Turning Data Into Dollars at Live Events | Bill Allen | EP 34

Speaker 1 I can take what somebody's already doing and just give them ideas that I've created at my event or I've done for other people to be like the

Speaker 1 nutty professor behind the scene that shows you how to make a lot more money. Most of you that are running live events are scratching the surface.

Speaker 1 You're probably hitting maybe 25% of the potential revenue that you could get. Let me expose the other 75% because it's the most fun for me.

Speaker 2 What is up, Entrepreneur DNA? Welcome back with another incredible guest. I am very honored.
I consider this man a close friend at this point.

Speaker 2 He has been a master real estate investor, Navy pilot, and now has turned his attention on live events, data, and technology.

Speaker 2 So if you are in any way running any level of live events, you will want to be on this podcast watching the entire thing. My friend Bill Allen is here.
What is up, brother?

Speaker 1 What's up, Justin? How are you?

Speaker 2 Great, man. I'm excited to be rocking this out with you finally.

Speaker 1 Yeah, me too.

Speaker 1 And I think this is something that every entrepreneur needs. I know I needed it.
I wanted to spend as so much money to do live events and figure out how to make more with them as it was.

Speaker 1 The nerdy side of data is kind of boring, but I love making people like an extra million bucks. So it's usually.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's just,

Speaker 2 I love providing value, helping people get really rich.

Speaker 1 Sorry if I'm not sure.

Speaker 2 So let's talk about this. Now, your journey is expansive, but what I kind of want to focus on, obviously, ex-Navy pilot, I think that's super cool.

Speaker 2 Current real estate investor, but you've been real estate investing for 20 years, massive real estate investor, but you now recently pivoted into something that you've been personally running your own events for about a decade, right?

Speaker 2 And I think the way you think is so unique because someone like myself doesn't necessarily think the way you think.

Speaker 2 And so to pivot from not just running your own events, but knowing the troubleshooting that you're doing and trying to solve for your own events created this incredible business now that you're helping others make seven figures at their events on top of what they would normally do because of your problem-solving solutions.

Speaker 2 So, let's just kind of jump into that. How did this get going?

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 we've been running a like a high-ticket live event every October in the single-family real estate world called Flip Hacking Live for like, I think this will be our ninth year this year.

Speaker 1 So, um, we've been, I've been selling from stage at that event, and um, over time, it got bigger. Again, as the event got bigger, I we were losing a lot of data.

Speaker 1 Like, you know, we sell a $15,000 program there. So if I had 1,000 people show up on day one and then day two, we have like 850 people show up.
I was like, who were the 150 people that left?

Speaker 1 So I knew who bought the program, but I didn't know who was. not buying the program, if that makes sense, or not showing up.

Speaker 1 I didn't know if it was a wife who was like there the first day and then out at the pool the second day. I didn't know if it was a local person who didn't like the content and didn't come back.

Speaker 1 And so I just kind of got to a place in my event where I knew that, you know, like the wholesale deals that we do where, you know, you could buy it and actually flip it and make twice as much money.

Speaker 1 I wasn't squeezing all the cash out of the, like every event that I did. And

Speaker 1 so there was no real, like, there was nothing available to me. I was like,

Speaker 1 why can't I track the people who are in the room? Like, why can't I basically like just know all the time who's in there and who's not in there?

Speaker 1 And I kind of went back. I used to run marathons.
And I remember when I was running marathons, there was like a little chip that was on your shoe.

Speaker 1 And that when you ran over the pad, it would like check your time all the way through there. So you couldn't cheat, right? You couldn't like run 18 miles and, you know, cut your time out.

Speaker 1 You'd have to go to the end of the peninsula and turn around and hit the pad there. And so I knew this technology existed.
It exists all over the place now.

Speaker 1 And I was like, well, why can't we just figure out how we can actually track some of that stuff?

Speaker 1 And so initially the idea was, I'm going to give like a put a wristband on like they have at Cancun where you can like get into your room.

Speaker 1 And we tried that. It failed.
So it took about two years to develop like this, multiple events. We had an event, we have a multifamily event in the summer too.

Speaker 1 So I had like two opportunities a year for two years to crash and burn at my own event to test this and be able to kind of track the people that were

Speaker 1 at the event, that were in the room, not in the room, like were in the hallway. Do they show up for one session and show up, not like leave for the rest of the time? And

Speaker 1 it kind of just evolved to a place of

Speaker 1 I had to build an event registration and like badge company to be able to do it right. So my initial plan was I was just going to have these wristbands that I would like bolt on to people's events.

Speaker 1 And really I built it for myself. So like we use it at all my events, all my mastermind meetings, all our fulfillment events, our live events, we use this platform.

Speaker 1 And I used it for like two years, like building it, testing it, crashing it, burning it down, rebuilding it.

Speaker 1 And then we got to a place where it was really doing well for us. Like we could see all the data, we could see what was going on.

Speaker 1 And I ended up kind of a little bit of a longer story, but I had to build a live event, like registration platform. So

Speaker 1 you go up to a live event, you've probably been to one like that, where you check in on an iPad, it prints out your badge, you wear it around your neck, and

Speaker 1 that's kind of the secret sauce that we have of what we do: we're able to actually use that badge for lots of different things. And

Speaker 1 it's basically the tech that we have in that badge that can make the host way more money and make it a better experience for the customer. So we built that.
And then

Speaker 1 I was fortunate enough, Russell Brunson allowed us to run our program at Funnel Hacking Live last year in 2023, almost like a beta launch for us because we had never done it on that scale.

Speaker 1 5,000 people. Our events were like 1,100 people.
And to do it at 5,000 people that are running through the doors like a rock concert to make sure it works,

Speaker 1 that was kind of our first test in the marketplace. And

Speaker 1 it went well for the last two days, not so well for the first two days, but

Speaker 1 we basically rewrote all the code

Speaker 1 after the first two days of his event to get it ready for his offer on day three, which we got it.

Speaker 1 We nailed it. It was really,

Speaker 1 I don't know, maybe that's where I should stop to just say.

Speaker 2 Well, there's so much I want to unpack, right? I mean, you just kind of

Speaker 2 first thing I want people to recognize is Bill has been a successful entrepreneur for roughly two decades.

Speaker 2 And the reason why I want to say that is success doesn't come with just a straight trajectory up, right? Like, it's not like Bill just has been shitting cold for 20 years, right?

Speaker 2 There is a lot of learning lessons. There's losses and heartache and challenges and not being perfect on day one and having to pivot and be up all night to make sure day two and day three.

Speaker 2 Like, this is who we are as entrepreneurs.

Speaker 2 So I really wanted to kind of like lean into that a little bit because I think, you know, a lot of people would think, okay, great, Justin, he has this incredible software that like has been just crushing you for years.

Speaker 2 And he's like, no, no, no, he's been iterating for over two years. A lot of people just want to get into a space of entrepreneurship, regardless of the vertical.

Speaker 2 And they want to go make all the money and it's always successful. And they come out, you know, making a million dollars a year.

Speaker 2 And I think I just want to lean into kind of what you said and unpack all that because it took you the better part of two years of basically paying to learn what works and what doesn't on your own dime.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 Yeah, two years of that. I have no investors.
It's all me. It's my cash.
It's my money. It's my risk.
And that's what we do as entrepreneurs.

Speaker 1 And, you know, being in the military for 20 years before this, that's, I, I mean, I was a W-2 employee for 20 years. I retired last year from the Navy.
And we,

Speaker 1 you know, you punch a clock.

Speaker 1 but the risk that I was taking is like life and death risk in that business. So now coming into this, it's like, if I lose a little bit of money, it's not necessarily the end of the world.

Speaker 1 But yeah, we're not, even when you talk success, like we're a tech startup. Like we're three guys in a garage building this with like a very small team

Speaker 1 for me. Like I built it in my laboratory for me, spent the money on me, tested it on me.
And then we got to the place where it was working. I was like, huh, I wonder if anybody else could use this.

Speaker 1 Like, I know I have a lot of friends that do live events. They could use this.
And I love to bolt on to somebody else's vehicle. I feel like that's one of my favorite things to do.

Speaker 1 It's like, if I can make you make,

Speaker 1 if I can bolt onto your vehicle and basically consult on the live event space to say, this is what we do.

Speaker 1 Because what I find with a lot of the people that do live events, we're doing things that they have never thought of. Like I talk to them about their VIP offer.

Speaker 1 I show them how to make more money with an upsell. I talk about

Speaker 1 their offer strategy, their pitch,

Speaker 1 their program, like their, how many days it is, like the registration setup, like all kinds of stuff. We end up actually like helping them a lot more on the event side.

Speaker 1 And then I'm able to bolt onto that and prove the fact. Like the best part is I can say, no, no, like these people bought right here because of the software.
And

Speaker 1 it's not a guess. So we totally fail.
Like I fail all the time. And we're still kind of just like touch and go.

Speaker 1 Like I don't have a lot of debt on the company, but I'm not like rolling in the cash right now.

Speaker 1 You know, it's a startup business is a long-term amount of time that you have to spend for the reward down the road. And so, I mean, we're a tech startup company, though, that has no VC debt, no,

Speaker 1 we're not in the negative for the first 10 years before we ever start making a dollar and then just sell. And we're also providing like real value to the marketplace, which is,

Speaker 1 which is, you know, how can I, how can I, you know, 10x somebody's investment into the software at their live event. And if I can't, I'm not even going to sell it to them.

Speaker 1 You know, well, I take a lot of time.

Speaker 1 I get a lot of calls trying to figure out if the software is even right for that live event. And sometimes I'm like,

Speaker 1 your event's kind of too small right now.

Speaker 1 Or it doesn't sound like you mind handwriting people's name tags and putting it on their shirt at your meetup.

Speaker 1 And so we started building like $97 a month products for those people because they can't afford the, you know, the $5,000 or $10,000 a year kind of thing. So

Speaker 2 it's just, it's been an iteration and it constantly will be well and again what i want people to understand is they need to go find you whether you want to tell them to go find you on instagram or facebook or if you want to drive them to the web wherever you want to tell them to go because i think if you are running any level any level of a live event and i run live events right and bill and i have already had these conversations then you need to at least talk to bill because something like this if you are running live events you know the value of the data that he's collecting who's in the room who's not in the room was it a husband and wife combination was it two business partners who are these people because if you are at running a live event that you want to sell any level of high ticket right let's call it a thousand dollars or more then you need to know who you're talking to so again bill do you have do you have a specific place you just want them to go and reach out to you yeah they can go to it's called in the room so we uh i had a really good friend name this who's a copywriter i had no idea what to name it and um we called it in the room so like you want people to be in the room and you want to know who's in the room so in the room.live li-i-b.

Speaker 1 So in the room.live, they can go there and you schedule a demo. One thing I think, I think it would be really valuable on this.
I mean, we're doing a podcast

Speaker 1 about being an entrepreneur running live events. Like there's a few things that I see that really successful.
So

Speaker 1 really successful live event hosts do and don't, that people that don't do well don't do.

Speaker 1 So the cool thing that I get the opportunity to do that a lot of people don't is I don't just run my events now.

Speaker 1 I get to run like events for Pace Morby, for Russell Brunson, for like Hunter Thompson is one of our clients.

Speaker 1 Like just a laundry list of other people, Alice and Maslin, like I get to see their data and their live events.

Speaker 1 And now that we're doing like, we do meetups and we do RIA meetings and stuff like that for those folks,

Speaker 1 it's really cool to be able to see what they're doing and what's working for them. And so I'm kind of behind the scenes on a lot of these events.

Speaker 1 I'm like the guy that nobody sees, like the Oz behind the curtain. But maybe it would be valuable for some of the folks to say, like, this is what some of the really successful people are doing.

Speaker 1 And this is where some people are kind of like stepping in it and doing it wrong. I don't know if that would be helpful.

Speaker 2 I think it would be massively helpful. Listen, our audience right now for this episode, you are talking to people who are running live events.
That is who is on right now. They run smaller ones.

Speaker 2 They run bigger ones. I think anything that we can deliver on this episode while we have their attention, let's deliver, brother.

Speaker 2 And I've run a lot of live events, but literally the reason why you and I are talking is like, I don't have that data set that you have with this, right?

Speaker 2 Like you'll start a live event with 200 people, let's say, and all of a sudden there's the next day, there's 140 or whatever the number. And you go, are they hungover? Did they just leave?

Speaker 2 Or, you know, so what, you know, how did that happen? Right. And so let's give and just deliver whatever you think insight you can give to the people listening.

Speaker 1 Yeah, for sure. So most of us, there's like two different types of live events that I see.
One is more like trade show.

Speaker 1 So the host is making money on sponsorships and ticket sales, and they're not really selling high ticket to anybody. They're not selling something from stage.

Speaker 1 They're making their money on the event itself. So it's a trade show.
So those people, I find the way that they can make a lot more money is to is to create like more ticket tiers.

Speaker 1 So they probably already know this, but you know, a basic ticket, a VIP, a super VIP, things like that. And then also provide like way more value for the sponsors.

Speaker 1 So most sponsors, you know, they want leads. And so if you can figure out, so we have like a tech piece of the software that can actually, the sponsor can use their iPhone or iPad and scan the badge.

Speaker 1 So each badge has a QR code on it. And so they can scan the badge to say they've been to their booth and it tags them inside the software.
And then you can give them those leads

Speaker 1 that, you know, you can say, hey, we have this technology. You can increase the price of that sponsorship because of it.
Like you can use our tech. We'll give it to you.

Speaker 1 And then they scan the badge so people aren't filling out their name, their email, phone number on a sheet of paper or using a QR code at their booth and things like that.

Speaker 1 Because you know those people that kind of like stand behind, like kind of like stand back, they don't want to fill it out, but they're listening.

Speaker 1 Like enable for the sponsor to be able to just scan a badge really quick of anybody that they're talking to that's coming up.

Speaker 1 And we even are able to put proximity around their booth too, if we wanted to. Like we can put actual, like to scan their tags passively.

Speaker 1 So they're not actually actively scanning the badge to capture that data. So most As a host, I would never give my sponsor everybody on my email list.

Speaker 1 They're going to get destroyed from, like, say you sell 2,000 tickets to that event. I see a lot of people say, oh, if you sponsor my event, I'll give you the entire list.
Like we, we don't do that.

Speaker 1 And I really successful entrepreneurs in this space, that's not what they're selling.

Speaker 1 They're not giving everybody the email list because they want to control who, who's interested in that and who's not. And so

Speaker 1 I might give the top tier sponsor the entire data set. And then everybody else, it's whoever comes to your booth and is interested.

Speaker 1 So have a lead magnet, have them come to the booth, and then I can upsell them the tech that pays for the software that I use inside of the event business. So that's what I see for like trade shows.

Speaker 1 And if you're not making a high-ticket offer from stage at your event, even anything, like even 997,

Speaker 1 five grand, 10 grand, 20 grand up to 100,000, you should be.

Speaker 1 So like even if you have this kind of trade show, if you can figure out how to turn that into an upsell at the event, I would highly encourage you to do it.

Speaker 1 But that's kind of the trade show model and how we help some of those folks. Like Traffic and Conversion is a great example of that.

Speaker 1 Like they make their money from the booths, the sponsorship rental, the ticket sales, those kind of things. Whereas Funnel Hacking Live is the opposite.

Speaker 1 They don't have a bunch of sponsors there, and they're making their money from selling from stage.

Speaker 1 It's more of a break-even model on the ticket sales, and then they're selling high ticket from stage to make the profit. And so if that's the side that you're on, then

Speaker 1 either one, experience is so important. Day zero is the most important.
You know, when you wait in line for like 45 minutes for your name badge, like

Speaker 1 those events suck. Like you don't come back.
You hate it. You complain,

Speaker 1 all that stuff. So getting people through the line really fast is really important at an event.
And the way that they feel on day zero is the tone that you're setting for the rest of the event.

Speaker 1 Because if you are going to sell high ticket, you're going to sell a mastermind, you're going to sell coaching, you're going to sell something to them where you're fulfilling that over the year.

Speaker 1 That's the example that you're setting for the future. So they're like, okay, this is what this community is like.

Speaker 1 So on day zero, if they feel like they're cared for, if they have attention at check-in and registration, if you're taking care of them, you're moving them quickly through the line.

Speaker 1 And if there is a slight slowdown, there's somebody there that's just engaging with them, talking to them, getting them excited about the event.

Speaker 1 That's what the rest of the year is going to be like for you. So you're basically like implanting this feel for what it's like to be in our community for the rest of the year.
You want it to be good.

Speaker 1 I'll give an example. I love, I like Daryl Eaves a lot, but I went to VidSummit last year.
There was like an hour line to get your name badge. Wow.
And I was just like, this is ridiculous, man.

Speaker 1 My son was there. He's nine years old.
I was just, he was like, this, dad, this sucks.

Speaker 1 Like that whole day zero experience, I realize I'm kind of putting him on blast a little bit, but I've talked to him since. I've been like, let me help you solve this problem.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 that's the tone for the event.

Speaker 1 That's your first impression.

Speaker 1 And so, especially when you're selling

Speaker 1 something from stage, really important to get that feel all the way through.

Speaker 1 a registration system of some sort, whether it's mine or somebody else's, is really important on day zero to get those people through the line quickly. And then we have in-app VIP upsell.

Speaker 1 And as far as I know, we're the only people that do this. So

Speaker 1 what I realized when we run our live events,

Speaker 1 I sell VIP from stage. So we sell it ahead of time via text message, email, funnels, all that stuff, right?

Speaker 1 But what I found is like, we would sell like, I don't know, if we had like a 10 or 15% take rate for VIP, it would be really good.

Speaker 1 And still, there wasn't like, I didn't know who opened it, who looked at it, who clicked on it, all that stuff.

Speaker 1 We get a little bit of that in our, you know, open rates and click-through rates and stuff like that from our email software. But

Speaker 1 I couldn't guarantee that 100 people had to say no. So I was like, well, what if I built a funnel inside the event registration? So, because our process before was you would check in.

Speaker 1 Then you would get it. So you'd be either VIP or general mission.

Speaker 1 So general mission goes like, you know, in the general mission line, VIP goes in the VIP line, they get like special access, they get special area, they get food, that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 So, you want your VIPs to feel good. Those VIP buyers are your best buyers.
Those are the people that are spending the most time with you.

Speaker 1 They feel like they're part of a community, they're getting extra, they paid extra, they're going to buy your high-ticket program.

Speaker 1 Our conversion in the VIP is about 50 to 60% conversion, and our conversion in GA is about 15%.

Speaker 1 So, just for comparison, I always want those people to raise their hand and upgrade to VIP.

Speaker 1 And so, at an event like that, what I found was on the first session of every live event, I'd be like, hey, if you want VIP and you didn't have a chance, we have like 20 more.

Speaker 1 Go to the back table and sign up and you get VIP. And we sell, you know, you know, another five or 10 or so at our event.
And I was like, oh, cool. We got another like, you know, 10 grand.

Speaker 1 But now what we do is inside of the app, when they check in, do you know the feeling when you get to a live event?

Speaker 1 Like your flight's paid for, your tickets paid for your hotels paid for and you're there on site and now you're there with a friend and your friend just goes to the vip line and you're going in the general mission line they're like oh yeah i'm going in over here i remember going to tony robbins upw event and somebody i knew some people there that i was going with and they were like oh what ticket level are you and i was like i don't know like platinum or something like and they're like oh platinum and i thought platinum was like good And at Tony's, it was like, oh, but we're diamond, so we're going to go in this room over here.

Speaker 1 You got to go over here. And I was like, dude, platinum, I thought, was good.
Like that guy's gold and silver. I'm Platinum.

Speaker 1 And I'm in this, like, I'm basically like a second-rate citizen at this place.

Speaker 1 And if I could figure out how to upgrade to whatever sapphire thing that they had, I would have bought it there on site, right?

Speaker 1 If it was in the app, I just would have been like, click, click, here's my credit card. Like, I want to go in with my friends.
And so that feeling at the event is different.

Speaker 1 And if you don't have to have a salesperson involved, you don't pay commission and all this stuff. So what we did was we built a funnel inside of there.

Speaker 1 So when they check in, if they're general mission, it says on the big screen of the iPad, it says, this is all the features of VIP. Do you want to upgrade now?

Speaker 1 One click upgrade, tap your credit card, you're in. And then there's like in little writing, just like a funnel, it says, I don't want VIP, it just continue, you know, just like every funnel.

Speaker 1 And so they have to click that. So 100% of the people that are at the event have to say no to VIP.
So I know now that 100% of my audience had the opportunity to say yes or no.

Speaker 1 But before, it's like, I don't know know if 100% of the people heard me. I don't know if some people were in the hallway.
It's uncomfortable to walk to that back table and talk to a salesperson.

Speaker 1 Like, you remove all of that friction by just putting it right there and at the time where they're most likely to buy. Yep.
Because they're less likely to buy at home than they are on site, in person.

Speaker 1 Everything else is paid for. The juice is flying.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Like, that's why our takeaway to VIP.

Speaker 2 Go ahead. The thing that, like, I'm like, oh, it's so brilliant.
You and I travel a lot. Now, you're a pilot, so it's not fair.

Speaker 2 But us, us normal folk, you know, like I fight, I fly first class everywhere I go, and it's because of a little bit of, it's a belief system that's actually a business hack.

Speaker 2 If anyone is not Bill Allen and you're flying, fly first class, not because they're more comfortable per se, because the person next to you can afford first class, and they usually are doing something pretty cool in life, and those connections can be meaningful.

Speaker 2 I digress.

Speaker 2 One of the ways that that works for me is I have such high status, I'm American specifically,

Speaker 2 is a lot of times they will just bump me up for free. But

Speaker 2 if it's a lot of seats are open first class, I'll just book those seats that have like six inches more legroom. So it's still comfortable if I ever had to have that seat.

Speaker 2 But they offer me such a discount. Like if they haven't sold out first class, let's just use an example.

Speaker 2 The first class ticket is an extra $1,000 within the, you know, 24 to 48 hours before the flight leaves, if it's not sold out, they'll offer it to me for like 150 bucks. I take it every time.

Speaker 2 150 bucks, done, right? And so depending, most of the time, I'm just booking first class, but the other time I'm just booking a very comfortable seat anyways. And they'll offer it.

Speaker 2 So, and they always offer it, meaning anytime I open the app, if I'm going to check in, it pops up, right? It says, hey, 150 bucks, upgrade to first.

Speaker 2 It's like for me, I have 100% take rate on that kind of stuff, right?

Speaker 1 Yep.

Speaker 2 So I think it's absolutely brilliant. I mean, this is absolutely, if you are running any level of live event, go reach out to Bill and

Speaker 2 in the room.live because

Speaker 2 this is exactly what the airlines are doing.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. And this is just, it's simple.
Like, I'll be like, why haven't we been doing this? Like, we're,

Speaker 1 everybody's not saying no.

Speaker 1 And so Allison Maslin is a perfect example. She's a great case study.
Had a smaller event, like 150 people, and we got like 11 people to take the, and a lot of these people already have VIP.

Speaker 1 So the cool part is if you're already VIP, you don't even see that screen. So like, it's a smart feature where it's not like selling you VIP when you're already VIP.

Speaker 1 And so we had like 11 people take her VIP, which paid for the software for that event easily. And then all of those people bought her $37,000 program.

Speaker 1 And so

Speaker 1 I'm not saying that. like some of those 11 people wouldn't have gone to the back table and bought, but I can almost guarantee 100% of them wouldn't.

Speaker 1 Like there's three or four people that would have missed it. They didn't know or, you know, they wouldn't have bought it.
They just, you know, but they're right there. It's an opportunity.

Speaker 2 The UI is more time with you or me or the speakers or the, right?

Speaker 2 So now the indoctrination in the person and what they delivered and familiarity and like just, it becomes when they make that offer, you're like, dude, I've loved Bill Allen or Justin Colby or, you know, I forget your, your client, but like, I love them.

Speaker 2 Like everything they're about, what they stand for, what they stand against, how they run business. There's so much more of that when you get the VIP ticket sale, right?

Speaker 2 Whether it's breakfast, lunch, dinners, after parties, whatever goes in with the VIP, like the clever summit that I'm speaking at and I just introduced to you, like they have a yacht party the night before, right?

Speaker 2 So all the VIPs have a yacht party the night before. It's a freaking yacht, right? So I think there's 40 to 60 people max on this thing, right? It's going to be intimate.

Speaker 2 So all the speakers will be there.

Speaker 2 So my point to all that is like, when you can get someone to go VIP, the likelihood of you getting such a higher conversion, and if this app creates more VIPs, it'll pay for itself immediately, effectively.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I think a lesson there for everyone is if you can create some tiers inside the event, what it does is it allows the people who are ready to, that want to spend more time with you, that want to raise their hand, and to allow them to do that.

Speaker 1 And then, so if you're not, if you just have general mission or like a lower tier, I would highly encourage you to do a VIP, but keep in mind, it's about time.

Speaker 1 So like spending time with them and making them feel like they're part of an elite group that is close to you because they're paying for proximity.

Speaker 1 So the more of that that you can do, and I saw when Pace did his event, I've never seen anyone do it as well as him.

Speaker 1 What he does is he walks around and talks to the people and he knows their name and knows their stories.

Speaker 1 And that's why he's selling like he is, is he really gets to know the people and he can remember that stuff.

Speaker 1 So my problem is I'm like a numbers nerd and I'm not good at remembering names and stories and history and stuff like that. So like I have to build systems.

Speaker 1 I have to like in my phone, I have to write in the notes section like their kids' names and their

Speaker 1 like when they were sick last and the last story they told me. And so I have to write that stuff down and review it and be intentional about it.

Speaker 1 Where as I feel like for him, it's almost like a politician. Like he can just like remember that stuff and really good with people.

Speaker 1 So that's the takeaway is not necessarily just like, oh, upsell them in the app. Like that's great.
I think it's important to do.

Speaker 1 And I mean, I keep creating these things because I see gaps in the marketplace and problems with other software and other tech and people that are building stuff for us that run live events that actually don't run live events.

Speaker 1 And so, um, so that's the one thing is, is figure out how to get more proximity from those people, even if it's just a lunch QA or it's a cocktail reception the night before where it's like roped off and it's like, you know, come in here and they're, they're paying a little bit more, but they're getting that proximity because that's, that's like, that's like an hour with you in Q ⁇ A is like, imagine if that hour was that good, imagine what the rest of the year is going to be like with me

Speaker 1 in my program. And so that's their feeling like.
And you want them to get indoctrinated into your system and what you do and the value that you bring.

Speaker 1 So that's one that I see that really successful events have.

Speaker 1 And the other one is like, is actually having really good data and follow-up.

Speaker 1 And so, you know, having the right email, the right phone number, when these people sign up for this stuff, a lot of times they're using a junk email

Speaker 1 or a fake phone number, a Google Voice or something like that.

Speaker 1 And then when you get them in person and you get them checking in, one thing that we do is we have, I always recommend somebody's there at the iPad, like on staff, to just talk with the person and just like, hey,

Speaker 1 is this your current email? Because we're going to be sending some updates during the event and I want to make sure you don't miss it. They're like, oh, no, no, no, that's not my email.

Speaker 1 And so I see like, you know, 10 or 15% of the time, we might not even have an email or phone number for somebody, usually not a phone number.

Speaker 1 At Russell's event, we gab at Funnel Hacking Live, we were able to capture like 2,500 phone numbers that they didn't have. Wow.
And because they didn't take phone numbers on the order form.

Speaker 1 And so, I mean, some of you guys are probably all doing that, but some of them it's optional because you don't want to cause friction for the phone number. And

Speaker 1 I got all but three people's phone numbers at that event. There was like 5,000 people there.
We got every single person's phone number except for three.

Speaker 1 Three people were like, I don't want to give my phone away. You just put all zeros.

Speaker 1 But that gave me the ability to text those people throughout the entire entire event, make sure I got them back in the room.

Speaker 1 And even if you don't use like the tracking system that we have, I mean, your marketing team could text them.

Speaker 1 And then the follow-up app to the event, especially if you sell something from stage, the key is you got to have good data to follow up.

Speaker 1 So if I know who saw the offer, who didn't see the offer, who didn't see the repitch,

Speaker 1 I can talk to them differently. Can you imagine getting an email from,

Speaker 1 like, if they don't see your offer, they can't buy it, right?

Speaker 1 and so right now we're talking to everybody the exact same whether you saw the offer presentation at the event or you were in the hallway you're getting the exact same follow-up email well our clients are not like we're building out strategy and plan for them afterwards that if they saw the pitch but missed the repitch if they saw missed the pitch but saw the repitch if they missed both we're we're doing it totally different sequences post event to to really convert and give their sales team a really good list of people to call so after the event your sales team's calling somebody that missed missed the offer completely.

Speaker 1 It's going to be a totally different conversation than somebody who saw the offer

Speaker 1 and is thinking about it. So that's all just like big picture strategy when you come into these things.
We do the live event, we make some money and we're like, oh, it was good.

Speaker 1 Like, you know, hey, we made a half million. But it's like, we're leaving all, we're leaving millions of dollars on the table by not

Speaker 1 using the data the appropriate way. So there's a couple pieces of advice that I see.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's efficiencies. I mean, everything you just said is you're taking what we all know.
I run live events, you and so many others, right? We all have some KPI baselines, right?

Speaker 2 So we all have what we understand would make it a good event. But is that even efficient, right? Are we actually creating efficiencies to really capitalize on the entire experience?

Speaker 2 And what you're built, what you've built, and I would tell anyone again, go to in the room.live. If you have any level of live event, talk to Bill and his team.

Speaker 2 But you've created efficiencies on where we're blind as people, as literal human beings.

Speaker 2 like I don't care how many people you have at the door you won't know how many people come in come out and are watching the close you can do your best kind of like if you have one person at the door like doing one of those clickers but like the tech just says that like hey they left the room 15 minutes before the pitch they didn't see the pitch they weren't back in the room it's obvious now that you think you pitched 50% of the room you actually pitched 30.

Speaker 2 Well, no wonder your numbers

Speaker 2 don't show the accurate KPI.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and the other like really cool thing that we do, and I realize I'm giving away some of the secret sauce of what we do.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 as a host, you guys are host of events. So one thing that I would say is as a host of event,

Speaker 1 we don't like advertise that we're doing this at the event. Most people don't want Big Brother watching them at the event.
So I'm sure some of you go to the events that I've been talking about.

Speaker 1 And so I always hesitate.

Speaker 1 For the last two years, I've really just kind of hesitated even talking. This is the first time I've ever talked about it on a podcast or anywhere out in the public.

Speaker 1 But if people don't know what we do, they're not going to, you know, call us or be interested or talk to us. So it's important.

Speaker 1 You know, as a host, though, what you want to do is you want to, you don't want people to think that they're, and by the way, we have no idea like whose hotel room you're in or any of that stuff.

Speaker 1 It's just, you're either in, you're in the conference room or you're out of the conference room. That's all I know.
I don't know if you're in the bathroom. I don't know if you're in the hallway.

Speaker 1 I don't know if you're down the road. I don't know if you're off site.
I don't know. I don't know where you are.
So just we'll get that clarity.

Speaker 2 Just for clarity, They're not literally tracking you in what room you're in right just to make sure

Speaker 1 Yeah, I just want to be clear like it's this totally legal like it's technology that's used in every like department store and everything like that right now to track inventory and stuff like that So we're not I'm not I can't see you anywhere outside of the conference room and even in the conference room I just know you're in there you're not in there.

Speaker 1 That's it's that simple. It's not like I have a you know, I'm bugging your phone or I'm installing an app on your phone that you have to shut off.

Speaker 1 But you know

Speaker 1 one thing for people is think about this. At Russell's event, at Pace's event, and the events that we do, these like larger, you know, tracking type event software,

Speaker 1 two minutes into their pitch, I'm sending a text message only to the people who are not in the room to get them back in the room to see the offer.

Speaker 1 So I was able to get three,

Speaker 1 no, no, I was able to text 1,200 people. at Russell's event who are not in the room.
That's big.

Speaker 1 And yeah, and I got 394 people that walk in the room, not just since the last break, but the entire day they had never stepped foot in the room.

Speaker 1 And so 394 people that had never stepped foot in the room the entire day, that day of the offer on Friday, that walked in the room for the first time after that message because of the text message that we sent.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I wrote the message. I strategized the message.
And it was a perfect thing to create curiosity to come back in the room. and so

Speaker 1 and of those people

Speaker 1 oh of course i remember but uh they're gonna have to hire me to to find out what it is and um

Speaker 1 i'll give you i'll give you most of it but not everything and there's uh and but i mean that's it but i set up the messaging over all four days

Speaker 1 so like i wrote the messaging i wrote the strategy i worked with their team to i mean this is a big part of what we offer is i'm behind the scenes and russell's on stage and has no idea that what's going on he doesn't he doesn't have to do that he does what he does really well He's the dancing monkey on the stage that's doing the show and selling the high-ticket program and everybody's falling in love with him.

Speaker 1 And I'm behind the scenes. I'm in the hallway.
I'm in the conference room. I'm looking at the event from an operator angle of how can I maximize the revenue from this event,

Speaker 1 everything that's going on. Who's in the hallway? What's going on?

Speaker 1 And then planning for the next event.

Speaker 1 And then 93 of those people bought the program.

Speaker 1 So 93 of those. 390 that you

Speaker 1 have been in the room. 93 people that wouldn't have been in there to see the offer.
Now, they might have seen the repitch. They might have heard about it.
Some of those people might have bought.

Speaker 1 But let's just say, I think I could argue that 25%, like that's an easy number. Like 25% of those people might not have seen it.

Speaker 1 So 25 people at $25,000, just that alone, you can do the math, of the type of revenue that can be created from something like this. I mean, it's over a half million dollars, just that.

Speaker 1 And so there's a lot of other things that,

Speaker 1 but this is how, like you said, I think you put it really well. It's the inefficiency in the live event business that can be monetized on the negative data.

Speaker 1 The stuff that we're looking at who bought the program, but I mean, I mean, you take it a step further and say, all right, everybody that,

Speaker 1 so in the event, if we know who was attending and who was, who stayed for the longest period of time, like I also know at Russell's event as an example, that Jocko Willing spoke on the first night.

Speaker 1 So there were like 250 people that walked in for the first time that entire entire day right when Jocko spoke.

Speaker 1 So I can give that to Russell and say, hey, Russell is probably a pretty good speaker.

Speaker 1 And then I can also see the rest of the week if those people step foot back in the room or not, or they were just there to see that.

Speaker 1 And then maybe it would be advantageous for Russell and Jocko to do a presentation on leadership and do a JV after the event because the people that were at the live event are probably the best subset of his entire audience on his email list.

Speaker 1 So you know what? Hey, Russell, this was the most attended session. This is the most interesting session for people.

Speaker 1 Nobody walked out during it. And so, what if you did, you know, a month from now, you sent an email to your list and you sold one of Jocko's programs on leadership and made 50% of the rep?

Speaker 1 Because people want that.

Speaker 1 And so, there's all kinds of stuff that you can do for this even after the event, but you got to kind of have the data and have somebody who could be the brains behind the operation.

Speaker 1 So, that's what I love to do. I still run my real estate business, the coaching business, all that stuff.

Speaker 2 But I love to like talk to you, Justin, and be like, hey, I'm planning this event i got this thing going on i'm like hey let me show you how i think you do what you do i'll do what i do and i'll i'll make you more money in the background and but that's why called this the entrepreneur dna brother this this episode is like the the shining star of why is because you're a full-time real estate investor you own a very high-performing coaching consulting business for real estate investors you are a actual pilot you just created a business because of your own inefficiencies in the business like that's entrepreneurship right?

Speaker 2 And it's not always puppy dogs and rainbows.

Speaker 2 And you create things from a need you might have that turns into an actual business that might at some point, I would expect there to be some really high revenue and some really good tech options here, like sell-offs and things of that nature that will come because you have people that run really big, really big meetings like Tony Robbins.

Speaker 2 And I know you're in conversation there.

Speaker 2 This is great. And that's the whole reason why this podcast exists.

Speaker 2 So I can interview the best of the best and all different platforms to show like what's possible and what's out there. And in this episode, if you are doing any level of live events or want to be,

Speaker 2 go to in the room.live, hit up Bill Allen everywhere on all social medias, dude.

Speaker 2 I mean, this is, you know, you and I are already talking about it, but even your idea, dude, like when Jocko was in the room and you had 250 extra, like I'm sitting here and I already made the introduction of where I'm keynoting and there's going to be 2,000 people.

Speaker 2 Patrick Bed David is the keynote. I guarantee you, it'll be the highest attendance right when he goes on spit.
Ryan Surhant is the second. And I know for sure the host of this, right?

Speaker 2 They should be pitching some sub-subject of those two because, like, I think that's just a brilliant way.

Speaker 2 Anyways, I think this is phenomenal.

Speaker 1 I mean, I don't even, listen to this. I'll be very quick, but like, there's a QR code on the front.
So imagine this. Patrick Bed David is speaking, right?

Speaker 1 And the cool thing is we can point that QR code wherever we want, like like real time. So let's say he speaks, right? And it's Cody's event, right? So Cody says, hey, Patrick,

Speaker 1 I'd love for you to do a meet and greet in the contract that I have. I don't know if he's paying him or he's just doing it for a favor or whatever.

Speaker 1 But if you're paying somebody, say, yeah, you're paying. So, hey,

Speaker 1 in my contract, I want to meet and greet for 10 people backstage for like 15 minutes. And then Patrick Bedavid gets up there and he speaks.

Speaker 1 And right afterwards, the MC comes back out and he goes, Hey, who would like to meet Patrick Bed David backstage?

Speaker 1 And everybody's like, oh, I do. Like, okay, well, he agreed to meet with 10 people for 15 minutes.

Speaker 1 If you want to do that, all you got to do is scan your QR code right now and the first 15 people that buy for $5,000 come backstage.

Speaker 1 And boom, you just paid for your speaker's fee for that entire event with that right there.

Speaker 1 And then what it does is it tags them on there and the security backstage scans their QR code with our software and it gives them a green check mark that they paid, the payment went through, and they have the credentials to go backstage.

Speaker 2 You're making a live event like next month.

Speaker 1 Oh, dude.

Speaker 1 It's so fun, though. Like the coolest thing is I can take what somebody's already doing and just give them ideas that I've created at my event or I've done for other people to be like the

Speaker 1 nutty professor behind the scene that shows you how to make a lot more money. What I love during Pace's event is I got to be in all the meetings with all the staff.

Speaker 1 And I mean, I run an education program too. Like we probably, like some of my clients were there and bought his program.

Speaker 1 But I mean, I was at that event working for them and with them as basically a partner. I'm a partner in your business at your live event.

Speaker 1 And I mean, I've seen it, I've done it, and I have tons of ideas of what's possible. So like you are probably, most of you that are running live events are scratching the surface.

Speaker 1 You're probably hitting maybe 25% of the potential revenue that you could get. Let me expose the other 75% because it's the most fun for me.

Speaker 1 Like what I love doing is I love just like blowing other people's minds with what we we can do and then actually executing it.

Speaker 1 Because I can basically say, hey, look, this is how much money we just made. And I don't share in the revenue.
I don't do rev shares right now. I don't do any of that.

Speaker 1 I probably should down the road. But right now, it's just like, this is a fixed fee.
Bring me in. If I can't map out 10 times more than that, I won't even make an offer to you.

Speaker 1 And it's anybody from somebody who's doing a meetup with 25 people trying to build their email list. We have a $97 a month program for them.

Speaker 1 All the way up to people that are doing huge events, 5,000, 10,000, 20,000 people.

Speaker 2 That's incredible. Guys, in the room.live, make sure you get there.
Bill Allen is a beast,

Speaker 2 seven-figure flipping from his own real estate. Like this guy is an animal.
He's an incredible person to know, and he's a great person, which is the most important thing to me.

Speaker 2 So appreciate you being on, bro.

Speaker 1 I appreciate you having me. I had a lot of fun.
I could literally talk about this for the next four hours. It's so fun.
Thanks, Justin.

Speaker 2 All right, y'all. If you got something from this, make sure to share this with two people and stay tuned for the next guest on the next episode.
Peace.