How To Make $5,000, Meet 30 Influencers, And Jumpstart Your Writing Career In 2021

Ever heard of a virtual summit?

I first heard of them four years ago in a book written by Dorie Clark.

A virtual summit is a collection of 20+ recorded interviews with experts in any given field. The event is free to attend, but after the summit all interviews get locked forever. To get access to the locked interviews forever, attendees can pay for what’s called an “All-Access Pass.”

That’s how you monetize.

The interviewees get free exposure, and an affiliate link for any All-Access Passes they sell.

Meanwhile the Summit Organizer gets email subscribers, money, and a product that can be sold over and over again for years.

The last time I put on a virtual summit, I made $5,000, met 30 incredible influencers, and gained 1,500 email subscribers.

The audience wins. The interviewees win. The Summit organizer wins.

I’m working on a virtual summit right now for the Post-Grad Survival Guide, and every day I work on it, the more I realize how perfect it is for beginners who want to make money online and jumpstart their writing career.

Here’s a few reasons why..

1. You Don’t Need An Audience

Typically when you try to sell something online, you need a pre-existing audience. Nobody is going to buy your new course when you have 3 monthly readers.

Well, that’s different with a virtual summit.

The people you interviewed typically help you promote the event. Why? Because you’re giving them an affiliate link. If I were you, I’d give them at least a 50% affiliate link.

When there’s money to be made — especially when you’re doing all the work for them — it’s a no brainer for someone to take 2 minutes to shout out your event in a newsletter.

I’ve heard of some people generating an email list of thousands from one single summit. Imagine going from 0 email subscribers to 3,000 in a matter of days? That’s insane, and to do that in any other circumstance would require an incredible act of online virality.

Not in the case of a virtual summit.

2. You’ll Make 30+ Powerful Friends

The first time I put on a virtual summit, I made a bunch of new friends.

I interviewed Chris Brogan, Tim Denning, Anthony Moore, Tiffany Sun, Michelle-Schroeder Gardner and so many other ridiculous names in the blogging world.

I was speaking with millionaires on Skype as a 24-year-old kid. I was still freelancing for pennies.

But the power of the virtual summit setup made people interested. The promise of thousands of people in attendance. The promise of an affiliate payday. People wanted to be part of a huge online event, and a super interesting side-effect of that was you get close with those you’re interviewing.

I’m still friends with many powerful folks from my first virtual summit, and you will be, too.

Your network is your net worth, especially online. This benefit cannot be overstated.

3. You’ll Learn A Bunch Of Stuff From Those You’re Interviewing

As you interview your guests, you’re also the first consumer of your virtual summit. You’re the one who’s listening to their advice first after all.

I got my mind blown by Sinem Günel today, who I just interviewed for an upcoming summit of mine.

I’ve received endless ideas about my own business from the people that I’m interviewing, not to mention that after the recording, you can almost get a free strategy session if the person doesn’t have somewhere to be.

4. You Can Grow An Email List, A Facebook Group, A Youtube Channel, Etc.

Obviously with a summit you can grow an email list. Did you know that you can grow a Facebook group, too? Or a Youtube channel? Or a LinkedIn page?

It’s called automatic emails, baby. Right after someone signs up for your summit, send them an email with all your social media links. When you get 1,000+ people coming through your funnel, you bet a few hundred will follow you elsewhere, too.

Or you can hold an All-Access Pass giveaway. Tell your attendees that they can enter in to win a free All-Access Pass if they follow you on all your social media channels. There’s tools that can do giveaways and track these sorts of things.

Disclaimer: They Require A Lot Of Work

The rewards are high, but you’ll have to pay for them dearly.

A Virtual Summit will take you at least three months to create. They’re a massive time investment on your part and can be quite stressful to bring to life.

Is it worth it? Absolutely. They’re worth it because even though you probably won’t clear five figures of revenue, it’s a product that you can sell for possibly years to come.

But interviewing 30 people by itself requires at least 80 hours of work by itself. 20 hours reaching out to possible guests, 30 hours preparing questions, and 30 hours putting the interviews on. It’s hard.

That’s not including the 100+ hours you need to spend setting up sales pages, landing pages, email automations, and all the other technical aspects of getting recorded interviews onto people’s computer screens around the world.

I recommend reading Bailey Richert if you want to put on a virtual summit of your own. She’ll teach you everything you need to know.

One day I’ll teach a course on virtual summits, but for now all you need to know is what a virtual summit is along with what benefits you’ll get by putting one on. I wish you luck.

Get my free 5-day Medium writing course right here. It’ll teach you how to write five posts per week and become a top writer on Medium. :)