185. [Re-Release] Why Hosting Events May Be A Solopreneur's Best Marketing Tool Yet - Sound Bite Episode

Hosting events has been an absolute game-changer for lead generation and building genuine connections. Joe and Carly are huge fans of taking something as simple as a webinar, giving it a little makeover, and calling it an “event.” 

Trust us, it makes a world of difference! When you frame it as an event, it instantly feels more exciting and engaging—not just for your audience but for you too.

Events create real value for participants and foster a sense of community that’s hard to replicate. There’s just something special about coming together, sharing ideas, and making connections that stick. That’s why we are always encouraging solopreneurs to lean into hosting events. It’s the perfect way to connect with your audience, build relationships, and show that human interaction is way more powerful than just another piece of content.

So tune into this episode to find out more!

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Episode Transcript

Carly Ries (00:00):
Let me tell you, hosting events has been an

(00:02):
absolute game changer for leadgeneration and building genuine
connections. Joe and I are hugefans of taking something as
simple as a webinar, giving it alittle makeover, and calling it
an event. Trust me. It makes aworld of difference. And when
you frame it as an event, itinstantly feels more exciting
and engaging, and not just foryour audience, but for you too.
Events create real value forparticipants and foster a sense

(00:25):
of community that's hard toreplicate. There's just
something special about comingtogether, sharing ideas, and
making connections that stick.That's why Joe and I are always
encouraging solopreneurs to leaninto hosting events. It's the
perfect way to connect with youraudience and show that human
interaction is way more powerfulthan just another piece of
content. So tune into thisepisode to find out more.

(00:48):
You're listening to the AspiringSolopreneur, the podcast for
those just taking the bold stepor even just thinking about
taking that step into the worldof solo entrepreneurship. My
name is Carly Reis, and mycohost Joe Rando and I are your
guides navigating this crazy butawesome journey as a company of
one. We take pride in being partof LifeStarr, a digital hub

(01:11):
dedicated to all aspects ofsolopreneurship that has
empowered and educated countlesssolopreneurs looking to build a
business that resonates withtheir life's ambitions. We help
people work to live, not live towork. And if you're looking for
a get rich quick scheme, this isnot the show for you.
So if you're eager to gainvaluable insights from industry
experts on running a businessthe right way the first time

(01:33):
around or want to learn from themissteps of solopreneurs who
paved the way before you, thenstick around. We've got your
back because flying solo inbusiness doesn't mean you're
alone. So, Joe, we I can'tremember if it was during our
sound bite bite or a recentinterview that we were talking
about hosting events, and I Isay that with an emphasis that

(01:55):
you'll clarify in a second, as aform of content. People always
say, oh, I need to create a PDF.I need to create an infographic
or whatever.
And events are a great leadgeneration tool and piece of
content that you can use toreally connect with your
audience. And we have seen suchsuccess with that in our own

(02:16):
business, but we call themevents for a reason. Would you
like to elaborate?

Joe Rando (02:20):
Yeah. Because some research that Jay Schwedelson
did said that calling it awebinar reduces open rates on
your emails promoting thewebinar drastically. So you
really don't want to call it awebinar because webinars are
perceived as kind of boring. Soyou call it an event. you know
somebody says do want to come toa webinar or you want to come to

(02:41):
an event?
I mean it sounds a lot moreexciting to be an event or you
know an online, I don't know,you can think of a whole bunch
of different names but webinaris just you know kind of, I mean
it comes from seminar and nobodyever got excited about a
seminar. So why would they getexcited about a webinar?

Carly Ries (02:59):
So people often wonder like what our biggest
lead gen tool is for LifeStarrto reach solopreneurs, and it is
these events. this is notsupposed to be a shameless plug,
but we have two events a monththat are free to solopreneurs.
One is called Problem Solvers.One is called Solopreneur
Success Sessions. ProblemSolvers is for established
solopreneurs.

(03:21):
And it's a brainstorming eventwhere people can help solve each
other's problems instead of justthrowing spaghetti at a wall.
Like, it's a great place forpeople to get feedback from
those that are in a similarboat. They're also solopreneurs.
And then Success Sessions isprobably more of your typical,
quote, unquote, webinar formatfrom a presentation standpoint.

(03:42):
we have a guest every month thatcomes and gives educational
information to our community andour viewer and our listeners and
viewers and solopreneurs thatwanna join.
And people get excited for thesebecause they provide real value.
It's not boring. It'sinformative. It genuinely helps

(04:03):
these solopreneurs, and theykeep coming back. And just so
many people think that theydon't have the ability to put on
these events, whether they'retoo small, or they don't have a
big community, and that justisn't true.
And so Joe, I want you toelaborate a little bit. I've
kind of gone off on a tangent

Joe Rando (04:19):
No. I Mean, the one that you said is much more like
a webinar. we call it a microconference, which sounds a lot
more, in my book exciting thanwebinar. And you know, think but
the idea here is you're addingvalue. it's not a sales pitch

(04:40):
masked as an event or a webinaror whatever you want to call it.
It is truly something that addsvalue. We give a quick, you
know, minute long hey this iswhat we do, who we are, what we
do. There's no strings attached.But you know people, I mean what
happens is when people sign upthey give us their email address

(05:00):
because that's the only way toget the invite and once we have
the email address they're optedin to receive emails from us. We
don't spam them but we do sendthem stuff.
And you know over time if youknow if they don't want the
stuff they unsubscribe you know.And that's fine and if they do,
great we've got somebodyengaged. But it's a pretty

(05:22):
simple process, mean putting theevents on took a little time to
kind of work out all the the thedifferent inner workings of of
doing it smoothly, but a lot offun. I mean, it is a lot of fun
too. I mean, when you get rightdown to it.

Carly Ries (05:35):
And once you get the technological side, the
logistics, and all of that down,it really doesn't take a lot of
effort. I mean, honestly, Joe,like, you have to do the promo
emails and all of that, but theactual running event, especially
if you have a guest speaker on,it's a time saving compared to
if you're creating aninfographic or something. This
is such a great way to connectwith your audience so easily,

(05:58):
share your personality, shareyour knowledge, and not have to
come up with content that youjust aren't innately good at.
But the other thing I will sayis you can create other content
from these events. You couldtake clips and repurpose it to
YouTube, social media.
You can get testimonials. We askfor testimonials after our event

(06:19):
from people just so we can sharethat with others. It's just such
a time saver, and I feel likeit's something that a lot of
solopreneurs don't think aboutbecause they think it's slated
for these bigger companies. Andit's not true. As long as you
have an audience and a targetedaudience that you know you want
to talk to, this is just such agreat way to connect with them
and to generate those leads.

(06:39):
And since they've already seenyour personality and who you
present yourself as, they'll bemore likely to work with you
than if they were downloading aPDF or something. So we are huge
fans of this.

Joe Rando (06:48):
Yeah. It kind of humanizes you. It's not just you
know, you have a nicely designedPDF of something valuable,
that's great. But when you whenyou start interacting with the
actual person, that's that's alot. And you know, one of the
things we do too though, we wekind of, mean invented this but
we just decided to do it forsome reason is after the event
ends we just stay around becauseit's on Zoom and we just stay

(07:11):
around and let people networkand we just kind of hang out.
You know, just like you would ata real if you went to a real
event, right, and the event endsyou know you might hang around
and chat with people for a whileafterwards and so we do the same
thing but it's on Zoom. And noteverybody stays but a lot of
people do and they really enjoyit and they drop, well you do it
for half an hour, they drop offas they need to over the half an
hour. But it's you know, it's areally neat little thing to do

(07:35):
to kind of build more moreconnection with people, connect
people together, and I like it.

Carly Ries (07:41):
What's the saying? The proof is in the pudding.
This isn't us trying to do ashameless plug for the entire
episode, but we just wanted toshare that it works. And we have
seen firsthand that it works.The people that we've
recommended it to say that itworks for them.
So I say give it a shot.

Joe Rando (07:57):
Absolutely.

Carly Ries (07:58):
Well, listeners, thank you so much for tuning in
to this SoundByte episode. We soappreciate your support. If you
could leave that five starreview, subscribe on your
favorite platform, subscribe toour YouTube channel, we would so
appreciate it, and we will seeyou next time on the aspiring
solopreneur. You may be goingsolo in business, but that
doesn't mean you're alone. Infact, millions of people are in

(08:20):
your shoes, running a one personbusiness and figuring it out as
they go.
So why not connect with them andlearn from each other's
successes and failures? AtLifeStarr, we're creating a one
person business community whereyou can go to meet and get
advice from other solopreneurs.Be sure to join in on the
conversations atcommunity.Lifestarr.com.