, like, you know, social media marketing world and so on and so forth.
Jennie Wright [00:01:22]:
Right. Love that conference by the way. So today I’m just going to break down exactly how these businesses are using them to generate 6 figures. And beyond. Okay. So summits are just not list builders anymore. You’ve probably either been on a summit, heard of summits. Maybe you’ve hosted one and.
Jennie Wright [00:01:45]:
You’ve, you’ve probably seen how they work. I’m not going to explain that I have other episodes that explain how summits work. Now I’ve been doing some. Since 2013, I have produced about four fifty and counting at this point, the majority of the summits that I do at this point are for high ticket items. So that is, you know, masterminds and so on that are like 30 ks and above post launch. Okay. So those are the, that’s the whole goal of these events. And if you think that summits are just for beginners to launch your business, not so anymore.
Jennie Wright [00:02:19]:
Yes, you can launch your business with a summit and I highly recommend that you do, but it’s not just for beginners, right? Businesses that are making 500 ks a million, 5 million plus are leveraging summits right now, not just for audience growth, but direct revenue partnerships and industry dominance. They’re owning their space through leveraging events like this. And so today I’m going to break down the real financial impact of summits, and I’ve got numbers to back this stuff up, how summits are being used to sell really high ticket offers courses and services, and the long term ROI that really makes summits more valuable now than they ever have been in. Ten plus years since I’ve been doing them and why skipping out on doing a summit in your own business means that you’re leaving a serious amount of money on the table. And I really don’t want you to do that in 2025. If you listen to one of my, I think the last solo episode I did, I talked about how I feel like the economy might take a downturn in 2025, and you should be prepared for it now. Having a high value summit that really creates a ton of leads and sales and partnerships is the way to Bulletproof your business right now. So let’s talk about it.
Jennie Wright [00:03:32]:
Let’s fact check this. I bring receipts, as they say, the financial impact of summits is, is very well known in the industry, but I’m going to pull some numbers from my own clients and share, cold, hard data always makes me happy. So 6 figures is not rare in a summit anymore. A well executed online summit can bring in a hundred ks or up to 500 ks in revenue or even more. I have seen a summit recently that did over 1,500,000.0. I have produced summits that have brought in over 250,000, some reaching as high as 350,000. Now that is in the, the, the six months post event and sometimes a little bit more. Okay.
Jennie Wright [00:04:18]:
So, Let’s just talk about one of the more recent ones that I did that pulled it in about $2.50 ks. Okay. We pulled in also about, I think it was about $50,000 in sponsorship revenue. And we did a five X increase on the premium service enrollments for that company. And this is, was a coaching company that was helping and supporting other coaches. Right. And we did pull in over 10,000 email subscribers in a single launch organic only. We did no ads.
Jennie Wright [00:04:51]:
Okay. Organic only. Now, if you want to do ads and you’ve got some money to throw at it, I highly recommend it have a healthy budget. This is where the sponsorship dollars can pay for your ads. And pay for me, my whole goal. When I talk to a client who’s about to sign is I say, my goal is to pay for myself, right. Pay for my feet through sponsorships, VIP dollars, and any ancillary sales, and also to create like a five X increase on your sales off the backend. Okay.
Jennie Wright [00:05:24]:
That’s my, it’s not a promise, but it’s what I want. And I try and really go for it. And I often complete that. So businesses that are doing virtual summits right now, especially in a high ticket space are getting four to six X ROI on the summit investment. So, and to pull stuff from outside of me, I studied by Hey summit, which is a platform it’s an all in one solution showed that for every dollar spent on summits, businesses saw an average return of 4 to $6 Right. So that performs the same, if not better than a lot of SLO funnels. That’s performing better if not the same as actually it’s better in my opinion than ads. So really, really seeing a ton of revenue coming in from every dollar spent on a virtual summit.
Jennie Wright [00:06:14]:
Okay. Speakers are not just showing up anymore. They’re motivated to sell on your behalf. 50 to 70% of high ticket, summit hosts, secure partnerships with their speakers, which then leads to affiliate sales for, for the promotions that they have. It creates cross promotions and joint venture ventures, and it also creates direct sales from some speaker bonuses and other upsells. Okay. So what we’re seeing is a lot of the speakers are being really motivated. They love this extra income that they can earn.
Jennie Wright [00:06:47]:
So if you have a 30 ks mastermind giving somebody 10%, That’s three ks. I’d love to do that every day. I’ll sell no problem. Summits are no longer about getting people just on your email list, but they are also about profit driving and creating a profit driving machine that works for you when it’s done. Right. These things work amazingly well. So high level businesses are using summits, not just for sales, not just for leads, but a myriad of other things. So let’s talk about what’s changed in summits and why established businesses.
Jennie Wright [00:07:22]:
People who are making some really good money are suddenly doubling down on events like this as a core part of their marketing strategy. Summits convert at a higher rate than webinars. I love webinars. Webinars are great, but they have one major problem and they usually convert on cold leads between 515% on a really good day. Okay. Summits on the other hand, create a high engagement environment where conversion rates range from 20 to 50%. So you have to ask yourself, why, why is that different? What makes it different? Well, there’s a longer engagement time with a summit. You’re instead of a sixty minute webinar, you might be spending up to three days with these people and you’re building trust and they’re understanding who you are.
Jennie Wright [00:08:03]:
And they’re most likely checking you out as well. There’s a much higher, high price, like a perceived value with summits because you have multiple experts, live Q and A’s in-depth content. You’re making it feel like more of a premium product and that adds to the premium sort of value of it. And then also you’re creating a ton more touch points. Oh, You’ve got so many more email sequences going out. You’re creating pre engagement or pre event engagement, sorry, post event offers, and you’re nurturing your leads in between and before you even make that pitch. So you’re getting a ton more touch points with these people and the more touch points the better, right? So the result is your attendees will buy more and they’ll buy bigger because they’re ready to invest more. So summits create immediate and long term revenue.
Jennie Wright [00:08:56]:
So you get, you know, day one revenue, right from the VIP, if they upgrade to the VIP. And then long after the summit ends, if I look at post summit sales, I benchmark them at three, six, and nine months. Okay. That’s the distance. I can usually see a really good conversion. Usually three months, we’re going to get probably our most six months. We’re going to get some decent and then nine months, we’re going to get a couple of people and I can really track that you can really see. Where people are coming in your funnel through the summit and then making their purchases, and you can attribute those purchases and those people directly to the event and the fact that they participated.
Jennie Wright [00:09:32]:
Right. So an example on one of my clients, launches, they made $80,000.80 ks in all access pass revenue right in the summit. So that’s in those three days. And then they went on to close two fifty ks in high ticket sales from the relationships they built within that event. Interestingly enough, even some of the speakers were a good fit for their product and they joined. So we got five, I think, five speakers out of that summit who actually joined and paid for the high ticket sale, like the high ticket offer. And you already know this, but some it’s really do position you as an authority in your space. And have you create that sort of command attention as to what it is that you do having a summit hosting, or even being on one instantly levels up your credibility instantly creates that authority.
Jennie Wright [00:10:19]:
You’re no longer just another business. You’re the person who brings top experts together. If you’re a host runs an event that people will talk about, you own the stage. And just instead of just being a speaker on somebody else’s you own that piece. And when you’re seen as the person behind a high quality industry leading summit, It is absolutely game over for your competition. They cannot fill the space. If you’re filling the room with your name, the summit, the energy and all that, you own that space. Nobody else can own that space at the exact same time and the exact same way.
Jennie Wright [00:10:53]:
And you are, you can leverage that endlessly. That’s why hosting a summit is so powerful. That’s why the summits that I’m focusing on. And that I want you to focus on having are of these higher caliber. Now with full transparency thirteen years ago, when I started doing this, I was, first of all, I was undercharging like a crazy person because I was still learning and I needed to kind of learn my chops. Like I needed to make my place. And so my first summit ever, I charged $300 which, I mean, I was learning and that was a long time ago, but $300 I mean, it was a loss for me hours wise, of course, because the summit can take, you know, forty to a hundred hours to create. But man, did I learn a lot? And so now when I, when I host a summit, depending on what level we’re doing and how much of a team I need to bring in and how much of a team the client has, the price tag is obviously, obviously so much more, right? Six to 10 X on that.
Jennie Wright [00:11:53]:
So, But I, I maximize the ROI for my clients so that I’m paid for, like, I pay for myself. That’s the goal. Right? So let’s talk about how you can maximize the ROI in your own summit. If you want to host so that you can create a massive windfall. I love these things. All right. So, you know, summits are worth it. I’ve got you on board there.
Jennie Wright [00:12:14]:
Awesome. Let’s talk about how to actually make them profitable. You have to go beyond the free summit model. Okay. I still love a summit where it is free to register, but if you are only running a summit to get leads, you’re doing it wrong. And high level businesses know this and they are following this model. They are offering VIP all X all access passes, most likely two of them. All right.
Jennie Wright [00:12:39]:
Tier one and a tier two, the price tag between those can be 47 up to $2.97. Or if you have a higher end product, it could be a bit more High ticket backend offers. Okay. I’m talking between like two to 10 ks up to 30 ks or 50 ks. High ticket backend offers. If your offer is an $18 monthly membership, you need volume. A lot of it. Okay.
Jennie Wright [00:13:05]:
And you can do that with a summit. Absolutely. But you’re going to get the most bang for your buck. If you have something of a higher value that people can join. Okay. And then let’s look at strategic partnerships. Now I love, I love strategic partnerships and sponsorships. And for the, for the most part, you can generate anywhere between 5 ks and about 50,000 I’ve done a bit more, Bit more, but I do love that space.
Jennie Wright [00:13:30]:
And I think anybody can get a 5 ks, sponsorship level out of somebody, right. To monetize your summit before it even starts. And then you can use that money towards ads, etcetera. And then I want you to look at how you make your summit a sales driven machine From the start, not afterwards, right? If you’re doing it afterwards, it’s too late. Do it from the start. Most people treat summits as free content and they scramble to sell something afterward afterward, instead of baking your sale into the entire event, I breadcrumb everything. So I put in an exclusive bonus for VIP buyers that leads them to the high ticket offer. I create a fast action offer for summit attendees to join the high ticket offer at a reduced price.
Jennie Wright [00:14:14]:
Right. That’s going to get you some sales. And then I have speakers sell live with limited time offers on the event game changer. Okay. If you want to use summits to build partnerships that fuel future growth, this is how you do this part. The biggest mistake is people make is focusing only on the event and not on the relationships. That is a massive, massive mistake. If you only look at your speakers as fodder to build your list again, you’re doing it wrong.
Jennie Wright [00:14:45]:
High ticket business owners are leveraging summits for long term strategic partnerships, like speaker affiliate, who will help you continue to sell your offers down the road or collaborations that bring in new revenue streams or referral partners that drive business for months and months and months after the summit ends. Okay. This is a shorter episode, but I’m like trying to drill it in to sort of wrap it up. And why I think skipping summits is leaving a boatload of money on the table is I want you to think of virtual summit as not just for list building, but absolutely for revenue driven activities. Right? So if you’re just thinking list building again, Bad thing to do. You’re missing out on one of the biggest opportunities in the online space and for your business right now. So high level businesses are doing this to drive 6 figure sales, sometimes more They’re boosting their industry authority overnight in three days, it’s done. They’re landing partnerships that fuel long term growth.
Jennie Wright [00:15:44]:
They’re creating affiliate sales. They’re really creating relationships. And the best part is you can leverage the strategy very, very quickly. You can do this in ninety days. You can do this in one hundred and twenty days, which is my preference, bigger, bigger, bigger summits. You take about five months, but you can leverage this in one hundred and twenty days. No problem. And so if I’ve gotten you excited about events like this, if I’ve gotten you excited about some, I’m glad go and do one.
Jennie Wright [00:16:09]:
You can totally do this on your own, but if you’re looking to do this and you need help contact me. Right. Even if I don’t build it for you and promote it for you, or, produce it for you. I can give you some steps on how to support that. Okay. I really want you to have a successful year. I think I know what’s coming in 2025, and I really want people to not be stuck on their back foot about this. I really want you to be successful.
Jennie Wright [00:16:35]:
So I’m going to be putting together some live trainings about this, how to run high ticket profit driven virtual events. And I’ll share that as they get closer and I’d love for you to be able to join. So if this is something you’re interested in, great. Keep listening to the podcast. And if you’ve listened this far, amazing, please do, subscribe to the podcast, wherever it is that you’re listening and drop a review for me. I would love to hear what you think about all of these acquire episodes and all of the guest episodes. We’ve got so many coming up. You would not believe how lucky I feel to be having these conversations with these incredible entrepreneurs.
Jennie Wright [00:17:10]:
Very, very fortunate. Thank you so much for listening to acquire. I love doing this for you on a weekly basis, and I hope to talk to you soon. Take care.