You might be a coach with a premium offer, a therapist with a group program, or an expert who sells through conversations. Either way, you know how it goes. A few great clients arrive, you get busy serving them, and then the inbox goes quiet.
A simple three-day summit can help fill your calendar with high-ticket clients if you build it backward from your premium offer. Take your theme from the problem that offer solves, invite speakers who already talk to your ideal client, make your VIP offer a step toward working with you, and invite every attendee to book a call within about a week of the event ending. The summit earns trust, and the follow-up turns that trust into calls.
That's the plan. The rest of this article shows how to build each piece without spending the next two months as a project manager.
Key Takeaways
- Pick your summit theme from one or two problems your premium program solves, so every session points toward the offer you want to sell.
- Give each of the three days one job, and place your own session where it leads naturally into the next step.
- Put something with you personally in the VIP offer, such as a live small-group Q&A, so buyers get a taste of working with you.
- Invite every registrant, buyers and non-buyers alike, to your call or masterclass within about 7 to 10 days of the summit ending.
- Connect registrations to your CRM before launch, so follow-up starts the day someone signs up instead of after you've caught your breath.
Why Three Days Is Enough
Over three days, people hear you more than once, see you next to respected peers and start to trust how you think. It's also short enough to host without vanishing from your client work for a week.
My first summit, the Solopreneur Accelerator Summit, started on August 31, 2020. That was eight weeks after I left my job to start a coaching business. It had 27 speakers over four days, and I built it in two weeks, which I don't recommend. I'm an extreme introvert, and for the first two days I barely introduced myself. Even so, my list grew from about 100 people to 750. I sold four places on my $497 course plus $3,500 in VIP tickets, about $5,500 in total, in a business that was eight weeks old.
Looking back, three days would have been plenty. With fewer speakers and a tighter theme, I'd have had more energy left for the part that brings in clients.
Brian Olds described a similar shape on the podcast when he talked about his event for the Black Speakers Network. The first two days each had their own theme, the third was a special bonus day, and no segment ran longer than 90 minutes, so people got regular breaks. That rhythm suits a coaching audience well.
Build the Summit Around the Offer You Want to Sell
Here's a tip. Decide what you'll sell after the summit before you choose a single speaker.
List the problems your premium program solves. Choose one or two of them and make those the summit's theme. Then, all through the event, let people see your program without pitching it. Mention it in your session, explain how you approach the problem, and have it ready as the obvious next step.
For example, a leadership coach with a six-month program for newly promoted managers might run a summit for first-year managers, with sessions on difficult conversations, delegation and leading former peers. That's a hypothetical, but notice that everyone who registers could be a candidate for that program.
Therapists and healing practitioners can use the same approach, with some care. A summit is public education, and it isn't therapy. Keep sessions to information and skills, make no promises about mental health outcomes, and never use client stories. Check your licensing board's advertising rules before you write the registration page. Many practitioners pair a summit with a group program, workshop or intensive, which gives attendees a clear next step.
Give Each Day One Job
Chloe Thomas explained on the podcast that she gave each day of her summit its own theme: one day on new customer acquisition, the next on retention. That gave the content a clear structure. Doing the same for a coaching summit gives attendees a story they can follow from start to finish.
| Day | Its job | Who speaks | Where you fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Name the problem | Speakers who explain what's going wrong and why it matters now | Open the summit and welcome people warmly |
| Day 2 | Show the way through | Practical sessions with tools attendees can try that week | Teach one session of your own |
| Day 3 | Show what's possible | Longer-term change and next steps | Close with your session and the invitation |
Your closing session matters most. Teach something useful, then explain what working with you looks like and how to book a call or join your masterclass.
Choose Speakers Who Already Talk to Your Buyer
Look for speakers whose audience overlaps with your ideal client and whose work sits beside yours. A business coach might invite a bookkeeper, a sales trainer and a brand photographer. Each brings a different angle, and none of them sells the program you're about to offer. There's a deeper checklist in my guide to choosing speakers who raise your coaching authority.
Worried that nobody will say yes to a host they've never heard of? Most first-time hosts are, and it's usually less of a barrier than it feels. My second summit, in January 2021, had 37 speakers, and more than half of them approached me. If that's your sticking point, read about hosting your first virtual summit before anyone knows your name.
Two good places to find speakers are the EventRaptor speaker directory and Speaker Connections. The directory lists more than 3,800 speakers who want to be invited to events. Speaker Connections is the free Zoom networking event Jennie started in February 2022. It meets on the first and third Tuesday of each month, and usually 70 to 110 speakers and hosts attend.
Make the VIP Offer a Step Toward Working With You
A VIP offer helps pay for the summit, and it also shows you who your most engaged people are. Make it mean something. Replays and bonus downloads are fine, but a package that includes live time with you, such as a small-group Q&A after day three, gives buyers a short experience of how you work.
When Jennie and I ran Own Your Stage in February 2022, we sold 109 VIP tickets at $47. That summit brought in more than $24,000 in sales within two weeks of the event, and more than $50,000 by February 2024 as new registrants kept buying.
I've also seen the other side. At one summit I was too exhausted to put a proper offer together. Speakers and attendees loved it, and it added 476 new people to our list, but it made only about $1,800 during the event. Those people will keep buying for years, so I still count it a success. It also taught me never to take my eye off the offer again.
Follow-Up Is Where the Calendar Fills
The summit builds trust. Most of the calls get booked in the week or two after it ends, so plan that stretch as carefully as the event:
- Tag registrants as they join, so you know who bought VIP, who showed up and which speaker sent them.
- Invite everyone. Buyers and non-buyers both hear about your masterclass or call, because plenty of people who skip a small VIP ticket will still want a premium program.
- Move while attention is high. Send the invitation within about 7 to 10 days of the summit ending. After that, engagement starts to drop.
- Add a filter. A few application questions before the booking page help you spend your time with people who fit.
- Keep in touch with people who aren't ready. A second invitation a few weeks later reaches the ones whose timing was off.
Consultant Jon Schumacher described on the podcast how he added an application funnel to his summit for people who wanted to talk about his services. By his own rough count, about 20 people booked calls, he took around seven of them, and three became consulting engagements, one worth $45,000. As far as he knew, none of those three buyers watched a single summit session. The summit got their attention, and the filtered path to a call did the rest. This is one person's result and doesn't predict yours.
Lucy Bedewi, the copywriter behind My Write Hand Woman, hosted the Out-Earn Your Man summit in September 2021, and we produced it for her on EventRaptor. Her list grew from 25 people to 825. She booked 4 discovery calls right after she presented, and all 4 became clients. Again, this is one person's result. It doesn't predict results for another host.
After we built EventRaptor, I kept seeing the same thing. Running the summit got easy, but many hosts added hundreds of people to their list and converted few or none, because nothing happened after the event. In my experience, a good follow-up process might turn 10 to 15% of them into clients. That's my experience, not a promise, but it's why the week after your summit needs as much planning as the summit itself. When it's over, the client attraction debrief helps you work out what to change next time.
What EventRaptor and Our Team Take Off Your Plate
A three-day summit has a lot of moving parts, and EventRaptor keeps them in one place:
- Speakers apply, sign their agreements and upload their details through the platform, so you're not chasing anyone by email.
- Your schedule, speaker pages and attendee dashboard come straight from the speaker and session records, so you never rebuild a page by hand for each speaker.
- Each speaker gets a promoter link, and a leaderboard they can all see shows who's sharing.
- Welcome and reminder emails go out on the event's timing.
- Registrants sync to GHL/CRMRaptor with tags, so your call invitation sequence can start the moment someone registers.
Live sessions run on Zoom. EventRaptor doesn't run in-event polls, so Zoom handles that part. Video hosting is available through CRMRaptor, our GoHighLevel solution, so your session recordings and replays don't need a separate video host, and EventRaptor's video view analytics show you how session and replay videos are viewed. We also take no ticket fees on summit sales.
If you'd rather not touch the technical work at all, our done-for-you team can run the whole summit, including the copy, pages, Zoom setup and reminder sequences. That leaves you to teach, host and make the offer. We've run 13 summits of our own and over 40 summits for clients. The calm launch plan for a premium coaching event shows how the work divides between you and the team.
Your Pre-Launch Checklist
- Premium offer chosen, with the one or two problems it solves written down
- Summit title and three daily themes drafted from those problems
- VIP offer that includes live time with you
- Masterclass or call dates set for the week after the summit
- Application questions written for the booking page
- CRM tags planned for VIP buyers, attendees and promoters
- Registration copy checked against your licensing board's advertising rules, if you're a therapist or practitioner
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I Need a Big Email List to Run a Three-Day Summit?
No. I had about 100 people on my list when I ran my first summit, and 750 when it ended. Speakers promote to their own audiences, and promoter links show you who's sharing. With a small list, you simply lean more on speakers and partners.
What Should I Sell After a Three-Day Summit?
Sell the premium program you designed the summit around, usually through a call invitation or a short masterclass in the week after the event. Keep the VIP offer small and use it to give buyers time with you. Keep nurturing anyone who isn't ready and invite them again later.
Can a Therapist or Healing Practitioner Host a Summit?
Yes, as long as it's framed as public education. Keep sessions informational, make no claims about mental health outcomes, leave out client stories and check your licensing board's advertising rules. A summit pairs well with a group program, workshop or private-pay waitlist.
How Long Does It Take to Plan a Three-Day Summit?
Most of the time goes into recruiting speakers and promoting the event. I built my first summit over two weeks, working 16 to 18 hours a day without a system, and I wouldn't recommend that pace to anyone. If a done-for-you team handles the pages, emails and speaker logistics, you have much less to do yourself.
Your Next Step
On one page, write down the premium offer you want to fill your calendar with and the two problems it solves. That page gives you your summit theme, your three daily themes and your follow-up message.
If you'd like help turning that page into a three-day plan, with speakers, a VIP offer and a call invitation all mapped out, Book your Client Attraction Planning Call. We'll look at what you sell and who you serve, and whether a summit or a smaller event makes more sense for you right now.