The Make It Happen Conference Debrief
It’s been a few weeks since the Make it Happen Conference and I’m still riding high. 99.9% of the feedback was positive from the attendees all the way to the speakers. If you attended and haven’t given me your 2 cents - I’d really love your thoughts. It’s clear that this experience is appreciated by fellow nonprofit coaches and consultants and it won’t be the last time I offer this. Plus, I always want to make it better.
In it’s second iteration, The Make It Happen Conference was born out of a gap I have really struggled to fill: professional development for people who serve nonprofit clients.
Try as I might, many of the courses I’ve bought, webinars I’ve attended and coaches I’ve hired have missed the mark because they just don’t understand the cultures of nonprofits nor the mindset of the buyer.
That’s why I love this conference - it’s filled with people who get it.
My aim with every recap is transparency since in my experience there aren’t a lot of case studies for people who provide services to nonprofit clients (sensing a theme?). I’m so happy to share what worked and didn’t work for me so that you can take the same findings and apply them to your business if you choose to do so.
Let’s get into it.
Total Revenue:
Sponsor (1): $2,500
General Admission: $4,588
VIP: $3,903
TOTAL: $10,991
Expenses:
Envelopes: $277
Stickers: $104
Buck slips: $56
Door hangers: $123
Gift cards: $475
Affiliate payouts: $1,277
Speakers: $2,100
Speaker gift (card from PunkPost): $35
TOTAL: $4,447
NET REVENUE: $6,544
Other stats:
143 tickets sold (123 General Admission; 20 VIP)
18% checkout page conversion rate
41% of ticket sales came via affiliates
14% folks purchased VIP passes
The live show up rate was between 50-60% of registrants for every session
Other questions I know I'll get asked:
I started planning this about 60 days from the date of the event. *Note, this is my 6th or 7th online summit so I would recommend more time if this is your first one.
My tech stack is: Squarespace, Thrivecart, FloDesk, YouTube, FB group
Additional thoughts:
Since this was a paid event, I paid my speakers + invited them to be affiliates (I offered 40% commissions)
This my my first summit EVER where I felt like the affiliate model really worked. I partnered with a few other folks outside of the speakers to help spread the word and boy did it work (thank you to everyone who participated!)! I still haven't cracked the code of speaker promo (yes, I make it super easy/provide all the swipe copy and graphics) - most just still didn't do it.
One thing I started doing was 1) sending weekly updates (registration numbers included) to my speakers and 2) let them know what my goal was. I feel like they really liked this.
I love love loved working with CauseMatch as our one and only sponsor. I’m doubling down on having one super aligned partner is a bajillion times better than working with many who are not. If you aren’t yet connected to Jeremy and want to be - please let me know.
The last thing I’ll say is that I’ve become wildly obsessed with giving my customers a 5-star experience. One thing that really took it up a notch was the piece of mail I sent to most of the attendees (so sorry to those that bought a ticket the day before the event) that included a handwritten note, a door hanger and a sticker. I think for a digital event, sending something physical in the mail really turns it up a notch.
Clearly, I love a summit format of an online experience, but I can also see how this would be a 10-star experience in-person. Still working on that so stay tuned 😉