On this episode of BEP Talks, I sat down with virtual events visionary Janelle Anderson to dive into why virtual events are transforming today’s business world. Janelle shared how live, online workshops spark real connection, build trust, and offer incredible opportunities for coaches and entrepreneurs to grow their impact—without the hassle of travel. We explored her proven CLIENTS framework for creating engaging, results-driven events, and why your unique personality is your biggest asset in standing out. If you’re ready to elevate your business, tune in and learn how virtual events can be your next game-changer.

Curious about how virtual events can elevate your business? Connect with Janelle Anderson for more actionable wisdom: https://www.emerginglifecoach.com/

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Well, hi there everybody, and welcome to this edition

of BEP Talks, B-E-P, where we share

beliefs, experiences, and passions. And

those who bring those messages to us, well, they're from all around the world.

They're from all industries, all professions at all stages of their

career, but they all come to generously share, to

inspire, to motivate, educate, and as

I say, sometimes entertain you in the hope that what they believe,

what they've experienced, and what their passions are, are of great

value and benefit to you. We never have an exception

to having fantastic guests on the Bep Talks

podcast. Today's no exception. Today I am

delighted to bring you someone who I literally

met, literally met virtually, a

couple of weeks ago. No, more than a couple of weeks ago and actually met

again virtually, but had the opportunity to say hello directly.

Oh, I don't know, about 30 minutes ago. That's how excited I am

to have today's guest. So please help me welcome the

virtual events visionary, the fantastic

Janelle Anderson. Welcome, Janelle.

Hello. Hello. There you are.

We literally— within the last half hour. And that doesn't matter because that's

just how we work here on Bev Talks. The reason,

which will become very obvious momentarily, that I'm so

excited to have you here is because you speak,

oh, you speak on an area that is so

important in today's world of how

we do business, and that is virtual

events. You are a visionary.

You are a— just talk to us about virtual events.

Yeah. To me, virtual events are the

way. It's the vehicle for, uh, especially

online, um, but in person. But I talk about virtual events for

online entrepreneurs and coaches and business people that are trying to get

the word out there who are really wanting to connect with

their potential clients. To me, a virtual event is

the way to go, live in real time, because what

people are craving more than anything is connection. Yes. And they

want to be seen and heard, and they want to see and

hear you. They want to know what you're all about. They want to feel your

energy, and that builds trust. Yes. And people don't do business with people

they don't trust. So what better way than to bring them into a room with

you where you can talk to them and they can talk to you? And to

me, that's the essence of a really great virtual event. Of course, there's a lot

more to it, but for me, that's my

favorite part of holding an event is meeting the people,

hearing their heart. What are they all about? What do they want to do in

the world? And then how can I help them? And then see

them blossom and open up and get aha moments and connect with each other.

And by the end of the event, there's a little community that's built.

Yeah. And yeah. So that's why I love virtual

events. You know, as I'm feeling just this day that we're

chatting of, gee, I feel like I've known this person

for a long time. Yeah. Because you can build that know,

like, and trust. And I talk about all the time, I think the

trust being actually the most important of the

three. So are you finding that in today's business

world, virtual events, and I'm thinking probably

because of the pandemic that we all shifted into virtual

realities. Absolutely. Becoming so much more,

um, popular and so much more valuable because of

that. Oh, that definitely— COVID took us to a whole new level

with virtual events. I was already doing virtual workshops

and in-person, but then everybody all of a sudden was

on Zoom and everybody got used to Zoom and, uh, became

normal, right? It became a normal thing to open up your laptop and get on

a Zoom call, uh, whether it's meetings or events. And so now the

virtual events industry, I think it was last year, was

reached to $400 billion

globally. And, um, just to compare, coaching,

the coaching industry, I think is something at $7 or $8 billion. So the

virtual events, yeah, and it even is more than the

online course or online education industry.

So it's booming, it's going crazy because people

discovered how convenient it was. And entrepreneurs and

coaches like me discovered, oh, this is a great way to attract

my ideal audience, get to know them, sell them something, offer

them something. And I can do it from my home and

they can do it from their home. And it's something I can do regularly

because people don't have to travel, you don't have to pay for a space.

And so I don't think I know of

any, especially successful

coaches or entrepreneurs who experts out there who

are not doing virtual events. Right. And then

on the other side, attendees, I always ask in all of my

events, how often do you attend a virtual event?

And the average answer is usually about 2 to 3

times a week. Wow. And that's still going on. And people

are still filling their big events with 300, 400

people in the room. And so

it is not dying off and it is booming. And it

is such a great way to get yourself out there and

to share your message and to invite people to work with you. Right.

I think it is here to stay. And I think that, that those numbers that

you mentioned are staggering. I think it is here to stay. And I think it's

only going to get bigger and better because of the

ease of it. Remember we used to go to like a weekend event,

but it was a 5-day event because you needed a travel day at the

beginning, a travel day at the end. It was airfare, it was hotels,

it was meals, it was being out of the office. So I knew

something good would come out of the pandemic. I knew something good would come out

of it. Something. So one of the things that came out now is the power

and the possibility of, virtual

events. So now in your, in your business,

which you are, you have so many talents, so many skills, you cover so many

topics because the events that you do are for people who

cover many different topics. So who is the person

that you most often work with? Who's the entrepreneur who

goes to Janelle Anderson? Normally it is, it's

coaches who are in the early stages. It's usually maybe they've been in

business up to 5 years still. And I call that early stage because

many coaches like me are still— I was floundering

and kind of limping along for 6 years. I

was not, uh, I was getting clients, but I was still doing one-on-one

clients. I was having a hard time getting a group

program filled. I was having a hard time getting

a sustainable income for my business. And I got to that place

where I just kind of hit a wall and I didn't know what else to

do. And so many coaches are like that in the, at the very beginning,

they just came out of coach training up till maybe 5 years in

business that are still looking for, uh,

the answers. They don't know what is wrong. They don't know how to fix

it because they don't know what's wrong. And usually

they don't have a system. They don't know how to sell very well, or

they hate selling. They don't know how to market themselves, right?

They, they don't really like to get out there in front of people. And so

they're just trying to post on social media or find

people to refer to them. And that just, it's not enough.

And so they're struggling and getting frustrated. And I, my

passion or my mission, I think, is to help coaches become

very successful, build a thriving business because

coaches transform lives. Yes,

coaching is a powerful modality. It helped me work through

past traumas that I had been carrying around for 30-some years. It brought me

so much freedom, brought me through to this place where I,

I call it taking center stage of my own life. That's when everything started

happening for me. And so

I, I really can't stand it when I see coaches struggling and

even giving up. I mean, the statistic

by the ICF, which is the International Coach

Federation. They said that 80% of

coaches don't make it past year 3, and if they

do, they're not making even $50K. And

I now have a system. I have a business model

that works really, really well for coaches. And so

I wanna help as many coaches as I can because the more successful

coaches there are, the more transformed lives there will be.

Absolutely. And I think for those of us,

um, in the coaching world, on one side of it

or another, realize the benefits that there are to

be shared, um, to improve, to move forward. As you said,

you experienced it, um, in your own life.

Are there too many coaches out there? No. I

know that is a big fear, and, uh, the fear is that,

oh, there's other coaches that are serving

the same audience and even in the same niche.

How am I going to get any clients? But there's— the way I look at

this is your people are looking for

you because of who you are, and you Nobody can copy who

you are. So you might be serving them in the same

niche as somebody else, but you do it in your own way and you bring

your own history with that and your own talents and skills and

personality and perspective. For

example, I used to think that I'm a quiet person.

I have a quiet voice. I was— I grew up in a family of 8.

Nobody ever heard me over all the noise.

But I, and I used to think that was a weakness, right? But

come to find out, it's, it's one of the things that my clients love the

most is my calm, easygoing nature.

And so those people are looking for me.

And they— you might have, like, let's say I have 2 or 3 coaches next

to me who teach the same thing I do and serve the same way I

do, and one of them might be very loud and

boisterous and aggressive and, you know, energetic. And then here's me.

Well, there's going to be people people that resonate with them, but my people

will resonate with me. So there really isn't competition, and there's

plenty of people for you because you can't coach everyone in the world

anyway. And, you know, how many do you need to be

successful? You don't need really that many to be

successful. So that's really not a concern

at all. It's how do you make yourself stand out and, and

your message Make your message clear so that

your people can hear you and find you and,

and come, cuz they're looking already. So it's not a matter of you

going and finding them. It's a matter of you helping them find

you. And that's to me what marketing is. Oh, that's a great way

to look. Yeah. That's, yes. Yes. I wanna go to that. Two things that you,

I asked that question about, are there too many coaches? Kind of sarcastically, to be

honest with you. I knew you would give the perfect answer and you did about

the uniqueness of the combination of any two people.

And, um, that it's the coming together, the meeting of the minds of those two

people where whoever the coach is and whoever the

client is match so well that

transformation can actually happen. Exactly. Not just a transaction,

but true transformation. Yes. The other word that you mentioned, which I

love, is system. That there are

systems. There are systems, and you have to plug into

the one that's going to work best for you. And the only way to do

that, I think, is actually to learn it so that then you can

put it to work for yourself. You know, Janelle,

this thought just came to me. So many people, and I've spoken to so many

women all around the world that have that

entrepreneurial spirit about them.

And I've heard so many versions of what does that mean? And I have said,

I've spoken to large groups of people and saying, yeah, I know I was

bitten by it. Decades ago. I'm from that kind of

a family. It's a blessing and it's a curse

at the same time. There's the two sides of it. Is

entrepreneurship, in your opinion, do some people misunderstand it

of what entrepreneurship is? Is it to the point that they think they have to

do it all by themselves, that they don't need to be a coach? We are

each our own expert going in, so we don't need

anybody? Uh, yeah, I mean, that,

that's, I think, one of the biggest, uh,

myths, I guess you could say, for people that are looking at starting their own

business. And it can be very scary. And I remember that was one of my

thoughts too. I was like, can I do this by myself? My husband and I

had run a couple of brick and mortar businesses before I became a

coach, but he handled the sales and the marketing. And I was like the office

manager and training employees and that kind of stuff. And I

worried about that. I wanted to coach and I knew I could coach,

I could be a really good coach, but how could I market and sell myself?

And could I do this all on my own? This was all up to me

and it was very scary. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And clearly you figured it out. Two words that you just mentioned there, marketing

and selling. They're part of the big system of the whole, what I

call the big umbrella sales system. Marketing, the key to everything.

So, Doing virtual events is a, it's a

brilliant marketing strategy, is it not? Yes, it is definitely

a marketing, it's a marketing strategy. It's a client

attraction strategy. It's a lead generation

strategy. It's a visibility strategy, which I guess is really part of

marketing and also a sales strategy because that

is the container where you make your offer, an invitation

for people to step into your program.

And instead of trying to just sell it, like putting it out there

in a post or an email,

even like, hey, do you want to join my program? You actually

are creating a space to,

to make the invitation in the right way.

Like there's a lot of psychology and there's a lot of science

and art behind the selling process. And to me,

it's a relationship process. It's a— you're building a relationship with

that person and you're—

they need to see, first of all, is this going to work

for me and can I do this and is this the right person? And you're

building that throughout your event so that by the time you actually open

the door and say, you know, here's how you can join us, you

know, your right people are already like, oh my gosh, yes, I need this. Right.

So, Yeah. Yeah. So the thought of having an event,

I think it could overwhelm people. It's like

taking 2 years to plan a wedding. You know, it's a 5-hour dinner party

in fancy clothes, as you know. And I don't mean to, you know,

be too sarcastic about it, but how

difficult is it? And let me phrase it this way.

How efficient

Can you make it for someone who is

looking for the, the attraction, who's looking to get

their name out there, their voice out there, their product, their service out there?

How easy can you make it for them to

produce a virtual event? So

my first event that I, uh, recommend is a work— what I

call a, a client enrollment workshop. It's about

6 and maybe 90 minutes. Uh, and

it's, I have a framework, 7-step framework. I

call it the CLIENTS framework. It's an acronym. And so

I teach the whole system. And if you do every,

every one of those steps, then you're going to have your

workshop ready to go. And then

yes, you need to learn how and

you, you'll get better at it. The first workshop you do may or may

not be great, but then you keep doing it and you tweak it and

you make it better and you learn from everyone that you do. And I always

tell my clients, like, until you start doing the workshops, you're not going

to learn everything you need to learn. It's never going to be perfect. You need

to get out there and start doing it. I started doing workshops right off the

bat as a new coach 11 years ago at the local

library. Because I thought, what better way for me to find

clients than to actually create someplace for them to come and find me?

And so have a workshop. You have a group of people that you're talking

to instead of just one-on-one. So I went to the local library, said,

could I have a workshop here for women? And, and the head librarian was like,

yeah, and we'll even promote it for you. We'll put it on our calendar and

our newsletter and put out flyers. And I'm like, okay. And so

that first workshop, I think I had 15 women show up,

and all I did was just teach some content. Now, I do have a teaching

background, so it's really easy for me to put together content and

to engage with people and teach them something. What I didn't know then

was how to make the offer and how to make the content flow

to the offer. And so I, I would get one-on-one

clients, but over time I just kept running into the

issue of not enough con— not enough conversions and

not, not making the offer

be in sync with what they needed, all the things you need to know

about your offer. And so finally, over time, I learned

how to do that. But it doesn't have to be

complicated. It doesn't have to be super techie. It

doesn't have to be overwhelming. It's just

Uh, the, the main thing is making sure you've got your— what are

you going to offer? And then how do you lead people to that

with your content? And that's the, that's the secret. And

not overwhelming them with too much content. Right,

right. And then do it and do it and do it and do it until

you get really good at it. And I imagine that every time you do it,

it's probably a little bit different, even though the main content may be the same.

Why? Because We who do these things learn from

every experience. That's why beliefs, experiences, I think the

experiences are so important because people will tell you

what they want. They will tell you what they need. And we can take that

information and then move forward with it and hope that others

benefit from it. I have to tell you

also, having heard you speak on a

summit, You have such

a calming presence.

You know, it's not like, you know, with an event and you have to do

this and you have to do that. And it's like, oh my gosh, like, I

can't do that. I don't want to do that. It's the good, the good news

is I'm telling everybody, you don't need to do that.

Right. You need to connect with the Virtual Events Visionary. Her

name is Janelle Anderson. I am introducing her to all

of you here and now. I urge you to take advantage

of this invitation. You don't even have to send me a thank you. Don't

send me an RSVP, send it to Janelle and get on

Janelle's calendar. And look below because below

this podcast you will see the information on how to get in

touch with Janelle and how to learn from her.

And you heard she has so many years, you said 11 years that you've

been doing this and getting better and better at it all the

time. That I can vouch for because I have seen

some of your events. They are brilliant. They are brilliant. And

they're so— they made me feel, oh, I can do

this. I can do this. It's not, you know, it's not so hard.

And I'm not doing it alone. I have the expert. I have the

expert guiding me every step of the way. That's right. How wonderful

is that? How wonderful is that? So as I say to our

viewing audience, I told you today was no exception as we

introduced you today to the virtual events visionary

Janelle Anderson. As I said, her information is below.

Do yourself a favor, be in touch with

Janelle, get on her mailing list. You will be

blown away by the amount of information

that Janelle shares with you, the amount of

valuable content that she gives to you

and how you can use that and then work with Janelle to plan

maybe your first virtual event, maybe your

best virtual event. It'll end up being both at some point.

Each one will be your best, your best. Absolutely. So Janelle, I thank

you again so much for joining me here today on Bev Talks. It's

been such a pleasure. Thank you for having me. Yes, it's been such a pleasure.

It's been such a pleasure. And as I say to everybody, you know, we all

have a story to share. We all have value.

To give to each other. Your beliefs, your

experiences, your passions. We wanna hear your stories.

Go to beptalks.com and find out how to be a guest on Beptalks.

And know that what you do

believe, have experienced, and have that passion for

needs to be shared. As Janelle herself said, there are people

waiting. They're looking for you. They're looking for you and I'm happy

to introduce you to them. So as we always say

on Bev Talks, may the best always be yet to come.

So until we talk again, bye for now.