Welcome to The High Profit Event Show with your host, Rudy Rodriguez! In this week’s episode, Rudy sits down with Davis Jaspers, the founder of VitaLife, who shares his strategies behind his success in event execution and client engagement. Davis has an inspiring background, not just as a successful entrepreneur but also as someone who’s undergone his own personal transformation. As the CEO of VitaLife Weight Loss Company, Davis has helped over 20,000 people lose 20 pounds or more in just 40 days through his innovative weight loss programs. Davis recently hosted the VitaLife Experience, an event in the weight loss and personal development space. His journey and expertise offer valuable insights into how to create impactful, high-engagement events that resonate deeply with attendees.

In this episode, we dive into the strategies Davis used to plan and fill his event on a short timeline without spending on paid ads. Davis shares how he leveraged his client list and personal connections to drive attendance, engaging clients through emails, SMS campaigns, and personal conversations. He discusses how a strong understanding of his audience’s needs, paired with direct outreach, allowed him to attract over 50 attendees in under 30 days. His approach highlights the effectiveness of using low-cost, high-impact methods, which is especially useful for event leaders working with a lean budget.

Davis also shares the importance of creating an experience that goes beyond a typical conference or workshop. At the VitaLife Experience, attendees participated in unique activities like “passport” challenges and meaningful icebreakers that fostered connection and engagement. By designing an event as an experience, Davis ensured that attendees were not just spectators but active participants, setting the stage for real transformation. This experiential approach is an insightful takeaway for event leaders aiming to design events that captivate and inspire attendees.

Lastly, Davis shares on the role of personal connection in driving enrollment, especially for high-ticket offers. He explains how authentic, enrollment-focused conversations assisted him to  convey the event’s impact, leading to a higher level of commitment from attendees. By focusing on meaningful conversations rather than high-pressure tactics, Davis was able to enroll clients who were genuinely invested in their own transformation, both during the event and in future high-ticket programs. His approach to enrollment and audience connection offers a fresh perspective on building trust and creating long-term relationships with clients.

Whether you’re planning your first event or looking to elevate your current event strategy, this episode is filled with actionable insights. Join Rudy and Davis to discover how to turn your next event into a memorable, high-impact experience that drives real results. Don’t miss out on these powerful strategies—listen to the full episode to learn more!

Want to connect with Davis?

Website: https://www.vitalifeweightloss.com/

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

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

Twitter (X): https://twitter.com/VitaLife10

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChi1rjnk08ywSv7jytxtB8A

Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Welcome to today's episode. We have a special guest with us, Mr. Davis Jaspers. Welcome, sir. Great to have you here with us, man. I want to give a little bio for our audience who are meeting you for the first time here. Mr. Davis Jaspers is an event leader. He's left several events, specifically, most recently, an event called the VitaLife Experience, which was a personal development and mindset transformation event for the weight loss industry because Davis is also the CEO of VitaLife Weight Loss Company based out of Chicago, Illinois. Over the last 10 years, they and their affiliates have supported over 20,000 people and losing 20 pounds or more in 40 days. 20 pounds or more in 40 days. By the way, that transformation came from Davis's own personal transformation from losing 55 pounds, going from 195 pounds at five feet, five inches, which is a lot of weight, losing 50 pounds down to 130 at his lightest. Davis, I know you're also a big, big, big fan of personal growth and transformation. Really excited to have you on with us, sir.

Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here, excited to be a part of this and share some lessons learned.

I think there are quite a few lessons learned from our most recent experience collaborating together on the VitaLife experience.

Yeah.

Our audience, they're event leaders or they're in the industry and oftentimes they're wondering, how do I fill my event? Let's jump into it because I think it's something that's definitely a passion of yours, something that you put a lot of heart and effort into and I know that you did it in a very short timeline. I believe it was under 30 days and you didn't run any paid ads. You filled an event without ads under 30 days. You had over 50 people registered for a live in-person, one day, all day event. So how'd you do it, my friend?

Well, I think doing it in that timeline definitely put like five more years, I aged five years instantly. It was definitely not the best way to do it, but very interesting. We have a pretty good list of clients, past clients and things like that. It was just, it was also interesting because I had done some events in the past, but they were not really designed for, like they weren't selling anything. They were just events really designed to help support some of the licensees that use VitaLife as well as just other business owners. So it was almost like a three-day conference that had different focuses for like training and things like that for more internal and then like local businesses. But we weren't really selling anything at those events. So this was the first time that we actually were putting something together with the purpose of having a high ticket. Honestly, it was a lot of phone calls. There's a lot of like, we send out, of course, a series of emails, but we did not have our Eventbrite event active until 20 days until the event. So it wasn't until that that we actually started trying to get people to the event. Our strategy was we didn't want to spend money doing it. So we sent out emails and I think we sent out, I don't know, I think we sent out like a series of like 15 different emails.

Then we also did a text campaign where we, and that cost a little bit of money, but very small, where we texted our clients that we had phone numbers to. The strategy with the texting was interesting. One of the big mistakes that I had throughout this process is my staff didn't really understand what the event was about and the importance of the event. So we are an in-person company. We do support people remotely, but that's kind of like a different part of our company. So we are like an in-person weight loss center. So we have four weight loss centers in Illinois. I didn't do a great job of enrolling my employees in the impact that this event was going to have on our clients. And so, as we're going along and we're basically not getting very many people registered, I'm freaking out. So I start, you know, boots on the ground type things. I go to the locations and I just talk to everybody as they're coming in and just telling them about the event and enrolling them, which I think is a really powerful concept. Not like selling them or convincing them to be there. It's enrolling them in why this is such an important event. If I wouldn't have done that, we probably would have ended up with 10 people. So it was really, after about the first five emails or so, and we basically didn't have any enrollments yet, and a little bit about the event, it was money back at the event, so it was $100 to register.

Then you could bring a guest and then you get your money back at the event. So we're not talking about barriers where there's like these financial barriers and things like that. It's more of a time commitment because it's a day and also, that we only started advertising 20 days out, so people having other commitments and things. But it took a lot of long conversations and then a lot of pivoting. When we started advertising, nothing was really happening. A week in, I'm like looking at who's registered and we've got like maybe 10 people registered, maybe 15 at the most. I'm looking at the list and I'm like, oh my gosh, I've talked to every single one of these people that have enrolled. I mean, I have a staff of about 15, 20 people that work at these four locations. I'm like, we have like signs out about the event. The employees are supposed to be talking and they are like, we even had a sheet in each of the locations. Did you talk about the event to the people who came in today? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But again, that was a mistake that I had at the beginning, just not really getting the staff to understand how impactful or how powerful the event would be. So that was definitely on me. Then it ended up being a lot more of my effort to end up, getting people enrolled. Then like in the texting and then the emails, rather than saying, hey, register for this event. I even did videos that explain the event. We posted on our like internal Facebook groups and things like that. But one of the things that helped was then we pivoted and said, hey, schedule.

We did this with the email and the phone calls, like schedule a call with me. Schedule a call with Davis, a 15 minute call that is going to tell you about the event. That actually ended up working out really well. So then people started booking on my calendar for these calls. I think that was the most effective thing. If I were to redo it all, I would, number one, really have clarity of how important and impactful that event is going to be for our clients. Because, I mean, my staff does really care about the success of our clients. I think after seeing the event, I think that the staff is going to be a lot more excited about the next one we do. I think that that enrollment process will be a lot easier on the next one. So I would say that definitely starting early. But I think that kind of goes without saying, definitely starting earlier. Then the third thing is that those phone calls that I made were very impactful. Because I was trying to figure out, like, man, I'm only one person. I don't have that much time. How can I prioritize my phone calls? Because we went through some strategies. We pivoted so much. It was like, okay, well, who are our best clients? Let me call our best clients. Who are our active clients? And then, well, let me call the active clients. Well, who are our best and active clients? Then I had the staff pulling, like, hey, here's people that you should call that are more likely to come. So I ended up with, honestly, I ended up with all of these lists from all over. It was kind of crippling for me.

I was like, I don't know who to call. So why don't we advertise to everybody who wants a call. So that's what we did. that actually, I think I ended up with, and it took us like a week and a half to figure out that. So now we're only like 10 days out booking calls. I probably booked 15 to 20 calls and really just enrolled people, coached people, loved people into coming. I don't remember our exact numbers with everything, but I think we were with people in the building. I think we were pretty close to 100 people that came in for the event, whether that's staff and helpers and the plus ones and everything. I think we had between 50 and 60 actual VitaLife clients at the event. So anyway, that would be my top things and how to do it basically for free. Just the texting platform was the only thing that cost us money.

There we go. So to recap, what I heard you say is you filled your event, 50, 60 attendees, plus ones and staff, so close to 100. You did it primarily through emails and SMSs. You did it in basically 20 days with a sense of urgency. A couple of the takeaways are next time around, emphasize to all your staff members the importance of the event so that it's being communicated more effectively, obviously have more time in advance, and this power of mass marketing. The thing you didn't mention specifically, but I thought it was brilliant in your strategy was the fact that you sent out an email or series of emails. Then you connected logics to if somebody opens the email, something clicks in the email, then added into a sequence to receive a text message. So you were using the emails as a way to indicate who's active, who's interested, and then moving them into your texting platform and then using the texting platform to move them into a conversation. So I thought that was brilliant because you were sorting through thousands of email addresses, thousands of existing customers and past leads, etc. So I think when you crack the code that way, things really started to pop for you.

Exactly. No, that's a good point. We did use the people who opened, the people who clicked, which is another list I got to call when we were still trying to figure it out. It's like, hey, these people clicked. They're super interested. Again, if I were to do it again, I would do that same sequence. I would have them schedule calls because I think that that's really important. Then when I look at everybody who signed up for the high ticket offer that we had, I had a very long personal conversation enrolling them in coming to the events, all of them but one. I think that it's almost like you're, as the leader, it's like you're priming them for that. So I think that was really important. I would use the same strategy. I would get more employees helping with the phone calls and really getting them to understand and have enrollment conversations with the clients on the phone as well. I would start that a couple of months out. So that way, basically, my goal for the next time would be that every single person that could possibly want to be at the event at least heard about it. I definitely can't say that that happened on this one, but that would be the goal for the next time.

Interestingly, this is an interesting thing I discovered. I think it may be carrier dependent or it may be like Android phones, maybe. I'm not sure. But there was a list of people and about 500 people that we could not text from our platform. It wasn't because they had DNC'd us. In fact, I even put it into a completely separate platform to test it and same thing, they were all rejected. So, basically, that carrier, or maybe it's an Android, I'm not sure, has identified us as spam and then it automatically rejects the text. Those were 500 hotter leads. If I would have, again, planned ahead better, I would have taken those 500 leads and there's a texting platform that's called TextFree. But it's like a manual texting platform. You can be on a computer or you can be on your phone and use it. You can get a different phone number. But it's just like having a cell phone. There's no charge for it either. You can get a local number. So, I would have had, like, my VA and staff manually sit there, copy-paste messages, and send them because it's a 500 list. So, in a couple days, they'd be able to send everybody. Even though they have to do it individually, they'd be able to send everybody an individual message. So, that's something else I would do next time is make sure that everybody hears about the event. That was something that I noticed that I would do differently next time. I would have a little bit more manual process in there.

More personal touch on the SMS. What's the name of that platform you mentioned? Textfree?

Yes, TextFree. You can download the app. They're going to put ads. You'll have ads or you can pay $5 a month for it. But you can make phone calls from it. You can text from it. It's free. So, it's great. That would be what I would do next time. Just copy and paste. Sit there and put all those numbers in. It's not... Go ahead. What did you say?

I said we should get you an affiliate link for TextFree. We'll include it here.

There we go.

And use the free affiliate link.

It's nice. It's a nice platform. Just easy to use. And it's free. So, why not?

There's a lot of value in that high-touch kind of interaction with people. Such people who are your existing customers. There's three ways to grow a business. One fundamentally is, which oftentimes people focus on, is getting new customers. Number two is increasing the average transaction value or lifetime value with a certain customer. Then third is having repeat business. Having them come back for more service. I know the focus of this event was specifically to service your existing customers, to increase your business by working on number two, which was increasing the average transaction value and number three as well, creating referrals and repeat business. So, I also want to give some credit where credit's due. You did a great job promoting the event. Also, the actual facilitation of the events, you and your staff, from the moment they walked through the door, you had engineered a really cool process for people to walk in, experience what it felt like to wear their weight and lose weight via a weight vest. They walked up to the room meeting with the different teachers and vendors that are going to be part of the experience. They had a little, like a passport sticker that they had to earn. Then they got to their seats and they had a bingo game. They got to play to meet other people in the room. So, very quickly breaking the ice. Then, obviously, we had an emcee there that helped facilitate more of the icebreakers and then moving them into the process. So, I thought how you welcome people and you brought them in and created that engagement was excellent. So, well done. Ultimately, you had several people pay a deposit to apply for your high-ticket program. Several people joined your high-ticket program. So, you did it. You launched your program. We did it.

I think, really focused on wanting it to be an experience. You're not coming for a conference. You're not doing even a workshop. It's like we're going to walk through an experience. The promise that I gave my clients when I was calling them, it's like, hey, you're going to come in. When you leave, you're going to be transformed. Like you're going to – a lot of weight loss. I would say there's probably like half of our clients, like they get the mindset change just by doing the new thing. By doing VitaLife, by going through the experience of the program that I've created, they get the lifestyle. Then there's, I would say, like 25% that are – they can't quite get the lifestyle pieces and habits on their own, but through the coaching that we have internally, which is – it's not like huge mindset stuff, but they're just little pieces that our coaches help them with. Then I think another 25% get that. Then there's the 25% that are just stuck. It's like they've yo-yo dieted all their life, and they've yo-yo dieted again on VitaLife. Even though we have all of the things in place to help them keep the weight off and the lifestyle changes and all of those pieces, they still struggle. Or they'll lose 40 pounds, and then they need to lose another 40 or 50, and they can't mentally get back at it.

They can't discipline themselves to do it again as far as, like, losing weight and things like that. Or they've just never really succeeded. They've just always struggled, which it's all about the mindset. So the promise that I gave them is you're going to have a mindset shift during the day from being stuck with wherever you're at on your health and weight loss journey to being able to claim a new identity or know the process of claiming a new identity. So that way, when you leave the event, and again, whether they sign up for the high ticket or not, when you leave the event, you're going to have the transformation to then get going again and get after it again. So that was the promise of the event. Then with that idea, then we worked as a team to create, well, what is the experience that is ultimately going to give them that outcome, and then what is then the next level for people who then they need more? They need the higher ticket thing that we were offering. So it was really, I think, important to think of it as an experience. I think that that made it easier to enroll clients. Like, hey, this isn't a lecture hall, you know? We're going to walk through an experience. You're just going to have fun. You're going to meet some great people. You're going to do some activities. You don't have a clue what it's going to be, but it's going to be transformative.

So if you want to come and be transformed and stop yo-yo dieting and stop with the mental struggle and understand yourself on a different level, then come do the VitaLife Experience. I think that's a helpful thing for any person that's putting an event on is really trying to, here's our outcome. And, man, the outcome was, for me, especially with some of the things that were going on with my life personally, I had to be so disconnected from the financial outcome of the event. If I would have been connected to the financial outcome of the event, that energy would have definitely changed how I would enroll people. So I just really doubled down on the only thing I cared about was that outcome I promised the clients, which was that transformation. I felt that if I focused on that and that was accomplished, then for me that would be the win. The rest was just icing on the cake, so to speak, for enrolling the people that we did enroll into the high ticket.

Absolutely, man. What I'm hearing from that is that your focus wasn't necessarily on the commission, but rather on the mission of transforming people's lives, their weight and their mindset. The money followed your focus on fulfilling on that promise. Well, one thing I want to also mention here to emphasize is the power of starting with the end in mind and the focus of the outcome of the event, helping them make that identity shift. For your particular audience, the identity shift of what does it take to not only lose the weight but keep the weight off for life, and providing them all of the education and support and experiences around that so they can consciously make that choice. They can't say that, hey, they didn't know what it takes to be part of that 2% club of people that lose weight and keep it off. So I thought it was brilliant that it was all engineered for that intention, making that identity shift so that they had a positive experience and it also occurred as a natural next step for them to continue their journey with you in an ongoing capacity with your Higher Ticket Program. I think it's the number one most important thing we can do for people at events is help identify what is that identity shift they need to have and facilitate that process and the money will follow the breakthrough that we provide. Go ahead.

I was just going to say something that was helpful working with you on this. In my mind, I couldn't really understand or put together what that would look like. Part of it was because I felt like, wow, we do so much already. How can we do more and really sell, so to speak, the idea or build the value in more than what we're already doing? I really struggled mentally. Like, well, what is that? What is the more piece? And you and your team really helped bring that together. What is the more thing? It clearly worked. The value was there. Even the people, everybody who did an interview and put a deposit down, pretty much I think everybody found value in it, even if they couldn't afford it. I think everybody was like, there's value there. I just can't do it, but there's value, which I think is really good. The people who couldn't pull the trigger on the high ticket, I do believe most of them, if not all of them, really still left excited, encouraged, transformed. It wasn't like, oh, now I'm not going to be able to transform. I don't think anybody left like that and just also the way your team works with people, it's not like this high-pressure thing where they're like, well, if you don't do this, you're not going to have the transformation. It's not like a thing like that, which I think is also really helpful, not only in this space, but in sales in general.

I appreciate that feedback. So for our audience who wants to connect with you directly, I understand that the best way to reach you is through your Instagram handle, that is at ByteLife Weight Loss. Is that correct?

Yep, at ByteLife Weight Loss.

Perfect. Go ahead, and we'll include that here in the show notes as well, so people can just go down and click on that and come over to your page and follow the ByteLife company, and then you'll be notified about future experiences or connect directly with you. Davis, any final comments or words of advice you have for our audience as we wrap up?

I would just say, I mean, for anybody who's not done an event and is nervous about it, I would just say, just get into action and do it. That's one thing I would say. Put a date on the calendar and start that process. I don't see a bad outcome from the event if you do the work. If you do the work to get the people there and you're willing to sit there and make the phone calls and do those pieces, the energy, the value, the excitement, the potential, what they can learn, especially if it's a multiple-day. Ours was just a day event, but if it's a multiple-day event, the things that can be taught to people in that amount of time can be really life-transformative. If you're thinking about an event or maybe you've done events but you're in a different space, I think it's just a really great way to market. I think it's a great way to add value. I would just say, just do it. Just go out and do it, do it right, and you'll get the outcome.

Awesome, Davis. It was great to be with you here today. Appreciate you being a guest for us. And for those of you listening, be sure to like and comment on this episode, share it with friends or family, especially someone you feel would benefit from listening to this interview. Thank you again, Davis, for being with us today. It was a pleasure. Appreciate it, Rudy. Appreciate it very much.