When properly executed, telesummits are able to quickly add value, credibility, and hopefully customers to your business. When done right, they increase your visibility, spread your brand, and build strong relationships that will greatly benefit your business in the near and far future – but what happens when they’re done poorly? 

Well, nothing good, as I’m sure you can imagine.  

Telesummits are online multi-speaker events, much like virtual conferences, that are meant to assemble multiple experts in order to educate a large audience on a specific subject. After selecting your topic, assembling your collection of speakers and properly interviewing them, the online event is scheduled and then launched, usually meant to last a few days for a substantial audience.

Most commonly, speakers and interviews (or classes) are recorded in advance in order to ensure a smooth summit, though occasionally a brave soul will volunteer to host one live in order to answer audience questions. Due to the speakers you’ve chosen and the topic you’ve advertised, your audience will likely be larger than you normally see on your own since it’s a compilation of all your speakers’ platforms and other “outsiders” interested in your topic.

What could go wrong with this?
Rookie Summit Mistakes To Avoid Making

1. Not planning ahead.If you fail to plan ahead for you telesummit, then you’ll run into countless issues and miss out on multiple opportunities, including but not limited to:

• Scheduling conflicts with speakers and recording interviews.
• Upsell or down-sell opportunities.
• Networking opportunities.
• Landing pages and access page creation for your telesummit.
• Promotion schedules, marketing materials, marketing campaigns, etc.
• Autoresponder emails and connections.
• Forgotten content, jumbled answers, unorganized schedules.

Telesummits take a lot of time and organization in order to proceed smoothly, without hiccups or glitches. It’s not something you can just pull together in a few hours or days, so be sure to take your time, consider all the details, and allow at least 2 months to plan a good, beneficial telesummit.

2. Not asking for help.A telesummit is actually a huge investment of time and effort. They consist of a lot of details and require a great deal of organization. While you might be good at accomplishing these things, consider employing the help of:

• A telesummit coordinator
• A copywriter or editor
• A coach

While these things might sound trivial and useless, you’d be surprised at how much it helps to have another set of eyes editing your content, scheduling your videos, and making sure all of your links work during a launch.

3. Not testing everything before launch.This is a huge mistake that could be detrimental to the success of your telesummit. If you miss this step, then you’ll end up with multiple typos, faulty web pages, unpublished landing pages, failing emails, or more. Before you launch your telesummit, be sure to check:

• Links. Watch out for broken links, placeholders, and 404 errors.
• Buttons. Make sure the buttons that are clickable lead to where they’re supposed to.
• Spelling or grammar errors. Proofread absolutely everything, including the names of all of your speakers, titles, headings, etc. Typos will present you as unprofessional.
• All videos and photos. Make sure they load and show up where they’re supposed to.
• Guest offers. Opt-ins for any of your guests should work as expected 

Remember that a telesummit should be fun rather than stressful, irritating, or overwhelming. Enjoy the process, talk about things that are enjoyable to you, and keep your content interesting and beneficial to your audience.
While these are some of the most common mistakes made for beginner telesummit starters, there are surely more. Be sure to consider your marketing and monetizing plan for the telesummit, be sure to network with your chosen speakers and be sure to give your audience good content.

Wanting to host a telesummit but not sure where to start? Overwhelmed by all the details? I can help! I’ve been helping online business owners run successful, lucrative telesummits for years! I know all the tricks and most effective strategies for running an enjoyable, empowering summit.

>>>YES!! I would love to chat about hosting a telesummit and get support!!

I look forward to meeting you soon!