Out of all the things you can do to market your business, live events are the absolute best in terms of providing an incredible experience for your audience, turning followers into fans for life…

And yes, selling your products, programs and services 🙂

But there’s an art and science to creating a phenomenal event.

And after leading our signature million-dollar event — Message to Money Live — 7 times now I feel like I’ve finally cracked the code.

What Real Value Is… and Isn’t

The first few times I hosted Message to Money Live or M2M, I did something I see a lot newbie entrepreneurs do all the time…

I’d overteach.

It happens when you’re committed to giving your audience a BIG bang for their buck.

People paid for those tickets and goddammit you’re gonna give them everything you got!

You want to wow them right out of the gate and pack your event with non-stop insights that will totally blow them away… every single one of them!

Great plan, right?

Actually, it’s one of the worst things you can do because…

Value isn’t about how much you teach, it’s about how much your audience learns and implements.

You could share your best tips, tricks, strategies and knowledge but it means nothing when people don’t take action and make real change happen in their business and their life.

When you overteach, you’re doing your audience a huge disservice…

You’re drowning them with TMI — too much information — and it leaves them overwhelmed and frozen in place.

The Invisible Gap…

So there are basically 2 kinds of live events…

There’s the high-ticket fulfillment event where people spend $2-15K to experience a specific result by the time they leave.

Then we have the enrollment event that delivers life-changing value while paving the way to an offer… and most entrepreneurs start here.

Your enrollment event should bring people to the trailhead and the real solution that will walk them step-by-step to their goal is your offer — the product, program or service you’re offering as the next step on the journey.

The most powerful, game-changing events are the ones where the host resists the need to overteach and skillfully creates tension in the room by holding the audience in that invisible gap — that space between where they are now and where they want to go.

People buy from the gap and if you want to sell, you’ve got to show people exactly where they are in relation to your topic or promise, and the chasm that separates them from their ultimate goal…

The chasm that would be very hard to cross on their own without tools and support.

This isn’t a trick. This isn’t something you “make up” to get sales. It’s totally legit.

The most worthwhile goals in life are hard to attain…

And the journey to attain them will transform the brave souls who dare to try.

Holding your audience in the gap is a powerful technique but it’s NOT an easy thing to do.

… And The Dip

At M2M Live in February, I was acutely aware of that invisible gap.

As I stared out at my audience, I could see the hope and possibility welling up inside of them…

And I could also see their fears, doubts and resistance rise up in equal measure.

Because if there’s one law of transformation I know to be true, it’s this:

“After every expansion, there’s an equal and opposite contraction.”

Think about it: How many times in your life have you experienced what I call “The Dip?”

The Dip happens after you’ve had a glorious moment that gets you out of your comfort zone…

Then following that new high, you hit a new low as you begin to doubt everything that just happened or whether you can attain it again.

A part of you wonders whether it was just a fluke or beginner’s luck and you’re either scared you’ll never feel that way again OR the gravitational pull of the way things were sets in as you return to the comfortable range of actions and emotions that we all create for ourselves.

It happens all the time right?

That’s the push-pull between who you’ve been and who you’re becoming….

And your job as an event facilitator is to create enough “escape velocity” to allow someone to leave the gravitational pull of where they are and who they are… and join you on the path to transformation.

Path to Profits

As coaches and teachers, creators and service providers, we want to give people what they want, right here, right now.

We want to share everything we know so our audience can get out of the discomfort of not having instant answers.

We do whatever we can to avoid building tension and that’s how we end up overteaching and overcompensating.

But your event isn’t about you… it’s about your audience.

It’s not about being liked, it’s about being trusted as their guide and teacher.

It’s about giving value in a way that lets people take action so they can move forward in their life and business.

It’s about supporting those who continue working with you so they can see phenomenal results, long after your event is over.

And when your audience walks out the door, it should feel like they received a great return on the investment they made with their time, money and energy.

I design all my live events so people receive at least 2 to 10 times more value than the cost of admission.

At M2M, I gave away the entire blueprint — the path to profits — and I went into the details of how to get to a 6, 7 or 8-figure business.

People left knowing exactly what to say and do to grow their business fast whether or not they chose to continue working with us.

And for those who decided to work with us, we get to go deeper with them and help them implement every step of that blueprint. We help them not just see the path heading off into the distance, but to walk that path step-by-step to their destination… with us and the community by their side.

Either way, everyone wins.

YMCA vs. Fancy Resort

Something else to keep in mind…

It doesn’t matter if your event is a simple half-day workshop at the local YMCA or a fancy 5-day affair at a world-class resort…

People are not buying the location or the food…

Ultimately, people are coming to see YOU. People are buying YOU.

And when you stand up in front the crowd, release the need to overteach or be liked…

When you come from a place of service and you’re unapologetically, unequivocally YOU…

People will connect with who you truly are and they’ll see what you can do for them.

They’ll be happy to continue working with you and buying from you.

Over to you…

What’s ONE big mistake you made when you hosted your last live event and what did you learn from it?

And if you’ve never hosted before, think of some of the events you’ve attended… what’s one thing the host could have done to elevate the experience for you?

Go ahead and share in the comments 🙂