The Entrepreneur DNA - Turning Data Into Dollars at Live Events | Bill Allen | EP 34

Starting point is 00:00:00 I can take what somebody's already doing and just give them ideas that I've created at my event or I've done for other people to be like the nutty professor behind the scene that shows you how to make a lot more money. Most of you that are running live events are scratching the surface. You're probably hitting maybe 25% of the potential revenue that you could get. Let me expose the other 75% because it's the most fun for me. What is up entrepreneur DNA? Welcome back with another incredible guest. I am very honored. I consider this man a close friend at this point.

Starting point is 00:00:30 He has been a master real estate investor, Navy pilot, and now has turned his attention on live events, data, and technology. So if you are in any way running any level of live events, you will want to be on this podcast watching the entire thing. My friend Bill Allen is here. What is up, brother? What's up, Justin? How are you? Great, man.

Starting point is 00:00:53 I'm excited to be rocking this out with you finally. Yeah, me too. And I think this is something that every entrepreneur needs. I know I needed it. I wanted to spend so much money to do live events and figure out how to make more with them. The nerdy side of data is kind of boring, but I love making people like an extra million bucks. I love providing value, helping people get really rich. Sorry for me.

Starting point is 00:01:19 So let's talk about this. Now, your journey is expansive, but what I kind of want to focus on, obviously, ex-Navy pilot. I think that's super cool. Current real estate investor, but you've been real estate investing for 20 years, massive real estate investor, but you've now recently pivoted into something that you've been personally running your own events for about a decade, right? And I think the way you think is so unique because someone like myself doesn't necessarily think the way you think is so unique because someone like myself doesn't necessarily think the way you think. And so to pivot from not just running your own events, but knowing the troubleshooting that you're doing and trying to solve for your own events created this incredible business now that you're helping others make seven figures at their events on top of what they would normally do because of your problem solving solution. So let's just kind of jump into that. How did this get going? Yeah. We've been running

Starting point is 00:02:10 like a high ticket live event every October in the single family real estate world called Flipbacking Live for like, I think this will be our ninth year this year. So I've been selling from stage at that event. And over time, it got bigger. Again, as the event got bigger, we were losing a lot of data. Like, you know, we sell a $15,000 program there. So if I had 1,000 people show up on day one and then day two, we have like 850 people show up. I was like, who were the 150 people that left? So I knew who bought the program, but I didn't know who was not buying the program, if that makes sense, or not showing up. I didn't know if it was a wife who was like there the first day and then is out at the pool the second day.

Starting point is 00:02:52 I didn't know if it was a local person who didn't like the content and didn't come back. And so I just kind of got to a place in my event where I knew that, you know, like the wholesale deals that we do where, you know, you could buy it and actually flip it and make twice as much money. I wasn't squeezing all the cash out of the like every event that I did. And and so there was no real like there was nothing available to me. I was like, why can't why can't I track the people who are in the room? Like, why can't I basically like just know all the time who's in there and who's not in there um and i kind of went back i used to run marathons and i remember when i was running marathons there was like a little chip that was on your shoe and that when you ran over the pad it would like check

Starting point is 00:03:34 your time all the way through there so you couldn't cheat right you couldn't like run 18 miles and and you know cut your time out you'd have to go to the end of the peninsula and turn around and hit the pad there and so i knew knew this technology existed. It exists all over the place now. And I was like, well, why can't we just figure out how we can actually track some of that stuff? And so initially the idea was I'm going to put a wristband on like they have at Cancun, where you can get into your room. And we tried that, it failed. So it took about two years to develop like this, multiple events. We had an event,

Starting point is 00:04:08 we have a multifamily event in the summer too. So I had like two opportunities a year for two years to crash and burn at my own event to test this and be able to kind of track the people that were at the event, that were in the room, not in the room, like were in the hallway. Do they show up for one session and not we're in the, in the hallway.

Starting point is 00:04:28 Do they show up for one session and show up, not like leave for the rest of the time. And, and it, it kind of just evolved to a place of, I had to build an event registration and like badge a company to be able to do it right. So my initial plan was I was just going to have these wristbands that I would like bolt onto people's events. And really I built it for myself. So like we use it at all my events, all my mastermind meetings, all our fulfillment events, our live events. We use this platform. And I used it for like two years, like building it, testing it,

Starting point is 00:04:59 crashing it, burning it down, rebuilding it. And then we got to a place where it was really doing well for us. Like we could see all the data. We could see what was going on. And I ended up kind of a little bit of a longer story, but I had to build a live event like registration platform. So like, you know, you go up to a live event. You've probably been to one like that where you check in on an iPad.

Starting point is 00:05:20 It prints out your badge. You wear it around your neck. And that's kind of the secret sauce that we have of what we do is we're able to actually use that badge for lots of different things. And it's basically the tech that we have in that badge that can make the host way more money and make it a better experience for the customer. So we built that. And then, you know, I was fortunate enough, Russell Brunson allowed us to run our program at Funnel Hacking Live last year in 2023, almost like a beta launch for us because we had never done it on that scale. You know,

Starting point is 00:05:56 5,000 people, our events were like 1,100 people. And to do it at 5,000 people that are running through the doors like a rock concert to make sure it works um that was kind of our first test in the marketplace and it it it went well for the last two days not so well for the first two days but we found we we basically rewrote all the code in the first after the first two days of his event to get it ready for his offer on uh day three which we got it we nailed it it was really um i don't know, maybe that's where I should stop to just say. Well, there's so much I want to unpack, right? I mean, you just kind of, first thing I want people to recognize is Bill has been a successful entrepreneur

Starting point is 00:06:36 for roughly two decades. And the reason why I want to say that is success doesn't come with just a straight trajectory up, right? Like it's not like Bill just has been shitting cold for 20 years, right? There is a lot of learning lessons. There's losses and heartache and challenges and not being perfect on day one and having to pivot and be up all night to make sure day two and day three, like this is who we are as entrepreneurs. So I really wanted to kind of like lean into that a little bit. Because I think, you know, a lot of people would think, okay, great, Justin, he has this incredible software that like, has been just crushing it for years. And he's like, No, no, he's been iterating for over two years, a lot of people just want to get into a space of entrepreneurship, regardless of

Starting point is 00:07:20 the vertical, and they want to go make all the money. And it's always successful. And they come out, you know, making a million dollars a year. and I think I just want to lean into kind of what you said and unpack all that because it took you the better part of two years of basically paying to learn what works and what doesn't on your own dime oh yeah for sure um yeah two years of that I have no investors it's all me it's my It's my money. It's my risk. And that's what we do as entrepreneurs. And, you know, being in the military for 20 years before this, that's, I mean, I was a W-2 employee for 20 years. I retired last year from the Navy. And we, you know, you punch a clock. But the risk that I was taking is like life and death risk in that business. So now coming into this, it's like if I lose a little bit of money, it's not necessarily the end of the world. But we're not, even when you talk success, like we're a tech startup. Like we're three guys in a garage building this with like a very small team for me. Like I built it in my laboratory for me, spent the money on me, tested it on me.

Starting point is 00:08:22 And then we got to the place where it was working. I was like, huh, I wonder if anybody else could use this. Like, I know I have a lot of friends that do live events. They could use this. And I love to bolt on to somebody else's vehicle. I feel like that's one of my favorite things to do is like, if I can make you make, if I can bolt onto your vehicle and basically consult on the live events space to say, this is what we do. Cause what I find with a lot of the people that do live events, like we're doing things that they have never thought of. Like I talk to them about their VIP offer. I show them how to make more money with an upsell. I talk about their, like their offer strategy, their pitch, their,

Starting point is 00:08:57 their, their program, like their, how many days it is, like the registration setup, like all kinds of stuff. We end up actually like helping them a lot more on the event side. And then I'm able to bolt onto that and prove the fact. Like the best part is I can say, no, no, like these people bought right here because of the software. And it's not, it's not a guess. So we totally fail. Like I fail all the time and we're still kind of just like touch and go. Like I don't have a lot of debt on the company, but I'm not like rolling in the cash right now. You know, it's a startup business is a long term amount of time that you have to spend for for the reward down the road. And so, I mean, we're a tech startup company, though, that has no VC debt. No, no, we're not in the negative for the first 10 years before we ever start making a dollar and then just sell.

Starting point is 00:09:56 And we're also providing real value to the marketplace, which is how can I 10x somebody's investment into the software at their live event? And if I can't, I'm not even going to sell it to them. I get a lot of calls trying to figure out if if the software is even right for that live event. And sometimes I'm like, you're, your events kind of too small right now, or, or it doesn't sound like you mind handwriting people's name tags and putting it on their shirt at your meetup, you know. And so we started building like $97 a month products for those people, because they can't afford the, you know, the five or $10,000 a year kind of thing. So, you know, it's a, it's just, it's been iteration and it constantly will be. Well, and again, what I want people to understand is they need to go find you, whether you want to tell them to go find you on Instagram or Facebook, or if you want to drive

Starting point is 00:10:38 them to the web, wherever you want to tell them to go, because I think if you are running any level, any level of a live event, and I run live events, right? And Bill and I have already had these conversations. Then you need to at least talk to Bill. Because something like this, if you are running live events, you know the value of the data that he's collecting. Who's in the room? Who's not in the room? Was it a husband and wife combination?

Starting point is 00:10:58 Was it two business partners? Who are these people? Because if you are running a live event that you want to sell, any level of high ticket, right? let's call it $1,000 or more, then you need to know who you're talking to. So again, Bill, do you have a specific place you just want them to go to reach out to you? Yeah, they can go to, it's called In The Room. So I had a really good friend name this, who's a copywriter. I had no idea what to name it. And we called it In The Room. So like you want people to be in the room and you want to know who's in the room. So intheroom.live, L-I-V-E. So intheroom.live, they can go there and you schedule a demo. One thing I think would be really valuable

Starting point is 00:11:32 on this, I mean, we're doing a podcast about being an entrepreneur running live events. There's a few things that I see that really successful, so really successful live event hosts do and people that don't do well don't do. So the cool thing that I see that really successful, so really successful live event hosts do and don't, people that don't do well don't do. So the cool thing that I get the opportunity to do that a lot of people don't is I don't just run my events now. I get to run like events for Pace Morby, for Russell Brunson, for like Hunter Thompson is one of our clients. Like it just, a laundry list of other people, Alison Maslin, like I get to see their data and their live events. And now that we're doing like,

Starting point is 00:12:07 we do meetups and we do RIA meetings and stuff like that for those folks. It's really cool to be able to see what they're doing and what's working for them.

Starting point is 00:12:18 And so I'm kind of behind the scenes on a lot of these events. I'm like the guy that nobody sees, like the Oz behind the curtain. But maybe it would be valuable for some of the folks to say, like, guy that nobody sees, like the Oz behind the curtain. But maybe it would be valuable for some of the folks to say, like, this is what some of the really successful people are doing.

Starting point is 00:12:30 And this is where some people are kind of like stepping in it and doing it wrong. I don't know if that would be helpful. I think it would be massively helpful. Listen, our audience right now for this episode, you are talking to people who are running live events. That is who is on right now. They run smaller ones.

Starting point is 00:12:43 They run bigger ones. I think anything that we can deliver on this episode while we have their attention let's deliver brother and i've run a lot of live events but literally the reason why you and i are talking is like i don't have that data set that you have with this right like you'll you'll start a live event with 200 people let's say and all of a sudden there's the next day there's 140 or whatever the number and you go are they hung over did they just leave or you know so what you go, are they hung over? Did they just leave? Or, you know, so what, you know, how did that happen? Right. And so let's, let's give and just deliver whatever you think insight you can give to the people listening. Yeah, for sure. So most of us,

Starting point is 00:13:16 there's like two different types of live events that I see. One is more like trade show. So the host is making money on sponsorships and ticket sales, and they're not really selling high ticket to anybody. They're not selling something from stage. They're making making money on sponsorships and ticket sales, and they're not really selling high ticket to anybody. They're not selling something from stage. They're making their money on the event itself. So it's a trade show. So those people, I find, the way that they can make a lot more money is to create more ticket tiers.

Starting point is 00:13:38 So they probably already know this, but a basic ticket, a VIP, a super VIP, things like that. And then also provide way more value for the sponsors. So most sponsors, you know they a basic ticket, a VIP, a super VIP, things like that. And then also provide like way more value for the sponsors. So most sponsors, you know, they want leads. And so if you can figure out, so we have like a tech piece of the software that can actually, the sponsor can use their iPhone or iPad and scan the badge. So each badge has a QR code on it. And so they can scan the badge to say they've been to their booth and it tags them inside the software. And then you can give them those leads that, you know, you can say, hey, we have this technology. You can increase the price of that sponsorship because of it. Like you can use our tech.

Starting point is 00:14:14 We'll give it to you. And then they scan the badge so that people aren't filling out their name, their email, phone number on a sheet of paper or using the QR code at their booth and things like that. Because, you know, those people that kind of like stand behind, like kind of like stand back, they don't want to fill it out, but they're listening. Like enable for the sponsor to be able to just scan a badge really quick of anybody that they're talking to that's coming up. And we even are able to put proximity around their booth too, if we wanted to. Like we can put actual, like to scan their tags passively. So they're not actually actively scanning the badge to capture that data.

Starting point is 00:14:49 So most, as a host, I would never give my sponsor everybody on my email list. They're gonna get destroyed from, like say you sell 2000 tickets to that event. I see a lot of people say, oh, if you sponsor my event, I'll give you the entire list. Like we don't do that. And really successful entrepreneurs in this space, that's not what they're selling.

Starting point is 00:15:08 They're not giving everybody the email list because they want to control who's interested in that and who's not. And so I might give the top tier sponsor the entire data set. And then everybody else, it's whoever comes to your booth and is interested. So have a lead magnet, have them come to the booth, and then I can upsell them the tech that pays for the software that I use inside of the event business. So that's what I see for trade shows. And if you're not making a high ticket offer from stage at your event, even anything, like even 997, five grand, 10 grand, 20 grand, up to a hundred thousand, you should be. So like, even if you have this kind of trade show, if you can figure out how to turn that into an upsell at the event,

Starting point is 00:15:50 I would highly encourage you to do it. But that's kind of the trade show model and how we help some of those folks. Like, uh, trafficking conversion is a great example of that. Like they make their money from, uh, the booths, the sponsorship rental, the ticket sales, those kinds of things. Whereas funnel hacking live is the opposite. They're opposite. They don't have a bunch of sponsors there and they're making their money from selling from stage. It's more of a breakeven model on the ticket sales. And then they're selling high ticket from stage to make the profit. And so if that's the side that you're on, then either one, experience is so important. Day zero is the most important. You know, when you wait in line for like 45 minutes for your name badge, like that, those events suck. Like you don't come

Starting point is 00:16:32 back. You hate it. You complain, all that stuff. So getting people through the line really fast is really important at an event. And the way that they feel on day zero is the tone that you're setting for the rest of the event. Because if you are going to sell high ticket, you're going to sell a mastermind, you're going to sell coaching, you're going to sell something to them where you're fulfilling that over the year. That's the example that you're setting for the future. So they're like, okay, this is what this community is like. So on day zero, if they feel like they're cared for, if they have attention at check-in and registration, if you're taking care of them, you're moving them quickly through the line. And if there is a slight slowdown, there's somebody there that's just engaging with them, talking to them, getting them excited about the event. That's what the rest of the year is going to be like for you.

Starting point is 00:17:16 So you're basically like implanting this feel for what it's like to be in our community for the rest of the year. You want it to be good. I'll give an example. I love, I love, I like Daryl Eves a lot, but I went to VidSummit last year. There was like an hour line to get your name badge. And I was just like, this is ridiculous, man. My son was there. He's nine years old. I was just, he was like, this dad, this sucks. Like that whole day zero experience. I realize I'm kind of putting him on blast a little bit, but I've talked to him since of like, let me help you solve this problem. But that's the tone for the event. That's your first impression. And so, especially when you're selling something from stage, really important to get that feel all the way through. So a registration system of some sort, whether it's

Starting point is 00:18:02 mine or somebody else's, is really important on day zero to get those people through the line quickly. And then we have in-app VIP upsell. And as far as I know, we're the only people that do this. So what I realized when we run our live events, I sell VIP from stage. So we sell it ahead of time via text message, email, funnels, all that stuff, right? But what I found is we would sell, I don't know, if we had a 10% or 15% take rate for VIP, it would be really good. And still, I didn't know who opened it, who looked at it, who clicked on it, all that stuff. We get a little bit of that in our open rates and click-through rates and stuff

Starting point is 00:18:40 like that from our email software. But I couldn't guarantee that 100 people had to say no. So I was like, well, what if I built a funnel inside the event registration? Because our process before was you would check in, then you would get in. So you'd be either VIP or general admission. So general admission goes in the general admission line, VIP goes in the VIP line, they get special access, they get special area. They get food, that kind of stuff. So you want your VIPs to feel good. Those VIP buyers are your best buyers. Those are the people that are spending the most time with you. They feel like they're part of a community. They're getting extra. They paid extra. They're going to buy your high ticket program.

Starting point is 00:19:19 Our conversion in the VIP is about 50% to 60% conversion. And our conversion in GA is about 15%. So just for comparison, I always want those people to raise their hand and upgrade to VIP. And so at an event like that, what I found was on the first session of every live event, I'd be like, hey, if you want VIP and you didn't have chance, we have like 20 more, go to the back table and sign up and you get VIP. And we sell another five or 10 or so at our event. And I was like, oh, cool. We got another like 10 grand.

Starting point is 00:19:55 Now what we do is inside of the app, when they check in, do you know the feeling when you get to a live event? Like your flight's paid for, your ticket's paid for, your hotel's paid for, and you're there on site. And now you're there with a friend and your friend just goes to the VIP line and you're going in the general admission line. They're like, oh yeah, I'm going in over here. I remember going to Tony Robbins UPW event and somebody, I knew some people there that I was going with and they were like, oh, what ticket level are you? And I was like, I don't know, like platinum or something? And they're like, oh, platinum.

Starting point is 00:20:20 And I thought platinum was like good. And at Tony's it was like, oh, but we're diamond. So we're going to go in this room over here. You got to go over here. And I was like, dude, platinum. And I thought platinum was like good. And at Tony's, it was like, oh, but we're diamond. So we're going to go in this room over here. You got to go over here. And I was like, dude, platinum I thought was good. Like that guy's gold and silver. I'm platinum. And I'm in this like, I'm basically like a second rate citizen at this place. And if I could figure out how to upgrade to whatever Sapphire thing that they had, I would have bought it there on site. Right. If it was in the app, I just would have been like, click, click, here's my credit card. Like I want to go with my friends. And so that feeling at the event is different. And if you don't have to have a salesperson involved, you don't pay commission and all this stuff. So what we did was we built a

Starting point is 00:20:56 funnel inside of there. So when they check in, if they're general admission, it says on the big screen of the iPad, it says, this is all the features of VIP. Do you want to upgrade now? One click upgrade, tap your credit card, you're in. And then there's like little writing, just like a funnel. It says, I don't want VIP, just continue, you know, just like every funnel. And so they have to click that. So 100% of the people that are at the event have to say no to VIP. So I know now that 100% of my audience had the opportunity to say yes or no.

Starting point is 00:21:27 But before, it's like, I don't know if 100% of the people heard me. I don't know if some people were in the hallway. It's uncomfortable to walk to that back table and talk to a salesperson. Like you remove all of that friction by just putting it right there. And at the time where they're most likely to buy.

Starting point is 00:21:43 Because they're less likely to buy at home than they are on site in person everything else is paid for the juice is fine yeah like yeah that's why our take later vip right the thing that like i'm like oh it's so brilliant you and i travel a lot now you're a pilot so it's not fair but us us, us normal folk, you know, like I fight, I fly first class everywhere I go. And it's because of a little bit of, it's a belief system. That's actually a business hack. If anyone is not Bill Allen and you're flying fly first class, not because it's more comfortable per se, because the person next to you can afford first class and they usually are doing something pretty cool in life. And connections could be meaningful i digress one of the ways that that works for me is i have such high status and american specifically

Starting point is 00:22:31 is a lot of times they will just bump me up for free but if it's a if it's a lot of seats are open first class i'll just book those seats that have like six inches more leg room. So it's still comfortable if I ever had to have that seat, but they offer me such a discount. Like if they haven't sold out first class, let's just use an example. The first class ticket is an extra thousand dollars within the, you know, 24 to 48 hours before the flight leaves. If it's not sold out, they'll offer to me for like 150 bucks. I take it every time. 150 bucks, done, right? And so depending, most of the time I'm just booking first class, but the other time I'm just booking a very comfortable seat anyways, and they'll offer

Starting point is 00:23:17 it. And they always offer it, meaning anytime I open the app, if I'm going to check in, it pops up, right? It says, it says hey 150 bucks upgrade to first it's like for me i have 100 take rate on that kind of stuff right yeah so i think it's absolutely brilliant i mean this is absolutely if you're running any level of live event go reach out to bill and and you know in the room dot live because this is exactly what the airlines are doing oh yeah i mean this is just, it's simple. I was like, why haven't we been doing this? Everybody's not saying no.

Starting point is 00:23:51 And so Allison Maslin is a perfect example. She has a great case study. Had a smaller event, like 150 people. And we got like 11 people to take the, and a lot of these people already had VIP. So the cool part is if you're already VIP, you don't even see that screen. So like, it's a smart feature where it's not like selling you VIP when you're already VIP. And so we had like 11 people take her VIP, which paid for the software for that event easily. And then all of those people bought her $37,000 program.

Starting point is 00:24:21 And so I'm not, I'm not saying that like some of those 11 people wouldn't have gone to the back table and bought, but I can almost guarantee a hundred percent of them wouldn't like there's three or four people that would have missed it. They didn't know, or, you know, they wouldn't have bought it. They just, you know, but they're right there. It's an opportunity is more time with you or me or the speakers of the, right. So now the indoctrination in the person and what they delivered and familiarity and like just it becomes when they make that offer you're like dude i've loved bill allen or justin colby or and i forget your your client but like i love them like everything they're about what they stand for

Starting point is 00:24:55 what they stand against how they run business there's so much more of that when you get the vip ticket sale right whether it's breakfastners, after parties, whatever goes in with the VIP, like the, the clever summit that I'm speaking at. And I just introduced you like they have a yacht party the night before, right? So all the VIPs have a yacht party the night before it's just, it's a freaking yacht, right? So I think there's 40 to 60 people max on this thing, right? It's going to be intimate. So all the speakers will be there. So my point to all that is like, when you can get someone to go VIP, the likelihood of you getting such a higher conversion, and if this app creates more VIPs,

Starting point is 00:25:36 it'll pay for itself immediately, effectively. Yeah. And I think the lesson there for everyone is if you can create some tiers inside the event, what it does is it allows the people who are ready to, that want to spend more time with you, that want to raise their hand and to allow them to do that. And then, so if you're not, if you just have general mission or like a lower tier, I would highly encourage you to do a VIP, but keep in mind, it's about time. So like spending time with them and making them feel like they're part of an elite group that is close to you because they're paying for proximity. So the more of that that you can do, and I saw when Pace did his event, I've never seen anyone do it as well as him. What he does is he walks around and talks to the people and he knows their name and knows their stories. And that's why he's selling like he is, is he

Starting point is 00:26:21 really gets to know the people and he can remember that stuff. So my problem is I'm like a numbers nerd and I'm not good at remembering names and stories and history and stuff like that. It's like I have to build systems. I have to like in my phone, I have to write in the notes section, like their kids' names and their, like when they were sick last and the last story they told me. And so I have to write that stuff down and review it and be intentional about it. Whereas as I feel like for him, it's almost like a politician. He can just remember that stuff and

Starting point is 00:26:49 really good with people. So that's the takeaway is not necessarily just like, oh, upsell them in the app. That's great. I think it's important to do. And I keep creating these things because I see gaps in the marketplace and problems with other software and other tech and people that are building stuff for us that run live events that actually don't run live events. And so that's the one thing is figure out how to get more proximity from those people, even if it's just a lunch Q&A or it's a cocktail reception the night before where it's like roped off. And it's like, you know, come in here and they're paying a little bit more, but they're getting that proximity because that's that's like that's like an hour with you in Q&A is like imagine if that hour was that good. Imagine what the rest of the year is going to be like with me, you know, in my program. And so that's their feeling like and you want them to get indoctrinated into your system and what you do and the value that you bring. So that's one that I see that really successful events have.

Starting point is 00:27:44 And the other one is like is actually having really good data and follow up. And so, you know, having the right email, the right phone number, when these people sign up for this stuff, a lot of times they're using a junk email or a junk or a fake phone number, a Google voice or something like that. And then when you get them in person and you get them checking in, one thing that we do is we have, I always recommend somebody's there at the iPad, like on staff, to just talk with the person and just like, hey, is this your current email? Because we're gonna be sending some updates during the event and I wanna make sure you don't miss it. They're like, oh no, no, no, that's not my email.

Starting point is 00:28:19 And so I see like, you know, 10 or 15% of the time, we might not even have an email or phone number for somebody, usually not phone number um at russell's event we gab at funnel hacking live we were able to capture uh like 2500 phone numbers that they didn't have and uh because they didn't take phone numbers on the on the order form yeah and so i mean some of you guys are probably all doing that but some of them it's optional because you don't want to cause friction for the phone number. And I got all but three people's phone numbers at that event. There was like 5,000 people there.

Starting point is 00:28:51 We got every single person's phone number except for three. Three people were like, I don't want to give my phone number. We just put all zeros. But that gave me the ability to text those people throughout the entire event, make sure I got them back in the room. And even if you don't use the tracking system that we

Starting point is 00:29:05 have, I mean, your marketing team could text them. And then the follow-up after the event, especially if you sell something from stage, the key is you got to have good data to follow up. So if I know who saw the offer, who didn't see the offer, who didn't see the repitch, I can talk to them differently. Can you imagine getting an email from... Like if they don't see your offer, they can't buy it, right? Right. And so right now we're talking to everybody the exact same, whether you saw the offer presentation at the event or you were in the hallway, you're getting the exact same follow-up email. Well,

Starting point is 00:29:39 our clients are not. We're building out strategy and plan for them afterwards, that if they saw the pitch but missed the re-pitch, if they missed the pitch but saw the re-pitch, if they missed both, we're doing totally different sequences post-event to really convert and give their sales team a really good list of people to call. So after the event, your sales team's calling somebody that missed the offer completely. It's going to be a totally different conversation than somebody who saw the offer. No doubt. And is thinking about it. So that's all just like big picture strategy. When you come into these things, we do the live event, we make some money and we're like, oh, it was good. Like, you know, hey, we made half a million, but it's like, we're leaving

Starting point is 00:30:17 all, we're leaving millions of dollars on the table by not, not using the data the appropriate way. So there's a couple of pieces of advice that I see. Yeah, it's efficiencies. I mean, everything you just said is you're taking what we all know, I run a lot of events, you and so many others, right? We all have some KPI baselines, right? So we all have what we understand

Starting point is 00:30:37 would make it a good event. But is that even efficient, right? Are we actually creating efficiencies to really capitalize on the entire experience and what you're built, what you've built? And I would tell anyone again, go to in the room dot live. If you have any level of live event, talk to Bill and his team, but you've created efficiencies on where we're blind as people, as little human beings. Like, I don't care how many people you have at the door. You won't know how many people come in,

Starting point is 00:31:03 come out and are watching the close. You can do your best kind of like if you have one person at the door, like doing one of those clickers. But like the tech just says that like, hey, they left the room 15 minutes before the pitch. They didn't see the pitch. They weren't back in the room. It's obvious now that you think you pitched 50% of the room. You actually pitched 30. Well, no wonder your numbers don't show

Starting point is 00:31:25 the accurate KPI. Yeah. And the other really cool thing that we do, and I realize I'm giving away some of the secret sauce of what we do. And as a host, you guys are a host of events. So one thing that I would say is as a host of event, we don't like advertise that we're doing this at the event. Most people don't want Big Brother watching them at the event. So I'm sure some of you go to the events that I've been talking about. And so I always hesitate. For the last two years, I've really just kind of hesitated even talking. This is the first time I've ever talked about it on a podcast or anywhere out in public. But if people don't know what we do, they're not going to call us or be interested or talk to us. So it's important. As a host though, what you want to do is you don't

Starting point is 00:32:13 want people to think that they're... And by the way, we have no idea whose hotel room you're in or any of that stuff. It's just you're either in the conference room or you're out of the conference room. That's all I know. I don't know if you're in the bathroom. I don't know if you're in the hallway. I don't know if you're down the road. I don't know if you're offsite. I don't know. I don't know where you are. So just, we'll get that. Just for clarity, they're not literally tracking you in what room you're in, right? Just to make sure. Yeah. Yeah. I just want to be clear. Like it's, it's totally legal. Like it's technology that's used in every like department store and everything like that right now to track inventory and stuff like that. So we're not, I'm not, I can't see you anywhere outside of the conference room.

Starting point is 00:32:47 And even in the conference room, I just know you're in there or you're not in there. It's that simple. It's not like I have a, you know, I'm bugging your phone or I'm installing an app on your phone that you have to shut off. But, you know, one thing for people is, think about this. At Russell's event, at Pace's event, and the events that we do these like larger um you know tracking type event software two minutes into their pitch I'm sending a text message only to the people who are not in the room to get them back in the room to see the offer so I was able to get 300 uh no no I was able to text uh200 people at Russell's event who were not in the room. That's big.

Starting point is 00:33:27 And I got 394 people that walk in the room, not just since the last break, but the entire day they had never stepped foot in the room the entire day, that day of the offer on Friday, that walked in the room for the first time after that message. Because of the text message that we sent. And I wrote the message. I strategized the message. And it was a perfect thing to create curiosity to come back in the room. And so of those people. Do you remember what that one message was? Oh, of course I remember. But they're going to have to hire me to find out what it is.

Starting point is 00:34:09 I'll give you most of it, but not everything. But I set up the messaging over all four days. I wrote the messaging. I wrote the strategy. I work with their team. This is a big part of what we offer is I'm behind the scenes and Russell's on stage and has no idea that what's going on. He doesn't have to do that. He does what he does really well. He's the dancing monkey on the stage that's doing the show and selling the high ticket program and everybody's falling in love with him. And I'm behind the scenes, I'm in the hallway, I'm in the conference room, I'm looking at the event from an operator angle of how can I maximize the revenue

Starting point is 00:34:46 from this event of everything that's going on? Who's in the hallway? What's going on? And then, you know, planning for the next event. And then 93 of those people bought the program. So 93 of those people. Yeah, that wouldn't have been in the room. 93 people that wouldn't have been in there to see the offer. Now, they might have seen the repitch. They might have heard about it. Some of those people might have bought. But let's just say, like, I think I could argue that 25%, like, that's an easy number. Like, 25% of those people might not have seen it.

Starting point is 00:35:12 So 25 people at $25,000, just that alone, you can do the math of the type of revenue that can be created from something like this. I mean, it's over half a million dollars, just that. And so there's a lot of, you know, other things that... But this is how, like you said, I think you put it really well. It's the inefficiency in the live event business that can be monetized on the negative data. The stuff that... We're looking at who bought the program, but I mean, you take it a step further and say, all right, everybody that... So in the event, if we know who was attending and who stayed for the longest period of time,

Starting point is 00:35:50 like I also know at Russell's event as an example that Jocko Willink spoke on the first night. So there were like 250 people that walked in for the first time that entire day right when Jocko spoke. So I can give that to Russell and say, hey, Russell is probably a pretty good speaker. And then I can also see the rest of the week if those people stepped foot back in the room or not, or they were just there to see that. And then maybe it would be advantageous for Russell and Jocko to do a presentation on leadership and do a JV after the event, because the people that were at the live event are probably the best subset of his entire audience on his email list. So you know what?

Starting point is 00:36:26 Hey, Russell, this was the most attended session. This is the most interesting session for people. Nobody walked out during it. And so what if you did a month from now, you sent an email to your list, and you sold one of Jocko's programs on leadership and made 50% of the revenue? Because people want that. And so there's all kinds of stuff that you can do for this even after the event, but you got to kind of have the data and have somebody who could be the brains behind the operation. So that's what I love to do.

Starting point is 00:36:53 I still run my real estate business, the coaching business, all that stuff. But I love to like talk to you, Justin, and be like, hey, I'm planning this event. I got this thing going on. I'm like, hey, let me show you how I think. You do what you do. I'll do what I do, and I'll make you more money in the event. I got this thing going on. I'm like, Hey, let me show you how I think you do what you do. I'll do what I do. And I'll, I'll make you more money in the background. And, but that's what I had called this entrepreneur DNA, brother. This, this episode is like the shining star of wise because you're a full-time real estate investor. You want a very high performing

Starting point is 00:37:18 coaching consulting business for real estate investors. You are a actual pilot. You just created a business because of your own inefficiencies in the business. Like that's entrepreneurship, right? And it's not always puppy dogs and rainbows. And you create things from a need you might have that turns into an actual business that might, at some point I would expect there to be some really

Starting point is 00:37:39 high revenue and some really good tech options here, like sell-offs and things of that nature that will come because you have people that run really big, really here, like sell-offs and things of that nature that will come because you have people that run really big meetings like Tony Robbins. And I know you're in conversation there. Like, this is great. And that's the whole reason why this podcast exists. So I can interview the best of the best

Starting point is 00:37:58 in all different platforms to show like what's possible and what's out there. And in this episode, if you are doing any level of live events or want to be, go to intheroom.live, hit up Bill Allen everywhere on all social medias, dude. I mean, this is, you know, you and I are already talking about it,

Starting point is 00:38:15 but even your idea, dude, like when Jocko was in the room, you had 250 extra, like I'm sitting here and I already made the introduction of where I'm keynoting and there's going to be 2000 people. Patrick bed. David is the keynote. I guarantee you it'll be the highest attendance right when he goes on

Starting point is 00:38:32 speak. Ryan Sir, hand is the second. And I know for sure the host of this, right. They should be pitching some sub subject of those two because like, I think that's just a brilliant way. Anyways, I think this is phenomenal.

Starting point is 00:38:47 I mean, I don't even, listen to this. I'll be very quick, but there's a QR code on the front. So imagine this. Patrick Bet-David is speaking, right? And the cool thing is we can point that QR code wherever we want, like real time. So let's say he speaks, right? And it's Cody's event, right? So Cody says, hey, Patrick, I'd love for you to do a meet and greet in the contract that I have. I don't know

Starting point is 00:39:11 if he's paying him or he's just doing it for a favor or whatever. But if you're paying somebody, say, yeah, you're paying. So, hey, in my contract, I want to meet and greet for 10 people backstage for like 15 minutes. And then Patrick Bette David gets up there and he speaks. And right afterwards, the MC comes back out and he goes, hey, who would like to meet Patrick Bette David backstage? And everybody's like, oh, I do. Like, okay, well, he agreed to meet with 10 people for 15 minutes. If you want to do that, all you got to do is scan your QR code right now. And the first 15 people that buy for $5,000 come backstage and boom, you just paid for your speaker's fee for that entire event with that right there.

Starting point is 00:39:50 And then what it does is it tags them on there and the security backstage scans their QR code with our software and it gives them a green check mark that they paid, the payment went through and they have the credentials to go backstage. You're making me want to run a live event like next month. Oh, dude, it's so fun, though. Like, the coolest thing is I can take what somebody's already doing

Starting point is 00:40:12 and just give them ideas that I've created at my event or I've done for other people to be like the nutty professor behind the scene that shows you how to make a lot more money. What I love during Pace's event is I got to be in all the meetings with all the staff. And I mean, I run an education program too. Like we probably, like some of my clients were there and bought his program. But I mean, I was at that event working for them and with them as basically a partner. I'm a partner in your business at your live event. And I mean, I've seen it, I've done it, and I have tons of ideas of what's possible.

Starting point is 00:40:45 So like you are probably, most of you that are running live events are scratching the surface. You're probably hitting maybe 25% of the potential revenue that you could get. Let me expose the other 75% because it's the most fun for me. Like what I love doing is I love just like blowing other people's minds with what we can do and then actually executing it because I can basically say, Hey, look, like this is how much money we just made. And, and I don't share in the revenue. I don't do rev shares right now. I don't do any of that. Um, I probably should down the road, but like right now it's just like, this is a fixed fee. Bring me in. If I can't map out 10 times more than that, I won't even make an offer to you. So, um, and it's anybody from somebody who's doing a meetup with 25 people

Starting point is 00:41:23 trying to build their email list. We have a $97 a month program for them, all the way up to people that are doing huge events, 5,000, 10,000, 20,000 people. That's incredible. Guys, intheroom.live, make sure you get there. Bill Allen is a beast, seven-figure flipping from his own real estate. Like, this guy is an animal. He's an incredible person to know. And he's a great person, which is the most important thing to me.

Starting point is 00:41:47 So appreciate you being on, bro. I appreciate you having me. I had a lot of fun. I could literally talk about this for the next four hours. That's so fun. Thanks, Justin. All right, y'all.

Starting point is 00:41:56 If you got something from this, make sure to share this with two people and stay tuned for the next guest on the next episode. Peace.

The Entrepreneur DNA - Turning Data Into Dollars at Live Events | Bill Allen | EP 34

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