Thinking about hosting a live event, but not sure how to make it well-attended, profitable and worth your time? Renowned author, speaker and creative firm advisor David C. Baker lifts the curtain on his wildly successful MYOB conference and live events:

The role of in-person live events in David’s expertise business model (plus a peek at the numbers for his four revenue streams).

How his pandemic pivot from in-person gatherings became a new lead generation source—and removed travel from his client engagements.

Why his conferences and events include multiple opportunities for attendees to engage with each other; he shares a few ideas you can borrow.

His philosophy on outside speakers: how he chooses, pays and manages them.

The one thing you must do if you want to make sure your conference doesn’t lose money.

LINKS

David C. Baker MYOB Conference | LinkedIn | Twitter

Rochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram

BIO

David C. Baker is an author, speaker, and advisor to entrepreneurial creatives worldwide. He has written 6 books, advised 1,000+ firms, and keynoted conferences in 30+ countries.

His work has been discussed in the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Forbes, USA Today, BusinessWeek, CBS News, Newsweek, AdWeek, and Inc. Magazine. He lives in Nashville, TN.

His two most recent books can be found here and here. His work has also been featured in the NY Times, where he was recently referred to as “the expert’s expert”. He co-hosts the most listened to podcast in the creative services field (2Bobs).

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TRANSCRIPT

00:00 - 00:17

David C. Baker: You know, here's the easiest way to lose money with an event. When I learned this, my whole world changed about events. Do not sign up for room blocks because you're having to guarantee them. And then you have this pressure to sell and then you cheapen your brand by starting to beg people to come to these things and so on.

00:24 - 00:39

Rochelle Moulton: Hello hello. Welcome to the Soloist Life podcast where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton and today I am thrilled to welcome none other than the unforgettable David C. Baker. Yay!

00:40 - 00:46

David C. Baker: That's scary. There's lots of reasons to be unforgettable. I hope I'm on the good column of that, right?

00:46 - 01:29

Rochelle Moulton: Well, you are in my book. So, David is an author, speaker, and advisor to entrepreneurial creatives worldwide. He's written 6 books, advised 1, 000 plus firms and keynoted conferences in 30 plus countries. His work has been discussed in the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Forbes, USA Today, Business Week, CBS News, Newsweek, Adweek, and Ink Magazine. His 2 most recent books are The Business of Expertise, which is a classic. So if you haven't read it, go grab your copy now, and Secret Tradecraft of Elite Advisors. His work has also been featured in the New York Times, where

01:29 - 01:43

Rochelle Moulton: he was referred to as the expert. Finally, he co-hosts 2 Bobs, which is the most listened to podcast in the creative services field. And in addition to all those superlatives, he's a generous guy to boot. So David, welcome.

01:44 - 01:57

David C. Baker: Thank you. It's really great to connect with you again. We had you speak at 1 of our live events, which I guess is what we're talking about, and it's very popular, so it's really great to do this. I enjoyed seeing the invitation from you. It was great.

01:57 - 02:18

Rochelle Moulton: Awesome. I like it when people are happy to see my name in their inbox. So, you know, you just alluded to what I want to talk about because we literally have a treasure trove of things that we could talk about from your work that would help solo us. But I really like to focus in on your live in-person events because I don't know that you've ever really talked about how you use them in your business, or if you have, I haven't heard it.

02:18 - 02:46

David C. Baker: Yeah. So I've been doing this for 30 years now and I didn't have live events in the early days. I kind of learned about how to do them from somebody that was, he wasn't a real partner, but we did a lot of work together. And I don't know, I remember maybe 7 or 8 years into it, I decided to do them. And there's a bunch of reasons why I do them. 1 is it's an income stream. So I don't want to put all my eggs in 1 basket. So that's 1 reason I do it. Another is

02:46 - 03:20

David C. Baker: sort of Legion. So it's a way to sample the advice in a sense. And so I've never tracked it exactly, but a lot of people that eventually work with me in a consulting arrangement came to an event. And they tell me that they came to a particular event, I don't remember them, and they tell me that that's what encouraged them to work together. So that's the second reason. The third reason is because I just enjoy them. I really like them. I hate virtual events, and I think that's just me. I think it's like I just need

03:20 - 03:44

David C. Baker: to get over it probably, but I just like the in-person things. I like the drama of being in front of a group of people who can ask you any question at all. And then lately over the last decade I've realized, oh, this isn't really about what I or speakers I'm inviting or talking about. It's about them connecting with each other as well. So, anyway, those are the 3 big reasons why I'd like to do them.

03:45 - 03:52

Rochelle Moulton: You know, I just have to ask about that, because I've always felt like you're probably an introvert. Is that true?

03:52 - 03:56

David C. Baker: Oh yeah, I hate people just in general. Yeah.

03:57 - 04:15

Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. And the reason I want to point this out is because a lot of introverts are really exceptional on stage because they're so hyper-focused on the experience of the audience, and most introverts will not get on a stage without knowing absolutely everything they need to know to be up there.

04:15 - 04:28

David C. Baker: Ah, that's interesting, yeah. Yeah, I'd much prefer speaking in front of 5, 000 people for an hour with no preparation than talking with individuals after that presentation when I walk off the stage. Yeah.

04:28 - 04:31

Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, I call those situational extroverts.

04:31 - 04:35

David C. Baker: Yeah, right, right, where you're acting for a few minutes and then you're exhausted, right?

04:36 - 05:08

Rochelle Moulton: Exactly, exactly. So, you know, when I spoke at your NYOB conference in Atlanta, I felt like I really got a firsthand taste of what I feel is a deep community that you've built, and I started to say just from that 1 offering, but it may be from the other events you've had over the years. So maybe we could just dive in and talk about your business model. So you're not a soloist, but it's possible that many people listening might think of you that way because you've got this really high profile as an authority in the creative

05:08 - 05:16

Rochelle Moulton: space. But when you think about your business model, how do you make money in your business? I'm not asking how much, but how do you make it?

05:16 - 06:02

David C. Baker: Yeah. Oh, I don't mind answering all those questions. So, there's 2 of us full-time. The other 1 is actually my oldest son, Jonathan. And we bill about 1.7 on average a year. And we divide the income into big streams. So there's events, there's the book revenue, there's the M&A side, which he runs, and then there's my side, the advisory side. The book revenue is anywhere from 70 to 120 a year. Those are the royalties. The events are probably, I don't have the exact number, but probably around 400, something like that.

06:02 - 06:06

Rochelle Moulton: With presumably higher expenses than the other revenue streams.

06:06 - 06:35

David C. Baker: Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah, but a typical event where we have maybe 20 people, like we just did a pop-up event, which I just said, hey, listen, I think there's room for this. Let's just see if we can make it happen. It was last minute. We had 20 people. They each paid $3, 000, so that was $60, 000. Our expenses were, I think, $20, 000, so we would make $40, 000 on that. And then the rest of the money is split basically evenly between the M&A and the advisory side. So that's how the money comes in. So

06:35 - 07:07

David C. Baker: that's what I mean by revenue streams because like when things are slower on the business side, I just view that as okay I'm gonna work on the next book and and then when things are super super busy I just put it off. We're not super busy right now, but we tend to be very busy most of the time, but doing very different things. So maybe it swings to M&A or maybe it swings to, okay, business isn't good for these people, let's help them get new business in, or business is great for these people, let's help them

07:07 - 07:26

David C. Baker: manage growth. So that kind of helps even it out a little bit on the advisory side. But I really like, it's not just protection to have these income streams, it's also about lead generation. So the books are written, like they make money, yeah, but I want people to hire me. The events, they make money, but I want people to hire me

07:26 - 07:40

Rochelle Moulton: too. Yeah, I mean, I think that's what's so interesting to a lot of soloists that are early on in the journey because, you know, they don't necessarily think of books as a revenue stream, but as legion, they can be priceless if you're an authority or an expert's expert.

07:41 - 08:11

David C. Baker: Yeah, yeah, even if you don't make money, and the book doesn't sell, and it doesn't make you famous, a book is still worth writing because it forces you to spend a lot of time with the topic and you'll be able to speak so much more confidently about the topic and then if the book does happen to make money, that's great. The truth is most books don't make money. They really don't. I consider myself really fortunate that my books make money because I think it's unusual and you know what, let me add something. Maybe you were going

08:11 - 08:43

David C. Baker: to get to this later, but I'll pretend I'm the host here a second. But You know, none of this stuff works. None of these income streams work unless you have a central connection with your audience. And in my case, that's a newsletter subscription list. It's free. It comes out weekly. But that is the only way I get people to listen to the podcast or to buy a book or to come to an event. It's having tens of thousands of people, in my case it's it's 14, 000 so it's like it's 10, 000 plus half a 10,

08:43 - 08:57

David C. Baker: 000. People who get this weekly email, that is the lifeblood of my business. And I couldn't do any of these things unless I had that, right? You can't do an event unless you have people who already know of you and think of you well enough.

08:57 - 09:33

Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, I mean, it's hard enough to get, for some people to get somebody to buy a $20 book, but to shell out $1, 000, $2, 000, $3, 000. Yeah, you've got to have a lot more built-in trust. So what's interesting, so the events are a decent percentage revenue-wise of your total revenue, probably quite expensive on some level, especially the big 1. But, so what happened when we had the pandemic years, because it wasn't really just 1 year, because I'm thinking your speaking would have dropped off, of course, as it all did, and you couldn't do live

09:33 - 09:40

Rochelle Moulton: events. Did you pivot at all, or did you just find the other parts of your business picked up, or was that when you were working on the last book?

09:41 - 10:08

David C. Baker: Yeah. So I did some speaking still, but it was all virtual, and I hated every minute of it, but I still did some of that. I needed to do it for, well, I had a lot of time and it helped just to keep the brand out there, so to speak. And all the live events stopped as you anticipate. I had written a book and it was all ready to go. It was a secret trade craft book, but I didn't feel like it was the right time to release it. So it just sat there for a couple

10:08 - 10:46

David C. Baker: of years. What I did was, well, after panicking for 6 weeks, is just do tons of free webinars to help the industry. I had the time, I like, I need a platform, I need people in an audience, I need to force myself to think through things. And I wanted to help the marketplace. And so I did that. I think I did 11 webinars, and there were more than 1, 000 people at many of them. I didn't realize at the time that that was my alternative lead generation plan. It really surprised me completely, but so many people

10:46 - 11:19

David C. Baker: came back and worked with me afterwards, and the books were still selling really well, that it was fine. Like, I think I dropped 30% that year, but it was fine. So, I just pivoted. But what really changed had nothing to do with events. It was about the advisory side, because I was traveling to a different country every week doing an in-person consultation and that stopped. And I thought, well, maybe this is the end, you know? I didn't know. This is when we're still wiping off UPS packages, for God's sake. We really had no idea what was

11:19 - 11:34

David C. Baker: going on, right? And I decided to reinvent the whole process and make it virtual. And the marketplace responded really well. In fact, it's, so I don't travel at all anymore for consulting, I do for speaking, but not for consulting.

11:34 - 11:37

Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, it makes a huge difference being off a plane.

11:37 - 11:48

David C. Baker: Oh, I feel so much healthier too. It's like, you know, when you're on a plane or if you have little kids around, it's like you're licking a Petri dish all day. And now I feel so much healthier too without traveling.

11:49 - 11:54

Rochelle Moulton: Yes. When I got off that treadmill, my life changed pretty much overnight.

11:54 - 11:55

David C. Baker: Yeah.

11:55 - 12:07

Rochelle Moulton: So, David, like logistically, how do you handle doing multiple live events? Like I was looking at your schedule in 2024, and it looks like you did 1 live event a month from February through April,

12:07 - 12:07

David C. Baker: and

12:07 - 12:15

Rochelle Moulton: you mentioned the pop-up. And then, of course, you've got your big multi-day MYOB event in October. Like, how do you juggle all that?

12:15 - 12:45

David C. Baker: Yeah, and we just today went live with an M&A event, succession valuation event in December. So I had a partner in doing MYOB, that's our big event, that stands for Mind Your Own Business. We had hundreds and hundreds of people come every year. And My partner did all the logistics for that. And then they went away, they were purchased, and so the event just stopped. And I decided to do something else, and I did it with Blair. It was called the New Business Summit. We would have about 120 to 150 people at each event. And that

12:45 - 13:20

David C. Baker: was pretty easy to do, partly because of how I think about events. They're much easier to organize. Now, my son, we hold the events at the brewery that he's a partner of, so that makes it a little bit easier. And then we actually hire an event planner who does this in the background. We pay her thousands of dollars to do this. And it's very smooth, actually. And we kind of learn from each 1. So we have extensive surveying afterward, like what worked, what didn't work. Like a couple years ago, it was pretty clear that our food

13:20 - 13:49

David C. Baker: service wasn't as good, so we fixed that. Coffee service wasn't fast enough, we fixed that. And then we pay lots of attention to what the attendees want. In fact, at some point, I want to talk about the whole speaker selection thing. But that's how we do it. Now, if Jonathan wasn't there to manage these things, because all I do is I do the programming. So I invite all the speakers, and I sort of filter all that. He does all the rest. If he weren't on scene, then I would go back to doing some smaller events. And

13:49 - 13:56

David C. Baker: for those, I would just do 30, 40 people at a time. And I can explain more detail how that works, but it wasn't complicated at all.

13:57 - 14:14

Rochelle Moulton: Well, it's interesting because, you know, it was there last year and Jonathan was like the guy with 47 hands. He literally was constantly in motion. And that also explains, so a lot of the helpers, the kind of worker bees who were fabulous, so those were all your event planner people.

14:14 - 14:46

David C. Baker: We had 1 event planner. It was a lady that was sitting at the table, the younger woman, and then we had 4 other people who were motorcycle riding friends, neighborhood friends, none of them are professional in this space. They're just good people with great attitudes. They're just people we hired, Eddie and Christine and so....