You're listening to “The School of Client Attraction.” Marquel Russell is the founder of Client Attraction University, a marketing consultancy helping you attract clients on autopilot and scale your business while working 50% less.
Quick disclaimer: a side effect of listening to the show is more clients, more profits, more freedom, and it's more impact in your business. Now, here's your host, Marquel Russell.
Marquel: Hey, what's good, my friends? Marquel Russell here, and welcome to the School of Client Attraction podcast. Super excited to have you here.
Now, I’ve got a special guest. I'm actually not going to be the one to share with you what I call the Six-Figure Virtual Event Toolkit. I’ve got my brother from another mother here, Mr. Kantis Simmons, absolutely amazing @KantisSimmons on all social media. You’ve got to follow this brother. He’s doing some amazing stuff and he's asking behind the scenes on a lot of big influencer brands doing some really cool stuff. [00:57.7]
I actually reached out to him and I said, “You know what? How would you like to come on the show and you break down the toolkit?” because a lot of people see the events and they see everything that's going on, and not only have you done behind the scenes for hours, but you've done a lot of others as well.
I was thinking, Dang, it probably takes a lot. It's probably going to take me millions of dollars to pull this thing off. How can I get one done? What are the necessary tools? Not only can I do high-quality virtual events, but I can just create higher quality content all together. Take it away, man. Tell everybody. What would you suggest? What are some necessaries that you've got to have?
Kantis: I'm a frameworks guy.
Marquel: Right.
Kantis: All right, so I'm going to give you guys the “move” frameworks, how to move.
Marquel: That’s M-O-V-E?
Kantis: M-O-V-E.
Marquel: Okay, okay.
Kantis: How to move your people into an experience that makes you money. All right? I think number one, Marquel, I'm going to do two words for each letter. It's important that you get your messaging and your marketing right.
Marquel: I agree.
Kantis: You know I always spend a lot of time on the messaging. We'll go back and forth on how to say it, making sure we're solving the problems of the individuals. [02:01.5]
When you're doing an event, before the technology, before the event itself, you need to sit down with yourself, with your staff, talk to your people, to make sure that your messaging is on point. Now, when your messaging is on point, that directly correlates with your marketing.
Marquel: True.
Kantis: Right? You don't want to have a virtual event and you'd be the only person at the virtual event.
Marquel: I agree.
Kantis: Even when it's virtual.
Marquel: Even when it’s virtual.
Kantis: Right? What you want to do now is take the opportunity. You’ve got that right message. Then you want to connect it with your marketing, right? We know that today marketing is serving, so the more you can serve and help people, then they'll be more enticed to attend your virtual event.
Marquel: For sure.
Kantis: So, “M”, make sure your messaging is in place and the marketing, all right? The next one, I want you to really when you meet people, go ahead and let them know the opportunity and the outcome. [03:01.0]
Now, one of the cool things because we live in this virtual space, we don’t get the opportunity to touch people, and so because everybody's on the other side of the camera, other the side of the country or the other side of the world, what you want to do is you want to go ahead and build out. Go ahead and let them know what the outcome is from them coming to your event. Even before the event is coming, go ahead and let them know, Hey, this is what you're going to get out of coming to this event.
Marquel: I love what CAU does. It's probably six weeks before the event starts. You're already talking about the outcome that they're going to get out of this experience.
Marquel: For sure, absolutely.
Kantis: When you build your outcome, I think people come to the event with their neck stretched out. That’s the phrase that we have there, right?
Marquel: Absolutely.
Kantis: Let people know, Hey, when you come, come with your neck stretched out, and we're going to get a certain outcome. Now, along with that, Marquel, I think in that old framework, yeah, you have an outcome for them, but also really taking the time to decide what opportunity you want to present them with. [04:11.1]
Marquel: Totally makes sense.
Kantis: It's one thing to have a virtual event and then don't give people the opportunity to work further with you.
Marquel: True.
Kantis: If you want to make millions of dollars, hey, you can get people to come to an event, but then what's next? How can you up level your next opportunity for them? Go ahead, set the outcome for them to come to the event, and then I want you to think about what the opportunity is that you’ve got to present to them next. What's the offer? What's the thing that you're going to offer them to make the next step after the event, actually during the event, to continue the relationship with them?
That's the “M”, messaging, marketing, “O” the opportunity and the outcome, and then three, the “V”—this is the MOVE framework—the “V” is, help me just say the word, virtual and video. [05:03.1]
I guess, Marquel, I’ve been locked in since 2008, working from home, unless I'm traveling the country, but I’ve realized that when people come to a virtual event, you want to make that event seem tangible. You want to make it feel like, Oh, wow, this feels good.
Now, one of the cool things that we've learned, we've noticed that in virtual events, man, it seems people are more engaged -
Marquel: Way more engaged.
Kantis: - over a period of time, right, because you eliminate all of the distractions.
Marquel: That's very true.
Kantis: You know how people walk in or go into the bathroom. You’ve got people locked in with this virtual experience.
Marquel: Very true.
Kantis: You want to make sure with the “V” the virtual and the video. But here's what I mean by video, right? If people are going to be spending an hour, three hours or 30 hours with you, like at some of our events, you want to make sure that the visuals, video and everything is comfortable for that virtual experience. [06:02.3]
We invest in lights. We invest in the clarity of the camera, so that when people sit in their halls or the offices, or wherever they may be, that experience feels like, Wow, right? So, the “V”, the virtual and the video must be in place. I encourage you, hey, high-quality sound is important. Remember, back in the day, for those of you who didn't have cable and you just had able, right?
Marquel: Absolutely, that’s right, a hundred percent.
Kantis: With the able channel, it may be staticky, right? But if you can hear, you will sit down and watch that still.
Marquel: You’ll still watch it.
Kantis: Right? What I'm saying is, with this virtual experience, you want to make sure that your video is in place, as well as your audio because sometimes people can really get turned off when the sound is crappy.
There are some things there. Make sure that your atmosphere is clean, whether it's branded like we do here at Client Attraction University, and you have lights, you have video and you have audio, and just make sure that virtual experience is at a level where people say, Wow, this was almost better than a live event or an in-person event. All right? [07:10.7]
So, M-O-V-E, and then the last thing is to create an excellent experience from beginning to end. One thing that I see you do all the time, you have a run of shell, right?
Marquel: Yeah.
Kantis: A run of show, and this run of show, number one, you're making sure there's a run of show—of course, it has all the content that you want to teach—but this run of show also with the team, it lets the team know, Hey, here's the experience that we want to create for the views.
Marquel: Exactly.
Kantis: What's the experience before the event actually starts? What can you do with pre-roll? What can you do to set the atmosphere, whether it's video, whether it's audio? What can you do to create that excellent experience, right? Also, during a virtual experience, you want to take the time to add in your breaks, even though people are sitting at home. [08:00.6]
Marquel: Yeah, very true.
Kantis: Don’t just say, Hey, take a five-minute break because people still are going to sit there. Now, I know sitting in these chairs, switching chairs, all about if I have another chair. Think about people on the other side of the camera, so you want to give them that experience and say, You know what? Go take a break, and when we say take a break, take a real break. Get up from your chair, walk around the house, walk downstairs, get something to eat. Add in a lunch break if you're doing an all-day event.
Not only that, but in the area of excellent experience, have someone on your team that can do some customer care behind the scenes, when you do make an opportunity. People may be virtually online with your event and you make an opportunity for maybe them to enroll into a higher-ticket program. Hey, how somebody behind the scenes can give them an excellent experience, even if you need to have a go-to number where they can directly text the customer service person, and the customer service partners can make sure on anything they have issues with that they are having an amazing, excellent experience. Okay? [09:13.0]
If you want to up-level your virtual events and move people, so that you can hit your income goals, seven figures, eight figures, those are the things that you want to do. You want to MOVE.
You want to look at your messaging and your marketing.
You want to take the time to talk to them about all the opportunities and the outcomes.
“V”, you want to make sure that the virtual experience, your video, your audio, all those things are tied in.
At the end of the day, you want to give the people attending the event an excellent experience.
Marquel: That's good. That's good. Let me ask you this before we wrap up because I know some people asking. I know you said invest in cameras and stuff like that. Let's talk about that. Is there a specific light kit, camera? What's the necessary? I know light kit, camera, mic? Am I good there or what else? And what specifics would you recommend? [10:03.2]
Kantis: There are many different cameras out there. So many different cameras out there. I'm a Canon guy. Sony has some great brands. Here's the cool thing about it. The entire technology industry realizes the entire world is more virtual.
Marquel: Right, for sure.
Kantis: So, all of the manufacturers have great cameras and one of the cool things that you want to be able to do is to have your camera in such a way that it can plug directly into your computer.
Now, here's another thing, Marquel. What we do here at CAU, we have some monitors, have some big monitors on the other side of the camera, so we can see the people. I’ve seen some of our colleagues. They’ve got these huge studios and these huge, big screens. I've thought about bringing up big screen in here, so we can see people a little bit bigger, but at the end of the day, you just want to make sure that your flow, your technology flow, is easy, right? Having a great camera with a great lens. [11:00.6]
Most cameras come with a stop lens, right? You want to be able to get a lens that’s a prime lens, where you can sort of set the focus, set the distance, get a nice crispy lens.
Lights are important. One of the things that I personally hate. I wear glasses, but I hate to see people who have the ring light and they have on glasses.
Marquel: Got it, and you can see the reflection.
Kantis: You see the ring of the entire time, right? Especially if doing a virtual event all the entire time, you want people to be able to see your eyes, so you want to make sure that the lights are set up not directly behind the camera. If you can do a 45–55-degree angle away from the camera, that’s where the light hits these different areas.
One of the things with lights I recommend, and you can invest in a light kit—there are many different light kits out here—but if you have daylight bulbs when you go to Home Depot or Lowe's, you get a nice daylight bulb, it says daylight on it, and then if you have a nice standup lamp, you can use those to be able to hit your person, hit the individual that’s here and light that up. [12:11.5]
Audio is crisp. You want to make sure you have audio. This is a Shure microphone. They have different models of the Shure microphones. Røde has some great microphones out there. Hey, do your research or if you need even more of my personal assistance, I think I have all my tools if you don't mind, man.
Marquel: For sure.
Kantis: On my website, it's at KantisSimmons.com/tools, and on that page, it actually shows you everything that's in this room, all of the equipment, all the things we recommend, things I’ve purchased, and these are the things that I recommend because I'm using them and you can see that entire list. You can see we have like an Amazon shopping cart. You can see the exact SKU numbers, the lights and everything. But you just want to create an awesome, awesome experience and be able to help people. [13:05.3]
Marquel: Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Yeah, so that's the MOVE methodology, and then, of course, a checklist cameras, camera lights, mic, of course, your presentation, but go to KantisSimmons.com, if we can get that to pop up or something like that, something fancy, KantisSimmons.com/tools. Right?
Kantis: Yeah.
Marquel: Then you go get all the tools. Thank you so much, my brother.
That's it for this episode. Have a phenomenal day because you absolutely deserve it. Talk to you soon.
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