When you’re committed to something, you are determined to achieve it no matter what it takes. Of course, it will take a lot of hard work, but you’ll get there. Today’s guest, Liam Austin, creator of the Million Dollar Virtual Summit Program, a virtual event strategist, shares his story of success. In the early 2000s, working as a regular employee in an online dating company, he was able to see the power of the internet to connect people. Inspired by this, he and his special someone started to do and host virtual events. These events led to an extensive email list of people, building relationships, increasing sales, and more! So what are his secrets to success? Listen and find out!

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Igniting The Fire Within You For Business Success Through Virtual Events with Liam Austin

My guest Liam Austin is a virtual event strategist for people and businesses looking to increase their authority, grow their email list and audience, build a network of influencers, generate additional income and make a profound impact. His online business community serves over 150,000 small business owners. He works with key partners to help promote these virtual events, giving free value to audiences while partners benefit from the exposure and the income.

His passion for entrepreneurship began at a university when he was tasked with growing strategic partnerships with one of the top tech startups in Sydney. Soulmates Technology was his way into the tech. He began building and running his own business online varying degrees of success. For successive years, he juggled his studies, business and being a professional football soccer player in Australia in a national competition playing for Wollongong Wolves in Sydney.

His unique and innovative business development and sales skills has taken him from Australia to Europe and America, giving him the experience of leading a 70-year print publication into a national event program, launching digital projects, products, as well as driving the ASX listed company into the new multimillion-dollar revenue.

He’s been featured in multiple platforms including The Australian Inc., Startup Smart, Real Estate Business, Property Observer and others. He was ranked the top 5 startups in Sydney in 2014 and placed 1st in the Skill Up in Pitch for Silicon Valley series in 2014. Please welcome my guest, Liam Austin.

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Welcome to another amazing edition of the show. I’m so excited to introduce my guest because in this market at this time, this is what we need. I’ve seen my clients flounder and trying to figure this out. Liam Austin is the Cofounder of Entrepreneurs HQ. He’s a virtual event strategist having launched over 15 virtual events, dozens of quick workshops and many more online events hosting over 400 speakers while educating 100,000 business owners. He’s not a Jonah Diner Shop.

This man is the real deal. Virtual events that sell into a six-week implemented program, which makes it easy for you to create your own high-impact virtual events. There is a science to it. I’ve got that science down but I can’t teach that science because there are things I do that I don’t even know that I do but Liam has dismantled and reconstructed it to make it so we can produce predictable results.

That’s what we want from workshops, masterminds, summits and conferences. The end goal is selling more high ticket offers. That means selling your stuff. We get a blueprint that we can validate and sell your own new program. Liam is also the creator of the Million Dollar Virtual Summit Program, where he and his partners will select clients to generate seven figures. This is a man after my own heart. You’re going to enjoy reading. Liam, welcome to the show. I’m so excited that you’re here. It’s timely that you’re here. You’re such a gift to our industry.

Thanks so much for that introduction. It’s a pleasure to be here. I’m excited for what we’re going to talk about.

Tell people what your magic is and what your business is doing differently than everybody else. There are so many charlatans in our industry making a quick buck. The reality is there’s strategy and system. What do you do? What makes you special besides that sexy accent?

I’m Aussie so I’m lucky to have this accent. I live in Europe and most of my clients are in the US so I’ve got an online business. The reason why I started the business back in 2015 was my partner, Sarah, who’s Swedish and we met in Australia. I was living in Australia like, “How are we going to make this relationship work?” It was like, “Let’s do an online business.” It started with virtual events. By 2017, we had 100,000 people who had attended our events that I hosted and Sarah helped to organize. It was the two of us at that point where we ran summit every three months plus we were doing these workshops in between.

Essentially, what’s the magic is we built big email lists via our virtual events but qualified email list of bias, people who have started building relationship with you because they’ve got to know you during your events. We’ve structured and designed the blueprint and journey of the events so that by the end of the event, the attendees want more from you, work with you and buy your online courses and coaching programs. They want to become a client. In terms of what our secret sauce is, we do this ourselves and built up our email list of 100,000 in two years. We’ve done that for other clients as well like Carl. He runs the Migraine World Summit. He is also building email lists over 100,000 with our system.

Most of the people we serve want to run a 90-minute workshop rather than a multiday summit. The 90-minute workshop is something that’s a bit magical. It’s not slack, salesy or sleazy like webinars can potentially be with the whole pitch thing going at the end. It’s about showing our unique genius and delivering a workshop that gives someone a specific result and results within 90 minutes.

They’re like, “If Susie or whoever can deliver that result for me in 90 minutes, imagine what it’s going to be like working with them for 90 days or 9 months? How many things and results we can achieve together?” That’s a bit of a summary of the magic sauce and what’s going on behind the scenes to help our clients with their own workshops and summits.

I don’t know if you’re seeing this but I see a lot of people waiting for the pandemic to get over. They’re waiting for business as usual and the business isn’t going to be usual. It’s different. The world has changed. I love leveraging virtual events and sleeping in my own bed. Not jet-setting all over the world. I’ve been there and done that. I got the trophy. I’m sure you’re seeing people struggle because of the economy. What do you think your strategy is to stay in action? What are you doing to help your business stay in action and keep growing?

There’s a lot of influx of virtual events going on. They still work. They worked pre-2020. They’re going to look post whenever you’re reading this. They’re going to be around for a long time. They have been around since the internet started as a virtual event. The first time someone created a meeting online like it’s an event whether you’re using Zoom or another technology. This is going to be around for a long time.

More people are used to doing virtual events.

It’s the simple, quick way to grab people’s email addresses to give them a ton of value in a short amount of time and an understanding of what it’s like to work with you so they can continue working with you and decide on what that may look like. If you’re struggling because of the pandemic, you’re waiting for things to go back to normal like, “Will it get back to normal?” Maybe some sense of normal but it’s going to be different. More people are used to doing virtual events. They’re more excited about the possibility of virtual events.

In 2015, I ran my first event from a bedroom in Sydney. I was waking up at 3:00 AM because of US time. I wanted to be there. All through the day and night, I was generating sales from people all over the world. It didn’t matter whether I was working 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM because the sales would happen 24 hours, 7 days a week. That gives you predictability that you’re not relying on sales happening at a specific time or event.

We’re talking about events and I probably didn’t mention this as part of our magic but we’ve found a way to make sales and revenue from the event even long after the event is over. With that first event that I launched in 2015, we still generate leads every single day. We’re making sales every week from that event we launched years ago. That’s something maybe we can talk about too.

You made me speechless. That’s why I say you’re leaving money on the table. If you go, “That event’s over. Let me do another event,” Liam’s saying that we can still from the past events leverage that. It’s not one and done. There’s a recipe to success. It doesn’t have to be hard. It has to be systemic once you know the system. There’s a system for health, weight loss and business. You have the system for hosting virtual events that become cash cows. What I do want to say is that your value first. It’s not just about making money. We bring value first. Show them that they’re valuable. In your business, what’s the biggest challenge you’re facing?

On that value part, every single one of our events has a free ticket or component to it. That gives a ton of value to the attendees because they get to experience what it’s like to work with you. That’s valuable for them. You get a lot of goodwill, build a lot of trust and rapport and they become clients potentially years later, especially if you’re turning your events evergreen so that they can continue to generate leads and clients for you.

What are we struggling with in our business is we’ve got plenty of leads coming into the door. How do we convert these people into clients more and more, increase our conversion rate and help people understand that we can help them? We’ve been tackling that in a few different ways by educating and giving value upfront that they understand how we can help them if we can help them get on calls and speaking with our potential clients as well. There’s a lot to it and everyone’s struggling as far as converting sales. One thing that we’re not is with the lead. The leads work with the virtual events. They bring them in. It’s like, “How do we keep increasing the sales conversion so that our leads keep paying for themselves?”

We started looking into AI and implementing that into our sales process so that we’re automating that to the next level. You dropped it and I need you all to hear it. We have plenty of leads, which is not most of our clients’ issues. Our client’s issue is, “I need the leads. Please let me have somebody to call and follow-up with.” This is juicy. Tell me in your life, it could be personal or business, what was the biggest failure that you had? What did you learn from it? We all have that defining moment either in business that redefines what we’re doing or shapes the character who we are.

You’ve heard all the pretty stuff so far and you might be like, “Is this all true? Is this real-world?” It didn’t happen overnight. There are loads of challenges along the way. Back in 2000, I started working for an internet startup. It was an online dating company that existed prior to Tinder. I was an employee, a staff.

In 2004, four years later, I worked with them for several years. They sold to Match.com for $28 million at that time. I saw the power of the internet to connect people, how simple and easy it was to have a massive impact on the world. People were getting married. How much bigger impact can you have for someone finding love?

I wasn’t the founder. I didn’t have any shares or make any money from that. I got a low income as an employee. From 2004 to 2015, I was trying to figure out my business, how to get it started, what would work, what I needed to do to have this impact that I saw happen with my own eyes inside this organization and then a big win for the founders when they walked away with millions. What better business can you start than helping people find love and then make yourself millions along the way?

I was trying to figure that out for myself. It wasn’t until 2015 when we launched our first events when Sarah and I, being Swedish and Australian, were trying to figure out a way to stay in love and stay together. The motivation and drive behind it happened. Within those eleven years, I don’t think the motivation was there. It wasn’t there enough. I tried lots of different things but it was always a mediocre success. It was because I didn’t have a strong enough fire underneath me to make it happen. When it came down to the crunch, when I had to make it work, that’s when it happened for me.

We’ve been happily in business together since 2015. The biggest learning takeaway from that is you need to want something. If you have a desire for a specific goal, commit to it, give yourself a deadline, light that fire up underneath yourself, whatever you need to kickstart and make it happen for you. Maybe it’s getting yourself a coach to help you hold accountable to what you’re doing. That’s been something that I missed across those years. I wish I would have had to kick my butt into gear and create success myself quicker, faster and better.

The people that have the back door, they have a job or a spouse that can pay for something that can save or rescue you, they don’t work as hard. I’ve never had a back door. It’s been me. I had to rely on myself. I always had to do it. My rent, mortgage and car payment were due. There were no clients of mine that succeed that don’t have a back door. They don’t have someone, an opportunity or savings. It’s like, “I got to hustle.” Not hustle like take advantage of people. It’s a hustle to get it done, that fire that you were talking about.

I love the quote from Tom Landry. He said, “A coach will tell you what you don’t want to hear and show you what you don’t want to see so you could be the person you knew that you could be.” That’s what you’re doing with virtual events. I listened to you and I’m like, “What can I learn?” As a business owner, we’re great and we do seven-figure events but I’m sure there are pieces. I’ve bubblegum, shoe string, duct-tape and Band-Aid until I got to this place and go, “Here’s my system.” It’s like “Let’s shorten that learning curve.” Give me three hacks or have to’s that I have to do in running or hosting a virtual event.

The very first thing would be knowing your end goal. What do you want to achieve for it? Typically, clients come to us and they’re like, “I want to have an impact on the world. I want to serve and help people.” “Is that your number one goal?” “No. I also want to build my email list.” “Is that your number one goal?” “No. I also want to generate revenue and income.” These virtual events do all of that.

It helps you build your email list, have an impact on the world, generate revenue, build your own authority and credibility by creating your own stage as a host online and then building relationships with the speakers and influencers in your market. It’s almost like pulling one business in a box when you run one of these things. It’s understanding your end goal. What is it? Is it to achieve X amount of revenue or get more clients? What is that product that you’re selling off the backend? That’s the number one end goal.

Number two is what is the specific product you want to sell off the backend? Is it an online course, a coaching program, another product or service? What is that one thing that you ultimately want people to buy? That should drive all the decisions based on how you blueprint the event. What type of event you should be running? What topics you should be covering and the hints that you’re dropping along the way to showcase people like, “This is what it’s like to work with me?” I can get you these results in a short period of time together so by the end of the event, you’ve got these results.

Knows your end goal.

You could walk away thinking, “I know that Susie has been able to deliver me results. I’ve been listening to these other people but I don’t know for a fact that they can deliver me results. I’ve seen the testimonies but can they do it for me? I followed Liam’s system so I’ve got a result from this event. I can walk away comfortably knowing if I’m looking for more results, I know that I can go to Susie to get that result.” Those would be the main takeaways. Make sure you know your end goal, what you want to achieve and the product you’re selling off the back of it so you can take people on a journey to know, like and trust you and ultimately become one of your best clients.

Do you have a price point that works on the backend? Is there a formula to go, “This is the price point that’s an easy yes?” We sell from $2,000 to $35,000 in our events. None of it is an easy yes. It all takes process. Do you have the sweet spot that you have found doing this for years?

It should be a $10,000 plus program that we’re selling ultimately off the backend. That’s the dream sale and why you’re doing the event. Everything’s heading towards that sale. $10,000 plus might be a 12-month program or a 3-month program depending on where your business is at. That’s where we see the most profit for our clients. It also means that if you decide, “This event converted. This funnel works. I’ve spent time creating the content, recording all of this thing,” it’s an asset that you’ve built for yourself. You can sell it every single week, month or year into the future as we do with our dozens of summits and workshops that we have out there. They consistently generate leads.

They go into the funnel and attend the event virtually, which is all recorded because it happened in the past. They’re purchasing and becoming clients. If we’ve got this high ticket offer off the backend, it means that we can pay more on our paid advertising to generate those high quality leads into the funnel to become clients. $10,000 plus allow all of that to work profitably for you on an ongoing basis.

One of my coaches call ours the big money business summit. He goes, “Susie, a business summit is free. We have to change the name.” When you say summit, which is free, how many days is ideal? What is that for you?

When I say summit, I mean a free summit. A lot of our events except for our private client events are free. They’ve got a free ticket component so we can generate leads. In number of days, typically 3 to 5 works best. I like 5 with 30 speakers and I’ve tried 40 plus speakers over 10 days. I’ve also tried half day events with 1, 2 and 3 speakers’ panel discussions, Q A’s and workshops.

That seems to be the best number, 5 is 30 speakers. It’s 6 speakers a day and you can even do 3 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon. You’ve got space to send two emails that’s relevant. “The morning sessions are starting.” Our next email is, “This afternoon sessions are starting.” It’s a free ticket so we’d normally allow 24 hours for those people to watch those sessions.

You have six speakers. When are you speaking? You’re selling your $10,000 plus product. What’s that flow look like?

The interesting thing is across the event, we are speaking every single time because we want to set them up as interviews so that we’re seen as an expert. The person that we’re interviewing, their authority is transferred across to us. Also, there should be a pre-summit kickoff call, build up the excitement, set expectations for people, potentially a mid-event session as well.

When we’re doing these, we like to do these live. All the other sessions are prerecorded. There’s a mix of the live sessions, feel a bit more important and it’s you hosting this event or the session. There might be a post-event session as well. Those would be for the free ticket holders. The people who purchased an upgrade, $197 something along those lines in our system, we want to get on a call and enroll them. However, my clients are getting over 1,000 people on their email list in a couple of weeks with the system.

How are we going to take a phone call with hundreds and possibly thousands of people? Let’s put an application in between so we can start almost a waiting list. Once you and your application has been approved, you’ve got the opportunity to book a time in our slot. That means you can stay up your sales team based on how many applications come in and how many approved applications you see coming through.

You can open up your calendar to allow ten people through every week or if you’re scaling it up, you can look at doing hundreds per week based on the size of your sales team and how you want that system to go. When we’re running one of these events, we want to put it into your existing sales process. If it’s already proven, it’s working and converting at the numbers that we’d expect, we want to see then we want to tag this on another front. Those are leads coming into that system.

You dropped these little diamonds that it’s for you off the cuff. You interviewed the expert so the authority is transferred to us. That’s powerful because people go, “Everybody else is speaking,” but you’re like, “I’m the authority.” Thinking about it some people are masters at it, which I’m sure you’re a master at it.

You capture the authority then edify them to go, “I’m going to bring you my badass friend and this amazing person that I found. I’m the seeker for my tribe. I’m seeking who’s the next person my client needs because I don’t want to have to beat it and do it all. I tried that in my youth.” “I could do that.” “Let Liam do this. This is his magic. Let me focus on the money. Let me show and leverage the money.” You go hit him for that and then we all make more money. You’re a little seasoned in life. What’s the one thing you want to be remembered for?

The business that inspired me back in the year 2000 was matching people up who were soulmates. The business was called Soulmates Technology. The impact that we’re having on other people’s lives, they would remember us forever. It was online dating but people would come and knock on our office door in the Central Business District of Sydney and say, “We’re getting married and we want to invite you all to come.” It’s insane to have this impact.

With our business, people are struggling to generate more leads or enough clients for themselves. They don’t have the authority that they wished that they did all the email lists. That’s essentially what we helped them do to, simply and quickly run a 90-minute workshop, which we can set up within 7 days or a summit that takes a little bit longer. We’re able to build their email list for 1,000 people, the people who are quality leads and potential buyers for their high ticket program.

We’ve designed it exactly in that way to lead people through to purchasing their $10,000 program and changing their lives through that. Once you’ve got a quality list of people who know, like and trust you, a community of people who have your back, as soon as you create something new, they’re going to buy it. They don’t even need to look at the sales page or the video. They’re like, “It’s going to be quality.” It’s because that trust is there.

That changes people’s lives. You have people who love you or clients you enjoy working with every single day that inspires and motivates you, that bring in the income and revenue that you deserve, allowing you to live wherever you want in the world. I’m living in Europe, Malta and Sweden. I traveled during the pandemic but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that.

We’ve got these European COVID passports that allow us to go between countries that are green listed. That’s great. We’re able to visit family here in Sweden. I want to get back in 2022 to Australia to visit my family back there. Being remembered for achieving dreams, building businesses for people and creating lives that people love so that we can remain long-term friends. That would be my ultimate aim.

I love creating partnerships. I always tell my clients it’s not about the money. It’s not one and done. I’ve had clients for years that we’re still working together because we were still making more money. We’re bringing value to each other’s lives. I love that that’s your philosophy. I say to anyone that doesn’t think online dating works or marketing works, their copy sucks. I’ve found both my loves on online dating. The first one was a newspaper. That’s how old I am, Liam. I wrote an article that says, “Who says I love you to your clients?”

I love that you say that because I do. I genuinely care about my clients and partners like you to go, “I want to know about Sarah. I want to know how you guys are doing.” To me, I spend more time with my clients and partners than sometimes I do with my family. I’m going to love them as much as I love my family because we’re hanging out. If I’m coming to Sweden, I’m hanging out with Sarah and Liam. I’ll go, “I’m here. Your sister’s here.” All of a sudden, I’m magically your sister.

That’s the type of relationships you want to build ultimately in life. The family’s the most important thing and your closest friends are. The more of those relationships you have, the more fulfilled you’re going to be.

Building businesses for people and creating lives that people love so that we can remain long-term friends is an ultimate aim.

What’s one question you wish I would’ve asked or should have asked you that I didn’t know to ask you?

I used to play professional soccer in Australia back in the day. It doesn’t have the ring like what rugby or cricket does. The interesting part is there’s a big part of my life like showing up to training every single day, showing up for games on the weekend, doing recovery sessions, learning what we did right and wrong at that previous event. That serves us well for business. I treat our events like game day, preparation for game day or for the Olympics if you’re an Olympic athlete.

All those sporting metaphors ring true and they work. If you put in the effort and training, you get the right coach. I’ve had bad trainers over the years and great trainers that believed in me. That helped me perform better. Nothing else changed apart from the coach. I didn’t change. My mental attitude probably changed but that allowed me to achieve what my full potential was.

In terms of what’s the lesson there, I don’t know but for me, I love soccer. I watch it every chance I get. I live in Europe. It’s a big part of why I love living here because it’s 24/7 on the news here on the TV. It’s something that I’m passionate about that I love. Similar to my story before, we only figured it out in 2015 when we needed to. We didn’t have a backdoor. Find that passion and drive and make it happen for yourself.

Liam, you have a prize for us because we love prizes. What’s our prize?

These workshops that we talked about, we call them Quick Workshop Win, which means that you can do a quick workshop. It’s 90 minutes and launch it within 7 days. You only have to teach for 90 minutes. It’s very simple. You get a win at the end of it, a win for you but a win for your clients. You want to get a result for your clients within 90 minutes.

We’ve got a checklist of each of the steps you need to take to be able to successfully fill the room, create and deliver your training for the workshop and then how to enroll those attendees or participants in your workshop into clients. If you want to grab that checklist, it’s a free gift for your community and you can go to QuickWorkshopWin.com.

You’ve got some amazing things on your website. Tell everybody your website and then also your social because we’re fans and followers. We want to get to know you and Sarah because we’re nosy like that.

Anyone else that’s building a business with a partner, we share a lot of antidotes, what works and what doesn’t for us. We’re happy to discuss that. We love meeting all the partners and people who are in relationships and building a business together. It’s super cool. The website would be VirtualSummitClass.com. You’ll get a free webinar. They’re teaching you about how we run our summits. EntrepreneursHQ.com, in there, there’s a couple of other free gifts if you look around and play nicely. There are a few things we like to give away. With our Million Dollar Virtual Summit, there’s something on there to help you create your own million-dollar virtual event that you can grab as well.

Liam, thank you for your generosity and passion for what you do. I’m all excited. I love doing events. I downloaded your stuff before because I got to stock it all. Who you are in the world, I appreciate you. I appreciate your commitment to us, the entrepreneur, helping us win big and making a difference so that we can live our legacy and make money while we’re leaving our legacy.

That’s the power of learning how to leverage as you truly get to build a life that you love and part of that is financial wellbeing. You can’t do what you love in the world without financial wellbeing. Thank you for being my partner in this and for supporting us. We appreciate you. Until the next time. Thank you, Liam Austin.

Thank you for joining us in the show. Please like and share especially share Liam. Spread it out to your friends and community so they know how to find Liam. Don’t keep your secrets to yourself. Share this man and his pearls of wisdom. Cut his head off, there are jewels. I appreciate you.

Susie, this has been so fun. Thanks for inviting me on.

Important Links

• Liam Austin
• Million Dollar Virtual Summit Program
• Match.com
• Quick Workshop Win
• VirtualSummitClass.com
• www.Twitter.com/EHQcom
• www.Twitter.com/liamaust
• www.Facebook.com/liamjaustin
• www.Linkedin.com/in/liamaustin
• www.Instagram.com/entrepreneurshq
• www.Youtube.com/c/Entrepreneurshq
• http://quickworkshopwin.com/

About Liam Austin

Liam Austin is the co-founder of Entrepreneurs HQ and a virtual event strategist, having launched over 15 virtual summits, dozens of quick workshops, and many more online events, hosting over 400 speakers whilst educating 100,000+ business owners through his programs. Virtual Events That Sell is his 6-week implementation program which makes it easy for you to create your own high impact virtual events, from workshops and masterminds to summits and conferences, with the end goal of selling more of your high-ticket offer (includes how to blueprint, validate and sell your new program.) Liam is also the creator of the Million Dollar Virtual Summit Program, where he partners with select clients to generate seven figures.