203: From Zero to 30,000 Email Subscribers Using B2C Virtual Summits
Have you been wondering if virtual summits still work in 2025? Let me tell you - they absolutely do, especially in the B2C space. This week's episode features an enlightening conversation with virtual summit expert Krista Miller that might completely change how you think about growing your business.
Here's what caught my attention: While B2B summits have been getting all the attention, B2C summits are quietly breaking records. We're talking about summits in niches like crafting, parenting, and even Yellowstone National Park enthusiasm generating $100,000+ in revenue. One summit for parents and teachers of autistic children brought in over $300,000!
What makes this episode particularly valuable is that we dive into:
Why B2C summits are currently outperforming B2B events
How to generate multiple revenue streams from a single summit
Real examples of successful summits in unexpected niches
Practical first steps to planning your own summit
Ways to leverage your summit for massive membership growth
Whether you're starting from scratch or looking to scale your existing business, this episode provides a clear roadmap for using virtual summits to grow your email list and revenue simultaneously. The best part? You don't need to be an established expert to make this work.
Listen in today!
Key moments from the episode:
[04:45] The unique advantage of B2C summits and why they're currently outperforming B2B events in terms of revenue and engagement
[08:30] Examples of successful summit niches: from Yellowstone National Park enthusiasts to crafting communities
[11:15] Multiple revenue streams from summits: sponsorships, VIP passes, and post-summit membership launches
[15:20] Getting started with summit planning: focusing on clear messaging and community building
[17:45] Overview of Krista's upcoming B2C summit and challenge program
Mentioned in this episode:
Sell With a Summit: B2C Edition (affiliate link)
How Virtual Summits Are Jumpstarting B2C Business Growth: Insights from Summit Expert Krista Miller
In the ever-evolving landscape of online business, finding effective strategies to grow your audience and revenue can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. However, one method has been consistently proving its worth: virtual summits. Recently, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Krista Miller from Summit in a Box, who shared groundbreaking insights about how these digital events are transforming businesses, particularly in the B2C space.
The Unexpected Power of B2C Virtual Summits
While virtual summits have long been a staple in the B2B world, Krista reveals a fascinating shift in the industry. B2C summits are now outperforming their B2B counterparts, with some events generating upwards of $300,000 in revenue. What makes this even more remarkable is the diversity of niches finding success. From Yellowstone National Park enthusiasts to homesteaders, from crochet artists to parents of autistic children, these summits are proving that passionate communities exist in every corner of the market.
The beauty of B2C summits lies in their novelty. Unlike the saturated B2B space, where business owners might see dozens of similar summit promotions daily, B2C audiences are often encountering these events for the first time in their niche. This freshness factor, combined with the genuine excitement of connecting with like-minded individuals, creates a powerful recipe for success.
Multiple Revenue Streams: The Summit Advantage
One of the most compelling aspects of virtual summits is their ability to generate income through multiple channels simultaneously. Krista breaks down three primary revenue streams:
Sponsorships: Both B2B and B2C summits can attract sponsors, with B2C events particularly appealing to companies eager to reach specific niche audiences.
All Access Pass Sales: This is where B2C summits truly shine, with examples of events generating between $30,000 to $100,000 from passes alone. Some exceptional cases have even reached $300,000, particularly in crafting niches and specialized educational markets.
Post-Summit Offers: Perhaps the most exciting opportunity lies in what comes after the summit. Many businesses are successfully launching memberships following their events, with some attracting 200-300 new members in a single launch.
Getting Started: From Concept to Execution
For those considering hosting their first summit, Krista emphasizes the importance of starting with a clear message. Rather than trying to be everything to everyone, successful summits often focus on specific aspects of their niche. This could mean helping people solve a particular problem, learn a new skill, or simply connect with others who share their passion.
The key is understanding that you don't need to be the ultimate expert in your field to host a successful summit. What matters more is your ability to bring together valuable perspectives and create an engaging experience for your audience. As Krista points out, many successful summit hosts started with little more than a vision and the courage to reach out to potential speakers.
Overcoming the Mental Hurdles
One of the biggest challenges potential summit hosts face isn't technical or strategic – it's mental. Many B2C business owners doubt whether this format will work in their niche or whether they're qualified to host such an event. Krista addresses this head-on, encouraging entrepreneurs to look at the success stories across various niches as proof of what's possible.
The reality is that hosting a summit will push you out of your comfort zone. You'll need to pitch speakers, put yourself out there, and take risks. However, as Krista emphasizes, this discomfort is precisely what leads to breakthrough growth in your business. The speakers you're nervous about approaching could become your biggest allies, and the audience you're worried about attracting could become your most engaged community members.
The Long-Term Impact on Your Business
Perhaps the most valuable aspect of virtual summits isn't the immediate revenue – it's the lasting impact on your business. Beyond the initial surge in email subscribers and sales, summits create an ecosystem of connections. Speakers often become long-term affiliates, and attendees transform into loyal community members. This network effect continues to generate opportunities long after the event ends, creating a foundation for sustainable business growth.
Whether you're starting from scratch or looking to scale an existing business, virtual summits offer a unique combination of audience building, revenue generation, and relationship development. As the B2C space continues to evolve, those who embrace this strategy early will have a significant advantage in their respective niches.
Are you considering hosting a virtual summit for your B2C business? The evidence suggests there's never been a better time to take that leap. Remember, as Krista says, "The people you look up to didn't get to where they are by playing it safe. They did scary things. And you can do scary things, too."
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Transcript:
00:00:03
And my special guest today is Krista Miller. Krista is with Summit in Box and she helps online business owners replace slow growth and costly marketing strategies with high converting virtual summits that lead to record-breaking course membership in Group program launches. And Krista, I am super excited to have you here today and we're going to be talking about ways people can grow their business, grow their audience through online virtual summits. And for everybody listening and those of you who may be familiar with hobby school, you know that this is one of the major business strategies that we have used over the past few years to grow that audience from zero. Like nothing like a domain name purchase two an audience over 30,000. And our goal for that particular brand, we are on the path. My goal is to sell it in the next two years. My target for that is for one million or more. That is what we're targeting there. And online virtual summits has been one of our major business strategies for that. So Krista, I am super excited to chat with you today. And I think the first question I have for you is, why would somebody kind of start using online virtual summits to grow their business, to grow their audience so they can have these record-breaking course membership and group program launches?
00:01:43
Yeah, it's such a powerful strategy, especially like you said, with highway school starting from scratch because what else can put us on the map like this? What else can instantly get us thousands of followers, 20 connections in the industry who now know who you are or can refer clients and customers and members to you, can make you known in the industry almost instantly. Like I've been in business a long time now, at least as far as online business years go, and I have not come across anything else. And I remember before I found Samitz, I started like dabbling and trying to get on podcast interviews before I really had any business doing it. But that's what we do, right? And I remember I'd be asked the question, if you were starting from scratch, like, what would you do differently? What would you leverage it? I was like, oh, I would lean into relationships. Relationships are everything. Relationships I would have gotten me to where I am. And I had hardly gotten anywhere by that point. But I could already see the power in just a couple relationships. And then I hosted that first summit and instead of like, you know, three friends I met on Twitter back in the day, it was 20 people I had collaborated with on this incredible event. We brought in thousands of people who were instantly paying me. And I was like, what is happening? I was not used to this, but it all like it raised my business to a whole new level. But then it stayed there. It's not like once the summit was over, I was back to where I started. No, now I had these connections. My e-mail list was tripled in size. I had made more revenue. I was booked out with clients for six months. It changed everything. And I think that's why it's such a powerful strategy. It gives you everything, like all the different kinds of growths you're looking for in business and gives it all to you at once. Whether you have been around for years and have 10s of thousands of people on your e-mail list already or if you're just starting from scratch. It meets you where you're at and brings you to that next level and it's just powerful.
00:03:46
I was asked last week, I was interviewed on a fairly big podcast and he was asking me, we were talking about the business model for hobby school. If you had to do it all over again, like if you go back to that domain name purchase and had to do it all over again, would you do anything differently? And what I told him was no, I would still start with these online virtual summits because I do think it's one of the best ways to kind of, you know, build your audience, build those connections. And I think those connections for me have been key. Now, I've been doing these online learning virtual summits for several years now in what is so very powerful. Krista right now is not only have we kind of built our audience and we've gotten paid to do that through the VIP passes and all the funnel set up. We also have built up this ecosystem with these affiliates in speakers from our previous summit. So that when we do another summit and even if they're not a speaker for it, they're like they're contacting me and saying Destiny, can I still promote it? Like they still want to promote it. So we have this like ecosystem of people that, you know, we've worked with over the years. So I think my next question for you is, you know, B to C summits and that's what we're talking about in hobby schools. So when we're a business selling to a consumer, those are, you know, I had to say that those are kind of the sweet spot, if you would, for virtual summits. And can you tell me what you're seeing on your end because I know you work with a lot of different niches out there.
00:05:37
Yeah, this is so interesting for me to think about because when we started Summit in a Box, there was almost no B to C people coming to me. And when they did, I was terrified. I was like, I don't know how to help you. Well, you know, it was all these business owners hosting summits about business. That's all it was. And we started to see the results kind of not go that's they were going down. They're still so powerful, but it wasn't these huge $100,000 summits anymore on a regular basis. And suddenly we started seeing these B2C people start getting a little more brave. There'd be someone new come in from this new industry and, like, pave the way and blow it out of the water. And I mean, yeah. And I think that the magic of this is just that there are so many different B2C niches. There are so many ways you can position a summit where people haven't even seen it before. And even if there are different summits in your niche, there are so many different ways to position it. So it is fresh and new and exciting. And it's not like, you know, we see as business owners, oh, here's the 20th summit I've seen promoted today about how to grow my business. It's like, Oh my gosh, here's the summit about like water coloring for moms for relaxation. Heck yes, I'm all in on that. You know, that's just for me. We're just seeing those kinds of summits absolutely take off. And now in our highest level program, we have a program accelerator VIP. I think we have maybe 2B to B people in there and like 18B to C. Like B to C summits are so powerful and we're seeing it take these businesses where people are just like hoping it works almost. I'm seeing a lot of B to C people come in not quite believing in themselves. I think comes from a place of learning from, of course, B to B people and like almost thinking that they're less than because of it, but then they come in and host the summit and blow it out of the water, but then not even know what to do next with all that success. So like I love that I'm set up in a way to to help those people. There's something special about being able to lean into where people are at in their lives, where they're underserved, what they need help with, but also what their passions are. And when you're hosting summits and B to C spaces, you have the opportunity to hit on. Those are those things, and they can be both life changing and just straight up fun.
00:08:01
So let's talk about some examples. So what are some of the type of summits that you're seeing?
00:08:06
Oh man, we have, like, everything you can imagine. We have someone who hosts a summit for Yellowstone National Park lovers, homesteaders, people who have chickens in their backyard, people who have indoor vegetable gardens, people who crochet blankets, people who knit, parents and teachers of autistic children. Different kinds of dance, dog trainers, yoga, different kinds of other hobbies like card making, watercolors, other kinds of crafting. Different niches of parenting with different topics in there like online safety, parenting, toddlers, parenting, tweens and teens, health related ones, everything.
00:08:50
So what I'm hearing is basically anywhere where somebody needs help in their life, whether it's their relationships, their family, their home life. Let's talk a little bit about the income opportunity related to a summit, not only during the summit itself, but maybe something that somebody might want to launch after that summit. What are you seeing there?
00:09:18
Yeah. We, I mean we're seeing the income both for B to B&B to C very powerful. We are seeing people like break their revenue records regardless of what kind of industry that we're in. But like you said, the magic kind of comes from having this way you can stack different types of revenue on top of each other. So there's sponsorships. You don't have to have sponsors, but you can. And there's a lot of room for it. I'm seeing in the B2B space people bringing on like their peers as sponsors. Like for example, Destiny and I could sponsor each other's summits. We are seeing that perform really well for B2B and for B to C we're seeing them just blow it out of the water with different companies who are excited for a different way to get in front of these audiences. So there's sponsorships as the first opportunity, There's All Access Pass revenue for the second. This is the first place where we're seeing B to C Summit start to pull away from B to B in that the average All Access Pass revenue for AB to C Summit is just, it's blowing the rest of us away, even me. So I'm looking at a couple, we're hosting a Summit coming up for B to C business owners and I'm looking at the registration page where I have a few examples pulled up. We have a $30,000 Summit, $43,000 three $100,000, another $30,000, two $100,000. People are bringing in incredible amounts of revenue with just their all access pass. And unlike you hinted at, there is also the opportunity to present your attendees with an offer. I tend to see memberships as being the most common offer that be to see people are going with right now. Our clients who are launching their memberships on the back end of their assignment are also blowing it out of the water. And I'm talking like 300 new members, 150 new members, 200 new members, 245 new members. I'm looking, I'm just kind of listing off some examples I have sitting out in front of me like life changing amounts of and recurring revenue being added to businesses on the back end of summits.
00:11:14
I'd love to know the $200,000 Summit and the $300,000 Summit. Can you share the niche that they were in?
00:11:22
Yeah. So most of our summits that hit over six figures are in the crafting Nish. So the ones we have a we have two that sit around $200,000. Those are cricket and card making. The one who broke $300,000 was the preschool, or like a summit for parents and teachers of autistic kids.
00:11:45
So tons of opportunities there. And I will say that in hobby school, we have two memberships that we always promote. Now we're promoting on off the summits, but we're also promoting them all year round. So I love that kind of membership type model. So Krista, if somebody is like, you know, this sounds like this might be an option for me. What would you suggest they do as one of their first steps?
00:12:14
I would say get clear on what message you want to put out to your niche. What do you want to help your people with? And I think depending on how many summits are in your niche, that kind of dictates how creative you have to be. If you're in the B to B space, you got to get pretty creative because there are so many summits. What are you going to say that's going to stand out from the tons of other summits out there? If you go out and let's say that your audience is, I mean, let's just say course creators, because we're here. What are you going to do to make that stand out from all of the other course creator summits? Has to be something special. If you're in a beat a scene issue, you have a little bit more freedom. But I think it's always going to be good to get more specific, right, instead of leaving it really broad. But that's the first thing I want you to think about. What message is this something going to send? And what am I going to help people with? And helping them doesn't have to mean solving a problem for them. It could be like, what do I want to get them excited about? What do I want to create community around for them? Because like that's really exciting, especially with things like hobbies or parenting struggles or whatever, we all want to feel like we're not alone in that. So what message do you want to send? What kind of community and experience do you want to create? And then the rest of your planning, the rest of the decisions kind of fall on that. So that's why I say start there, even if it doesn't sound like the most like strategic thing in the world.
00:13:30
I love that and that I think that's important for whatever we're doing, right? Whatever type of launch we're doing is really getting clear on that kind of transformation, what we're going to help them with. So Krista, you have a summit slash challenge, I should say, coming up to help B2C business owners get started in this. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
00:13:53
Yeah. So the idea for the summit came about because, like I said, I'm seeing so many B2C business owners want to host summits or want to do big things but kind of doubt themselves. Think like, oh, this only works for B to B or all my people aren't going to get it. So I want to be like, you know what, let me just show you what summits can do for you. And that's like why we created this summit. So I want to show all of you B to C business owners, you can get your name out there, generate 5, even 6 figures in revenue and just like leapfrog every area of your business from your list size, your impact, your business, business growth, your revenue, all of that with AB to C Summit. Even if you're not totally convinced yet that it will work with your niche, like DM me if that's the case because we'll chat about it. But like something I wanted to stay away from with this summit was making it all about summits because of those issues I've talked about where where B to C business are seeing themselves as less than like there's some mindset stuff here I want to work on before we dive into summits. There are some marketing strategies that I feel like you could get a customized approach on rather than having to take like the B2B version and be like, oh, what is relevant to me and what's not. So the first two days of this summit actually aren't even about summits. We're talking about ways you can shift your B2C mindset. Everything from like selling the intangible in your B2C business, feeling comfortable selling, not being afraid of people not liking everything you say. So many good mindset related presentations and then and they too were going into B to C strategy. So I have brought on some of the best online business strategy minds out there, but I've asked them, I only want to hear your strategies for B to C business owners and they've brought it. So we have stuff on B to C rewards programs that will encourage people to make that first purchase and keep them coming back. Customized Facebook as strategies, low lift YouTube strategies that work for B to C, all kinds of really great stuff. And then we dive in to summits on the third day. But something else I'm doing is that for those of you who are interested in hosting a summit, I am doing a short and sweet little bite sized training. Teach you one of the first foundational steps of hosting a summit. I'm going to do a couple minutes of teaching. We're going to have time right there for you to do the work and ask me questions and get feedback. So each day you're going to be taking a baby step towards making your summit actually happen. And all that is just baked into the event. So I'm really excited to walk more B2C business owners through this process of getting started with hosting a summit and seeing what's possible.
00:16:15
I love that and I'm going to definitely check out that rewards type training to get them to come back. That, that sounds awesome to me. Something I should definitely implement in my own business. Krista, any last minute tips before we hang up here?
00:16:30
Yeah. I mean, I would just say if you're considering assignment, regardless of what kind of niche you're in, the biggest hurdle I see is just like believing that you could do it. And like, my question for you is, if I can do it, if hundreds and hundreds of other people can do it and see really great results, why can't you? I know this is one of those things. It pushes you out of your comfort zone. You have to put yourself out there in ways we're not used to doing. Like you're pitching yourself to like 20 people at once. And your speakers, I know that feels scary. When you go to open registration, you're like basically waiting to see if people accept the idea. You know, like there are so many steps of the process that do feel like a roller coaster, but it is so worth it, especially when you're following strategies that you know work, right? When you're not just guessing every step of the way. Like this is a strategy that's so worth the discomfort because it will just push you through to a new stage of your business. So I would encourage you to just, like, not doubt yourself. Don't let those fears hold you back. The people you look up to didn't get to where they are by playing it safe. They did scary things. And you can do scary things, too, you know. We'll help you through it at the summit.
00:17:37
And I just want to echo that because I had somebody ask me last week, they're like Dusty, when you went into the hobby school niche and started doing summits there, were you like a crafter or anything? I'm like, absolutely not. I don't even do any of that. So we went out there and basically cold pitch people to join our event. So it was definitely uncomfortable in the beginning, but just look where it can take you. So I want to encourage anybody who is any bit interested in this to check it out. I'm going to have the link to sign up for the summit in the show notes. So definitely check that out. And Krista, can you let people know also where they can find you?
00:18:16
Yeah, you could connect with me at summitinabox.co. We have so many Summit horsing resources you can dive into there, or you can always reach out on Instagram at Summit in a Box if you want to say hi or have any questions.
00:18:28
Well, Krista, thank you so much for joining me today and I cannot wait for your summit coming up.
00:18:34
Thank you so much for having me. It's going to be good.