Podcasting In The Virtual Summit Space With Dr. Mark T. Wade of the Virtual Summits Podcast (Podfaded)

Wish you were one of those influencers with raving fans who binge on your every word, consume all your content, buy everything you have to sell and demand even more. Then stay tuned while Authority magazine columnist and buzzfeed contributor Tracy Hazzard shares strategies, tips and tactics from top videocasters, podcasters, authors and social influencers on creating that bingeable factor. Now let's join Tracy as she explores how to rise above all noise with the binge factor.

Hey everyone, welcome to the Binge Factor. I'm Tracy Hazzard and I have someone I'm ringing on the show today, a host who is someone whose show I wish I knew about before. And so that's the best part about being a host of a show, right? You get to experience and you find out people you didn't know had podcasts out there. You find out people who had, you know, have something in your niche or other things about that and you're like, now I'm a fan, now I'm gonna binge listen myself. So as prep for this of course and as prep for every episode, I usually try to listen to at least three, but I think I've listened to about five or six and I'm probably going to binge the whole thing because it's so fascinating. So who I've got on today is Dr. Mark T. Wade. Mark is a podcast host of the Virtual Summit podcast and it is simply what it says it is. Now this is not a fly by night just popped up in the last three months you kind of podcast. This son has been here for over a year. He just celebrated his one year anniversary and he just had his 150th episode which was a special. So you want to check those out. Dr. Mark T. Wade went from brick and mortar to multimillion dollar online business using a strategy called the One Day Summit. He created six, seven and multi seven figure businesses in the brick and mortar online education business and software as a service space including his Virtual Summits software. Mark now helps entrepreneurs scale their online businesses with proven strategies such as the One Day Summit formula. And he hosts the show Virtual Summit Podcast and a sold out mastermind including the likes of John Lee Dumas who you'll hear a little bit about, Pat Flynn, Lewis Howes, Jeff Walker and he is just contagious. Like I can't tell you how there's so much buzz going around about Virtual Summits right now and buzz going around in different industries about things that are hot and podcasting. As you know, we hear a lot of Buz. But when you get someone who's so passionate about it but also has such depth of knowledge, then you want to take a listen. Which is why I brought Dr. Mark T. Wade on the show today.

Mark, thanks for joining me. I'm excited to talk about your show.

Oh, it's going to be fun. I can't wait to jump into it.

You know, your show is like right out there, right in front, simple name. It's what it's about. Virtual summits, you know, did you excruciate? You like think about that too hard and go like this is an excruciating choice. Like should I name it that literal or should I name it something different?

I did put a decent amount of thought in it and I got insights into it as well. My best friend happens to be John Lee Dumas, so I get the benefit of bouncing some ideas off a top podcaster. And funny enough, him and a lot of the other people I asked about said, no, don't do it, Mark. One, don't put podcast in the name. Everybody knows it's a podcast, things like that. So I actually kind of went away from what I was being told and I did it based on my personal experience. I've created several successful six, seven and multi seven figure companies. And one of the lessons I've learned over the years is the importance of expert positioning, unique expert positioning and being clear with your niche. So I also had a fortunate the luck there was no other podcast out there in that niche or with anything in that name at that time. So I said, why not just make it easy, make it clear, make it straightforward. It's what people are looking for anyways. It matches my brand and it's in alignment with my uep, my unique expert position. So let's just keep it clear and.

Simple so people on the show here, the listeners out there know, because I give this advice all the time and so this is really common, that there is a violation of the standard rules or my view of how you should do that and you violate it in the best way. So because normally I don't recommend people name their show after their brand because it's too salesy, but it's also so clear this is what people want to learn, what they want to know. So by naming it that, you just made a straighter path to you.

Yeah, and there was two other things to that. One that I put in is clarity. Because in my world I'm dealing with summits. I mean I have a lot of products and services that are all summits. Right. I have a done for you summit service. I have a workshop that's done with you. And then I have coaching, I have courses, I have all these things. And they all have summit in it. So it was like people were starting to get confused. They're like, well, is that. Wait, is this the workshop I just did, or is this the course? And so I realized actually early on that I need to start just making things as clear as possible. This is the podcast, Virtual Summit Podcast. And I wanted it to be about virtual summits because I wanted it to be directly for my brand and for the company. Could have talked on a lot of other things. I've had other successful podcasts in the past in the health industry, but I wanted it to be specifically for people who were looking for information for summits, to then bring them into my business, not the other way around. So that was one of the reasons I did it. And I had actually heard, ironically, maybe a few weeks before this, a buddy of mine got to interview Gary Vee and he, you know, Virtual Summit Software is a SaaS company, and he had a SaaS company in another space, another industry. And he was asking Gary, like, what he should do to get clients. Gary was like said, straight up, create a podcast that's about your business, solve those problems and direct people in. And I will say it's been one of the best things that I've ever done for my company as far as generating leads and sales and kind of.

And easy, right? I mean, you're just recording.

Easy. There's a lot of planning and structure around it, but you're just recording that. It's not as fancy as people like to think it is. Right. Look, we got microphones. We're in different spaces than we normally are. No big deal.

Yeah, it's definitely not the most difficult thing I do for sure. But I did want it to make it a little bit different as well, because. And specific. And we're making it maybe jumping ahead here. But like, one of the things for me is I know other people. Like the point of a podcast. You bring people on, you interview people, you have expert leverage, you gain awareness in other niches, industry. But for me, the only people that get on my show are people who are in the summit space. They either had to do a summit or they're like a marketer for summits. They're a coach for summits, a consultant. So I didn't just go, hey, random marketer, come on and teach what you would tell a summit person to do. It's you've been in the Summit space. You've had the battles, you've had the successes.

You've been there, done it again and again. I know, I like that. That's why this show's all only podcasters who've been there, done it. And occasionally I'll bring in an author who's got a bingeable. They've had series because we want to hear how that translated. But for the most part, that is so important that we want people who've been in the trenches who really get it. So they're not giving you advice from the top down. They're giving you advice from the gritty bottom up.

And with that, I think that's as you know and teach, it's important. You've got to think about your audience, like, what's in their best interest. I feel like it's for me and what I'm doing and trying to do it would be like, unethical or at least not as high value for my audience to bring a random person who doesn't really know what a summit is like. The information they may give could be amazing, but it may not relate over to Summit. But I didn't want it to just be interviews. So mine is a combination of every week there's an interview and a strategy session. That's the part that takes a little bit more time and energy. That doesn't make it quite as easy, but I find that my audience actually looks. Loves that they're shorter, they're 10 to 20 minutes. And it's just one specific topic, one specific thing that I teach on. And also it does help me in the long run, not just from like leads and revenue, but I get a hundred questions a day on the same thing. So I can say, hey, that was answered right here in episode five.

I got a show for you. Yeah, let me share this show. Yeah, exactly. So you said you were friends with John Lee Dumas. John and I are going to be both, like, we're bookending the Utah Podcast Summit in a couple of weeks. So he's at the start and I'm the. I'm the end keynote and we're going to have a lot of fun. I'm, I'm really looking forward to it. And did he push you and say you should start a podcast or did you decide and you went to him and go, yeah, what's some advice?

Oh, my God, yes, he pushed me. He is so pushy like that. John, if you're listening to this, you know you are.

He's an advocate. He's like, everybody should be a podcaster.

He is so aligned. He lives and breathes what he teaches. For sure, I can tell you that we're neighbors, so I get to spend a lot of time with him. But it's not my first podcast. I'm a healthcare professional by trade. I have two doctorates and a couple dozen certifications. And when I started an online institute called the American Posture Institute, which is a multimillion dollar company, world's largest provider of postgraduate online posture education, and I started a podcast in that niche as well, and that went on to do very, very well. So I knew podcasting was important, but I also knew the work that goes into it and the amount of time and energy that needs to happen to make it high quality. Right? Yeah, you could throw one together, but you don't get a high quality podcast like this one, just throwing it together. There's a lot of thought and planning goes into it. So when he was asking me over, like, mark, you gotta do a podcast. Mark, you gotta do a podcast. Finally, I was like, you're right, John, I've gotta do a podcast. And I did it. And he was right. He was right. It's one of the most powerful things I've ever done for my business. So you're right, John, again.

Well, you just hit 150 shows in a year, and so you did an anniversary episode and then you just did your 150. I want to talk about your anniversary episode first, because an anniversary recap is a great idea. And you did that really well. And so tell the audience a little bit about how much thought did you put into that episode and how much time did you take to plan that?

Yeah, that one took a little bit more time than normal. Just because I wanted. I did research into all of the episodes. It was actually also really fun. And I did change up the show a little bit. I started off with three episodes. When I kicked it off, three episodes a week up into a hundred episodes. And that was a lot. That was really a lot of work. And once we hit the 100 episodes, I pulled it back down to two. One interview, one strategy session. So when we got to the anniversary, we had quite a few shows at that time. And I thought, you know what, this would be really cool. You know, instead of me taking the opportunity to teach on something which they get, let's reflect back on all the great things that have happened in the last year. And so what I did is I went back and I looked at all the numbers and I found the most Popular episodes. And I thought, well, what would be really cool is not just to celebrate the audience, which we did, is also celebrate the guests and the shows. And this recap could help people go, oh, I haven't listened that show. Maybe I should go listen to that, because that was really popular.

Yeah, it will. Especially. So you started out with your most downloaded shows, and you did your top 10 there, and they were, as you mention it on the show, they were all. The. Most of them happened to be in your first 25. Like, and there were a few outliers, but most of them were in your first 25. And that's actually really common because most people will find a show, maybe they'll get through 25 episodes of it, and then they'll say, okay, this isn't for me, or, I'm not gonna try these things. And then they don't listen as frequently from that point forward, or they drop off. And so that's a really common thing, which is why it's so silly when I hear, like, PR firms and guests out there go, no, this is a startup show. Let's wait to see how it does. I'm like, if it takes off, yours is going to be one of the most popular episodes. You should be in the first 25. Don't make that mistake. But you decided to supplement it, which I was so glad you did, because otherwise you would have missed the great shows that came after. And so you highlighted some of your favorites or ones that you thought that should not be missed. And I think that was a really smart strategy. Mark.

Yeah, I mean, you just said it right there. Obviously, people come in, they get the first ones. That's the most. And I knew also it's been there the longest. So I knew that they were getting a little bit of unfair advantage. And I wanted to also highlight what I knew, because I was there. I did the interview that how powerful and creative and great the information was. Again, I was looking at this one is, let's celebrate the audience. Let's celebrate some of our past guests. But also let's highlight this as a recap of some of the episodes that are the ones you really should have on your radar.

Yeah. And I love that you do topic ones. It's a common thing that so many go into the model because they think this is the model of how you podcast, and they never add those topic episodes. And you put them in from the very beginning. And I think that was really smart for you both from a standpoint of what you hope to accomplish with your podcast. But just that it helps to give the audience that freshness to. I learned something from this guest. Now, how do you apply that and what do you do with it?

Yeah, it was fun, too, being fully transparent. It was as much for me as it was the audience. It was good to just sit back and reflect. It's been a year. Like, in one. I couldn't believe a year went by that fast and no pod fade. So I was happy about that. I was celebrating myself a little bit as well. Going through there and just taking. That took me longer than the other episodes I prepare. But I think it was also because I was reminiscing over where I was at my businesses at those times. Because in episode one, the business was in a way different place than where it is now.

Yeah, definitely. Well, one of the things, you know, when you get to 150 shows and you kind of mentioned it both in your anniversary episode, is that, you know, you kind of wonder, like, can I keep talking about this? Like, is there anything new? How do you keep that content fresh for yourself? And how do you keep it so that, you know, you can keep that audience engaged?

The struggle is real. But I think it's more of a mindset thing than a reality. Right. I think sometimes as topic experts, which you are, if you're doing a podcast, you start to think, well, like, I've already covered everything. For me, what I tend to focus on and where it really is is, like, specific. Not covering generic or general or broad topics. This is more. I mean, some of my episodes, the ones that I'm doing strategy wise, are so specific, so niche, like, they're one little thing. But I can talk on those for 20 or 30 minutes. And you know what? Whoever's needing that information, that's great information. They absolutely love that. The interviews are easier, right? Like, the interviews for me are, you've done a summit, you've been successful, or you coach or help people with summit. So. And I go about those a little bit different as well. We can get into that later if we need to. But from the content creation standpoint, where I end up running into that, like, blank page syndrome is when I try and get too big for my britches, right? I'm like, oh, I gotta come up with something super powerful and impactful. Like some of my most popular and, like, episodes that people are like, oh, my gosh, this was so great. I was like. I think I was like, not even like, Steve Jobs was channeling through me when I wrote that. I didn't even know what came out of me. It just went on paper.

Yeah. It always shocks me that sometimes the best episodes are really granular and really almost for me, some of ours are techie. And I'm like, really? That's what my audience wants to hear about. We did one on the sound. Just sort of getting a little bit better in your environment and sound and the fact that so many people. And we're hearing this on our recording right at this moment, you're hearing like a little crackle on Mark's face. And it's an Internet issue that's going on because bandwidth is being stressed while so many people are working from home right now. And so bandwidth in your communities and other things we're normally recording, it'll probably be fine. But all of a sudden, people shows that were really great, their sound is affecting. Like, all of a sudden, like, that was our most popular episode and we were like, what the heck? I didn't think people came to us for that, but they do.

Yeah. It's a lot of times just find a small topic and dive deep into it. And one, I love it because it really keeps me sharp too. It keeps me constantly testing myself and thinking deep into topics. So I enjoy it as well.

Well, I'm going to get to your binge factor in just a moment, but first, I want to go through our five things that we ask every guest who comes on the show about some of the best ways that they've developed to produce their show and to do things. So the first thing is the best way to book great guests. And you've had some great guests on your show, and you also have criteria. So what are ways that you vet them and you book them?

Well, the top thing is, as I already mentioned, is they have to be in the summit space. Like, we get approached by a lot of people that want the audience, so they want to be on the show. But for us, it's, you have to be in the summit space. My audience is summit hosts looking for tips, tools, resources on success in summits. If you've never done a summit or never worked on a summit or in a summit, you can't give them valid information. So if that criteria doesn't meet, we don't even move forward after that. It's where do you fall into, like, which spot? So we kind of have a ratio of how much of what we want. But we have summit hosts, which is our largest portion, because those are the ones who are just like everyone else. They had an idea, they had this thing that they wanted to create, and they actually went through and created, and they had success and failures and challenges and things like that, and that's what we're getting into. But outside of that, we then take a few each month of these other spots, which is summit coaches or consultants, two completely different things. And then we try and find summit marketers and summit affiliates and summit sponsors, which there's less of those. So that actually becomes a little bit more difficult. But that's kind of how we decide who gets in. I don't limit people based on you had a successful summit or not. Like, for me, it's not about the success. Did you learn from it? And can you share that? Because if you do enough summits, you're gonna have a bomb summit. That's just how it is. Right? But those are the lessons that everybody needs to hear about. Those are the ones I want you sharing and teaching and showing. So.

Well, you know, it's so funny because I say, oh, I interview top and successful podcasters, but so many of them come on and they don't feel successful. They actually feel like they're not doing things right. And so I love it. I'm like, no, you have no idea. I looked at your numbers. I looked at this. I was like, you're doing something right in one area, even if you feel like you're not in another, Right. And you're learning something along the way, so you're good. Well, that's great. Now, do you actively have ways in which you increase listeners?

Well, yeah, for sure. We are very conscious of everything we do. It mentions, again, two things. Our group, we have a Facebook group, viral summits, and our podcast. Those are the two areas we're constantly, organically trying to grow. Every time I do something, if I'm on a podcast interview, if I'm getting interviewed on a podcast, I'm mentioning the show in all of our email communication. The first, you know, the indoctrination sequence always pushes people to the show. It's in our resources area, essentially. We're always talking about the show. Every time I do our live weekly training in our Facebook group, I always ask, I'll make it a game. Who put down how many episodes you listen to? And if you haven't listened to any, put a zero. And then that's like. Then the next week, they're back on the show. They're like, mark, I've listened to one episode. So it's just. It's a long journey, but you got to just constantly be talking about it. And then we also do from a social Media standpoint, we have a Facebook page that, you know, we're constantly releasing our episodes. Occasionally, I will run some paid traffic to our engaged audience just to remind them of the show and things like that. Those are the main things we're doing. But again, we're talking about it all the time now.

Your show sounds great. It's really. It's great. You're a great host. You have great sound going on. What else do you do to produce it in a professional way?

Well, I actually took time to do interview training. It's something I preached to summit hosts. Like, the success of your summit depends on the impact of your interview. I mean, what is a summit? It's a series of interviews. If you're a podcaster, what is you doing? Interviews. The success of your podcast depends on your interviews. So I actually did a decent amount of interview training, variety of different things. I then kind of apprenticeship, if you could, with several top successful podcasters like John and Jill and Josh Stanton and Michael o', Neill, all friends of mine. And I got like, top tips and takeaways. And I actually then taught it. I taught my community. Here's what you have to do. And it was not like I had blank page syndrome. I sat down, I'm like, who am I to be teaching how to interview? I tell you what, when I got to the end of that course, the end of that program, I was at a completely different level. And I had realized how crappy some of my beginning interviews were because I was doing all these mistakes. So the first one is just get some actual training. I can't believe how many people who do interviews have never had any training. I mean, I get it. Your experience, you got experience. That's cool. That's one half of the equation. But a professional athlete doesn't go, oh, I've done a hundred bad bats. I don't need any more training. You got to constantly hone your skills. Every professional, anything has a coach and is constantly honing their skills. Then the other thing is, if you really want to get good at it, teach it. And it doesn't mean you got to create a business. Teaching it, teach it to yourself, teach it to your kids, teach it to somebody, but that will hone and refine your skills.

So I did that. I teach. I have a interview Tips. It's one of my masterclasses that I run, and I shared it with my good friend Dustin Matthews, who started his podcast at that time. And he. He studied up and he studied everybody. And he's so methodical about everything. And he studied my thing. And then I went and go. And he applied all my tactics plus them. And I was like, I gotta add this to my course. I gotta. He was like, blessing me. And I. Most of it was that there's a lot of things you subconsciously do and you don't realize it. So it's really. So until you go about to teach it, you're not as aware that you're doing that. And that's why I love that tip. That's a great tip, Mark. Encouraging engagement is the next question that I usually ask. What are some of the best ways. So you've been sharing it out there. You've got your Facebook group. Like, how are you getting them to engage with you?

So engagement is kind of two ways. But I do most of. I mean, again, engagement happens for us in our group. Obviously, it's hard to engage on a podcast because they're listening, I'm talking. So I'm constantly pushing them on the podcast. So I'm always pushing everybody to the podcast, right? I'm always pushing everybody to the podcast. Once I get them onto the podcast, I know that they're going to dive deep and they're going to become loyal, like fans and friends. And so once I have them on the podcast, then I'm constantly pushing them to the next stage in the relationship, which is our Facebook group, which is where I'm active at. And I do live trainings every week, so they can actually have conversations back and forth. So our most. Our biggest engagement comes from those live trainings we do every week in the Facebook group. But I also do something where I do. Usually it's once a month, kind of once a month, every four to six weeks, I do a summit newbie consultation. So I've got a pretty steep fee for people to have a consultation with me. But when we do these summit newbies, I will do a consultation for free with somebody who's still, like, just getting started working on their summit, and we'll record that, and that goes on to the podcast. It also mixes it up a little bit for the podcast. But what that does is it gets people being like, ooh, I want to do that so they can reach out with that. So those are two of the kind of the biggest things. Again, I push them to the Facebook group because I really like engaging and interacting. I like to be able to see their names. I'm a pretty loose, comical personality, if you will. So I like to have fun with my people, with my tribe, and that's where I do it the most.

So then the last one, we asked about some of the best ways to monetize. Now, you have ads in your show. So if you guys haven't checked out the show, it's the Virtual Summit podcast as we've been talking about. Go check it out, because he's got ads in there and you got a nice voiceover artist, mind you, with a great accent, so that works out well for you. But there's more than that that's helping you in your process of monetization. What are ways that you found monetization flows from the podcast?

Well, keep in mind, like, those ads are for my company. So I'm not actually charging. I'm not monetizing from ads. And I've been approached by, by people for that. And it's not that I'm not open to it. It's for me, the monetization comes a lot more for me getting the people into my programs and products. So it's worth me losing a couple thousand dollars that I could get right now in order to get tens of thousands of dollars later. So the monetization, which, if I'm being fully honest, I was really surprised at how right JLD was going to be when it comes to how impactful my podcast ended up being for our company. It's every week, our clients and our customers, they tell us like they love us. For one, they're like raving fans. And at least 50% of them came into our world by first coming into the podcast. It just blows my mind. I mean, it makes perfect sense. It makes perfect sense. They come, they listen to podcast, they become loyal fans, they like what they hear. It gets them the information they want, they build some know like and trust, and then they're ready to move forward. So again, in our shows, I'm constantly highlighting our resources area where we have a lot of great free resources to get started with a summit. And from there, then they go into our sequences. And when it comes to products and programs, we have amazing offers. So if you're trying to go, ooh, I'm going to start this podcast tomorrow and make money the day after. For me, it didn't work out like that, but within a few months, we were making a lot of money that was coming directly from the podcast. Well, I guess you could say indirectly from the podcast. But it wouldn't have happened if there was no podcast, right?

Absolutely. Well, you know, this ties into your binge factor perfectly. So I usually like to ask the guests, the host, to tell me what they think their Binge factor is. And then I'll give you my view.

This is weird. I feel like I'm tooting my own horn. But it's my personality. I am who I am. I spent most of my life being a professional, a doctor, and I had to wear the suit and tie, and I had to act a certain level. And then once we gained success in the online space and I moved out of the healthcare professional arena into the kind of entrepreneur space, I was like, I'm letting my freak flag fly. I'm going to be me. You're going to love me or you're going to hate me, and I'm cool with either one of those. But if you love me, we're going to be BFFs. And so in my podcast, in my episodes, it is me. I'm funny. I joke. Well, I think I'm funny. I joke, I make jokes. I'm sarcastic. And so I really let my personality shine. Now, with that being said, it's not a nonsense episode. I still get straight to the point. I give incredible information so the people are entertained while they're also educated. And it's one of the things we preach in the summit space is summits are, at this point, quite boring. They don't want to listen to a boring podcast episode. They also don't want to listen to 20 or 30 boring summit interviews. Right, Right.

I want to learn something, but I want to be entertained. And so we call that edutaining. That's what we call it on our end. And you definitely have an edutaining show. But it is like, my analysis of your binge factor is really that there are so many, even in your interviews, which are a little more public service, kind of like, here's what's going on out there. And they do. Interviews are a necessary thing in podcasts to also broaden your audience so there's a purpose for them. But when you do them, there are always very useful, actionable, granular solutions to problems I'm probably experiencing. If I've even dipped my toe in the virtual summit space, whether I've been a guest or I'm trying to put one together myself, there's always something that I can relate to at that useful level. And I really believe that's why people keep going through your whole catalog and binge on it. It's merely that it's like they don't want to miss that next tip and that next tip and the next tip.

Yeah, that is so true. And I also say we take a stance, like we have A flag in the sand. We say some controversial things and not rude or whatnot. But, for example, we're anti list grabbers. We say that straight up. Half the summit coaches out there are teaching models or methods that are literally just to kind of steal the list from speakers. And by us saying we are absolutely 100% against that, like, it creates a rift. But the people who agree with that are like, yes, this person is telling the truth. They're taking a stance.

Now all my listeners out there are going, oh, that's why Tracy invited Mark on the show, because I say the same thing all the time. And so I'm sorry, but I'm not sharing my list with you. If the first question. And I just said this on my coaching call with my clients that when someone comes to me and they say, I've got a virtual summit, I'd love you to be a speaker on it. And I get requests probably every single day because there's one going on every single day right now. And the first question they say is, we need to know if you have a list of 5,000 or more. Then I say, no, that's my instant no. And that's what it is. It's not that I don't think that there's something out there that's really valuable to my list, and I'm not willing to share it. I am willing to share that, but that's an instant red flag for me. So I'm so glad you say that. And. And it is good to be controversial like that. I think that's probably really true. Having a very opinionated view, but having it backed with so much experience that you have there. So this is really, truly. You have multiple binge factors, but these are some of them up. Now, I want to talk a little bit about virtual summits before we, like, I mean, before we end here. So obviously you started this way before all of a sudden we're all stay at home and we all decide, oh, my God, I got to do virtual summits. You had your stake in the ground way before this, so it's a good thing John pushed you because you, starting a year earlier, made a huge difference in having that authority platform to say, this is the guy. This is the person who knows what he's talking about and not someone who just pops up. Because I bet you if you looked at your competition today, everyone popped up in the last three months.

There's all kinds of virtual event and virtual summit experts out there right now, but that just came about a month ago. That's Fine. It's everybody's positioning and that's cool. I like it. My stance in summits anyways for the last year has been we need to evolve summits. I've been doing summits for a long time and for me, I got into the summit space because I've been running summits to create successful companies, generated hundreds of thousands of leads and millions of dollars from summits. But it didn't just go straight into like I never wanted to be like a summit coach, if you will. What actually got me into the summit space was our software, the virtual summit software. We built that for our company because we were running two to four multi day summits, four to eight one day summits every year. But there's really just nothing that I have found that's free, that's more powerful than a collaborative marketing strategy like a virtual summit. And so for us, we do them in all of our businesses. And with the virtual summit software, the thing, the big mistake I made was thinking you could create a SaaS company and it would just take care of itself.

No, I laugh. You heard this, like deep laugh on my end. It's because I'm listening to you and I'm thinking, wow, we have such parallel. Because I never wanted to be a podcast coach, but when we developed our SaaS and AD mixing system and our and I didn't realize how much I had to like, people couldn't just deploy something if they didn't have a good show to begin with. Right. And so now I had to teach podcasting and help people and create consulting. Right. And so we have very parallel. Yeah, this is the sort of mistaken thinking in that you'll develop technology and everyone will know how to use it.

Yeah, it's definitely a naive system scenario by my part. And so once I realized that like this is one, we invested a lot of money into it at that time. And so I went in, I was like, you know what? One, I really, part of my legacy is helping others build their legacy. And so I like helping others get their message out to the world. And so I said, you know what, let's jump into this. So I jumped full time again. That's how a postural neurologist goes from health into teaching virtual summits. But yeah, so we do that. I jumped in, we started helping people with the software. And then I realized, just like you said, there needs to be some educational component to this to help people. And then I really got kind of activated, I guess if you could say is, I'm like, man, there's so many boring and bad summits out there. And it's not from a lack of access to information. It's just from a lack of somebody saying, like, we've got to be better. And so that's kind of where, you know, I took a stance in our business to say, hey, summits have to evolve. Like, you can't do the same old boring interview style summit. You have to add, like you were saying, it's very parallel. We are constantly talking about edutainment and our side edutainment style summits or binge worthy style summits. And so from there it led into a bunch of other opportunities and honestly, it's into the podcast, which has again been one of my favorite things to do in this business.

Well, I'm so glad you said that because I've been like sitting back up in my game here. Well, one, because I'm competitive and I might want to outdo your buddy at the Utah Podcast Summit. So I'm trying to up my graphical presentation so that when I'm on any summit in the future, people are like, wow, she's got the tech thing going on.

Nice.

And so like, I'm working on it on that side because you're right. It just gets so boring. And so I'm actually bored. Even though I know I'm a good speaker and I'm dynamic and I'm energetic and people learn from me. But I'm like, I'm bored with doing this and if I'm bored doing it, then other people are really bored listening to it. So we've got to up the game there. So I'm glad you're working on that too.

People need to hear that and know that it's not the speaker's responsibility, it's the host's responsibility to make sure that the summit is powerful and impactful and they're fortunate to have powerful and beneficial speakers like yourself on it. So I'm excited. I'll make sure JLD knows that he's got a little competition.

I'm coming for him. No, no. I love that there's such dynamic people in the space. So, you know, I love to be a part of that, that collaboration part of virtual summits. I love. You probably have a lot of repurposing tips and we talk about repurposing all the time with podcasts. Are you producing blogs and other things, but are you taking your virtual summits and moving them into podcasts as well?

I actually do the opposite. So we actually like with our one day summits, what we are teaching people to do is one repurpose because we always start at the summit level. That's usually who we're teaching, talking to, coaching, things like that. And again, I'm not the expert in podcasting, so I can't pretend to be like a podcasting coach. But what we tell them is, hey, you're doing this summit, you've got lots of content. It's all about repurposing. I actually like creating contents like nails on the wall, like on a chalkboard for me. So I love using my summits to repurpose across all our platforms. So our videos go onto YouTube. The videos then go and get the audio pulled in, transcribed. So now we have blogs and in that audio, what we've been telling people to do recently, this is a new thing, is create a pop up podcast with that summit. It's not like you have to keep feeding it forever, it's just there and it's kind of like a content tool that people find they get access to and they come forward. It's also a positioning tool. Say, yeah, I have a podcast on that, I have a podcast on that. They're not going to be as powerful or beneficial as like a live podcast that's ongoing like this. But you got the content, why let it just sit there and collect virtual dust on a virtual shelf? Right? Put it out there.

Well, you know, that's exactly why part of our podcasting strategy on our platform is to allow multiple feeds so that you can quickly and easily put a pop up show together. Scott Carson, that we mentioned earlier, he does that brilliantly. He has his note Night in America, which is every Monday night, and that has its own show series. But reality is that they're all working together to cross promote each other. But by keeping them separated, he can dial into the niche audience. So if you've got people who are on the 101 stage of learning virtual summits that you don't want to bore the advanced people who are ready to get those tactics from you and you know, and get that next level stuff. So by separating them into multiple feeds, that's one of the reasons we make that standard in our hosting process, because we wanted people to utilize it to do a better job of serving their audience and serving the reuse and repurposing of all the things that they're producing and doing. Because what a shame if you just do one thing with it, right?

Yeah, that content was so good, it's so valuable. It shouldn't just disappear.

Well, I love that. Well, Tell me what's sort of changed now? I mean it's been 150 episodes, been well over a year. You've been doing virtual summits for how long?

I've been doing virtual summits for about six years now. Six years?

Yeah. So I thought it was quite, I was thinking it's more than five years. So. Yeah. So six years you've been doing virtual summits and a lot has changed and the technology has gotten more supportive of you, thank goodness. But things are working and aren't working quite the same anymore. What do you see as like a categorical shift in virtual summiting right now?

So the biggest shift I've seen in the last year, one, we've had a dramatic increase. Last year just on our platform alone there was 1500 virtual summits. We've already seen that many already at the beginning of this year. So there's a lot more people doing summits. But one of the biggest things, we started teaching this about two years ago and it happened for me by accident on our very first summit. We started teaching the one day summit formula. And what we've seen in the last two years is the shift from quantity of content to ability to consume quickly. So with a one day summit it's just like it sounds, it's one day, but it's not a full day length in content. It just means your audience has one day to consume it. Because what we've been seeing is as powerful as virtual summits are, some people will see it and be like 40 episodes, five days, I don't have time for that. And so they won't even participate. But if they go, ooh, I can get the answer to my problem in one day, I'm in. So we've actually seen huge uptake of this model and for me it's kind of like a proud father moment. Like we brought this into conception and now I see them happening everywhere and they've even created and evolved from there in different ways. But like we even saw last year, Aweber has been using one day summits to increase their exposure into the conferences they're speaking at. We see it in SaaS, we see it in coaching, we see it in every market niche now. But it just makes perfect sense. Your audience doesn't have a ton of time. They want a solution to their problem, they want it kind of right now. So it's like learn this in a day, boom, done easy. So that's been the biggest shift I've seen as far as summits overall. I have seen unfortunately a Shift from the speaker side. Speakers are getting tired of that list grabber style summit and so they're starting to get a little negative taste in their mouth. Many of them are just kind of saying, nah, not doing it. And that's unfortunate because summits are extremely powerful and beneficial. But we just have to think about it's got to be a win win for everybody. That's why I like to refer to it as a collaborative marketing strategy. It's got to be a win for the speaker, it's got to be a win for the audience, it's got to be a win for a sponsor if you've got sponsors. And then of course if it's doing that, it'll be a win for you. So that's the other shift. But I think there is some changes coming back to that now because speakers have lost the opportunity to speak on actual platforms. So they're kind of like, I guess I will take it, but I will tell you this like yourself. They're like, that's a red flag. I'm not even dealing with that.

Well, yeah, I mean that's the other issue is that I and I spoke on a lot of stages and virtuals at the same time because I've always been a big virtual proponent. So for years I'd been doing virtual summits before that most other speakers were like adopting them. But the reality is, is that from a speaker standpoint, I'm like, my time is really busy now. I am requested all the time, so I have to have a discerning level. And when you learn really quickly that the list grabber doesn't do much for you and your audience and your message is just buried under the list grab, then you're not having an impact anyway. It doesn't feel good to do that.

Yeah. So it just be better be different, be above and like look at what's in the best interest of the speaker and try and help them. It serves everybody in the long run, right? If you have an amazing spirit experience with a summit host, you're going to have a positive reflection on that. If they reach out in the future, you know, you'd probably be open to doing something else with them versus the opposite experience.

Last question. And really I want to end on this because you mentioned this from your very first episode and you mentioned it throughout, that you care just as much about the success of virtual summits and the technical side behind it, you care just as much about the impact that they're having. So you've become a really great influencer here. In the podcasting industry and in your Virtual Summit space within that, is there any kind of movement that you could inspire with that influence that really is important to you?

Well, for me, it goes back to what even led me along this journey. I'm ex military, and I was pulled out of pre med and so sent to Iraq to fight in the war at 20 years old. And that's when I had my first experience with death. And I still remember it vividly, thinking, you know, like, if I died today, what have I done with my life? What impact have I made? Who would hear my message moving forward? And it was no one. And so I made a vow to myself at that time, if I survived my tour of combat, that I'd spend the rest of my life building a legacy. And at that point, it was a legacy for me. That's what I mean, who's crazy enough to get two doctorates? Like, who does that, right? Like, so that's what took me into medicine. That's why I got two doctorates. And then from there, it was to help more patients. And that's why we started the online institute. We went from being able to help a couple hundred patients a week to a thousand to when we went to the online institute, now we help over 100,000 patients a week. And then from there. Now it's not just my legacy, it's I want to help other people build their legacy. And so for me, the thing that really drives me or the thing that I'd say breaks my heart is I see people out there that were just like me, that they have an idea, they have this vision, they have this thing that they want to do, but everybody's telling them they're crazy, and they're starting to believe themselves that they're crazy and that they can't do this. It's too big, it's too hard. And so many dreams end up never reaching the accomplishment or the level they should. And what's really sad about that is it's not that you didn't reach your dream. It's how many people were you going to impact that are now not ever going to have that impact? And that's what gets me pumped up and excited, is I know you got a message. I know you got an impact that the world absolutely needs to see and have. So don't let anything hold you back or stop you from getting that message out.

Everyone out there, did you just hear all that passion and excitement? And he puts that into every single episode of the Virtual Summit podcast. So you've Got to take a listen to Dr. Mark T. Wade. Thank you so much for joining me today, Mark.

Thank you, Traci.

So I'm sure you can see why I thought Mark was going to make a great guest for us. But not only that, you were going to learn so much from him. I wanted to make sure you got to learn a little bit more about virtual summits. And I offered him the opportunity to come and talk to my clients and coach them. And when I do that, I may just make that a bonus episode for you. We'll see how we do here. Yeah. Because I'm very sure that he's going to have such valuable tips for podcasters, even more depth than he could go into with us today. So this is the thing. When I went to art school, and I think many of you may know that I met my husband there, we went to Rhode Island School Design. One of the number one things that we do in art school is we have what they call freshman foundation, right? You get your feet wet learning how to draw, learning two dimensional design, three dimensional design, art history, right? And you get your feet wet doing that. If you go into a painting program, you study the masters, right? And that's really here. What I think is missing so often in many podcasts, many programs, in many companies is deep knowledge of how it works the hard way, right? So, yes, I can do technical great things with software and I can do these new things, but if I don't understand how I'm supposed to fundamentally use it, how I'm going to apply it, and why it's easier and better utilizing software and tools and technology, I don't actually know how to use that to its best ability. And so by having started this six years ago when it was harder, just like when it was harder to podcast, we're building in this deep knowledge and understanding of how things need to work and why they work. So that then when we go in and utilize faster technologies and better tools and more dynamic software, right? When we go in to use those things, we have a fundamental understanding of how to deploy them and how to use them. And that's really what Marcus bringing today. I mean, he brought to us really, this deep, deep understanding that everything that he developed has a fundamental benefit to building a virtual summit that does what you want it to do. There's strategy behind it. And that's really right in line with what I want you to get out of this show. I want you to get from every single guest I bring on this understanding that that strategy matters. But here also Deep knowledge and actionable, useful his binge factor. Right? Actionable, useful things combined with that. Deep knowledge combined with his passion. I mean, wow. Right? So don't miss the Virtual Summit podcast. Go check it out just like I am. Go binge listen to it because it is worth it, especially if you are hosting summits, but also if you are hosting podcasts because many of you may think you want to do a summit as the next step. So both places, make sure you go out there and listen to the Virtual Summit podcast and go check out and follow Dr. Marc T. Wade everywhere on social media. Now we'll have all the links for that at the blog post for this episode@thebingefactor.com and if you go to the Binge Factor, it looks brand new. We've just renovated the whole thing. We've just added in some features. We've added in a way for you to apply to be a guest on the show or suggest someone and recommend someone. Plus we've also given a little gift out. So starting in July and this episode is airing in June 2020. So if you're catching it after the fact, if you're binge listening to it, it's already in place by now. But we're going to be taking in and doing shout outs to brand new noteworthy podcasts. So if you just started your show, you can apply as well. Or you can recommend one of your really good friends who just started a podcast. So there's applications for the most of those on the bingefactor.com so I look forward to connecting with you and hearing about your show as well and seeing what actionable, useful tips and advice you can bring to other podcasters, other Virtual Summit goers and makers and creators out there. I look forward to helping you make your impact in the world. So thank you so much for listening to the Binge Factor. I'll be back next time with another great episode and another great host.

You'Ve.

Been listening to the Binge Factor Podcast. For more information on podcasting and videocasting success tips and tactics, please go to thebingefactor.com and be sure to listen to our other show for podcasters called Feed you'd brand. If you'd like to be interviewed on this show as well as featured in Tracy's column, please go to thebingefactor.com guest and apply.