Speaker 1: You know, we didn't we didn't really promote speakers for like a couple weeks From the from the actual event and drew was like, yo, we gotta promote speakers I'm like, I don't really want to I want to promote community. I want to promote information Not a person

Speaker 2: Not too long ago. You had a huge event huge down in Miami, right and And I, before Dan was virtual, then before Dan was like, I believe the very first one, hence where the podcast came from. But how many people were in this last, this last event real quick?

Speaker 3: We had about 2,200, I believe, about 2,200, 2,300 people. 2,200, what was the first one? 550.

Speaker 2: Okay, so thank you. I just need those stats real quick. So $550 to over $2K, right? How do people even get to that stats? Because some people are going to look at, oh, he did the event, he got over $2K, I could do this too. And people are not understanding those first couple events, even those 20, $10, $20 events that you did, like, can you talk through the journey of having like a live event for the people?

Speaker 1: Yeah, it's dangerous because, I mean, very few people, people don't like don't do events because it's a very public success or failure. So if nobody comes, you can't hide it. It's not like if I say I'm gonna sell 100,000 books, nobody really knows how many books I sold. You know what I mean? Like if I say this is gonna be the biggest T-shirt brand in the world, nobody really knows how many I sold. But if I do an event, I set out all these chairs and nobody's in the chairs, you can see it. So I have, I can't even really, you know what I'm saying? you know what I'm saying? Very, very rarely have I ever hit my number. So the first year I said I was gonna have 5, first year I said I was gonna have 1,000, we had 550. I missed the number. If I said I was gonna have 550, I would've probably had two. Well, we just go big. Like this year we said we was gonna have 3,000, we had 2,200, missed the number. But, like, I promote it with the same excitement every single year, and it continues to grow. So first year, I said, I'm going to have 1,000, we have 550. And a lot of people loved it. They were just blown away. And then the second year, COVID hit, and we had to take it to virtual. I told them that year, we're going to have 2,000. I forgot how many we had. was it was just a it was a it was rough because everybody went

Speaker 2: virtual. Right. And it was a weird year. It was a weird year.

Speaker 1: It was weird. But yeah, so that was 2020. Yeah, 2020. Didn't do anything 2021. And then 2022. We're like, yo, we want 3000 people and we have 2200 now still look full still amazing. It was just absolutely amazing. I'm just going for the stars Like, I just, I just go crazy. So, but here's, if we're talking about how to, um, you know, what you need to do in terms of an event is you gotta be good at it, whatever it is you're talking about, just be good at it and like publicly good at it. And then you have to get, uh, start building relationships. And I have a lot of relationships. So when I do an event, people say, yo, I want to be there and I don't have to ask them to promote, they just do. Right. And I've been in the community so long building a community that when I say we're gonna do an event You know, we sold like 500 tickets the first day on the morning meetup Community yeah, but I've been there for a while. So Events events are tough. I would probably suggest for somebody to kind of do some virtual stuff To kind of build your influence first But again, I've been doing events since 2014 at these bars and lounges moving people so I think I know if I answered the question, but The events events are tough and it could be very discouraging. So we were I was with Joe Vaughn This was a couple years ago, and I was encouraging Joe like you'll do an event man. We got the venue you already here He said yes, I'm gonna do an event. It's gonna be like a game night. We're gonna do it. Yeah Yeah you know getting closer to any of it really a lot of times you get discouraged because Especially if you don't hit them numbers, you're like, oh it's looking like he told me the day of he was like, yo, man I hope it I hope it storms Because he was looking for an excuse to say work out But you know some people came and it was really really cool but I think you really, really have to have the stomach for an event, because it's a lot of work, and I don't know how many of those I'm going to do, because it's so much work, and it's not a lot of financial benefit, one. The impact is over a couple of days, but you gotta do so much to impact these people over a couple of days. I do that on a regular basis, so I can do virtual events and all that kind of stuff without all that preparation, and I can impact so many people. I can do a challenge.

Speaker 3: I don't know, events is tough. Y'all just had one, right? How was it? It was amazing.

Speaker 2: It was only for the community though. Yeah, it was only, that's what I love, just serving the community. So we did that, but.

Speaker 1: You know my ultimate goal though? What's that? My ultimate goal is to do an event and not let anyone that's not in the community buy a ticket. It's not for everybody. Same vibe. I don't want to promote, I don't want to market, I don't want to do nothing. Just if you're in the community, that's it. Actually, I approached CJ with a concept too, so he ain't hit me back yet, but you know. Come on, CJ.

Speaker 2: I do got to follow up real quick. Sorry, Moose, I got to follow up because I noticed everything. So can we talk about the strategy of promoting an event? I've noticed, right? Those people who are on your podcast happen to be speakers at your event, which then not only gives them a platform to say their message, but it allows content to be put on their platform and yours for a constant reminder that the event is coming. Then you do some lives, separate lives on a, on a YouTube channel that has over about 200k subscribers. Now you create a separate series, which is more content. So is there, how do you go about the strategies of promoting your events?

Speaker 1: Good. Um, again, first I'm going straight to the community that we built first, like first and foremost, I'm going to let them know in everything that I do. Um, they get an extreme discount first and foremost, like the tickets I want to say, like for a black equity I was like $400 or something like that that first day morning meetup got it for 50 bucks today I'll take care of my community first and foremost But how we started the first the very first conference was this actually how I started like the podcast where I'm just interviewing people who are gonna be speakers at the conference because I'm thinking if I interview the person if I interview moose and and he's gonna, like, he's gonna be a speaker at the conference. People might yell, I love Moose. I didn't know who Moose was, but I love him. And I'm like, yo, you want to meet Moose? They're like, yeah, come to the conference. He's speaking at it. So that was my first strategy on how the podcast got started. If you look at them first, like 10 or 12 episodes, there's not, there's no intro to the podcast. It's like the podcast didn't even have a name. So here's the thing, Melissa. I didn't name this podcast yet.

Speaker 2: Okay, in a name itself.

Speaker 1: In a name itself.

Speaker 2: Yeah, in a name itself.

Speaker 1: It was just, hey, y'all, we're here. I don't got a name for this podcast, but we're gonna talk about some stuff. Really. Look at the first few episodes. And that was my strategy. My strategy is always to elevate the people that are going to be there. Let me just promote people. This year, my goal was not to promote the speakers though, everybody has events there promoting the speakers. Oh, so-and-so is going to be here. So-and-so is going to be there." And I was telling my partner while we were doing it, because I partnered with Drew B. Wildbee, and we went back and forth about this. I said, I don't really want to make flyers for the speakers. I only want to sell people on the outcomes and what they're going to learn, regardless of who's going to be teaching it. I don't want it to be like a fanfare show or like, Don't want I don't want people to come because a certain person is going to be there I want them to come one for the information But two because 3,000 other people are going to be there and that's where the magic is Yo, we didn't we didn't really promote speakers for like a couple weeks from the from the the actual event and Drew was like yo, we got a promote speakers. I'm like, I don't really want to I want to promote community I want to promote information not a person and And I think it worked out really, really well because people were buying tickets without knowing who was going to speak. And that moving forward is how I really want to promote every single conference, not for the person that's going to be there, but for the other people that's going to be there, the community, the connection, networking.