In this episode of The High Profit Event Show, host Rudy Rodriguez sits down with Brian Fanale, the CEO and Co-Founder of Digital Mentors. Brian is a seasoned entrepreneur with over two decades of experience in the digital marketing space. He specializes in transforming knowledge into profitable businesses and has built an eight-figure company that has significantly impacted thousands of lives, including Rudy's. Their conversation delves deep into the intricacies of hosting successful live events and offers invaluable insights for event leaders.

Brian Fanale shares his journey from the early days of running events with little to no audience to mastering the art of filling rooms and creating impactful experiences. He emphasizes the critical role of messaging in attracting attendees, explaining that the promise and structure of an event must be compelling enough to get people to leave the comfort of their homes. In a world where virtual events have become commonplace, Brian highlights the importance of making live events special, from offering unique bonuses to building a strong sense of community.

One of the standout topics of the episode is the iterative process of learning from mistakes and continuously improving event strategies. Brian candidly discusses the failures and lessons learned from his first few events, stressing the need for a well-thought-out plan and a clear flow for each day of the event. He also touches on the significance of investing in high-quality speakers and the impact this can have on event attendance and overall success.

Another crucial aspect of their discussion revolves around ethical selling and the power of high-ticket offers. Brian recounts a pivotal moment with the late Mark Hoverson, who helped him overcome his limiting beliefs about high-ticket sales. He explains how offering high-ticket programs not only benefits the business but also leads to greater commitment and transformation for attendees. This shift in mindset has allowed Brian to present high-value programs from the stage, resulting in significant revenue and meaningful client success stories.

Tune in to this episode to gain a wealth of knowledge from Brian Fanale's extensive experience in the event industry. Whether you're an event leader looking to improve your strategies or an entrepreneur aiming to leverage live events for business growth, this conversation is packed with actionable advice and inspiring insights. Don't miss out on learning how to create high-profit events that leave a lasting impact.

Want to connect with Brian?

Website: https://www.digitalmentors.io/

Compass: https://lp.digitalmentors.com/compass

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brianfanale/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BFanale/

Welcome to the show today. We have a special guest, a dear friend of many years. Mr. Brian Fanale. Welcome, sir. So great to finally have you here. I've been wanting to get you on the show now for like two years but he's just been so freaking busy again launching a new company. I'm glad you can finally make it.

Happy to be here man.

For our audience for perhaps the first time getting to meet you or know you, Brian is the CEO and co-founder of Digital Mentors. They specialize in taking people's knowledge and turning it into profitable businesses, which is really cool. You've been in business for decades now. I remember you and I actually met at an event. I think an event in Vegas back in was it 2008? I think it was 2009, 8 or 9.

Yes, something like that.

It was called Live the Dream and that was actually the first big business conference that I went to now that I think about it, so thank you for hosting that event.

Two decades man and in a crazy world you and I work together on a lot of events as well now at this point, which that's been an honor and what you did with and for us at those events was top tier world-class and we appreciate you and it's crazy. It started 20 years ago at our event, my event and then here we are in the relationship that we had with one of our companies where you would run all of our live events and it's a beautiful circle and here we are.

Yes, changing lives, man. That event changed my life and then we were able to work together changing other people's lives through events, which is super cool. You've been a serial entrepreneur since 2005, you know 16 years in the digital marketing space. You've run the previous company that we worked together on to a 7 figure-plus company, impacted thousands of lives including my own. Can you share that now? So I'm really excited to get a brain download from you and all of your experience with running these events and as you and I were talking in the green room because you're an event leader, our listeners are typically event leaders.

Mm-hmm

We all know that the number one problem that people ask themselves is how the heck do I fill my event? That's something of a question I'm sure you've asked yourself thousands of times. Would love to hear from you your experience maybe a little bit of your journey where you started and kind of where you got to and what you learned along the way and what what worked for you guys when it came to filling your events and promoting them.

Live events. That's one of my biggest fears when we started doing live events is that you put all this energy and effort into a live event and nobody shows up or you got like two people in the room, which had happened. We've done that. We've certainly been there and missed metrics in the beginning when we didn't know what we were doing at all but and even to this day when we do live events like my heart beats a little bit when we go and click launch because it's like now we got to fill it. We've learned a lot of things over the years. Gosh, as far as filling the events? I guess we’ll start there, like you asked Rudy. The biggest thing as far as getting the butts to actually show up in the seats for us is it's coming. I know this is gonna sound rudimentary and fundamental but it’s the messaging. It really does. If you're putting on a 1, 2 or 3-day event. Whether it's a retreat or a 500 to 800 person event. It is harder and harder to get people to show up to a live event now. Especially post when the world shut down. People are so happy. They're used to zooms and being able to consume from the comfort of their home. So now you even have to be better at creating the structure, the promise, the outcome, the speaker lineup. Like why is someone gonna travel? Across state or even across country or across globe to attend your live event. Chances are you have a lot of live stream options as well and they can do it right from home. You see Rudy, lots and lots of our people you and I both adore have set up huge studios.

So it's all virtual now and that's a beautiful thing and that also kind of sucks because you and I know that the live event is where the most transformation happens. Where everything, all decisions get to be made, relationships get to be built. So for us, it's gonna be about making sure that messaging is on point. There's a reason for them to be in that room. I don't know if that means for us we've had different bonuses when you show up. You unlock all sorts of thousands of dollars worth of bonuses. Yes, you can get the live stream, but you have to be in the room to unlock Xyz. And then once you're in the room, that's a different conversation. But the biggest thing that we focus on is making sure that our promise, like come in, here's what happens, you come into the event. We're at this stage when you leave. Here's where you paint that future vision of what it will be when they leave the room and for us, some things that's worked for us are things like tangible and intangible bonuses for those who are in the room and we make it special. As far as promotions and continually to get people to come back to live events, creating that sense of community in that bond, especially if you run a continuity or membership, one of the best things you can do is create a live experience because they will come back and come back. You make them feel like family. You make them feel like a part of something special. It's been one of the secret glue for us to have 150-160,000 customers and many of them coming to events and retreats over and over again. That bond is incredible and to get people to the room. That's the biggest challenge man. For us, it was messaging, bonuses, giveaways, spending money for speakers. We've had Dr. Joe Dispensa as a keynote speaker. We've spent money on a lot of good speakers and that's helped. That’ll help you fill the room for sure.

That's great man. I'm going to recap a couple of my takeaways here. I got a page of notes already. Big thing, counterintuitive before the ads, before the reach out, before all this is the messaging. The promise. Where you're at now and where you’re going to be when you leave the event. It has to be even more compelling now than ever before because it takes something to get to somebody on a plane when they could just watch something on from home. You also know this but when they do get there that it’s the environment that can change their lives. You said specifically you're getting the messaging. Some hot bonuses to sign up and get there and then having like really awesome speakers. I actually remember when you had Dispensa at your event and that was freaking awesome. Anything else you want to share as far as what you've learned over almost two decades of leading events and running your company? As far as getting people to the room?

I think one of the biggest things is the planning of the actual event. Each day for us, it was a three-day event, most of them and to have a flow, to have it be a compartmental like float, tangible. Hey, this first day is going to be about xyz which is going to lead into the second day. We're going to stack the growth and the progress on the second day and then the same with the third day. So to really have a flow and a content format, a plan, a real structure and a plan for someone to to get into the room and to want to be in the room, be present for the full thing because each piece is a part of the whole. The sum of the parts are greater than the whole or whatever that saying is. You have to literally be there. You want to be there from start to finish because all that content boom is going to help you get to that x outcome by the end of the event. If I were to go, and we don't have a live event scheduled this quarter or anything, but if I were to go to the drawing board with our team and we said hey, we need to go get 200 people in a room. It would be a strategic experience from start to finish. Very much focused on milestones and outcomes per day, per session, that all lead up to the outcome of the finished perfect dream magic wand. Here's what happens when you walk out a business owner or whatever the industry is. It would be very methodical. I think a lot of business owners are just like hey, let's book a room. Let's have fun. Let's create a stage and have an event. You will lose your shirt. Typically with that it needs to be very much structured and engineered and clear so that we can go create marketing and messaging for it. That lands for the ideal client where they're like I need to be in that room, period. That's the challenge

That's awesome. You mentioned doing those mistakes. I don't know if you're open to sharing with our audience kind of what your experience was at your first event?

Oh my gosh, how much time do you have? I remember one of the first events. We were so nervous and there was like zero energy whatsoever. We dropped the ball on so many different aspects. There was no in between speakers. There wasn't this hype up music and transform and it's not just to hype people up. It's to help them keep their energy up so they'll be present. They can consume more of the content. I just remember that event, it actually did. Okay, but I felt looking back knowing, after 15 years of running events, the energy in that room was not the seats. It wasn't structured in a way where it was like a room that was going to have an old hold energy. We did some of the things I said don't do where we just had amazing speakers on stage. It wasn't outcome based. It wasn't a full flowing ecosystem from start to finish. There wasn't clear messaging. We just tried to stuff. What we thought were valuable speakers on stage with no real outcome and even in that event we didn't really sell anything. Actually it was a success as far as the members that came back. They stayed on our continuity program for that next year, which was beautiful but we lost money on that event and we did not have any type of offer in the back. We didn't even know what we were doing. This was back in like 2009. We just wanted to get people together. We know that we have something special. Let's share our knowledge and it was a perfect example of how when you want to share education as teachers, teachers should be getting paid the most and they take care of our youth.

The good teachers who actually care. This was a perfect example they don't get. We taught great content but we didn't make any money. You need to put on a marketing cap. Work with someone as an event coordinator who knows how to structure events for transformation, for monetization, for cash flow. We didn't do any of that and we were great teachers. That event we put on a great show. It was great knowledge but then we're stuck with whatever that bill was because we weren’t set to do what events need to do. The promoter needs to get paid, needs to cover itself ideally. We've had events where we earn anywhere from half a million to a million dollars from stage over that weekend, which is a beautiful thing and that's where you should be because not only does the business owner make money, that means your clients in the event, they invested, they're going to go home and they're going to get to work. You can only do so much in a one day, two day, three day event. You can pump someone up but we're doing a disservice if we don't get them into a higher ticket type of program so that they can actually go and apply and work with a mentor and get the result. That's the only way you transform someone's life once they leave the event and we screwed up every which way you could possibly think of in the first event and we learned and we were back then 20 some years old and that started the the journey and did not start on a W. It was not good on paper. Very painful but a fun event. We learned a lot and then we rolled up our sleeves and said, there has to be a better way to do these things and we've started learning.

Thank you for being so open with us about your lessons learned on that first event. Oh my gosh. I was there on the attendee side so it was a lot of fun. We could both look back in hindsight 2020 and see that there's lessons to be captured from that experience brother.

I honestly think you as an attendee, I don't think in that first event, we might have sold the recordings from stage for like 300 bucks maybe and that was in Vegas and if you ever held an event in Vegas for two or three days straight, the room rates even back then were insane. This is the Venetian. One of the best. One of my favorite hotels and that price tag was a lot. We're talking very hot. Very much into the six figures. So when you don't get any revenue on the back end, you're like what just happened? So that woke us up a little bit but we saw the opportunity and of course at another big event that next year and then over the course of time. Rudy, back just a couple years ago, we were doing little retreats every literally every month with you where we'd have 10 to 20 people coming into Austin every month. We're big advocates of events, but they're structured strategically now and designed to make money and transform lives.

Awesome. So you started to talk about the importance of enrolling people into higher ticket programs so that they leave the event and do the work. I'd love for you to expand on that place. I think that is a really important point to emphasize in sharing your experience when it comes to that.

I remember once a gentleman, who you know as well, Mr. ‘The Late Great’ Mark Hoverson. I was on a cruise with him and this is right around after we bombed in that first event. I was like man, there's something going on here. I don't know. There's a block here for me personally. As the guy who would be on stage, kind of the face of the brand who would eventually be making the offers and such, the company was doing well. Hundreds of thousands of dollars each month in revenue, but there was a block in the high ticket stuff, specifically from platform speaking. I remember Mark, just one night we were on a cruise, and he loved cigars. We were drinking down in the cigar room and he said, Fanale, dude, sales is what changes people's lives. You being able to put together a 10, 20, 30 thousand dollar program is how you're actually going to, instead of just these little things, little impact here or there, this is how you give someone a new life. He in that moment, it just shifted for me. It was just a limiting belief I had around presenting a higher ticket offer specifically from a stage like that and very quickly we started embracing that in our business. We started doing more higher ticket stuff which actually brought better clients and then those clients, actually because they invested, started doing the work more than the lower cost stuff. Then that next event, we tested that out and it's just a mind shift belief on me as far as allowing and presenting a higher ticket.

What does that actually mean? It was uncomfortable. Everyone's got money beliefs. Money's the root of all evil. All these things that pop up in childhood and we as entrepreneurs need to get rid of that quickly because he was right. The clients who do invest in these higher tickets, those are our biggest success stories. Those are the ones who go on and change lives and impact more people and that investment wakes them up. Puts their back against the wall makes them actually move and it's just beautiful. It was awesome and growing through that allowed us to now present five, ten, twenty-five thousand dollar plus programs, fifty thousand dollar programs from stages, which has changed the game. One client, one fifty thousand dollar client or divide that by fifty dollar a month memberships. How many members do you need? It's a different game for the business owner and that client you can really focus on and go through your curriculum, your training, your framework and get a result for him. It's been awesome. That piece alone, that conversation with Mark really helped me open up the idea and my money beliefs and and how we can serve as business owners and what we're supposed to be doing if we really want our attendees to transform and get a result.

This is a mic drop right here on this one. I I love that you're honoring the late, Mr. Mark Hoverson. I only had maybe three interactions with him in my time, but they were all memorable. He was that kind of guy. It just kind of oozed out of him. Just being around the guy. He's just impactful and really grateful that he shared that with you because when you did make an offer for I think a five thousand dollar retreat the next year, I took you up on that offer and that was probably at that point the first I took an investment that I had made and I had to get pretty resourceful to not just pay for it, but to get there. It changed my life. It really went in a different trajectory and I'm really grateful for that. So I'm grateful that Mark impacted you and then you impacted me and and then we've been able to impact so many people along the way because you offered a higher service, higher commitment, so thank you man. Thank you for what you've done over the years.

Absolutely. So for all of your listeners who are in the tribe here, had I not been bold enough to step into that, this wouldn't even be here. The impact Rudy's had and our companies have had with high ticket is unlocking some stuff and it will get people to stretch. They find out what they're made of and they create what they were born on this planet to create and they do amazing things. I just changed the business and that was the first retreat that we didn't even know if that was going to work. That was in Arizona. That was back in 2009 or whatever that was. I remember that and that was the first test. We got about I think 20 people to that one that we had qualified and that was the goal and we hit it and onward and upward.

So cool man. Beautiful. I think it's a good place to kind of put a little bow tie on this. I think it's a good high note and message to bring people. Brian, if people want to learn more about what you're currently doing, digital marketers and maybe their knowledge. They have a lot of knowledge in their mind. What's the best way for them to either learn more from you or learn more about what you guys do?

Thanks for that. Just come find me, Brian Fanale, f -a -n -a -l -e, on instagram and facebook. We've got some cool giveaways. I could tell you, if you want to go check out compass, like a map, compass.digital mentors.com. We've worked really hard on helping any business owner who goes through that report. You will get a customized business and marketing plan with all sorts of crazy cool stuff. It's completely free. You'll get a ton of value from it and that way you can hop on our email list and you can get invited to free workshops that we do all the time. Come say hi. I'm very accessible on social media, Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram, all the things, Youtube.

We're going to include a link to the compass here with the show notes as well. So if you're listening to this just go down to the show notes click on compass. Just fill that out. I actually did that when you guys first launched it and then came to your workshop where you guys review the results and work with people. I was super impressed by how you guys created a holistic and customized approach and leveraging a lot of AI tools. Also your decades of experience between you and your business partners who are also in the fields and every single person that was there had like their own unique sales and marketing and knowledge business plan, which I thought was really cool. So listeners go down and click the link. Do the compass and learn more. Thanks, Brian. Great having you here, brother. Appreciate you man.