Today I am going to take you – step by step – through some concrete examples of how stages can grow businesses. I am going to share with you a very specific model today that combines the use of Other People’s Stages (OPS) and MRR with the use of webinars.
Do you know what MRR stands for? It stands for Monthly Recurring Revenue. To have MRR, you must produce products that bring in revenue over and over again without having to re-sell your customer. You get a customer to buy your product one time, and then they give you money on an automatically renewing schedule. MRRs cause the valuation of your business to go up, and up, and up. If all of your products are single purchases and you have to convince your customers to buy again, then keep reading! This is for you! You need to add an MRR product to your business. I want to show you how I did just that, in three of my businesses.
I started my professional life as a magician, but after about ten years in the profession, I decided I needed to get a real job. I became a public school teacher. I taught high school math for 12 years, but I wanted to have a greater influence on the education system and not just the students in my classroom, so I started a business where I was training teachers around the country.
When I first started the company, everybody said, “Oh, what a great idea! I’ll buy your training!” I thought that I was going to have more business than I knew what to do with. So I started this business where I was going into schools and training teachers. The first six months, it was great because all my friends hired me and I knew a lot of teachers. However, after six months the business started to dry up and I struggled to gain new customers. After that initial enthusiasm wore off, it was rough.
The only way I knew to get new business was through networking and referrals. I asked my friends for business and then I would ask them if they knew anybody who might want my services. That’s the entire business plan for a lot of people. But honestly, many of the businesses that are doing that are struggling – gasping for air and oxygen. Can anyone relate?
Then I stumbled upon the idea of using stages to grow my business. I had the opportunity through a friend to speak at the Indiana School Counselors Conference. Every school counselor in the state of Indiana came to Indianapolis for this event. I applied to be the keynote speaker so I could get paid, but they turned me down. They did, however, offer me a breakout room if I would sign up and pay for the event. So, I paid $299 to go to the event, and I secured a room to host a breakout presentation. Okay. Here’s where I need you to pay attention because I’m going to teach you something.
Lesson #1: When you have a breakout room at an event, make sure that the people who pick the keynote speakers come to your breakout room.
So, the week before the event, I reached out to the committee that made the decision on the keynote speakers and said, “Hey, I’m happy that I’m able to speak at your event next week at a breakout session! It’s going to be Thursday afternoon at three o’clock in this room. I really believe I should keynote your event.” I proceeded to explain to them why I believed I should be the keynote speaker.
I highlighted a problem that their audience had – which was motivating students – and why I could solve that problem. I told them that I had some social proof that I could solve this problem for schools. I then invited them to attend my breakout session to see if I was an appropriate keynoter. There were six people on that committee and not all of them attended my breakout session – but two of them did. Those two committee members became huge advocates for me because a year later I was asked to keynote the Indiana State School Counselors Conference! I had the wonderful opportunity of addressing 1600 school counselors in a hotel ballroom at the Marriott on the east side of Indianapolis as the keynote speaker. Now, at this event, I was not allowed to sell anything. I’m going to teach you what to do when you’re not allowed to sell anything. Ready?
Lesson #2: When you are not allowed to sell anything, plan your own webinar shortly after the event and invite your audience to attend.
I did this. The event that I was speaking at was a Thursday, Friday, and Saturday event. I decided to wait until the following Thursday to host my webinar, and here is why. The attendees are going to go home on Sunday. Monday and Tuesday, they will have all the work from the previous week to catch up on. Wednesday, they’ll be able to breathe. So, on Thursday following the event and after school hours, I held a one-hour webinar. It was a free, one hour webinar. I used OPS (at the Indiana School Counselors Conference) to fill up my webinar
Using Other People’s Stages is the easiest way to fill your webinar. When you get on OPS, you’re not paying for the coffee. You’re not paying for the projector, the screen, or the PA system. Somebody else pays for that. Because someone else paid for those things, there are times when I cannot sell them. But I can let the audience know about my next upcoming, free training where I will include bonus material. And I can also let the audience know that they can invite anyone who may benefit from what they heard that day! I like to provide a simple URL that allows them to easily register themselves and their friends, family, and colleagues.
So here’s the cool part: out of the 1600 people at that event, how many people do you think showed up at my webinar? 900 people showed up at my webinar! I paid $299 to get a ticket for the year prior and it gave me access to the keynote stage. At that stage, I was able to capture 900 potential customers. Not too bad, if you ask me! About half of those people had heard me speak at the event. The other half were people who were invited just by the conference attendees who passed on the word. I didn’t do anything else. I didn’t buy Facebook ads. I didn’t email a big list. I just invited 1600 people to this event and got 900 people to show up at my webinar.
So let me ask you, How much did this event cost me? Well, it’s a webinar. There’s no breakfast, no coffee, no projector, and no screens. Zero investment expenses for the webinar! But the difference between the Indiana School Counselors stage and the webinar stage was that there I couldn’t sell, and here I can make an offer.
This is where the MRR comes in. I made an offer for schools to join my year-long mentorship program where I promised to help teachers motivate their unmotivated students. You see, I didn’t just sell them a product. I sent them a product that they would pay for every month, which would bring them value every month. This created immediate Monthly Recurring Revenue.
This is an example of OPS – OWN webinar – MRR.
And I should tell you, out of the 900 people who attended my OWN webinar, 106 people signed up for my mentoring program!
My program was about $500 a month. 106 people paying $500 a month is $53,000. That’s not a bad day! However, the best part is that the next month I didn’t have to do this again. The next month they paid me $53,000 again, and the next month they paid me $53,000 again. Now, do some people drop off in a program like this? Yes. Every month, 1% or 3% of people drop off. But that’s okay! I’m still getting paid every month for people in this program. And in the meantime, I’m standing on OPS and MY OWN, and I’m acquiring more customers.
I could tell you a few other case studies, which I do in Episode 7 of the Backstage With PV3 PODCAST. Take a listen by watching the video above or checking out the show on all podcast platforms!
Your takeaway should be utilizing the power of OPS > OWN webinar > MRR to grow your business exponentially with low to no costs if done right. The growth you will experience makes this model a no-brainer.
So what’s next? Pete Vargas and Grant Cardone are going to be talking about the Power of Webinars and I want to make sure you get to this free online event. I’m like a kid in a candy store waiting for this. They’re gonna pull back the curtain and show you the number one tool they’ve used to grow their businesses – the webinar system that Grant uses to generate over $30 million a year.
Similar to the case study that I showed you today, Grant and Pete will show you that you can use webinars to drive revenue, grow your business, and most importantly, IMPACT YOUR LIFE!
Head to 10xstages.com/webinars now to secure your place!
Thank you for letting me share with you today and continue to check back here at the Advance Your Reach blog for more impactful content that will help you grow your business.
-Pat Quinn
