The Blueprint for Virtual Summit Success: Shawn Q's $100k Sales, 2k+ Leads, and 45 Speaker Lineup

Jennie Wright [00:00:02]:

Hi there. This is the Acquire podcast from the Odd Phonic Podcast Network, and I’m your host, Jenny Wright. This is the podcast that delves deep into the world of list building, online events, and it’s designed to empower entrepreneurs and marketers with the knowledge and strategies to master what I think are the essential business growth tactics. And I’ve got a great guest for us today to talk with. It is Sean Quintero aka Sean Q. And he’s not just an expert in abundance coaching, innovation, and digital growth. He’s also a top notch keynote speaker, emcee, and a coach who knows how to supercharge your abundance. Today, we’re gonna have a really cool chat about some really neat stuff that Sean Q did, something that I was very lucky to be part of.

Jennie Wright [00:00:46]:

We’re gonna talk about how he rocked a virtual summit, and he really managed to do this in an incredible way. So we had over $80,000 in sponsorships. That’s not all. He also rolled in in about $100,000 in post summit sales and a whopping 2,000 plus leads. So it’s safe to say he knows the space well. He enjoyed this process. I think we’re gonna find out more, and we’re gonna dig into the juicy stuff, Like, how he chooses his summit speakers, the ins and outs of selling virtual sponsorships, and crafting sessions in your summit for maximum impact. Get ready.

Jennie Wright [00:01:20]:

This is gonna be great. Sean, thanks so much for doing this.

Shawn Q [00:01:23]:

Hey, Jenny. Thank you so much for having me.

Jennie Wright [00:01:26]:

Absolutely. I’m so excited. We Had such a good time. Tell us a little bit sort of, like, lay a little bit of the land when it comes to this summit. When we’re you know, when did we have it? That kind of stuff.

Shawn Q [00:01:37]:

Yeah. So, our summit is called the Abundance Now Summit, and our very first one was in 2023, early this year, Actually, February of this year. It was our very first one, so I had no idea what I was doing. Naturally, I decided I need to hire the best of the best Who already know what they’re doing, and that was you, Jenny. And we are so happy that we did because it all turned out really smoothly, and we were on Time with all our deadlines, and it just it worked out really well. So if you are considering this is like a Jenny, you did not pay me to say this, But absolutely hire Jenny for all your summit needs. It’s amazing. So, the premise of the summit was abundance.

Shawn Q [00:02:21]:

And it our mission as a company is to reveal the abundance that already exists within every single person and To reveal the abundance that’s available to people, oftentimes, we don’t recognize how good we have it today. And No wonder. Because, I mean, you turn on the news, the world is on fire at times. It feels like things are just going wildly out of control and spiraling. And in some parts of the world, it absolutely is on fire. And so what I decided to do is I wanted to Kind of a a a a bird’s eye, very big perspective on where we’re at as a species, as a humankind. And what I discovered after looking at the data was that we’re doing actually pretty good. I mean, you take a couple of 100 years back into the future journey Into the past, I think I said future into the past.

Shawn Q [00:03:14]:

You take a look at the past, you know, 300 years ago, they didn’t have indoor plumbing. There was no real dentistry. You know, give childbirth was incredibly dangerous. Mhmm. People would have, like, 9 kids, and only 2 or 3 would survive past the age of 5. Food was incredibly scarce and difficult to come up with to to farm. And so we have had some incredible, and abundant, ventures and growth when it comes to medical practices, when it comes to agriculture, when it comes to culture when it comes to housing, when it comes to how we treat each other, when it comes to how we do war and how we do conflict and international conflict. And so I wanted to allow people a space in our summit to recognize, hey, there is abundance available.

Shawn Q [00:04:07]:

There’s an abundance of food. There’s an abundance of resources, abundance of networking, I could literally be on a call right now, using a piece of technology that didn’t exist 300 years ago, Using audio waves that weren’t harnessed 300 years ago to communicate with someone in a completely different country, you know, Canada. And for us to have this conversation, this was not possible, let’s just say, a 100 years ago, 200 years ago, as easily as it is today. And so I wanted to remind everyone, there’s so much abundance available, and it’s our job to access it. And it’s our job to Create an abundant perspective so that we see it when it’s right in front of us. And so we had about 45 speakers. I don’t recommend that personally.

Jennie Wright [00:04:54]:

Yeah. Ew.

Shawn Q [00:04:55]:

You know, each session was about an hour long, 45 minutes to an hour long, and it was it was it was pretty it was so much content. I mean, you know, I I highly don’t I don’t recommend I either recommend Shorter amount of speakers, like less speakers for the content so they can go deep dive? Or, more If you wanna do 45 speakers, have them be 20 minute sessions or something. Like, super, super short form, but straight to the point, because it was just it was really overwhelming for us. But, Yeah. Luckily, we had you to kind of keep us keep us on track. We had 45 speakers, and, we sold sponsorships. So a lot of our sponsorships came from our speakers Or and came from, ancillary businesses. So we specifically work with coaches.

Shawn Q [00:05:41]:

We believe that every single coach has the ability to impact thousands of people, through the power of conversations, just 1 conversation at a time, and so we wanted to empower coaches to go create abundance in the world. And so we worked with, programs and softwares and companies that their audience is coaches. And so we literally went to them, and we said, hey. We have 2,000 coaches coming to our summit. Do you want a sponsor? Do you want a banner on our page? Do you wanna send an exclusive email to our list? Do you want a speaking slot? And We had people pay anywhere from, you know, on the very low end, 1.97 to offer a freebie in our freebie bag to $10,000 to have a 45 minute Speaking slot at our summit. And this was all virtual. So it wasn’t like in person conference where you’re you have, like, a vendor spot typically with, like, conference sponsorships. It was all virtual, and it was pretty amazing.

Shawn Q [00:06:31]:

And so our, we had probably about 45 sponsors. Maybe 5th I’d say we had just over 50 sponsors because we had 45 speakers, and almost all of them also became sponsors. A lot of them became sponsors. We had 2,000, leads generated, and it was because we empowered the speakers to really step into What promotion would authentically look like for them? We didn’t we we created some email copy, but we really gave people permission right in a way that your audience is actually gonna resonate with you. I don’t know your audience as best as you do, and so, come on in and leverage what we’re giving you, but also turn it into your own stuff. And then we also made sure that we chose speakers that were really good experts in their industry, not just people who had really big lists. I wanted a very, focused audience, and so I wanted people who actually knew what they were doing. They had case studies.

Shawn Q [00:07:27]:

They had scientific evidence. They had proof. Like, there was it was a very meaty, Yeah. Meaty subject, and so we wanted to make sure people knew what they were talking about. After this the conference I’m sorry. After the summit, we had about half of the speakers actually invest To work with us in one way or another, whether that was attending our retreats, whether that was, you know, getting consulting from me, whether that was joining any of our programs. Then we had several people from our email nurture sequences purchased into our certification program. And that was our launch offer at the back end of the summit Was we teach you about abundance, and then we can certify you as an abundance coach.

Shawn Q [00:08:07]:

And that was our process.

Jennie Wright [00:08:09]:

Yeah. There’s I love the fact that you recall all this and you were able to sort of just, like, rattle that off as quickly as you did. There is so much baked into this, and I kinda wanna sort of peel it apart, Talk about a couple components. One of the big things when we create summits is the speakers. Now me and my team, we handle all the Technical most of the time, you had Dan, who’s just one of your amazing people in your team. He’s just an incredible human, and he did a lot of the tech. So my role was more of a strategy and consulting side. But normally, my team takes care of the tech, and the Host has to worry about finding really great speakers and things like that.

Jennie Wright [00:08:48]:

Can you break down the process? Because I will say, compared to a lot of summits I’ve done, Your speaker choice and the results you got as a like, after because of your speaker choices and your your process resulted in the kind of summit that you created. So what was that process like for you?

Shawn Q [00:09:07]:

Yeah. So, when it comes to finding speakers, what we did was we did, like, a call for speaker page. We were very, very clear about the type of speakers we wanted. Most marketing events I’ve seen Where you’re gathering or or culminating or collaborating with other people, you’re bringing in other people like you. So you’re bringing in other marketers, other salespeople, You know, there are people who have their own programs and stuff, and and we wanted that too. Like, there’s nothing wrong with selling and joining a summit for lead gen, you know, priorities for yourself. Our primary goal, though, was to find people who are really, really, really good at what they do. So we actually sought out Professors and philosophers and scientists to neuroscientists, and therapists and psychologists, people who were really good at Breaking down abundance from a historic perspective, abundance from a mental perspective, and socioeconomic perspective.

Shawn Q [00:10:05]:

We wanted people who really knew what they were talking about so that, again, the content was was not just a pitch fest, but it was, hey. Here’s educational valuable content You can actually take and use in your own practice as a coach. We, I mean, I have referenced several of the videos that we captured Because of how juicy they were, and I still do to this day reference a lot of those videos because I learned a lot as we brought these people together. And I think what that did was it separated us from all of the other PitchFest summits out there, you know, where everybody’s giving you 1 or Two kind of juicy tips, and then it’s buy my thing right at the other end of it.

Jennie Wright [00:10:47]:

Yeah.

Shawn Q [00:10:47]:

It was, hey. We’re gonna do a 45 minute master class on this session. And when we say masterclass, it is a masterful presentation of information that you are able to use in your own practice. And so That was really helpful for us to go seek out those people. And then we had kind of a, a vetting process for our speakers, so I hopped done a 30 minute one on 1 with everybody, made sure you know, I asked them, what what proof do you have that what you’re saying is is accurate? I can’t tell you how many times speakers speak, and they have zero evidence for their topic. You know? And most people would say, well, I read it in a book. Right? Or, like

Jennie Wright [00:11:24]:

Or I stayed at a Holiday Inn.

Shawn Q [00:11:26]:

Or or right. Like, it’s it’s it’s exactly. So So the so we wanted to make so I would ask, like, what’s your scientific evidence, or what’s your personal experience with this? You know, what what what Proof do you have that what you’re saying actually works in the real world? Because I don’t have time for theory or fluff. I don’t need theory and fluff. I need Practical, tactical. Well, it’s gonna work today. And I know our coaches, the people who work with us also wanted that as well. So, we vetted them.

Shawn Q [00:11:54]:

There were a lot of people we’ve turned down. I had probably about 3 to 400 people apply to be a speaker. And we do until that that’s probably why we had so many speakers because there were just there were 45 really good ones. And I think our initial thought was we’ll have 20, and then I would get on a call with someone like, oh, we have to have this person, Jenny, and then another person, oh my gosh. This person is just so good. We have to add them.

Jennie Wright [00:12:15]:

Yep. And it ended

Shawn Q [00:12:16]:

up going to 45. But, yeah. We, we have a couple of strategies that we’re using this time around that we can talk about later On how to mitigate that a little bit, but it was it was really good in the sense of, you know, we got a lot of people Who applied just initially, and then we also reached out and sought people that we wanted. The way that we did it was I went on Amazon, looked at people who had published books on the topics We were looking at, I looked for people who had podcasts where they were, actively talking about the topic we wanted them to talk about. Mhmm. You know, these are all just Proofs of the fact that they can talk about the thing. You know, they can talk about the topic for a while, so, and they know what they’re talking about. So those are some things that we did Kinda find people.

Shawn Q [00:12:59]:

And then within, just kind of our call for speakers, I really leveraged my network. So I went to my network and I asked a lot of people, can you share this with someone that might be a good fit, or can you apply? I mean, if you’re if you think you’re a good fit, let, I’d love for you apply to apply as well.

Jennie Wright [00:13:15]:

So Absolutely. There’s something to be said, though, about going after scientists and and People who have sort of the high level that you were looking for, there tends to be an issue where those people don’t have an email list. They don’t have a social media presence. So trying to find the unicorns that have everything that you would need in terms of an event like a summit, because we do want them to have a following. We do want them to have an email list, and we do want them to promote. Promotion is part of the whole process. Did you find it difficult to find really great quality speakers who’s you know, who had the following that you would want?

Shawn Q [00:13:57]:

Yeah. You know, I think that’s where we took a different approach is if the person was just so like, and they’re such a great presenter and they have such a great topic, But they don’t have the list. I was okay accepting that person because I knew their content would attract people. With our ads, right, we can focus on that topic with our e with our own email list, we can nurture them based off of marketing that topic that they’re they’re bringing to the table and their expertise. What we ended up doing though is we did discover, oh, we have a lot of these speakers that don’t have email lists, and kind of our whole goal is to nurture our own list, But also to grow the list. Yeah. And so what we ended up doing was opening up a special day where we accepted people, who had larger list, and we were exclusive on, yeah, let’s be good at what you’re talking about and have a large list for this specific day of the summit. And then the rest of the days, we it didn’t really matter because we had we already had the people with the big lists.

Jennie Wright [00:14:54]:

Yes. Yes. There’s a When I build a summit, one of the things I like to do, and and you already kinda had this idea as well, is I like to have the people who are willing to, you know, promote and work at it and things. And I’ve I don’t like list minimums. I hate it when I get an email that says, hey. If you wanna be on this summit, you have to have a 5,000 person list and send 2, you know, solos and so on and so forth. Some people have a mighty but small list, And those people are really engaged, and they have a 50% open rate and all of that. So I really don’t think that we should be putting less minimums, and I love that you didn’t.

Jennie Wright [00:15:28]:

And then being able to feature some of the bigger speakers, which is a great draw. So there’s a really good, sort of balance between the 2, which I think is great. I’m really intrigued thing we required,

Shawn Q [00:15:40]:

which was really helpful, and I’ll just add this as a bonus tip, is we asked every single speaker that they had to have a custom talk. So most summits that I’ve been a part of, I’m seeing 30 webinars that they do every single day anyways, and it’s not exclusive Content. We asked everyone to have a custom presentation, that was on their topic. They had to have a PowerPoint, that went with the topic, And then we do q and a at the end based off of their content. So that was kind of the structure. It has to be unique content for this summit. And obviously, you can pull from other sessions that you’ve done, but they cannot be the webinar you’ve done 50,000,000 times that I can go watch on your website. This is a special event that you’re bringing unique content to, and that was another big draw for people.

Jennie Wright [00:16:26]:

I think so too, and I think that was a really great to go about it that you didn’t have somebody just grabbing their PowerPoint that, you know, they’ve, like you said, used 50 times and throwing up content. I think summits can be lazy, And I think we have to, at the level that you’re doing it, not be lazy in terms of all these little different things. And I know it sounds like a lot of work and, Yeah. It kinda is, but that’s also the point. Right? We’re putting in we’re putting in the effort, and we’re putting in the work, and putting in the time and the strategy. But the end result is You have a better summit. Right? You have a better you know, you get better sales. You get better community building.

Jennie Wright [00:17:04]:

And a lot of this stuff that people don’t talk about in terms of the results from SummitsNet, we had $80,000 in sponsorships and $100,000 in sales and 2, you know, 2,000 leads. But what doesn’t get talked about and I don’t wanna touch on is the intangibles. Right? So As an as an example, one of my previous clients, she got booked on, like, 5 stages or 3 stages from her summit and, you know, did a whole bunch of different interactions and things like that. You met people that ended up being clients, but what else came from it? Were you able to book any stages? Was there collaborations that you know about?

Shawn Q [00:17:38]:

Yeah. I will say, the only reason we would do it we are doing a summit again. Like, our primary reason, I should say it was because of the relationships I got to build with the speakers. It was the numb it was the easiest way for me to get into somebody’s world, that I had been trying to get into their world for a while, and this was the thing that allowed us to bridge the gap. And then it was also another way for me to see who is really good at what they do. And let me, like, give them a platform for it, and that platform bridge the gap for us as well, for us to be able to chat. And so The speaker relationships I’ve developed were bar none the number 1, like, results that I’m most proud of with our summit. I will say the, like, the ancillary or the additional things that, We were able to experience was, I was able to book several stages after that, several podcasts.

Shawn Q [00:18:38]:

We do this networking event with all our speakers, which is really cool. And it’s a very unique way. I’ve never seen it done anywhere like this before we did it, which was, before the summit, all of the speakers come on to a Zoom call and they network, but we do it very clearly. It’s, hey. I want this to lead to other Podcast events, other stages, other summits. So we’re gonna do some, fast, networking sessions, like very 5, 10 minute networking sessions where you’re gonna be in breakout rooms. You’re gonna share what you’re an expert in, what you like speaking on, what type of stages you’re looking for, And what type of stages you can give. And so if you have a podcast right? I have a podcast.

Shawn Q [00:19:16]:

I’m looking for this kind of speaker. Is that you? And I speak on this topic. I’d love this kind of stage. Is that you? And from that, I can’t tell you how many people were able to be on each other’s podcast and each other’s stages, Hired each other from that. I remember getting, like, referral fees that I’m like, why is there, like, $5,000 in my bank my my PayPal account? And then it’s, oh, that person paid $50,000 for this other person that I didn’t even know they work together, but they sent me a referral fee just because they met at my summit. So it’s really, really cool to to kind of help them build their own relationships. And what I discovered was as they As we gave them what they wanted, they wanted more visibility. They wanted more connections.

Shawn Q [00:20:01]:

They wanted more stages. We also got what we wanted from those as well. So Yeah. So it’s the relationships, it’s the referrals, it’s the stages, it’s the the connections. You know, I fully believe your net worth is found in your network. The people you know That you can tap into and leverage, is everything. And so just the fact that I was able to expand to 45 very powerful influential People in their own right was pretty key.

Jennie Wright [00:20:26]:

Absolutely. And if you had to say, like, how many people, Just as a as a guess, how many people were you trying to get out of the 45? How many people were had you been trying to bridge the gap with that you were able to in that space?

Shawn Q [00:20:42]:

I’d probably say about 7 to 10. Like, 7 to 10 people that you know, we had been friends on Facebook. We’d sent a couple of messages, but this led us to Actually getting on calls, so working with each other, to hiring each other. You know, it there was there was actual transactions taking place because of it.

Jennie Wright [00:20:59]:

Totally. And so Now that you’re doing another one in, when are you doing that? In the fall of 2023 or in the spring of 2024? Or

Shawn Q [00:21:08]:

Yep. Q 1 of 2024. Excellent. And so we are gonna go after 60 speakers, Jenny. I’m crazy. I know.

Jennie Wright [00:21:17]:

Why is why? This podcast by saying don’t do it.

Shawn Q [00:21:20]:

Okay. Here’s why. All of our sesh all of our 1 on 1 one off sessions are gonna 25 minutes long instead of 45 to 60 minutes. So the That’s right. Amount of time’s gonna go smaller, and we’re gonna do panels. And this was the way that our, our Our team internally discussed was a scalable method. Well, there’s well, what what if 1 session could include 4 speakers?

Jennie Wright [00:21:42]:

Mhmm.

Shawn Q [00:21:42]:

And now we can, like, have 4 people during the same amount of time speaking on the same topic. So we’re gonna do a couple of panels, which we feel really excited about, kinda creating content in this this new way. So we’re going after 60 speakers. I wanna do quarter $1,000,000 with this summit, which is a little over double or just Just double of what we did, this last time. And, yeah, we’re going after 5,000 leads. I I think it’s very possible, if we do it do it right. So that’s what we’re looking at.

Jennie Wright [00:22:16]:

I think it’s completely possible. Knowing your history, which is where you took a online challenge and ran it, what, 26 times, I think it was, and took it from a challenge that just had a, you know, A handful of registrants and a handful of dollars to a challenge that what brought in, what, $160,000, was it? 267. 267. Sorry. 267.

Shawn Q [00:22:36]:

Yep. In, like, 7 days.

Jennie Wright [00:22:39]:

Yeah. Exactly. So your ability to scale is one of the reasons one of the reasons I wanna join the podcast, but Quite honestly, one of the reasons I I always wanted to work with you. So getting that chance to work with you and your team and be able to see how you guys Sort of, interplay with each other was really great, and I learned some stuff actually producing your event. And with your permission, I actually use that networking piece Yeah. With other people because it is so it is so valuable, which I think is great. So there’s a lot with a summit in terms of, like, the expansion that you can do. The 1st summit, sure.

Jennie Wright [00:23:15]:

Yeah. Let’s have 45 people or 30 speakers or whatever. Now you’re going after 60. You’re including the panels. You’re doing something really different. I love that because it’s innovation, and it’s new and fun, and people are gonna wanna be part of it. Now I have to ask this question. Would you tell somebody else that they need to do a summit, that you would recommend that they would do 1.

Shawn Q [00:23:39]:

I you know, I don’t believe in the word need, because I don’t think we need to do anything. Sure. What I would say is if Somebody wants to build relationships with influencers. They wanna have an event that creates a lot of brand visibility and a Ton of brand authority. If you want to generate leads and make sales, then a summit is A great way to do it. I recommend everybody have a an, an annual event Mhmm. And then quarterly events. We do 2 annual events.

Shawn Q [00:24:10]:

So we do a a retreat that’s in person, and then we do a summit. And those are annual events that generate massive amounts of, leads for us. And, honestly, we could just nurture those leads for the rest of the year, and we’re set. And then we do quarterly events like our challenges, and We do mini summits now, and so we’re gonna start 2024 with mini summits where it’s 6 speakers on 1 hyper focused topic, that are like, they’re just giving all the insight on that one topic. So we’re gonna be doing mini summits as well. But if you want, You know, like I mentioned that that brand visibility, that brand authority, you want that lead generation, you want those sales. You know, you do wanna create a lot of content you can leverage in the future for bonuses. Right? I’m I’ve used our summit recordings as bonuses now.

Shawn Q [00:24:58]:

I’ve used them as, you know, freebies that allow us to download, generate leads, throughout the year. Like, it’s just such a great catalyst to so many of the other things you’re looking for.

Jennie Wright [00:25:10]:

I fully agree, and this definitely was, an unpaid solicitation for your thoughts on summits. Yep. Too funny. Thank you so much for doing this. How can people get in touch with you, learn more about the school of abundance and what you do and just how to connect?

Shawn Q [00:25:27]:

Well, our company is called Abundance Worldwide, but you can head to my personal website, which is heyshanq.comheyshan, The right way to spell Sean, q, the letter, .com. Hey, Sean q.com. And you’ll be able to see all of the details of everything we do. And if you wanna take our summit or be a part be a participant of summit or even speak at our summit. You can go to abundance now summit.com.

Jennie Wright [00:25:50]:

Absolutely. We’ll have all this in the show notes as well so that everybody can see this, which is gonna be great. Sean, it is so awesome to see you again and be able to have you on the podcast. I would love to have you back probably After this next event and talk about how it went with the 6 person panels and how that all kind of, you know, panned out and everything, I’d love to sort of compare summits. And that would be really fun. So thank you so much for doing this. Really appreciate it.

Shawn Q [00:26:15]:

Absolutely. Thanks so much.

Jennie Wright [00:26:17]:

Awesome. And if you’re listening to this podcast and you did enjoy it, Please consider subscribing wherever you’re listening to podcasts. Leave us a review, and you can always ask me a question. Head on over to jennywright.com or wherever you wanna find me on social and reach out through DMs. Thanks so much for listening, and we’ll talk to y’all soon. Take care.