How to Successfully Run a Virtual Event with Lisa Schulteis

Transcription of Episode

[00:00:00] Ryan Chapman: Hey, this is Ryan Chapman with the Fix Your Funnel interview series. And today I've got a special guest, we've got Lisa Schulties. I got the name, right. And with Electrolime Marketing. Thanks for joining me today.

Lisa Schulteis: Thank you for having me. And yes, you did get the name, right so congratulations.

Ryan Chapman: Oh, we were talking before we started recording about how difficult sometimes names can be. I got a real, plain vanilla name, so it makes it easy. I had an earlier guest and his, his name was all over the place. It was half German and half, some other, I can't remember what the other country was, so nobody ever got it right. But where I'd like to start is asking you, how did you get into this field of marketing automation? And, you know, I know you have kind of a specialty area that you, you focus on and help people with, but how did you get into this?

Lisa Schulteis: Yeah. You know, it was almost by accident, which by the way, is never a good way to start a business. But my background is actually in neuropsychology. I used to be in the medical [00:01:00] side of the, of the world and when my kids were born, I made the decision to quit. I wanted to be a stay at home mom and for anybody that knows me, me sitting still and stable and quiet is not something that happens for a while. So after all three kids were born, I just needed something for me. And so I started this company over 10 years ago under a different brand name at the time and really just started building it and started working with clients. A lot of them in, in this speaker and influencer and coaching space where we were managing them, you know, as managing their marketing for them. As you know, marketing automation is such a huge piece of marketing. You know, it, it enables us to still have that one-on-one engagement, but still automated a bit and really built the company that way. Because of my, my niche that I was working with, we were doing a lot of events and small ones from webinars to [00:02:00] actual conferences. And so started really focusing on the events side of the industry and not that management cause God bless the people that deal with hotels, cruises and all of those, but really the event marketing side. So I work with people on both live in person, as well as virtual events in terms of their event, marketing and planning and running them as well.

Ryan Chapman: Oh, wow. That's neat. I don't know if you know this, but when I started first into marketing, it was , I had a company that had kind of raised capital with, from friends and family. It turns out that was probably like 10 years too early. The idea was so it failed miserably. But I found out through that experience that where I was really lacking was in marketing. So through a series of fortunate events, I ran into somebody who started mentoring me and teaching me about marketing and my brother Trent and I started a company right after that, which was events. It was a training company, but we were doing two, three events a [00:03:00] week. So I really have a feel for the value of the work that you do. That's, that's a, it can be quite, quite overwhelming at times

Lisa Schulteis: Two to three events a week is a lot.

Ryan Chapman: So yeah, we ended up doing 440 over the course of that business. It was, you know, it was a short window of opportunity for the solution that we were teaching about, bu t yeah so we had to kind of do it that way. We couldn't have the Liberty spreading it out because time was of the essence. There are a lot of people being affected, but yeah, events are big. They're a lot of work and it really stretched us. And I'm, I'm excited that you have done that. But now is a very interesting time because in the event world, we just had a sudden shock to the system.

Lisa Schulteis: Absolutely.

Ryan Chapman: I don't even know what we would have done back then. I mean, it was a different time. We had different tools available to us, but today going from live and in person [00:04:00] events, which can be a huge moneymaker in fact, that that was our entire business model at the time, shifting on a dime, which is essentially what you're doing here has gotta be incredible. How has that process gone for you?

Lisa Schulteis: It's been interesting. You know, we have one client that we thankfully had done a virtual event for them. It was a internal sales and marketing meeting, approximately six months ago, five day event. 1300 attendees, 600 sessions in five days. And we had done everything virtually. So for them, they were coming up on their next meeting and we were actually able to convert their live in person event to a virtual event in a week and a half. Which is insane and little sleep, but we were able to do it because we had the systems in place and we, because we have the plan in place.

Ryan Chapman: So when was that event scheduled for, if you don't mind me asking.

Lisa Schulteis: Yeah, that was scheduled for, to [00:05:00] start March 16. So they made the decision to switch it right when this was coming up of, should we shouldn't we, which way is this whole Coronavirus thing going to go? And so they made a proactive decision and we were able to flip things in about a week and a half. Oh, it's huge you know, and we scaled it back a little bit, but still are providing that same, you know, level of, you know, content and, you know, for them it's, since it's an internal, you know, it's all about the product launches that are happening in six to 12 months down the road, their internal employees have to know what that is.

Ryan Chapman: So you must've been a part of that discussion in some way.

Lisa Schulteis: Yeah, I got the phone call on a Saturday that says, Oh, by the way, we need to switch this and, you know, can we start Monday? So you know, which is typical in the events industry anyway, that things happen last minute. [00:06:00] But you know, for them it was easier just because we had everything set from six months ago. Other, you know, other companies that are sitting here now, even people that are having events in may and in June, you know, they're having to make those decisions. And there's a lot of factors in that you can reschedule an event, but everybody's rescheduling to Q4 right now, which then it's going to become a game of the big boys, get to get to reschedule and the smaller kids get nothing, right? Because there's only how many dates and venues?

Ryan Chapman: And fourth, quarter's always bare anyways, because of the holidays.

Lisa Schulteis: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So now they're having to really pivot and decide do we cancel? Which that's a horrible thought, right? Because we have all that money, your income from attendees sales sponsor, an exhibitors...

Ryan Chapman: That could kill a business right there.

Lisa Schulteis: Now to, you know, do we cancel too? Do we reschedule or do we [00:07:00] convert it to a virtual one and still provide that experience for people? But that's the keyword is they really have to make it very experiential and very engaging for people. So it's, it's an interesting dilemma and it's a huge way that we're seeing the events industry pivot right now. And some are doing it really, really well and some of them are just flailing, cause they just don't know where, where to start.

Ryan Chapman: Yeah, that's true. That is very fascinating because it, that those, those sounded like almost like trivial decisions, like, Oh, should we do this? Should we extend? You know, what should we do? But those have huge ramifications on the bottom line of any business that has events as part of it.

Lisa Schulteis: Absolutely.

Ryan Chapman: Even if your events aren't sales events, right? If they're team events or partnership events where you're trying to build your community. That that can be a make or break decision. So that's a big deal to pivot. What are some of the considerations that people took as they were looking through those decisions? Cause obviously you had this one example of the company [00:08:00] that they made that decision on the dime and just let you know, and you could address it for them, but I'm imagining you've been in some of those discussions with other clients that are trying to decide what do we do.

Lisa Schulteis: Right. You know, it's really looking at, you know, it comes down to numbers, right? So we, we have to look at how much income was coming in from that event initially. Right? So again, through sponsors, sales, exhibitors, attendees, all of those things, as well as how much was going out the door in terms of your venue costs and your catering costs and your hotel costs and travel costs. Which is huge, right? And some, you know, everybody's trying to survive right now. So some of the, the industry, some of the hotels, some of the venues, some of the caterers are being incredibly considerate. And saying. Okay, great. You know, if you reschedule, we're not going to give you any additional fees, right. Or if you cancel, we're not going to give you any cancellation fees that are built into the contract because [00:09:00] we understand this is kind of a unique bet. Some companies are not doing that, and it's not that it's right or wrong. It's just, it's how they're doing business because everybody's trying to survive. So the first consideration is to say, okay, if we just flat out cancel how much money is out the door, we're usually talking a few million, right? When you're talking some of these really large scale events, even with smaller events. You know, I'll hold, you know, one, two day workshops and I know how much money I invest in just a one or two day workshop, it's still a consideration. So if we can take it to a virtual platform where we can still interact with our attendees, we can still engage with our attendees. Most importantly, if you have sponsors and exhibitors, to make sure that your sponsors and exhibitors are still having their quote unquote, you know, booth, right? To have a virtual room where they're able to engage with people and meet with people and still build their business. If you can [00:10:00] do all of those things, then it may be a very good choice for you to go virtual because people are craving engagement right now. I don't know about you. I got super excited. I had a dental appointment. I was so excited. I got to go right? Like who, who does that? But it was because I got to go drive in my vehicle a half hour away and be outside and then come back. Right? So people are really craving that engagement and that, you know, give me a little life is normal. So if we can take your event and move that to a virtual platform, but still have that engagement and have that excitement about your brand, it's really going to help to continue, you know, catapulting your brand and really continue to, to have those relationships with your attendees.

Ryan Chapman: But event people, you know, people that live and die by events. Aren't the only people who've had to do some major pivots.

Lisa Schulteis: Correct.

Ryan Chapman: You're working with some other [00:11:00] industries that are also facing some of those pivots. What are some examples and how are they making the change?

Lisa Schulteis: Yeah, everybody has been affected by this. You know, you look at the restaurant industry, for example, you know, they essentially were shut down with the exception of maybe being able to do deliveries or take out. And so from a restaurant standpoint, some of them have done a really good job. There are restaurants that have never done delivery in their life, and now they're doing delivery, right? It was a quick pivot so that they could keep their employees employed. And still get the food to the people that are really missing their food. Another way that restaurants were pivoting, you know, that was kind of the initial reaction. And everybody did that. So restaurants now need a way to stand out beyond that because I can get delivery from just about anywhere now. So now they need to pivot again, to stand out. Amongst their competition. So some of the things that we're starting to see are, I [00:12:00] know one restaurant that they're starting to do a date night, where you can actually go on their website, choose your date night on their calendar. So if I want to have a date night with my husband a week from now on a Saturday, I can reserve that date, tell them I want my food delivered at 7:00 PM. And this is what I want to be on the, they have on the menu. And then they actually can put that together for a week from now, to deliver that experience into my home. And some of the restaurants are giving you a choice to say, do you want your food a hundred percent cooked and ready to go? When we deliver it? Or do you want kind of what I call the blue apron effect, right? Or any of the home delivery companies where we deliver it to you and maybe we have everything put together and all you have to do is put it in the oven and maybe sprinkle some salts or some herbs on top of it and pour some juice on it when it comes out of the oven, but you're, you know, you're cooking together, right? [00:13:00] So they're, they're providing that experience for you where you're getting to participate a little bit in the effort of delivery in your favorite meal. So they're giving you a choice and it's really all about that experience.

Ryan Chapman: There, obviously there's some people who have made great pivots and you know, now we're providing new experiences, new approaches to meet the market demands, given all the constraints that have been added, but there's others that have not at all. What do you think is the difference between those that have just like thrown up their hands and those that have made the pivot or made the change?

Lisa Schulteis: Yeah. Well, I tell everybody is if you pivot you'll profit, if you stay stagnant or fearful, you're going to fail. And it really does come down to that. You know, we all need to find ways to keep our business moving and even in regular times, right. We need to find [00:14:00] ways to keep our business moving. So if we can make a pivot that achieves one of two goals, We're going to profit and those two goals, and you had talked about a little bit about these earlier are, you know, the first one is we want to make a profit, right? We want to be able to make a pivot where we're going to have money coming in the door. The other reason to make a pivot is because it's the right thing to do.

Ryan Chapman: Give me an example of that.

Lisa Schulteis: Yeah, so you have all these companies that pivoted in the last 30 days and are now making personal protection equipment. Right? So for example, fanatics. You know, they normally manufacturer uniforms for major league baseball, but now they're taking that same material and they're making protective downs and nass for medical professionals who are fighting, fighting the pandemic. Same thing with layered plastics, they're manufacturing face shields for first responders. Dyson came up with a new ventilator that was specifically [00:15:00] created to address cOVID-19 patient needs, right? So they're, they're pivoting, they're still making a profit and some of these companies are actually donating their, their goods as well. So in one way, they've pivoted to make a profit, but in another way, they've pivoted because it's the right thing to do. They're helping society and you know, people listening might be thinking, yeah, but I'm not making personal protection equipment. So how can I pivot to do the good part? That goes back to pivot, you know, people want that engagement and they want to interact with brands right now. So even just pivoting to give them that interaction or give them the engagement, you're doing good people are going to remember that because...

Ryan Chapman: Yeah, for example with you, you're doing work with people that put on events. By helping them transition from a live event that they can't do it to a virtual event. [00:16:00] That's doing good in the area of your expertise, right?

Lisa Schulteis: Absolutely. I love the events industry and I am going to do everything I can to make sure it doesn't fail. I can not imagine a world without live events, whether we're talking sporting events or conferences or. Sales and marketing meetings that, you know, none of us probably looked forward to in the past, but now we really appreciate right, because we get to escape all. So it's that same thing it's all I want to do is help people to keep moving and to keep growing and to keep their businesses alive.

Ryan Chapman: You know, what's interesting is Fix Your Funnel in March. What we saw, we did see a larger than normal drop-off in business and it was just mostly I think accounts that really weren't utilizing the service and they weren't really fully engaged in business. And so they just kind of shut down the doors, which was unfortunate. And it [00:17:00] wasn't like huge, but it was a little bit larger than normal. It's usually what we see in April around tax time, when people started calving all their pennies and then they're making the decisions and cutting out things that they shouldn't, but they do right. And then this month we've actually seen a surge. So all those companies that are recognizing and they've pivoted, and I say, okay, we got to get more serious about how we communicate with people, because what we've done in the past, just isn't going to work because everybody's doing it now. Have you seen any difference in the way that, you know, your clients are trying to communicate with their, their customers and their prospects?

Lisa Schulteis: Absolutely. It's really... I think everybody's kind of gotten over the shock at this point, right? When this first started there was lots of judgment about, you know, maybe businesses that were, were closing or, or events that were being canceled or things like that because people were making that judgment. I think that shock. [00:18:00] Yeah. And I think the companies that are pivoting are starting to really see the uptick again. And again, it's it's because people are looking for back to normal and we may not get that for a while. Right. We don't know where this roller coaster ride is going to end. Right. It could be cyclical. It could be a start and stop. We have no idea. But the companies, I, you know, I tell people all the time I have been busier in the last 30 days and I probably have been in months because not because I necessarily have more business, but it's it's because I know that I need to hustle a little bit harder. And so I think that the companies that are pivoting are starting to have that mentality where, okay, we've gotten over this, we know that this is going to be what our normal life is. Even if it's for a short time, this is normal now. So now we have to find a way to work in this new normal, and that new normal right now is a [00:19:00] online, only world. So let's make it happen. And that's where I'm seeing the adjustment. And for people that might have a membership program, you know, similar to Fix Your Funnel, where you're looking at monthly recurring income from people. One of the things that I'm seeing working really well is if somebody contacts you and says, Hey, I want to cancel my subscription. It's just not needed right now. Yeah. One of the things that's working really well is to come back and say, you know what? I understand that times are unsure. I want to make sure that, you know, we meet your needs, but you're also a valued customer. So why don't we go ahead and just give you the next two months for free. Or whatever the timeline is, give you the next two months for free. And then, you know, we'll put you back on your normal schedule. And what that does is it's allowing these no recurring revenue plans and these companies to maybe have two months that their income goes [00:20:00] down, but 60 days from now, they get, you know, that person gets auto charged again. And they haven't lost that income because they're continuing to be able to charge it moving forward. So sometimes just giving them a break for a month or two is enough to keep them within that recurring monthly support.

Ryan Chapman: On that side, you have to be really careful though, because that can totally backfire. I know we had a partner that was working in a particular industry that was, you know, kind of impacted. It's probably more mental on how they were impacted than it is, you know, certain. But, they proactively started just cutting their revenue in half and ended up losing a substantial number of clients in the process. And I think that they think they're going to be able to raise those rates back up when things go back to normal, but I think it's going to be a real struggle

Lisa Schulteis: And you have to be careful how you do it. So I wouldn't necessarily do it in that manner. [00:21:00] You know, I wouldn't necessarily cut everybody's rates in half or something like that. This is more of a, you know, if I contact you and say, Hey, Ryan, I want to change. It's a way to react.

Ryan Chapman: You want to work with people, right?

Lisa Schulteis: Yeah. So it's a way to respond to the customer service issue without losing the client. But I wouldn't do things across the board because finacially that doesn't make sense.

Ryan Chapman: I didn't get the impression you were suggesting that, but I know some people could hear that and then misunderstand, you don't want do that.

Lisa Schulteis: Yeah. This would be a one off case scenario where you're saving a customer who might be ready to camp versus just saying, Oh, well, but of, you know, a hundred dollars a month, we're only going to charge you two 50 or something like that. You know, you just wanted it's, it's a one, you know, one off case consideration.

[00:22:00] Ryan Chapman: Totally. Totally. But yeah, so this has been really interesting because I think that as people learn to pivot, they can have a huge impact on their business and their bottom line. What are some of the recommendations you're making in terms of virtual events to make them engaging? So people want to actually attend, cause I know that's always been a challenge with online events is life is going around and around that person, they're not isolated out of their normal environment, which are all kind of, those are the challenges of life events, but they're also benefits, right?

Lisa Schulteis: Correct.

Ryan Chapman: Because when you get someone in a different city or in a different place than they normally are, sometimes you can get them to focus in a different way, really be in the moment, learn new things, meet new people and create a real neat experience for them. But virtually there are a lot of elements that you don't have control over that are in play. How are you making that transition and helping folks that are doing live events to go virtual and not lose the overall experience?

[00:23:00] Lisa Schulteis: So it's going to depend on the type of event that you're doing and, you know, some of the events are easier than others, so...

Ryan Chapman: What's an example of an easier event to convert?

Lisa Schulteis: Yeah. So here's a couple of examples. So let's talk about, you know, I mentioned, you know, I might have a one day workshop that's live and so if I convert that to a virtual event, obviously I can, I can utilize something as easy as Zoom and have my whiteboard, but, you know, with the camera, all of those things where I'm able to still talk to them, still draw, still have them, you know, interact with me. But if I'm doing a webinar also on Zoom, I want to make sure I'm adding things in that are engaging, adding in polls. Adding, asking people to simply raise their hand and test out the little, raise your hand feature at the beginning to kind of train them to do so in the middle.

Ryan Chapman: That's really interesting.

Lisa Schulteis: Yeah. I did a webinar the other day with a Keap/Infusionsoft. [00:24:00] And one of the things that we did at the beginning is we asked a question at, as people were signing in and said, Hey, here's the question that we have for you put your answer in chat. And the question I think at the time was what is the, one of the biggest challenges that you have right now in engaging with your customers? And so before the webinar had even started, we had a lot of people that have given us answers of what kind of challenges that they were facing so that we can go ahead and incorporate those into the webinar. So there's, you know, on the smaller end scale events, there's a lot of things that you can do to just get them to talk to you and engage with you. Asking questions, doing those polls, raising the hands, all of those things. So smaller events are a little bit easier. And the bigger events you still have to do some really big things. Right? Big conferences. We do big things to get people's attention, right? Yeah. It's the reason we have parties at the end of the day. It's the [00:25:00] reason we do networking. It's, you know, all of those reasons. So we're still transferring those things over to the virtual world, obviously in a little bit of a different format. But so for example, every virtual event that I'm doing right now, we have a summit coming up. Every virtual event that we're doing, I am telling the organizers that one, if you're doing something like a summit or a conference where most of the content is prerecorded, I still expect to see some live elements in there in between the sessions. So I want your face on there. I want you to say, Hey, you know, Ryan just had this, I hope you heard these three points from him. Our next speaker is John. John's going to be talking about this. And then when we come back, this is what we're going to be doing. Even just that small live interaction has a huge effect on people. Zhe other thing that we're doing is we're still doing networking. We're still doing entertainment, so we're doing virtual happy hours on zoom. I've had more virtual [00:26:00] happy hours in the last three days than I probably have had happy hours.

Ryan Chapman: Interesting. How does that work? Cause I know...

Lisa Schulteis: It's fun, right? Everybody shows up on Zoom. You all bring your own cocktail or whatever it is that you want to drink and you have some interaction back and forth and you meet new people and networking and things like that. You can do breakout rooms on Zoom as well. Those can be kind of fun as well.

Ryan Chapman: Is that what you ended up doing? Cause like we, for Easter, we had my extended family. I'm the oldest of 13. So there's a batch of us get on a Zoom thing and it was just crazy.

Lisa Schulteis: Yes.

Ryan Chapman: How do you do that?

Lisa Schulteis: You can invite people to a Zoom breakout room. You know, put 10 people in a breakout room and give them a topic table. Right? Same thing as a live event at a lunch, right? You have topic tables at a lunch. You can do breakout sessions and Zoom to have topic tables over lunch, where everybody just brings from their kitchen into the office and gets on Zoom. And you're having these topic tables. So that can [00:27:00] happen as well. And then bigger things to fun events. Right. I have a friend who's a DJ. And she's doing virtual dance parties. She has one tonight, she's doing an eighties theme dance party that's virtual, and you can bring that in as part of your event so that people are still getting that interaction and that excitement and that fun, right? And put a theme with it and all of those things. So we're bringing all of those pieces and we're just pivoting and changing them a bit. So to bring them over to the virtual side and making sure we still have our themes going and all of those things that people get excited about to really make the event as good as we can. And some of these events, they're actually mailing the swag out to the attendees as well, so that they have that, that piece of the pie, right. That they normally would get. So there's a lot of different things that you can do. It's just depending on the size of your event, it's going to really depend on your brand and how [00:28:00] you interact with people anyway and the impression that you want to leave with people.

Ryan Chapman: Very cool. So you mentioned a couple of things, you know, you really want to keep it an experience, you got to deliver on the value. What are some of those other things that you really take into consideration? Kind of like a mental checklist that you have? Like, we gotta hit these items in order to make sure this event doesn't fall flat, virtually.

Lisa Schulteis: Right. So the non-sexy things that fall into that obviously are you know, what the financial situation is and what it's going to cost to run the event virtually versus, you know, what they've already had out the pocket and what we can save from what they have out of the pocket already. So financial is, is absolutely a huge consideration of it. I will tell you that, you know, moving in event and virtually, if it's a bigger event, you know, like this one, even that we had the 1300 attendees for, yeah. There were a lot of moving pieces in that, and people need to realize that that costs money. It's not a [00:29:00] free video conferencing.

Ryan Chapman: Just because it's virtual doesn't mean it's less expensive necessarily.

Lisa Schulteis: Financial considerations are huge and we still go through the same line item breakouts that you would, with a live event where they virtual event, we still have to figure out what our AB costs are. We still have to figure out we have to add in things like, you know, bandwidth which is always a fun thing. You know, if the company is hosting their own. Video platform, you know, what is the bandwidth of that? If 5,000 people log on, are, are we going to crash their system? Right. So there's a lot of those still AB technical type issues and even more so that come into the virtual event. But finances are something that we line item through with people and then really the technology. We really look at the goal of the event and what the, the organizers are trying to get out of the event and the experience that they're trying to give their [00:30:00] attendees. And then we have to match that up with the right technical solution. So sometimes it's an easy, that's great we can do it as a video conference. Sometimes we move it into a preexisting event, virtual events, software, and some, this one that we did in September, we took an existing online E learning platform and then customize the heck out of it to meet their needs. So it's really evaluating what are the goals. And then once we have those goals, How do we support that technically to make sure that it's the experience that the event organizer wants.

Ryan Chapman: I Imagine that's something that folks would overlook if they didn't have someone like you.

Lisa Schulteis: It's a lot of work. There's a lot of different software solutions out there. And some of them do a lot of things really, really well. And some of them, a lot of things kind of okay. And so [00:31:00] it's, it's taken us months and months and months of evaluating systems and doing demo accounts and things like that, to make sure that we have software solutions that we can give to people that. Not only are within their budgets that will really present the experience they want.

Ryan Chapman: So you don't really, unless you've had experience with some of these things, you don't know, you could go test a particular software. Now get 50 people on there, 20 people from the organization like, Oh yeah, this works great. You throw 5,000. It just crumbles. Right?

Lisa Schulteis: We've had some experiences too. And this is going to be with any software industry where you have the conversation with the sales person and you're told what the software does. And then you get into it and you realize what the software really does, right. Or doesn't do. And so we've had some challenges in the past, but that, that we had to work through. So really identifying, [00:32:00] you know, what software is going to work for you and knowing all those nuances to make sure that you're not trying to run a 3000 person event on a simple video conferencing. If you want to have all of these different breakout sessions and experiences and all those things, you know, you need to know what decisions to make. So we work with us through all of those.

Ryan Chapman: But it's interesting because like, for example, with our OneClickUpsell product, it's our, one of our oldest products, but it's been so battle tested for high volume situations. And sometimes we'll get people that will come through and they're like, Oh, you know, I'm going to go with somebody else on this. And then it crashes when they have the huge volume, because it's not optimized for the limitations that Infusionsoft has. And so it's interesting to watch some of these things play out. That's where it really helps to have you know, an expert in your corner, like you, who has been through these different situations, you've seen the [00:33:00] meltdowns, you know, which things to watch out for which things to move towards in order to be able to accommodate the needs of the event. And I think that becomes one of those priceless things that, because the thing about events is they're fixed in time. You don't get a do over if you mess up on it. Yeah, people can judge an organization based on how that event ends up going. So cutting cost or corners are not paid attention to details when you're moving an event virtually can have a significant ramification on the, on the company's reputation going forward.

Lisa Schulteis: And it always comes back to planning. Like anything in business, right? It doesn't matter what industry you're in. You have to plan it. You have to have your end goal in mind and work backwards. And that end goal has to be super specific.

Ryan Chapman: That's something that you do for these organizations so that you really make sure that they do all that proper planning and preparation [00:34:00] and know what their goal is and that kind of thing.

Lisa Schulteis: Yes, you have to focus on the entire marketing strategy on the front end. We have to know if you call me and say, Hey, Lisa, I want to do this virtual event the first question that's going to come out of my mouth is why. And it's not a why to say, no, you don't want to do it. It's a, why do you want to do it? What is your goal? What is your purpose? And you have to tell me the specifics, like if it's to sell. Yeah, I want to do this event because I want to sell a thousand tickets at this cost to reap this kind of a net return. That's a goal versus, Oh, I want to do an event to get exposure. That's not a goal. That's just kind of a wish. So we really have to work through that piece first and then work backwards to say, great, what's the right type of event because there's different types of events to do. And then once we know what type of event we're going to do, then what's the right system to put behind it.

Ryan Chapman: That's so good, it's so [00:35:00] great that it's people like you that have that understanding. Because of that, that's so valuable. It's going, and I'm throwing us back to the OneClickUpsell thing, just because I see some interesting correlations. I would have people that would pay me $1,500 for an hour to walk through, you know, kind of just the, this kind of planning thing. And some people go 1500 bucks for an hour. That seems a little outrageous Ryan. But if we got their upsells all organized, right. Which, you know, like you and your event, space and upsells, I know all the questions to ask someone. And so if I get those right questions asked, I help them get their, their upsells structured right. They'll make that $1,500 back in a week. And then every week after that, you know, much more, you know what I mean? And so that's where someone like you, that has that expertise in that particular area of events you can make or break an event by who you have running it.

Lisa Schulteis: And I think that's correct in any, you know, stage of business. [00:36:00] So for example, I can run my own Facebook ads. I am physically capable of doing it. I know how to do it. I know how to set up a pixel, but I pay people to run my Facebook ads because they can do it a thousand times better. And usually a thousand times faster because I have to go remember how to do it every time. And so it just makes more sense for me to outsource that out to somebody who does that every day in their sleep. Right? And you know, same thing with accounting, right? I hate accounting. I don't understand how anybody that can be an accountant, but God bless them that they are because that's not my sweet spot and that's not my gift. And I think in business, we need to make that smart decision to bring those people around us, who can support us in these different areas of our business.

Ryan Chapman: I have to agree a hundred percent. I recently we were doing an internal evaluation of, you know, what are some of the undesirable things that we see in the business, you know, for the [00:37:00] experience of our customers, you know, whatever. And one of the things that kind of came up is that, you know, many Infusionsoft users are not trained marketers. You know, they're small business owners, they want to use and leverage the power of automation. And so they get the software, but they really don't understand marketing and sales beyond whatever they kind of hobbled together in the business. And now they're trying to apply an automation engine to that, and that's kind of a recipe for disaster. So how do we overcome that challenge for people and really what it comes down to is that investment in getting somebody that understands marketing to help you structure out layout things. Will pay out itself in droves versus just hobbling together something that hasn't really been thought through or considered. And the same thing with the events, you know, someone just saying, Hey, will you, you're on the team. You know, you're on the staff, you're in charge of the event without having that expertise and information can make something go from terrible to great by getting the right [00:38:00] person in there to help you and help you navigate the waters. So do you take on different roles? I mean, obviously you are being handed whole projects, like here's the event make it happen. What do you, do? Do you do different levels of help for different people in different types of businesses?

Lisa Schulteis: Yes. So some people just have me come in for the planning stage. So that marketing and strategy. And then what type of event and what type of software do we need to do? And if they've got the team then to take that and run with it, then that's great.

Ryan Chapman: So you serve more as an architect in those instances. Correct?

Lisa Schulteis: Correct. Other people will actually say, okay, great. Once we get to that piece now, can you please just go make this happen? Right. Wave the magic wand, build it, make sure everything is perfect.

Ryan Chapman: Architect and general at that point.

Lisa Schulteis: But then we have architect and general contractor. And then beyond that, then in a normal world, when we are able to travel wherever we want to do, there are clients [00:39:00] that actually bring me in house for the live event week. So for example, this one, this last September, this five day event, I actually was in house. So when we have 20 sessions kicking off all at the same time, you know, on a Monday morning at 10:00 AM, I'm sitting there making sure that all 20 sessions are actually kicking off at the same time and make sure they are working. So I definitely, I get brought in as a production manager role to make sure that three day or five day event, that we don't have the technical issues. Yeah, virtual events can be very hybrid events where you have a little bit, you know, mostly virtual, but you still have some live elements like chat rooms and things like that. So anytime you're bringing that live element and we have to make sure that, you know, we have AV people in the correct room while you're having chat sessions, or if you're showing product, the cameras are working and things like that. So [00:40:00] there's all of those different moving parts. So I, I will do anything from just the front end to all the way through the end.

Ryan Chapman: I have so much admiration for the work you do, because I know that we did mostly like three hour events when we were doing these. They're just in different cities, all over the nation. And so that we were doing a lot of those, but occasionally we did some, some bigger events where we'd have anywhere from 300 to a thousand people, not huge. Right. But they were like two day events. And when we would run those, I just, I know how much the team between the AV people and, you know, we, we never got a real expert, so they were a little bit frazzled as they were trying to keep everything on schedule and everything, but I, you know, because of that, whenever I go to a big event, I'm always observing, who's running the show and it is just a sight to behold. I mean, for the average attendee, they wouldn't even notice. Right. Just things are just working the way [00:41:00] that they would expect. For the person who is like, it's their event it's such a relief to not carry any of that weight of orchestrating the whole thing. And just focusing on delivering the messages that they need to deliver. And so you're really a lifesaver. So I just want to say thank you because I know it's a lot of it's behind the scenes, but you make a huge difference in how many of these events that we participate and benefit from go off without a hitch.

Lisa Schulteis: Yeah, I love them. I always tell people, you have to be a little bit of crazy to do fence a good kind of crazy, right. They're very high energy. Yes you. Yeah, I normally, if I'm at a live event, I would normally will tell my, my family when I come home, don't talk to me for two days, cause I just can't talk to anyone. But, you know, you have to kind of re rejuvenate and refresh, but you know, I think events, whether we're talking a webinar or we're talking a 10,000 person conference, you know, events are such a really good way [00:42:00] to increase your brand exposure, increase your lead gen and your email list size. And then most importantly, just an amazing way to talk to your people in person. You know, even if it's virtually, you're still, you're, you're just interacting with them in a different way than you normally do in a day to day business. And I think that's why we all love going to conferences. There's lots of conferences I've never walked into a breakout session the entire time I'm there interacting with people and engaging with people and people love that. And, and that experience that your brand is giving them whether it's live or virtual. Whether you're a restaurant or a personal trainer or a karate studio or whatever, that experience that you're giving people. When you can pivot that from live to virtual, you're just going to [00:43:00] keep building your brand and building those relationships.

Ryan Chapman: We'll thank you so much. I think that's a perfect note to end on. How do folks get ahold of you at Electrolime Marketing?

Lisa Schulteis: So they can reach me either on my [email protected] and we'll have that link in the show notes. In addition, they are welcome to connect with me on LinkedIn I'm on LinkedIn a lot. So we'll put that link in there as well. But my last name is difficult to spell. My first name is easy. That's Lisa LISA. My last name is Schultz heist, which is S C H U L T E I S if you put that in LinkedIn or Google me, I'm pretty easy to find.

Ryan Chapman: You'd be about the only one, huh?

Lisa Schulteis: There's a few, but I'm pretty easy to find.

Ryan Chapman: Well, thanks so much, really appreciate your joining us today.

Lisa Schulteis: I appreciate it. I appreciate being on the show.