AL 009: Can Virtual Summit Collabs Help Me Promote My List?

AL 009: Can Virtual Summit Collabs Help Me Promote My List?

Liz Wilcox: What’s up? What’s up? Liz Wilcox here, and you’re listening to another bite-size episode of Smart Passive Income. These are the AskLiz editions where you can ask me pretty much anything, online biz, lifestyle design, personal development. Whatever is on your mind and you’re interested in hearing my take on it, I wanna answer it for you.

So if you go to the show notes and you click on the SpeakPipe, uh, you can submit your question, and anyone that I answer on, uh, the podcast… I’m saying, uh, a lot, sorry. I have had a long day. Anyway, anyone that gets on the podcast, I’m gonna send a free T-shirt, because who doesn’t love swag, right? So I wanna pause here before we get in.

We’re gonna listen to Allan from DigitalSolopreneur.com. But I wanna tell you that this episode is brought to you by sheer resilience. Sheer resilience. Write that down. Seriously, I was supposed to record this hours ago. Actually, Pat and I were supposed to record, like, two or three podcast episodes in a row ’cause we’re co-hosting now, right?

If it’s not hard enough to get two people in two different time zones together, I log in, I said, “Oh, hang on, Pat, let me plug in my mic.” I plugged it in and the port, like, for the cord broke off and went into the microphone. Now, I’m staying at my brother’s house, and my brother lives at least 30 miles to the nearest Best Buy, but I get in my car, I go because Pat just so happens to have a time slot for me tomorrow where we can record, right?

And so I’m like, I c- I need a new mic. I can’t show up using AirPod mics for the Smart Passive Income podcast. This is serious business. So I go to Best Buy. It is the most desolate Best Buy you’ve ever seen. Shout-out Chesterfield, Michigan. And they don’t have it. All they have are, like, really trashy gamer mics.

No offense to the Twitch streamers out there. You do your thing. And then I, I realize that I have to go into Detroit to get the mic. So it was about an hour and 20 minute drive there, an hour and 20 minute drive back. Took me, like, a half an hour to get the mic. I don’t even know why it took so long. But I’ve got the new mic.

Hopefully, I sound good. Do I sound good? Leave a review. Five stars if you… And say, you know, “Liz, your mic sounds great,” because I hope I have it plugged in right. Anyway, let’s get into Ask Liz. You didn’t ask Liz how my day was going, but I just told you. So this is coming from Allan. Let’s listen in.

Allan Ngo: Hi, Liz. This is Allan. I’m the founder of DigitalSolopreneur.com, and I have a question about collaborations, particularly with virtual summits. So I speak in a lot of them, and, an idea crossed my mind that I don’t think a lot of people are trying out, which is to reach out to fellow speakers. Because when we think of list building and virtual summits, it’s like having a freebie on your session.

But why not reach out to fellow speakers and perhaps promote each other’s lead magnet? Because I figured, firstly, we have something in common, so that should break the ice, and second, we’re in the same summit, so we’re probably targeting the same people. So my question is, how would you approach this? Like, if you were me, how would you break the ice with somebody?

Would you also recruit the host to make an introduction for you guys? And if you’ve ever been approached, because I know you speak in a lot of these summits. If you’ve been approached, what kind of approach has worked on you? So yeah, I just wanted to pick your brain and your experience with virtual summits.

So that’s it. Thanks a lot, Liz. Thank you, Pat, and I look forward to hearing from you guys.

Liz Wilcox: All right. Allan has been a longtime student of mine, and what I love about him is his– he is so creative. So if you take… Even before I answer, if you take nothing from this episode, let it be that being creative is super, super, super advantageous to your success.

So he’s talking about reaching out to fellow speakers, doing freebie swaps, right? I share your freebie, you share mine. Reaching out to fellow speakers of virtual summits. Allan, you’re right on the money. Those people, they have the same audience, or they’re reaching the same audience as you, and they’re looking to grow their list.

So these are prime people to network with. And Pat and I have been talking for weeks about growing your email list, networking, partnerships. So Allan, you’re a genius. Thank you. We are all going to steal your idea.

So he asked me a few questions. How would I approach this? Well, number one, I would keep it really easy, fresh.

Anyone that kind of stands out in the event that is like, “Oh yeah, that brand seems aligned with mine,” I might go to their About page and do they have values posted, or can you just kind of tell what kind of creator they are? Does it jive with you? Does it vibe with you? Then I would reach out to those people, and I would keep things really easy.

I would keep the DM or email. You can DM or email, I don’t really care. Whatever you think they’re most active with. Keep it super casual and keep it short. How can you make it a no-brainer? Ask them like, “Hey, I’m thinking of doing freebie swaps. You share mine, I share yours,” type of thing if you haven’t heard of that. I noticed on your homepage or on your LinkedIn you are pointing people to X freebie. I think X freebie would be great for my audience because ABC reason. My freebie is this.” And just link to it. Keep it short. Don’t use your words, just link to it. “If you’re interested in doing a freebie swap, I’d love to do one in the next thirty days so we can grow our list. Holler back.” So that’s what I would do. That’s how I would, uh, approach things.

Would I recruit the host? Allan asked me that. Maybe. Honestly, when you’re hosting a virtual summit, you’re pretty busy. So I might, if you feel kind of weird about it, I might say to the host like, “Hey Liz, hey Allan. I’m looking for people that are doing freebie swaps. I think, you know, everyone in this event is trying to grow their list. Do you mind if I reach out to a few?” And then you might even list the ones you want to reach out to. They might come back and say, “Oh my gosh, genius idea. Let me introduce you to Shahara. Let me introduce you to Nahaku,” right? Or you could just leave it.

Honestly, you’re not doing anything wrong. It’s not sleazy. You’re trying to network. Networking is the way to grow. And then yes, people have done this to me. Like Allan is a genius, but he’s not the only genius out there. And the, the things that have worked for me and on me, again, if somebody keeps it super casual and makes it a no-brainer of like, “Hey Liz, you’re in the summit, so am I. We’re trying to grow our lists. Do you wanna do something?” Right? And then they say the freebie swap, the collab, whatever kind of collab. Also, the people that have really worked on me are the people that can link out to a homepage that looks really good or like some kind of social proof. Like if you’ve got a homepage that doesn’t look like your mom made it for you, you know, in WordPress 1999, then I’m gonna be like, “Oh yeah, you know, this person’s on my level.”

Also, social media. If you link out, and I’m not saying you have to have a million followers, but if you’ve got a couple hundred but you’re active on social media and you’re linking to your social media, okay, yeah, let’s do something. So anyway, to recap, Allan, genius idea. I would probably not include the host because the host is busy and you’re not doing anything wrong.

Keeping it casual, making it a no-brainer, and telling them specifically, “Hey, this is what a freebie swap is. This is the one that I think would be good for my audience. This might be good for yours.” Just keeping it short and sweet. Anyway, Allan, I love this question. It was so fun, so creative. I can’t wait to see what you, and you listening, do with this.

Hey, hey, hey.

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