This content was created by Eric Siu. This content was uploaded by Eric Siu. This is a YouTube video titled "Why Hosting Live Events Are Great B2B Customer Acquisition & Retention Machines" (uploaded 2022-08-16). It is a single-speaker talk/presentation in which the host shares first-hand experience and practical advice on using live events (dinners, conferences, masterminds) to acquire and retain B2B customers. Topics covered include the value of relationship-building over passive listening, learning through peer interaction, control of event design (location, attendees, speakers), low- and no-budget ways to start (home dinners, coffee meetups), a Rose/Bud/Thorn discussion framework, scaling to larger events, and promotional CTAs pointing to live.levelingup.com and singlegrain.com. The style is instructional with marketing/promotional elements and audience engagement prompts (like/subscribe/comment).
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So let's talk about why hosting live events is great for acquiring more B2B customers and also retaining them as well. And when I talk about live events, they can be dinners or they can also be conferences as well. And I've done both. You stay to the very end, I'll talk about how you can get started doing this if you have a low budget or no budget. So when we think about live events, one good example is an event that I actually went to a couple months ago called Capital Camp. And that event was done really well because it was done in a small town of Columbia, Missouri. And basically the idea behind that one was that You go to a small town, you can't get distracted by other activities. It's really focused on the people that are around you. It's really focused on that event. That event basically took over the whole town. It was an event filled with investors and it was very high quality people. And there's a lot of things that we can learn from it that we're really trying to integrate to our event, which is called the Leveling Up Mastermind, which is for founders, investors, and creators that are doing 7 to 9 figures or above. But more on that later. So when I think about the very first benefit of live events is not particularly listening to the speakers per se, but it's more so the relationship side. So Capital Camp, going back to that one, that was more focused on, okay, you know what, this event, there are gonna be some speakers, and there were maybe 2 to 3 speakers. They, they went for about 40 minutes or so, and the rest of it was great dinners. The rest of it was activities, but it was all designed to get us to mingle more with each other because they knew the power of the group was within the people. And so that's why a great event understands how to leverage getting people or presents more opportunities for people to actually get together and meet each other, and then magic can actually be created from that. You don't want someone sitting in a room just listening to content the whole time. That actually defeats the purpose because they can just watch the content another time. By the way, if you're enjoying this right now, don't forget to hit the like and the subscribe button. Now, number 2 would obviously be on the learning side, but you know, I talked about not going to listen to speakers. Maybe you can listen to a talk or 2. Those are going to be maybe very high impact depending on what you need at the time. But the learnings for me is really talking to other people. And so I talk about what excites them, what they're interested in, what they're working on, and then I want to help them. I want to know like what they're struggling with right now. I want to know what's exciting so then maybe I can make connection there, I'm learning more about the people, and then they learn more about me, and then magic happens because we create that relationship. And relationships are much more than something that's transactional. They last for a long time. They last for years and years, hopefully the rest of your life. I gain a lot more value from the relationships, and from the relationships you get learnings because these are motivated people and they're going to share other learnings with you. So these are more so long-term learnings than just the short-term learnings you're gonna get from watching a conference talk. So number 3 would be, if you decide to throw an event So for example, the events that we do are in Beverly Hills, they're in Miami. The reason I do them in those cities is because those are big cities and it's great to have business meetings around them. So when you throw the live event, you have control over the location, you have control over who the speakers are, you have control over the attendees. I just like being in a controlled environment. I like to design the experience myself. So that's what we do. And when you're able to do that, then I just have business meetings around that and maybe I stay for a week or so, maybe I stay for a little longer, but that gives me more leverage from the time that I'm spending doing these events. Before I move on, don't forget to hit the note Notification bell as well, but also comment below with what your thoughts on in terms of the benefits that you get from live events. Now I want to talk about how you can do this if you have no budget or a low budget. When I started out doing these quote unquote live events, I would do dinners at my place, and in the very beginning I had no money. And so what we did was we just sat around at my place and we ate chips. And what we did was it was more so we went around the table talking about what we're struggling with, what we're working on at the moment, things that are going well for us. Then we would put someone on the hot seat afterwards where someone would basically present like a problem that they're facing, and that would work out really well for us. From there, I learned. Learned how to eventually upgrade to the next event and I'd actually get dinner for everyone, right? And then afterwards I would go to dinners outdoors and then I start to set up dinners in private rooms and then pay for the whole thing. And there's some dinners where I'd have like 70 people or so or 50 people or so. And so I enjoy doing those because again, I get to control the attendees, where we do it, and I get to control when it ends as well. And so for me, I'm extroverted introvert and I like it when it ends a specific time. So that's how you can level up. I mean, even if you don't have a place, you can all meet at a coffee shop or something and just talk shop. There's no reason why, even if you're in your early 20s right now, why can't you get with a group of like-minded people and just talk shop? You know, again, Again, here's a framework that you can use. It's called Rose, Bud, Thorn. Basically talk about rose, okay, so things that are going well. Bud, these are budding opportunities. Thorns, these are things that are pain in the butt. And when you do that, you can actually have a meeting. Let's say you have 5 or 6 people or so. It's basically like a little mastermind. And then you're going to continue to level up your group because you're the one that's actually pushing this forward and you're leveling up your surroundings. So this is something I've learned, that constantly trying to surround yourself with people that are better than you, people that are smarter than you. I think there's something to learn from every single person. And at the end of the day, what's going to happen is, let's say you have a service business, or let's say you have software, like it is your event that does get people evangelize your brand. It retains customers, and you can also get new customers as well from it without trying to hard sell them. And so if you enjoyed this video, you can check out live.levelingup.com. That's the event that we do, live.levelingup.com. Or if you'd like help on the marketing side, you can go to singlegrain.com. That is the ad agency that I own. Hope you enjoyed this video. You can check out the next one over there, and we'll catch you later.
