Ready Set Coach Podcast

Lessons Learned from Hosting our First Conference for Coaches

• Emily Merrell and Lexie Smith • Season 2 • Episode 89

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This week’s episode recaps the lessons Em and Lex learned after hosting their first conference for Ready Set Coach last week. They break down what went well, what didn’t go as well, and changes they would make in the future. For any coach interested in hosting a virtual conference, take a listen!

Here’s what you’ll learn: 

  • What the conference was and how they pulled it off
  • Reflections on the lessons they learned in putting on the conference
  • How the conference worked being entirely virtual
  • Reflections on how a smaller volume of attendees worked out better than a large volume 
  • What worked well for marketing, and what didn’t.
  • Objections that came up in the sales process
  • Challenges and successes hosting day of
  • And more!


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Lexie Smith  0:00  

Okay, so we're back.


Emily Merrell  0:04  

We're back, baby. It's just you and me. And we're gonna talk about all the things


Lexie Smith  0:11  

okay, I'm having deja vu or this really did happen. Didn't this come up in the conference? And I kept saying we're back back to Kelly Kelly.


Emily Merrell  0:19  

Oh, yeah, you did. And I said,


Lexie Smith  0:21  

the song you just saying,


Emily Merrell  0:23  

No, I What did I sing?


Lexie Smith  0:24  

You sing a different one, but that wasn't what came to your mind. So we say it's all coming


Emily Merrell  0:29  

back. It's all coming back to me now. Celine Dion


Lexie Smith  0:34  

verse. We're going back back to Cali. Cali. Please slide into our DMS and when someone says we're back, what song comes to your brain? backstreets back oh, oh, God, were you back in sync?


Emily Merrell  0:53  

You know, fun fact. AJ McLean went to my middle school but we didn't overlap. So I felt like I was probably more team I was more team Backstreet Boy. Okay,


Lexie Smith  1:03  

I didn't know many of you I was very team in sync and think but you know, my my Backstreet Boys story?


Emily Merrell  1:10  

Yes. You flew on a private plane with them and they like hell do you when you were getting


Lexie Smith  1:14  

attack? Yeah.


Emily Merrell  1:18  

I forgot why did you have a panic attack


Lexie Smith  1:20  

then my private jet Suite X? Yeah. Yeah. Um, because first off I don't love flying and there was so much turbulence and it was like a really small plane. Yeah, I thought I was dying. It was like


Emily Merrell  1:35  

I found an Instagram account recently that I decided not to follow but it was it was documenting every flight that took off and like had something happen. Like it'd be like the window blew out or person light something on fire or bomb threat and turns back and like those kind of recordings and I was like, No, yeah, I don't think so. I don't want to know that. Less I know the better I just get on a tube and hope that I don't explode


Lexie Smith  2:05  

but tube we didn't. We haven't had a fully time to catch up quick little squirrel here. I just flew to Reno with Ashlynn. And this was our first her and I flight at this stage right? I feel like right now every stage is a little different. I've flown with her many times alone. But not recently at now this too, in her own seat to write. And she had her own seat. Yeah. Um, I borderline what made me think of this almost had a full on meltdown and panic attack like three times. First and foremost. Again, this happened to me pregnant. No one wanted to help. So like, she was like screaming I was like falling. It was like, you know, trying to get the luggage up and everyone just stares. And don't It was nice knowing that was accommodating. So I felt like a lot of pressure to keep moving quickly. I couldn't like fit anyway. So getting on the plane. I was very flustered. The plane ride itself was rough. But at the end, massive turbulence hit and I had to keep it together because I didn't want to have a panic attack when I'm flying alone with my kid. And that was interesting. I did keep it together. For the most part. She thought it was fun. She was like, Oh, no.


Emily Merrell  3:17  

Mommy's gonna puke right now and pass out and and loser Shi T. I'm curious. Did she stay in her seat? Or did you bring a car seat on? No,


Lexie Smith  3:26  

I did not bring a car seat on I. And no, she did not stay in her seat. She was in her seat on me all over the place. This poor like 22 year old kids sat next to us who clearly did not know what he was signing up for.


Emily Merrell  3:43  

The worst. It's funny how people can either be helpful, or they can be like, they can just ignore you and be so dismissive of you. And on my last flight with Jackson, this, this woman didn't even acknowledge his existence, and he kept like trying to offer her candy. And


Lexie Smith  4:00  

it was it was sad. I was unsure I was unsure.


Emily Merrell  4:03  

I just it versus other people who are like, Oh my god, I'm a mom, I get it or like I have a grandkid or I know a child


Lexie Smith  4:11  

that makes you feel like it. That small comment, at least for me can make all the difference in the world in a situation like that. So like guys, if you haven't said something nice to someone today, that's your homework. We're starting with them seriously,


Emily Merrell  4:25  

I love it. I think that's great homework and then also pro tip bring those carseat on to lock them in. That was so helpful to a lot on their start, Carsey works. Oh, yeah, it fits in there and it's um, it's more of a schlep. But putting that on in like it's a space that they're familiar with it as long as she's not someone that like hates her car seat, and it's familiar and it like keeps them locked


Lexie Smith  4:49  

in my god case. Sorry, last squirrel in the movie. You know, this has been like a 10 minute intro. All the way to the airport. I had to pull over twice on the freeway because she vomited. Oh, twice. And so her to this day, I still need to clean her carseat which still has balmy bombala Anyways, everyone really, I'm so, so grateful I shared that. So lots of lessons. Lots of lessons learned about fine with children. Also, lots of lessons learned from hosting our very first conference. And


Emily Merrell  5:24  

was that just last week that we did this? Was it? Yeah, I was right. But 13th


Lexie Smith  5:29  

What is time?


Emily Merrell  5:32  

You know, insane, guys our time like when we do something. It's like life quantum leaps forward at such a fast pace pace for us. We're like, oh, wow, we did that last week, huh? How did we do that with traveling or whatever. But first off, I want to just start with like, applause and a pat on the back for launching our first conference. One thing I'm really proud to say that Lexie and I have both done is like when we say something, we typically commit to it, and we take action and do it. And even if the action feels really uncomfortable, and out of our comfort zone, we're like, we set it to the world, we've got to push through and figure out how to make X, Y, and Z come to life. So this idea for a conference was, was really born out of the that Lexie and I have so much more that we haven't really been able to share in the extent that we've wanted to share of our own expertise. And so this conference was kind of like a bonus to the launch pack and a bonus to the ready, set, Coach group group program. Where was diving deeper into things that lit us up and light us up, which include PR, events and networking. Yeah.


Lexie Smith  6:42  

And, you know, I don't think it's a secret at this point. But this transition from ReadySet coach been a group program to a community, a free community has been kind of like a big incubator for us in figuring out different ways that we want keyword want to monetize, right? Because there's 1,000,001 things that we could do. We've been really thoughtful, slow and intentional on, on what that looks like. And two M's point, we decided, okay, here's something we're really feeling called to do a conference. Now, what is this look like? What is our version of the conference, if you want to hear about it, there's a whole episode. So I don't think we're going to spend a lot of time going into necessarily all the upfront nuts and bolts, what we do want to spend today is reflect back on the myriad of lessons that we have learned good, bad, and everything in between. We could be professors


Emily Merrell  7:35  

of lessons at this point of our life, all the things. Okay. So, as we all mentioned, we had our first conference, May 13, it was I'm just going to recap the specifics really quickly, just in terms of like the amount of time that it was from 9am till 3pm. Pacific time, just so you know, that's like, it was a one day conference, it all live virtually. And I would say that the biggest thing that we we learned, and it's always so funny, like Hindsight is really 2020. But we really thought we wanted volume. So we were we had ended up with about 15 people attending our conference. And before the conference, truth be told Lex and I were a little bummed. We're like, huh, that sucks. Only 15 people, that's annoying, we should have 115 People should have 215 people. And gosh, almighty, I am so glad we did not because in the conference, one of the things that we promised to deliver was implementation of the work that we were teaching. And so we gave people space and time to do to build up their their signature event, space and time to build up the their PR strategy, their networking strategy that worked for them. And we, we can feed back on it. So we had 15 People in like 30 minutes writing out their whole entire event strategy, and us giving them like full on attention and feedback. And Lex could you imagine have that had that? I


Lexie Smith  9:05  

mean, it literally, we would have failed, we would have been like, oh, sorry about that. I mean, I almost want to laugh at us a little bit. Like we were so excited about this format and to your point, like we're like, oh, we're gonna you know, have a very accessible price point. Compared to other things we've sold in the past. And thus we're gonna get like, hordes of people yet completely, not in alignment with the format we we selected. So something you guys can take from that is to be very, very mindful of and I think this is transferable from a conference to a group program, etc. That what you're offering matches your capacity. Yep.


Emily Merrell  9:46  

big lesson. Nice. Lesson number one less capacity versus offering and you don't really know until you know, and this can be a whole side conversation to about like the first time you price something you really We won't know the value of the price until you've experienced the work that you've put forth. So, lesson number one you don't know until you know, but remember, quality is so much better than quantity. And to that same point, I think what the other lesson lacks, I feel like this is something that we struggle with. We're so good at shouting out other people and like bragging and introducing and whatnot, other people. But sometimes when it comes to marketing ourselves, it's not our strongest point.


Lexie Smith  10:34  

I, this is this can be seen as an excuse. And I think a little bit it is an excuse, because I default to with Emily and I have our hands on so many different things. You know, Emily has multiple businesses. I have multiple businesses, we're moms, we're also, you know, coaches, we're also we have a lot of things going on. And I think it's really, yeah, we've lived. But I think it's really easy for us to like, I think we know how much we need to mark it. But then we don't really do it, which is, you know, actually a good reminder for us to as we, you know, Coach and talk about how to market to our clients. Like we need to practice what I preach. And this isn't to say we didn't do some marketing. But we did we definitely did. We we sent lots of emails, we did lots of postings, we did a lot. But what we learned is really if we had wanted to achieve that volume, we would have needed to like, yeah, again, ambitions to do ads. We did one for like a day that I turned it off. That was


Emily Merrell  11:35  

Yeah, yeah. So again, back to taking our own advice, the consistency and being more consistent with it and Top of Mind with it. And I think what was fascinating, like most of the tickets that we got came from that first part of our marketing push. And it also came from our warm audience that new light didn't trust us. Yeah.


Lexie Smith  11:57  

Which was actually really exciting. Yeah. Because, again, transparently with a free community. Like why why would like, are we Mother Teresa's, why are we doing it? There is part that's really impact driven. But there's also the reality that one day we need to monetize. So it was beautiful to see that people we've been pouring so much into with nothing in return. We're listening, and they wanted to learn from us. So it was cool to see kind of like the first little, little give back from a financial standpoint. Um, one thing that's interesting I, in terms of objections, we didn't get one objection on price. So I think we priced it really well. I actually never was worried about that. More. So what why more people didn't buy was they couldn't make the date and time, which seems obvious, but really does impact. Attendance, especially in something like our conference, we did a Monday. We did a Monday. Let's just start with that. did not realize at the time, it was the Monday after Mother's Day. Yeah, I had her. It's fine. But a lot of people were like, Oh, my God, we really want to go but like, I can't come that day. And so we would have had more blessing in disguise that we did it because I don't know how we would have service all of them. But the day and time really did impact ticket sales.


Emily Merrell  13:19  

Yeah. And I think that's a that's an interesting learning for us. And reflection point, like, once we get our survey results back to see, like what day of week would make most sense for people? If perhaps we do it again?


Lexie Smith  13:32  

Yeah, we were just talking about real quick on that. We were talking again, like because so many people did say really want to do this, but I can't think one thing we're toying with don't hold us to this. But I know we're going to do is, is pull before we set another date is pull our community and ask what day would work best rather than us? I mean, you literally said that I'm just reinforcing that we would beyond just the people who came. Ask people like what what day? What month would work best?


Emily Merrell  14:01  

Yeah. And then maybe do it again, like crazy people. But speaking of crazy people, I think the flow was fire. So blacks and I were were a little anxious. When we walked into a day full of Go, go go. We've gone to a multitude of conferences where we felt like depleted and exhausted by lack of break. And we really did a great job. And I want to again, Pat us on the back for this. But like we built in a lot of breaks. We built in a lot of breaks, we built in a lot of like recharge moments. And I love I mean, I think we both like hosted 1000s of events at this point or Zoom sessions. So think like we didn't see the glassy eyes we didn't see the staring off counting down the moments to like eat a snack like I think we did a good job of really creating opportunities for them to be present. But then if they need to go check their email like we have that break built in to do so.


Lexie Smith  14:54  

What was fire so good. Like I think we nailed that. I honestly don't think There's much of anything, I would change. The only thing that on it, the only thing that maybe we could break out more like 20 minute breaks, because a few of our q&a sessions went a little longer. But I also just think like, in time, we were fine, or you know how we talked about it. So the flow was great. To get to that point, we will say, preparing for a conference is a lot of work for not as big of a financial return as our group program, for example. So lots of work. Not the most financial return, but we did feel returns in other ways.


Emily Merrell  15:40  

Oh, no, no, I'm like museum like, can we turn this into a, like a mini group program?


Lexie Smith  15:46  

You always, Emily is trying so hard to get me back into group? I don't know, let's never say never, never say never.


Emily Merrell  15:54  

Let's make group happen. Okay, yeah, it was a lot of work. And to that same point, like there was a lot of reminders that we needed. And we communicated as much as we could be an email. And then the intention that we had was to bring people into like a private channel within the circle community, and keep the conversation flow there. I think the biggest learnings that we had is, just because we put them there doesn't mean that they hang out there. And so we should have been even more intentional of saying like, hey, all reminders for Upcoming Events, sessions will, will be posted in this specific channel. Rather, we unlocked the channel, but we didn't really say what was going to happen in the channel. To the


Lexie Smith  16:35  

we just we pinned it in the channel. So we had they had to go in the channel, we had all the instructions, but they had to show up there.


Emily Merrell  16:42  

Yeah, so it was like we missed the bridge to like, remind them that it all happened in the channel, and to like, wait for it to happen. And I think there was, I was talking to Alexa about this before we went live. I'm such like a pre prep person before I go to a conference that I have like all of the links on my calendar. And I use my calendar as reminders where we tried to keep all the links in the channel again, so we could have them engaged in the channel. And there were a few like moments before we opened up and dropped our first announcement that people were like, where's the link? How do I get into the conference? And like, Oh, our bad, sorry about that. And our


Lexie Smith  17:19  

thought process was we wanted to use this as an opportunity for people to practice and use the circle community. And I still, yeah, I see the pros and cons to it. I think we could have done a better job to your point of like prepping them ahead of time maybe like a pre con. I don't know, recon con, con con. But we did a great job at like rescheduling drops and like everything that you needed to know was in circle. Some people were great and active circle users, some people weren't. So what we we haven't received surveys back yet. So that'll be another interesting thing to


Emily Merrell  17:56  

Yeah, yeah, I think I think that was, I have to say the biggest feedback that we got was how amazing our gift selection is.


Lexie Smith  18:07  

giffy Yeah, the gifts.


Emily Merrell  18:09  

Gifts. giffy. Yeah, I


Lexie Smith  18:11  

think most proud of that person.


Emily Merrell  18:12  

Yeah, that that took us the longest. It wasn't the radian it was like making sure that the giffy was on point with everything. So I think that being said, it was a lot of prep. But now we have the work. Now we have like a template for how to do it. If we were to replicate it again. I will also say and this is something we reiterated within the conference that you know, we didn't start building it until, until we had like, we had more than three people signed up. So it wasn't like we built all the the work. And then we sent sent out the the marketing material it was we sold it first before we built it. So we also kind of had an understanding of who was going to be in the room so we could cater the conversations exactly to who we wanted. And yeah, I think that's all


Lexie Smith  19:03  

so many lessons. I mean, there's one other thing I think we could do. Yeah, we we attempted to do some day of upsells. However, we did them very passively by very passively meaning they were just were like scheduled posts within the channel. But there was also like 50 things that dropped that day. So it got buried. We didn't talk about it. We did we mentioned it a few times. But to our defense on the other hand, I don't think you and I are naturally like our vibe isn't a hard sell, sell sell. And I do think there is, you know, people already paid and showed up for something they don't want to expect to to be sold all day. But from the financial standpoint, we didn't I don't know we'll have to really rethink that if there are opportunities for upsells how to more authentically and effectively do them in the future.


Emily Merrell  19:54  

Yeah, I think that's a great thing. My brain is going to we have a ton of like roughly Jews who have come to Denver recently. And I appreciate their work ethic and they don't take no as an answer. And they have been cleaning my watch McCall up my windshield though, like be like windshield cleaning. And I'm like, No, thank you. And then they'll come over and they'll start doing it. And I'm like pulling out cash and paying them or I don't have cash on me. And I'm like, sorry, I just got a free windshield cleaning. But in a way, I'm like, Oh, I


Lexie Smith  20:23  

appreciate it. They they, they are just as a business owner, I feel like I have such a different appreciation for things like that. Then people who are not business owners, do I run quick squirrels in Mexico, like a few weeks ago. And it's the first time I've been back to Mexico since becoming an entrepreneur, and I had a whole new feeling about the haggling process. Like my mother in law, who was a teacher's was like, CJ is so good at haggling. You need to hug him more, but I was like, but this is these people's livelihoods like yeah, like I kind of want to give them money. Like I kind of like, like props to them for standing out here every day. And I never felt that before I was an entreprenuer. Yeah, you


Emily Merrell  21:07  

have to I agree, like asking for things and putting yourself out there and that fear of rejection?


Lexie Smith  21:14  

A little bit alike. But I had a just a different mindset. I'm like, Okay, no, I'm not gonna give you $50 For a, you know, paper pencil, but I'm also not going to try to get you down to nothing because I respect this is yeah, your


Emily Merrell  21:28  

livelihood. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You're, you're more like, know that you need it more. Yeah, yeah, I'm with you. I completely see that. And that's a whole different conversation about like, not taking advantage. Yeah, you don't want to take advantage of someone.


Lexie Smith  21:43  

Yeah. But take advantage of the knowledge we dropped today. I think a lot of this is Thank you. Thank you transferable to things other than conferences, right. And I think the biggest thing that the biggest gift you can give yourself and again, another props to Emily. And I, because we really did go into this conference with this mindset is anytime you're doing something for the first time, something new, give yourself grace and know it's you're going to learn something and expect it. And when I went in saying one way or the other, this is going to be a win because we're going to learn so much about this process. And that's


Emily Merrell  22:19  

what we said when we created the group. And that's what we said when we created our sprints, and that's what we create, you know, like all of the things have been learning experiences. So another great learning experience and if you are interested in the conference, look out for the poll we're about to drop to on what days of the week and months work for you because maybe we'll do it again. Who knows?


Lexie Smith  22:39  

Who knows? Your homework was already given at the top of the show. Do something nice to someone today, make them feel seen and heard.


Emily Merrell  22:48  

Help someone put their frickin luggage up because it's everyone's first time flying. It feels like


Lexie Smith  22:54  

expedite that process. Yeah, good person, you know that know? What do you the next time on the ready, set coach


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