People believe that the more expensive, exclusive and complicated something appears, the better it is. This is certainly the case for legal conferences.
We chose to do the opposite. Here’s a list of what worked and what didn’t work that well. Please learn from them to make your event not suck.
I want to pull back the curtain on how we got 1000+ people joining from 20+ countries at our Authentic Lawyer Summit earlier on this month.
We focused on simplifying everything as much as possible.
WHAT WORKED:
1. MUSIC! 🎵 Most events are dry, dull, and lifeless. Too serious for their own good. We sparked every session, break, and outros with music (good music!). People literally wanted to get our playlist.
2. NO BARRIERS! 🚧 We got rid of complicated conferencing software. It saved us thousands of dollars, and allowed hundreds to join us live instead when we broadcast on YouTube instead.
3. NO PANELS! 👯 These are always so boring and people tend to arrive at a consensus. We chose people with spiky points of view to lead the stage.
WHAT DIDN’T WORK AS WELL:
1. SHORT TALKS. ⏲ We thought the more focused and shorter the talk, the better it is. But some ideas, speakers, and more were so engaging that we wish we could’ve given them more time.
2. POWERPOINTS: 📈 The minute you start screen-sharing, the more people start tuning out. We were lucky that we didn’t have much of this, but we definitely saw a dip in engagement.
3. LOW-KEY PROMOTION: 📢 We managed to get 1000+ attendees across the 3 days, but we wish we’d done a better job of reaching out to more leaders who can change the industry to attend the event.
What would you like to learn about our event? I will continue sharing more insights about running this event, running our legal firm, and insights from coaching lawyers and accountants. Drop your biggest question/comment below and I’ll be sure to address it.