In this episode of The High Profit Event Show, host Rudy Rodriguez welcomes Kevin Thompson, an entrepreneur with over 29 years of experience in building impactful relationships and hosting high-ticket events. Kevin is the founder of Impact and Legacy Collective and the host of the Million-Dollar Relationships Podcast. Over the years, he has produced more than $16 million in products and services, facilitated strategic partnerships, and led transformative mastermind events, including high-end gatherings in stunning venues such as castles. Kevin’s journey and expertise offer invaluable lessons for event leaders looking to elevate their impact.

Kevin shares the story of how he began hosting events, starting with a simple idea sparked by a friend’s suggestion. That idea turned into his first high-ticket mastermind event, held in his living room, where 15 entrepreneurs each invested $5,000 to attend. Kevin emphasizes the importance of focusing on meaningful connections and creating environments where participants can engage without worry. His approach has transformed not only his events but also the lives of attendees, who have formed lasting collaborations through his facilitation.

This episode delves into three key topics that are essential for event leaders:

First, Kevin highlights the power of building and leveraging relationships. He explains how trust and alignment of values are the foundation for attracting the right attendees and collaborators. His intentionality in fostering genuine connections has allowed him to fill events with high-value participants and create opportunities for meaningful partnerships.

Second, Kevin shares insights into intentionality in designing event experiences. From catered meals to private, immersive settings, every detail is planned to ensure attendees feel valued and can focus entirely on connecting and learning. He believes that removing all distractions allows participants to be fully present, which enhances the overall impact of the event.

Lastly, the discussion covers the importance of continuous growth through facilitation and follow-up. Kevin describes how follow-up efforts turn event attendees into long-term collaborators and clients. He shares how a simple, heartfelt offer at the end of his first mastermind led to six participants enrolling in a $25,000 program, a testament to the trust and value he had built during the event.

This episode is packed with actionable insights and inspiring stories that will resonate with event leaders seeking to create high-profit, high-impact events. Tune in to discover Kevin’s journey, learn from his mistakes, and gain the tools to elevate your events to new heights.

Want to connect with Kevin Thompson?

Website: https://maximum-response.com/

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

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-thompson-11725511/

Million Dollar Relationships Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/million-dollar-relationships/id1615998645

Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Welcome to today's episode of the podcast. We have a special guest with us here today. Mr. Kevin Thompson, welcome, sir, Rudy.

I'm stoked to be here, man.

We're gonna have a good time today, most certainly my friend, and for our audience who are tuning in, maybe they've been living under a rock for the last 29 years and haven't met you or heard of you. Kevin is such a well-connected guy. He's been in the industry as an entrepreneur for over 29 years. He's produced over 16.1 million dollars of his own products in services who teach through strategic partnerships in the digital marketing industry and otherwise. He's also the host of the million-dollar relationship podcast who I've been a guest on his show and you should definitely check it out. He has some a-list people that have been on his podcast and he facilitates strategic partnerships and it's impacted millions of lives and also recently got into leading very high-end mastermind experiences like in castles and bringing together remarkable people. So I'm excited sir today to get the interview and hear all about your experience running your high-end mastermind at the castle.

Yes, this will be fun.

Yeah, I know one more quick thing. I'll mention to our audience here, when you and I first met we were at a dinner party with a mutual friend, Tim Francis, and what I appreciate about you is that you're so low-key, so unassuming. You had like this Hawaiian shirt on with little airplanes and I appreciated that. I flew airplanes for a living. So that was just one way to connect with you and a little what I've known because you were so unassuming, how successful you are, and how much of an impact you've had. So it's just it's wonderful to have you here.

Well my pleasure and like what a great way to meet through somebody like Tim and fam who they just host these intimate get-togethers at their place down in Austin. I don't know how many dinners like that they've done, but they've done a lot and and whenever you meet through somebody that you already have a relationship with, and in this case Tim, that you already have just respect for and that anybody you meet under their umbrella, they're probably gonna be pretty awesome people and stuff. So you go into an event like that just expecting good things and stuff and that was a very awesome evening. I totally remember January of last year. So actually it's been, excuse me, January two years ago time flies, but it's been about two years since that event I mean. It's amazing to think that it's already been two years since we met it at Tim's event and stuff.

100% man and kind of on theme with this show, High-Profit Event Show, leading profitable, highly profitable and impactful events. You and I met at an event. It's the value of events and connection and building relationships, which is why I think events can be so life-changing for people so I do my very best on this show to capture the best practices, get the value, squeeze the juice as early as possible for our audience and with your permission, if it's okay, can we jump into talking about this event that you've done, many other events that you've done as well. You're welcome to tie them all together, but love to pick your brain and capture the lessons that you've learned from running this high-end mastermind earlier.

I'd be honored to do that. Yes, I did my very first event, it was actually August of 2017 the very first one I ever did, well actually right here in my home. Right on the other side of this wall in my living room and 15 entrepreneurs flew in for that event and the investment was $5,000 to come. I'm not gonna lie Rudy. On one hand, I was really excited going wow, this is absolutely amazing. Look who's sitting in my living room right now and at the same exact time I'm like, God, please let this be valuable for them and as it turned out two and a half days later. It was incredibly valuable for all of them. I don't do tons of events, but since 2017 I've probably done about 15-16 of them now, similar to that one. So very. very rewarding and impactful for sure.

Wow, okay, so you've done about 15-16 of these high-end masterminds starting with the one in your living room in 2017 with 15 entrepreneurs. I'm very curious to hear what you learned from doing these over and over again. One of the main problems people face when it comes to promoting events is one thinking about what they want to do an event about. But once they figure that out, how do I get people to my event? That's the number one problem in question that I get from clients and other people in the industry. Love to hear your experience when it comes to that, over the 17 or so events that you filled at $5,000 or more per person.

So the first event and what inspired me? To even start doing that first event, a friend of mine. Tim and I were talking and he was like, why have you never held an in-person get-together for all these amazing entrepreneurs that you know? And I'm like, I don't know. I've just never thought of it. And he's like, I want to invite you to give that some thought because if you did host something like that I would totally want to come to it. I'm like, you would? Keep in mind, I live in Washington State. I'm in Orange, Washington about 40 miles north of Seattle, he lived in Tampa, Florida at the time and so all the way across the country. So as he's sharing this with me, I'm like, so let me make sure I'm understanding you. Tim, I say, so if I decide to host an event and just did it right here at my home, are you telling me that you would make a financial investment and you would hop on a plane and you would come all the way across the country to my place to be able to participate in that? He says, Kevin, I would do that in a heartbeat. I'm like, why would you do that Tim? And he's like, because Kevin I know you, and I know the other people that you would invite would be people that I would want to meet because they would align with me on values. I was like wow and so that launched the whole thing. I couldn't sleep that night because I started telling my wife at dinner that evening about this conversation and I'm like man this and even my wife started getting jazzed because she loves being the host.

She loves hosting get-togethers at our place. So she was like this is like hosting a big party and get-together for some really cool people and so she started throwing out ideas and this and that and the next morning I got up and I just came here into my home office. I was up by 5 a.m. that morning and I just started going through all my Facebook friends, all my email contacts, and my cell phone contacts, and I just started making a list of who I would want to invite, who would I want to have this experience with. I knew what my vision was for it. My vision was I wanted to invite these entrepreneurs who did not know each other and I wanted them to come to my place and be under my umbrella and my goal was is I wanted to facilitate real meaningful connection and relationships with each other for all of them and because I knew if I could facilitate that real meaningful connection, from there it's really easy to do business together when you just like somebody. You just start co-creating and collaborating and so that's kind of how I started doing it. We did that very first event in August of 2017. I just made that list and I started reaching out to people and some people could make it and some people couldn't. I ended up doing two events. We had one in August of 17, one in September of 17 one month later. We had 15 people at both events. For me it was really easy to fill those first couple of events because I knew a fair amount of people that I just felt that I could really serve effectively and powerfully through those events.

So I had people to invite. If I didn't have people to invite, because that's now the more I go the more I just developed processes that allow me to meet with new people and new entrepreneurs, the right kind of entrepreneurs on a regular basis. So I've always got people coming into my life and if you don't, if you're doing an event and you're looking, if you've got an audience that you want to serve, I've been very helpful for people who do that kind of stuff too by helping make connections for them and stuff. So there's a lot of different ways that you can fill events. So I mean, I don't know. I don't want to just keep going on. I want to make sure I kind of stay on track here with you Rudy and it makes sure I'm being of most value to your folks too.

That's great. It's a great start to the interview here and you say that you started it by doing market research. You were just talking to a friend and the friend was like hey I'd liked if you did this. Then that would come and you got curious as to why he would come, what value we get, and you let that lead you to actually hosting the event. Then you created your list of people you'd like to have there and you worked it. But I think underlying all that was, I'm hearing is this intentionality around the relationships that you've built with people and because you've built those relationships you were able to reach out and fill those and I think that applies not not only to a high-end mastermind like you've been doing for 15 plus people. But if somebody is running perhaps a general conference or seminar, being able to have a few connectors, influencers, and having them help you fill the event, that using that similar process, using those relationships and leveraging that to help fill your events. I actually had a guy reach out to me today, actually gentlemen that you and I both know, and he runs a very high-end event and he reached out to me asking me to be that strategic partner to help him identify three more people to come to his event. I love what you're sharing there. I think it's very relevant, oftentimes overlooked, just the power of working our relationships and then taking the time to invest in those relationships early on. What else? Any other specifics that you've learned or maybe the important mistakes that you've made when it comes to filling your events over the past seven years, eight years that you've been doing them.

So I know that so far, the mistakes that I've made, I mean man, I've made so many mistakes along the way. From that very first event that I held at my home I really went all out on it, meaning the experience that I wanted the participants to have was once they walked in the door that they didn't have to worry about a thing again until they left to go home. So I wanted, from the morning, there was a big spread for breakfast that my wife and my daughter had laid out for us. We had lunch, great lunches catered in and stuff in the evening. I had rented limos to be able to take us out for dinner at really nice restaurants where I chose restaurants where we had our own private area in the restaurant, usually either an enclosed room. I know we got one on the waterfront. Out here there's just a beautiful place that we go to and and and so just to really try to go all out on the experience so that once people are here, they just get to be engaged, be present for the experience and not have to worry about a thing. I can tell you that from my very first event that I did, that first event like I said, that first morning and looking at who was there, having not done it before, I was definitely nervous and like I said, I was like gosh, please let this be valuable for them and so to start the event that was on my mind.

I just kind of noticed that, and I'm like, okay, Kevin what do you really want here? You want to facilitate real meaningful connection and relationships so just let them know that that's what you want to do. I had already done that as I was having conversations with people when I was inviting them to the event and I reiterated it when I started the event when I just kind of had a conversation. Standing in my living room, everybody sitting around and just letting them know, hey, you know what? I just want to let each of you know a little bit about who's here in this space because every one of you, you are all absolutely world-class at what you do and you have a long track record of delivering results for the clients that you serve and on the other side of the coin, you are also some of the most giving, generous people that I know and and your default position is to show up, ready to help to serve, to contribute, to pour into other people. I mean, that's just hardwired into who you are and I want to also make sure, so you're gonna give, that's a given. That's just gonna happen. But I want to set the intention with you right now that you're also going to receive. We're gonna expand your receiving muscle here over the next couple days as well and I want every one of you to just be able to receive in a really powerful way as well and let the rest of us pour into you because all of us, we would if we could help you make a bigger impact in this world through your business there. Every one of us would absolutely love to be able to do that.

You just need to let us know what that looks like for you and what you want to be able to walk away from this experience with and stuff and the biggest mistake that I made, I can tell you is, putting those entrepreneurs on a pedestal because they all ran businesses far bigger than my own, far bigger and so even in the back of my head I was still thinking, even though all I got, those attendees and those participants are there, they flew across the country to come to my house. I'm still doubting myself and my abilities and my deserving if you will to even be serving those entrepreneurs and I can tell you, we're now almost eight years. We're a little over seven years since that first event. I've got over that and now I just I have come to discover that entrepreneurs no matter how successful they are, no matter how great things look from the outside looking in, that we're all just doing the best we can with what we have and they doubt themselves too and it doesn't matter whether they're a millionaire a billionaire or what-have-you, they doubt themselves too at times. They also are just looking to make real meaningful connections with people that they can genuinely trust, that we trust.

That's the big thing right there, trust and relationships. Amen, thank you Kevin for sharing that. Awesome. It's interesting to see how you as an event host, an event leader, getting people to come to your event that you felt or factually they had big businesses that produce more revenue, they were bigger than yours, but regardless of that fear, you still brought people together and you were able to facilitate the value for them. I think that that's a very common fear. I think that any facilitator or leader, event host has, whether it's the fear of the judgment of the people in the audience or maybe the other speakers that they bring in. There's this kind of overall sense of like, oh, I really hope that people get value from this and I just love how you're just showing that hey, you don't have to be the biggest fish in the room, you don't have to make the most money to be able to bring people together and to facilitate value.

That's right.

Wow and then when it comes to continuing the relationship and having people not only attend your event, but perhaps join you for a mastermind program or continue on to another event with you. What have you learned in that process? What's worked for you when it's come to continuing that relationship? You and I both know that people come to an event close to the fire, they get inspired, they get ideas, they build some new friendships, relationships. But if it's not continued with some form of container or reinforcement, it tends to kind of dissipate.

That's right.

Tell me about your experience with that.

So I know you know, I have been a big investor myself over the years. So I know that I am like, when I get help from somebody, whether it's through investing in a book or a course or what have you when what they're sharing really resonates with me, I'm usually like, so Joe Polish is a great example. In fact, he was my very first business connection years ago when I used to own a cleaning and restoration company and I found out about Joe through a trade publication. I invested in his marketing system for the cleaning and restoration industry and I got so much value from it. I started using his stuff in my business and started working and I'm like, man I want to get more from this guy Joe. He did a live event down in Phoenix and I flew down to go to that live event and from there he offered a coaching program and I ended up joining this coaching program and then a few years later he offered a high-end coaching program for, I think it was like 14 or 15 thousand a year. I ended up joining that. So, there is always a certain percentage of what people, when they experience something from you and they get value from it, that they're gonna want more. So in my event, my very first event that I did, it did end up being that it was such an emotional experience for me over that two and a half days watching these entrepreneurs just make these real meaningful connections and have conversations on break and at lunch and breakfast and dinner and just hear them co-creating and collaborating together on how they could do business together and support each other and refer business to each other.

That just inspired me and quite candidly Rudy, the offer at the end of that event, it was so doggone simple. All I said was like hey, you know what? It has been really amazing to watch the connections and the relationships that have come for each of you over this last couple days here and it has been such privilege and honor for me to be a part of that and bringing all of you together and I'll tell you, for those of you if you feel it would be valuable to have somebody like me being really intentional and facilitating more of this for you in your life, I would absolutely love to do that. What I'd like to do is I'd like to ride with you for the next year and I'll just start being really intentional. We'll communicate on a regular basis and I'll start facilitating relationships and strategic partnerships for you and what I would like for that, is I would like $25,000 for my role in that. Travis Sago was at that event. He was the first one that immediately was like, well, I'm in Kev and five more people from that event followed his lead. So six people said yes to that offer. One month later, there were 15 people at that event, six more people said yes to that offer. Now I will not say that everything was rainbows and unicorns from then forward as my daughter would say, I had some personal growth to go through. I had to figure out processes because at that time I hadn't done that before. I had to figure out processes and systems and figure out how to really best use my abilities most effectively to serve these entrepreneurs.

So there was definitely a growth process there and that growth process Rudy, it continues to this day. I mean, we've come a long way, but I am continually focused on how can I become more and more? Effective at doing what I do in serving the entrepreneurs, I get to serve.

Remarkable. Wow. Thank you for sharing that, the story of your first enrollment into your 25k mastermind and you went about it. I imagine it maybe wasn't as simple as you described it at the moment.

You don't know. Hindsight's 20/20. Yes, and back then it was not a mastermind. I was having one-on-one conversations with all these entrepreneurs each week and stuff. It was not a mastermind I figured that piece out later and even yes, I do group stuff today. There are mastermind components, but make no mistake about it. We are very intentional. This is about facilitating profitable relationships and strategic partnerships. That's the intention right there. Not just masterminding, like I said mastermind components, but I am really intentional. In fact, all of us in the community are really intentional about what this is all about.

So profitable intentional relationships, wonderful. Yes. A couple more things to just tie in here. We were chatting in the green room and you mentioned that you had a form of appreciation challenge that you feel would be beneficial to share with our audience would you be open to sharing with.

I would be honored to share that. So like I mentioned before, these entrepreneurs, I am so incredibly blessed to just look at the entrepreneurs that are being attracted into my life and into my world. It all has stemmed from something. I learned from my good friend Jesse Elder, 12 years ago about this thing of just genuine appreciation and how no matter how successful somebody is or what have you, nobody on the face of this earth gets too much appreciation, nobody. And by just simply being genuinely appreciative of other people and just when I tell you about this challenge, I want to challenge you, don't look at this as a strategy or a tactic but if it resonates, just let it be part of who you are and how you show up. So I call it the active appreciation challenge. We all have cell phones with plenty of contacts in there. Those contacts can be friends, it can be family, it can be business associates, what have you. For the purpose of this exercise, you can do this with whoever you want. But what I want to challenge you to do is over the course of the next 24 hours, I want you to send messages to a minimum of 10 people in your life and in each of those messages you let the person know one thing that you genuinely appreciate about them. You don't ask for anything in return. You don't even ask for a response in return, but you watch what happens and it is going to be such a powerful experience.

You are gonna come to the realization that your actions caused that to happen and once you have it, I'm gonna guess that if you're like me, you're gonna be like wow, that was, I mean the first time I had that experience that Jesse told me to do that. After I had that experience, I was hooked. I'm like, I want a whole bunch more of that. So I send messages of appreciation to people every single day. I don't even think about it. I just do it. I don't know how many people but every single day, two, three, four people a day, what have you, and I will tell you that by being just genuinely appreciative of people that it opens the door. I sent out a message to somebody this morning, a friend of mine that I hadn't talked to since last summer. She's an entrepreneur and I just reached out to her and just said hey, I haven't talked with you in a while. Happy New Year's, would love to hear an update about what's been going on in your life. She messaged me back and informed me that her husband died in a car wreck in August of last year and I did not know that. I haven't talked to her since then and she was like, Kevin, you reached out at such a perfect time. She goes, my world was turned upside down but we're getting through this now and business is picking back up again, and I'm getting through this. But she goes man, if you would be open to have a conversation Kevin, I would absolutely love to just catch up with you and talk and if you could would you book a time on my calendar?

And I did. I booked a time on her calendar and stuff and it's this real meaningful relationship. I'll tell you what, when we have that the business comes so doggone easy from that place. Business is easy to do when we have relationships with like-minded people who share core values with us, because now we can have a co-creative and collaborative conversation and just explore possibilities and coming from that place is a whole different ballgame right there.

Yeah, I know. Awesome and very cool. Thank you for sharing that. So for those listening right now, the challenge is in the next 24 hours, message 10 people on your phone and let them know something you genuinely appreciate about them and just watch what happens without any expectation of return or something that you're trying to get back to see what happens. I think you just have the experience and in speaking of valuable relationships, intentional and even profitable relationships, I highly invite you as our listener to check out Kevin's podcast as well. Million-Dollar Relationships. Kevin, can you tell us a little bit more about the podcast?

So we launched that podcast almost three years ago. It has been hands-down the most rewarding and impactful thing I've done in my 29 years as an entrepreneur, hosting this podcast. I get to talk with my podcast guests about their most valuable relationships and so my podcast guests get to share their experience around this topic of relationships and for our listeners who are also entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs, we get to inspire them to place more intentional focus on creating more real meaningful and rewarding relationships in their own lives. So if you are someone who places a high value on relationships, if you're an entrepreneur who's making a big impact in this world, and then wants to make an even bigger impact in the world, you sound like my kind of person and I would be totally honored to have a conversation, get to know you a little bit, and if it makes sense, we could totally do an interview for the podcast and I would be honored to do that with you. Probably the easiest way to hit me up is on Facebook. I'm Kevin the Connector on Facebook. You could just message me and let me know you're one of Rudy’s, you heard this interview and it landed with you and you'd like to discuss doing an interview for the podcast. I would absolutely love to do that.

So awesome Kevin. Super generous of you. So for our listeners here, we're also going to include the link to the podcast here, as well as a link to your Facebook profile and other socials that you have. So just go down below somewhere around this audio or video, and you'll find all the links or a backlink to the show notes. Kevin it's been an honor and pleasure to have you here. My friend as we wrap up our interview, any final words that you want to leave our audience with?

Well, understanding relationships the way I do, I'm gonna tell you when we do, I'll give you a really cool example here. I interviewed this guy Jeremiah a couple months ago for the podcast and he had such an amazing experience that he connected me with his friend Jim. In fact, he told me after the podcast, he's like Kevin, he's the man. That was so cool. My buddy Jim, he's wanting to get on more podcasts and so I would love to connect you and him and he'd make a great guest for your podcast. So Jeremiah sent an email to connect Jim and I. Jim responded right away and he was like Kevin, I was already talking with Jeremiah and he told me about the amazing experience he had on your podcast and I already know who I want to talk about. It's the guys in the band and he's like, we've known each other for years. We've been through ups and downs and all these years we're still best friends and those guys are just the most valuable relationships in my life. But he didn't say who the band was. So I had to Google his name, Jim Sohnfeld is his name, and I came to find out he is the drummer for a band Hootie and the Blowfish and Jim and I have since connected. We've had a few conversations. We did an interview for the podcast. He wants to get on more, he wants to speak more and it's something he hasn't done a lot of is public speaking.

But he's like, I would really like to do more of that. So I've kind of been able to help him in that and so I just want to share that because when we do focus on relationships and we focus on using our gifts and our abilities and our resources and our business to impact other people's lives and help further those relationships, and we want to just be the rock star and the hero to the people that we serve, I will tell you you are gonna attract so many amazing onto you. Want to fill your events? You're gonna fill your events with the right kind of people, focus on relationships.

Amen, thank you, my friend. I appreciate it, it has been an honor and a pleasure to have you here. Our audience, please click the link below, connect with Kevin the Connector on Facebook and go to his podcast Million-Dollar Relationships. This has been an awesome interview Kevin. Thank you so much my friend.

You are so welcome Rudy, my pleasure.