Gary Henderson: 0:00

My name is Gary Henderson. And I built the creator studio to show you what's possible. I'm all about running an online business. I think it's amazing to be able to connect with people all over the world. But I still know the importance. Of connecting in real life. Face-to-face. I ran my first big online event 10 years ago. And today I am so excited to bring you Joe and love. She's been running big events for companies like Dior and Williams-Sonoma So she's been doing these big events. She brings a very personal touch to them. So we're going to spend the next little bit in the studio, learning about events and learning some practical tips that you can implement today. So you can start running events next week or the following week or the following week without even having to spend a huge budget. So go ahead and follow the show. And let's jump right into the studio with Joan love. We have an amazing guest today. We have Joan Love. Let me kind of walk you through how I got to meet Joan. We dropped our podcast. A couple weeks ago when we dropped our podcast, I looked up and I saw that Joan also dropped a podcast. I was like, oh, what's this podcast about? It's about events. Let me go check this out. So I went to check it out and I looked and I was like, well, she's in Miami. She's running some absolutely amazing events. She's worked with companies like Dior and Microsoft at Williams Sonoma, t n t. And then I started digging a little deeper and I saw, she's an event producer, she's a business coach, she's a gamer, and a mom of three now. I was just absolutely floored because that's a hell of a combination. Welcome to the studio. How are you?

Joan Love: 1:43

Thank you. I am good. I'm enjoying enjoying the music here.

Gary Henderson: 1:48

So you're, you're down in Miami, right?

Joan Love: 1:50

Yes, I live in Miami.

Gary Henderson: 1:52

Very cool. So I ran an event there 10 years ago

Joan Love: 1:55

Nice.

Gary Henderson: 1:56

in South Beach, and we took over the, um, The rooftop at one of the, the bars, um, and I forget the name, oh man, I forget the name. Uh, but one of the bars on Collins, it was such a fun time, but very much the vibe and the energy that we have in here. We run virtual events here and we run them on a regular basis, so thanks for joining us.

Joan Love: 2:18

Yeah, absolutely. I'm, I'm happy to be here. It's funny cuz I, I'm familiar with Discord cuz you, like you said, I'm a gamer, so I'm here. I look at walkthroughs and tips here, but I've never done anything like this, so it's exciting.

Gary Henderson: 2:30

Yeah. So we run a virtual community of creators all over the world. We have creators from Australia to the Netherlands, the uk, and I'm in Puerto Rico and you're in Miami

Joan Love: 2:39

Oh, you're, oh, so you're my hood. I'm Puerto Rican. I'm qua born and raised.

Gary Henderson: 2:42

very nice. So I live in, um, cocoa Beach, so I live just south of the city. We lived in San Juan for a couple years and then moved to south of the city.

Joan Love: 2:50

Yeah. I love it. Love it.

Gary Henderson: 2:53

So I'm really, really intrigued by Vince. I got my first taste into the business coaching space. Uh, my first business coach, her name was Suzanne Evans. I don't know if you've ever heard of her. She's an amazing business coach. I went to her live event in Orlando. I ran my event 10 years ago and I went to her event a couple weeks later. She had a thousand women. She had a DJ spinning music. It was absolutely insane. And I looked at Suzanne and I said, I don't know what you do, because I had no clue. I'd never heard of Tony Robbins. I'd never heard of any of these people. I said, I don't know what you do, but I need to learn from you. And I embarked on this journey of, of business coaches and I, I got to work with some of the best in the world, um, as clients, and I was mentored by some of them. But I started to learn about events in business coaching, and I started to learn about building relationships with your community. And, but it's a virtual and an in real life setting, and I can't find anything that's better than bringing your community together in real life and starting to, um, cultivate experiences with them and cultivate memories with them. So I'm super, super excited to kind of dive into the power of events. What led you to events?

Joan Love: 4:03

So I started because, well, I've been doing events ever since I was very little. I always did. Parties for my friends. And then, um, in high school I did events and then also, um, in the University of Miami where I went, I did all of their events, but really it didn't click for me until I was modeling. So I modeled around the world for about 10 years and I got to do some amazing stuff. I got to be on the cover of Vogue and walked the runway for Oscar de Loreta and I just got to work with some really big brands. But it was one particular show that I did and it was for G M C, the car company. And it was a runway show. And I remember it was fun cuz we were walking on the runway with the cars. So we had to be, we had a lot of rehearsals to make sure none of us got run over, but we're walking and um, the cars are going and we're going. And then I remember at the end there was this turntable and the car stops and it starts turning and like I'm in the front and I strike a pose and then Mary j Blige is singing and she goes in front of me and it's this home moment. What I remember, and I remember like it was yesterday, I look out in the crowd and I'm like, wait a minute. I'm like, this is an event. I always thought of events as social, this is corporate and there's big money here. And I could see the producers running around with their walkie-talkies and could see them like behind, you know, the, the lighting and just doing everything. And I, it clicked that this was a career and this is something that I could do. So immediately when I got back to New York, I started interning for this corporate event company and I started working for a Red Bull and Esquire. And it was just, it was eye-opening. This is this entire industry and all they do is that they have these brands and create, like you said, events and experiences to immerse people into their brand and that creates a community for them. And it was, I mean it ever since then, events all the way.

Gary Henderson: 6:04

That's such a cool story. It's such a cool moment to be there at the front and striking your pose and having that, that epiphany moment, like right

Joan Love: 6:13

epiphanies in the weirdest moments, right? Cuz I always thought of it as social. You know, everyone knows a birthday party and a wedding and a bridal shower. But just to see suddenly all the muddy and all the opportunity and everything come together, it was the best event ever.

Gary Henderson: 6:29

That is super, super cool. So you had this epiphany, you started to intern, you started to jump into corporate events. Um, what, where's your journey taken you since then? Like where did you step out on your own and start helping other people with running their events?

Joan Love: 6:45

So from the corporate event side, I later, I'm gonna say I did corporate events for about five years and then I kind of merged my background in fashion with events and I started doing that. So now I specialize in a lot of fashion shows and I still do a lot of Fortune 500 companies and brands, but, I always say I do the pretty event side, like not just the meetings, but I do like the dinners and things like that. And then what I noticed, it was actually at a Dior show. I remember that you start learning and seeing how these companies use these events. To build these massive communities and also how they use these experiences to create that loyal customer that we all want, right? Because we, we want more clients and more customers and more followers, but we want the loyal ones, the ones that talk about us, that share all our stuff on social media that convince their family and friends that, oh my gosh, they have the best services ever, or they have the best product ever. And the way they do that is with experiences. And what I, what I noticed is that I sit at a fashion show and it's all I see. I don't look at the front row. I look at row 2, 3, 4, 5, I look at the clients, I'm like, whoa, look at all the money they're making. Uh, smaller entrepreneurs and coaches, network marketers, they don't understand that. They still just look at, oh, they do a fashion show for their brand. Oh, you have to have your logos everywhere. You just have to invite the right people. And it's like, no, no, no. There's so much more and there's so much more value. So what I started doing is that I started teaching. Some of my friends that are entrepreneurs how to do it, and then I started taking it online to show other people.

Gary Henderson: 8:27

I love the, the concept of taking what these, these large brands are doing and you were able to almost dissect it and, and build it into a formula that a creator, a small brand, um, a small entrepreneur, someone that's, you know, wanting to run a. World class events, but they don't necessarily know how, or they don't have the budget or they don't have the experiences and you've been able to take it right back to them. What are some of the, the types of events that you focus on? Like you said dinners, you talk about the pretty events, but like, are, are we talking like small, small, intimate dinners or are we talking like bigger, like 200, 300 person

Joan Love: 9:04

Well, it really ranges because when you look. For example, you look at the email list of a fashion brand. So this is something that I recently spoke about on my podcast. So you start with that email list. Let's say you, let's, let's pick one. Let's pick Louis Vuitton. So when they buy a purse at Louis Vuitton, they go on the email list. I mean, this is so close to network marketing. It's scary, but it's hilarious. So it starts with the email list, and then the first thing they invite you is not that giant fashion show. The first thing they invite you to is something smaller. It could be the launch of a new product in their store. So that's a smaller event. Now we're talking about 30, 40, 50 people that are invited that just got on the email list. So now you buy something else and now. They assign, um, a store person to you, a a store rep. Then you get invited to, maybe there's a local influencer and they have a mansion, and at the, in their backyard they're gonna do a small fashion show. So then we do a smaller thing. So now we're talking 150 people, and then they go to that and I'll do that. And then it works that way, all the way up to that giant fashion show of 2000 people during fashion week. So really it ranges, but even though it ranges, we're still servicing the same, like the same group of customers. It's just at different levels throughout their journey with the brands. Mm-hmm.

Gary Henderson: 10:30

that makes total sense. It makes total sense that that would be the, the path that someone would take and you would, I would imagine they're, they're doing a little bit of selecting and picking their best customers to go to the next

Joan Love: 10:40

well I don't, yeah,

Gary Henderson: 10:40

and

Joan Love: 10:41

a lot of selecting. I think it's more like you, they just look on their spreadsheets, like who spent the most money? So if you've been with them for, you know, three, four years and you spent a million dollars, trust me, you're going second row. But I think that what it teaches the creators, cuz now when I talk to creators, what it teaches them is that even these big companies, they start small and not small because they can't afford it. It's small because it's that first interaction that they have with that customer. So it can be, I always say get out of from behind your computer or get out of from behind your cell phone cuz everyone hides behind screens and just get in front. Of your clients one-on-one, talk to them. What do you like about my services? You know, I always, um, say like with those things we're supposed to fill out, like, what's your customer avatar? Where do they shop? I'm like, don't guess. Go ask them, do an event and ask them, Hey, where did you get that top? Like, you really wanna know who it is that's buying from you get in front of them, and the way you do that is by doing an event.

Gary Henderson: 11:49

So, Where would you suggest, like a lot of our audience, they're creators and they're, they're business coaches and they're, they're teaching and they're, they're, they're growing their Instagram following and their Twitter following and their TikTok following, where do they get started if they've never ran an

Joan Love: 12:05

I think the first step is a lot of people see event planning as stressful, but I. It's not if you do something that's fun for you. So I would say start by doing something fun. Do you like golf? Like do a meetup at top golf, or if you like wine and do something at a wine tasting room. I think that when you start by planning something fun for you, remember your community is a lot like you. They like your services. They like what you're talking about, what you're training about, what you're coaching about. So start by planning something fun and inviting your community to come. Because again, even if you, I love top golf. I saw it on the chat. Me too. My daughter's actually there on a field trip right now. That's why I said top golf. But, um, you know, even if it's small, even if it's five 10 people, you are gonna get so much benefits from that event. Remember, you're gonna get, you can get social proof, you're gonna get trust. I mean, it's hard to get trust through social media sometimes. You're gonna get trust immediately. They met you, they shook your hand, they talked to you. They know your kid's name. You're gonna get that trust. You are gonna get content because you can take photos, you can take videos of people at your event talking with you, you're gonna get content and then you're gonna get sales so much faster if you've actually met that person. Next time you offer something, it's not coming from an email, it's not coming from just a webpage. They see it as coming from you from a person. And you're gonna get all of that value just by doing an event. And I think a lot of people are afraid because they're like, there's not gonna be a lot of people. How about if it's only five people? That's fine. And the way I get around that is, again, do something fun. Because for me, I love, let's go back to talk golf. I love gaming. So if I'm going, I don't care if there's two people or 15 or 100, like I'm gonna have fun. So that's just a great way to start.

Gary Henderson: 13:59

I absolutely love that. Um, do you recommend that they start kind of on their own event in their own little area or. Some of the most successful events that I've ran have been, and I don't know if this is a proper term, but I would call it a piggyback event where there's a bigger conference and I'll run like a special night or a special dinner. Not something that conflicts with the conference, but just maybe the last night, like everybody's done with the conference, and I'll

Joan Love: 14:21

Oh, absolutely.

Gary Henderson: 14:22

Like, what do you recommend?

Joan Love: 14:23

um, you can definitely piggyback on an event that you feel that is, You know, as the same type of audience that you're looking for. A lot of people do it here a lot. Well, they do it all over. For example, let's just say Super Bowl. I just did Super Bowl two years ago and like after Super Bowl, same thing. Or during like the day before the morning of, you're gonna have a lot of piggyback events and people come down, oh, we just did one for Formula One for Boss. We just had Formula One here in Miami and we had Hugo Boss come in and do a smaller thing in the morning. So that's a piggyback event. It just means that you go to your audience and you do something smaller, which is a really good idea, and it's a really good way of people discovering you, but you can also do it on your own if you can't get to that again. It's just not having that fear and starting it.

Gary Henderson: 15:18

I really like that. Um, how creative do you get? Um, I have. A friend of mine, they owned a company and it was a really fun story. They were pitching the big hotels in Vegas and they did the fabric, so the curtains and the drapes and all that stuff, but they didn't have their budget to go pitch. So they set up a make your own ice cream Sunday bar, and that was their entertainment night for the pitch. And they pitched, and then everybody else took, you know, the, the people out for nice dinners and, and Vegas is expensive, we all know that. But they set up a little, make your own ice cream bar. And they won the pitch. They didn't spend hardly any money. They went down to the local grocery store and bought all their ingredients. So we have to go spend like a lot of money to

Joan Love: 16:03

So I'm gonna give you two tips on this one. Number one, I always say like the kiss, the keep it simple, stupid, even four. Your, even for people that give me two, three,$4 million, I do the same thing. You only want one or two impactful things that are gonna grab people's attention, and more importantly, they are going to give them a taste of who you are. That's all. And I do it for them, and I do it for, and I coach it for people that are starting out with their event. You don't need to go super detailed and everything has to be perfect and grand and I need this and that. No, just one or two simple things is enough, as long as they're impactful. And also it gives your audience a sense of, of who you are. So that's one thing, just one or two things, like don't get into all the little details because that can be stressful. It's time consuming and it also costs a lot of money. The other one is sponsors, which I coach about a lot because people think, again, you know, it's expensive. I don't know if I can do this. I'm just starting. Sponsors is so easy to get. Sponsorship is very easy to get. All you have to do is you have to hit up the sponsors that want to get in front of the same audience that you are bringing in. I mean, I sometimes I just have people call us randomly and they're like, oh, I see you're doing an event for women in business. I just actually had this happen, which is why I'm telling you the story. And they're like, we, we have a coffee can, can we, can we do it? Can we send you cases of coffee? I'm like, sure, send it to me. Because for them it's benefit. They get to put their products in their or their services in front of the client and you're doing all the work. You're the one actually doing the event. You're the one doing the invitations and the RSVPs and talking to the venue. So getting a sponsor is something that, again, I don't want anyone to be scared of or think that you're gonna get a lot of nos, cuz you'd be surprised. You're gonna get a lot of yeses. A lot of it is in kind in kind, which means that they give you the products. Which is great. Hey, that's a win. And then obviously sponsorship money.

Gary Henderson: 18:17

How

Joan Love: 18:17

Um, well, it just depends on, I I always say go lower at the beginning. Is that what you mean? Like how much do I charge for them to sponsor? Yeah.

Gary Henderson: 18:30

Yeah, like, I mean, in kind I get like, we need some coffee or we need a meal. So the local restaurant's gonna provide the meal and that's amazing. But if, you know, if it's a, uh, maybe they wanna put something in the goody bag, maybe they want some signage at the event, maybe they want, um, I don't know, maybe they want some mention at the event or something like that. How are you pricing these kind of, these intimate events? Because you, I wouldn't imagine you would price it the same way of saying, well, there's this many people and this is what it's worth. Because an intimate event with the right

Joan Love: 19:02

Absolutely. I think that what I do with my clients is that the first year, like when we create a budget and we know exactly like how much we need the wifi for the signage or for that goody bag, like you were saying, we try that first year to be at cost, but we charge them about what it's gonna cost us to do it. Cuz what I do is that we have. Basically, you know, a sponsorship deck that you give them before. We have a sponsorship deck that you give them after. So the one before is the one that you're telling them, okay, this is how much it is, this is what you're gonna get, and that's how you're gonna get the sponsorship. The sponsor sponsorship deck after tells them, oh, look what we did. Look where your products and services got. Here are some photos of our customers interacting. This is how many people came through the door. And what that allows you to do is year two, now you start making money off of it. So year one, I'm just trying to cover my cost. I wanna do the event. Cuz if you, if the sponsor covers my cost, it's a win for me because I'm the one getting the social proof. And mom, I'm the one getting the emails, the sales and the content. Year two, now I wanna start making money off the sponsors. But in order to do that, you have to build a relationship, right? Just like with our customers, you're building a community and you're building a relationship. And you do that by showing them after what you did with their money or what you did with their products. And then year two, you're asking for more money. Really,

Gary Henderson: 20:29

I've never,

Joan Love: 20:30

do it for every single event. It's super important because you're gonna build that relationship. Year two, I'm gonna charge them some money, but if I wanna charge'em that money, I need to show them what happened at that event. And it never fails. They sign up so freaking fast.

Gary Henderson: 20:51

it makes total sense. I've, you know, I've sent pictures or I've sent like a really quick something, but I've never taken the time to put together a deck. And I mean, I've spent.

Joan Love: 21:02

Oh, no, no, no. Yes, no. It's very, very

Gary Henderson: 21:05

got a deck on the

Joan Love: 21:06

Very important to have that. And I have a template for it. And then once we, and it's just, it's just rinse and repeat and they love it because they're getting, think about them. They have a certain amount of sponsorship dollars allotted in a year. They need to. You know, prove to their company, okay, this is what we gave and this is what we got in return. Now you're making it easy for them. Cause you are giving them the amount of people that went the, you know, you're giving them the photos, you're giving them everything that they need now they want to continue that relationship with you. Mm-hmm.

Gary Henderson: 21:46

Yeah, you make it a no-brainer. It's really simple. So you talked about budget and you talked about sponsors covering first year if possible, and breakeven. Um, what are the things that we should spend budget on? And what are the things that we should maybe, um, skip that a lot of people maybe spend some budget on? Like, I think about like content. Like for me, if I'm gonna have an event, I want a camera crew because I wanna make sure I capture the event. I don't wanna miss it. I don't wanna have my phone out the whole time. So that's something that my last event, we didn't have a great camera crew. We thought they were good and we thought they were gonna be good, but it just didn't turn out so good. So I, I kind of missed, I missed that. So like, that's one of those big things, like I will never run an event again without a vetted camera crew that I've worked with before.

Joan Love: 22:33

yeah, I would say for your first,

Gary Henderson: 22:35

So

Joan Love: 22:36

for your

Gary Henderson: 22:36

what other ideas

Joan Love: 22:37

I think I have a podcast coming out, I think it's next week, and it's the five team members that you should have at an event, even if, or just your friends at the beginning. That's fine. And definitely one of them is photographer because like you said, you need to capture that content. Then another one is, uh, tech director, because if your wifi goes down, if something happens, then there goes your content. So you wanna make sure, obviously, that the wifi, the sound, everyone hates bad sound. Um, or let's say you have a screen presentation, you wanna make sure that that is. Working. The third one is guest relations, because you want, this is your opportunity to connect, but you wanna make sure that you or somebody else is constantly connecting. Again, asking those questions, what do you love about our services? What do you wanna see? You know, oh, where did you get that top? You know, you want to be connecting with these people cuz you have them here for a short amount of time. So those are three things that I would say for sure. Um, that you want to make sure. And then again, an impactful moment. And when I say an impactful moment, it's just something, something that gives them the idea of who you are. Like you said about that ice cream cart that you're, that the drapery company did something. One thing that people are gonna talk about that they're gonna wanna take photos and when, oh gosh, when I say take photos, everyone thinks I'm talking about a step and rip, repeat or logo and I'm like, no. The last thing I wanna see is your logo. Like, I don't, I don't care if I see your logo, like I'll see it small somewhere, but it has to be something else, something that tells me. So if, if I walk into the room of any of the creators that are on here right now, And you could think of one thing that if you had it there, I would understand what your brand is about. Okay. Give me that one thing. Like what is it, that's the one thing I wanna see at your event. Mm-hmm.

Gary Henderson: 24:23

It makes absolute sense. So get a good photographer, have someone worried about the tech stuff so that all runs smooth. Have someone worried about the guests to make sure that they have a really good experience, and then have one or two impactful moments and you should be set.

Joan Love: 24:38

is. If you make it easy. Again, I think that people overcomplicate events in their brain, and it's not all you're doing is you're just building community. You're just inviting your community over to a place, talk to you to see what your company is about.

Gary Henderson: 25:01

I absolutely love it. It's, it's, it's that simple. It's, it's something that I, I, I think that I, in my head, like, we ran an event last August and, and it was, it was difficult. We were moving from location to location and we had people doing different things and we were understaffed. We didn't have all those positions covered. Um, but. I like looking back on it in my head, no, I'm just kind of replaying the moments and I'm like, man, if we would've had someone focused on, you know, making sure, like if we would've had our photographer, like they were late sometimes and, and we were worried about them, like if we would've had them there on time or if we would've had someone, you know, just focused on the tech stuff just because it went wrong. A little bit like those little frustrations that as an event host or as the

Joan Love: 25:49

correct. Yeah,

Gary Henderson: 25:50

like, oh man, I'm having to make sure

Joan Love: 25:51

yeah. There's, yeah, definitely

Gary Henderson: 25:53

the WiFi's a

Joan Love: 25:54

those are, and that's why I have that.

Gary Henderson: 25:55

get stressed.

Joan Love: 25:56

I think it's next week. I'll let you know, but it's the episode of the five team members. You have those. That's what I call, it's like the cover. As long as you have those five in place, it covers the basics so that you can focus. And I think that's how I started. It's like you need to focus on connecting with your community. That's your number one goal at your event. You, oh my gosh. When I went to an event a couple weeks ago and I saw somebody, yeah, they were dealing with tech and they were running around cuz there was no, um, the wifi code wasn't posted and then they were running around. I'm like, what are you doing? Like your number one goal here is to connect with your community and sell. Everything else needs to be handled by someone else. Period. Or else why did you do the event? You know, you're not going to reach the goal of your event, which is again, connecting with your community.

Gary Henderson: 26:53

It makes perfect sense. So do you do anything at all with. Virtual

Joan Love: 26:56

do virtual

Gary Henderson: 26:57

how do they

Joan Love: 26:58

partner with people that do virtual events and we do livestream some of our events. But I really, my passion, I, I love the community. I love seeing the people and connecting and it's just, that's, that's what I love to do.

Gary Henderson: 27:18

and I think that's, that's amazing. Um, like I really, I really do. I think a specialist that's, you know, really focused on their niche is just absolutely wonderful. I think there's a really good spot for virtual events, but I've found a lot of people that are more in real life events or traditional events,

Joan Love: 27:34

Yeah.

Gary Henderson: 27:34

try to do virtual and it's just

Joan Love: 27:36

Yeah, absolutely.

Gary Henderson: 27:37

if you can find a really good virtual event

Joan Love: 27:39

another

Gary Henderson: 27:40

have a really fun virtual

Joan Love: 27:41

different. I'd rather partner with someone and do both well and just really focus on, on what I do of, which is the live events.

Gary Henderson: 27:57

It makes absolute total sense. I love that.

Joan Love: 28:00

they should do at least one big event,

Gary Henderson: 28:01

creators be running

Joan Love: 28:02

even if they piggyback off of events, like one big event a year, and then if they can, I would say they should do one smaller event a quarter. Yeah.

Gary Henderson: 28:19

Okay, so one big event a year, um, could be a piggyback or could be their own kind of solo event and then every quarter and are like, as creators if you're building, you know, like are you recommending that people kind of find a couple of zones and travel there to run events, or are you recommending they keep doing stuff in their local town? Like a lot of our audience, they're just, they're growing. Like I would imagine you, I know you're in Miami and you're

Joan Love: 28:41

you can, yes, like I run events in New York

Gary Henderson: 28:44

well. Are you looking at running events in other parts?

Joan Love: 28:46

if you can stay local, that's fine, because at the end of the day it's just about getting used to it. It's about my biggest challenge with creators, obvi, like all the time. It's just getting them out behind the screen because they get so used to just being behind a computer or behind a phone that when I tell'em, oh, you have to meet real people, they're like real people. I have to talk to people. Like they just freak out. So I think that just. Even if you're doing a local event, even if you're doing a small meetup, again, don't do a small meetup at the boring coffee shop. No one's gonna go cuz you already don't wanna go something fun. It just gets you into it. You're like, okay, I, I get it. I get that connecting with my audience is important. And even again, even five 10 people, you are going to be blown away by again, the amount of content sales re-shares that you get from just that. So you can definitely start local. I would say start local and then you can go to other markets if you can.

Gary Henderson: 29:51

That makes sense because. The content is what you really need anyway. You need, especially if you're building, you know, in a, in a global brand or a, a national brand, is you need the content. You need your fans to see you around people. You need them to laughing

Joan Love: 30:05

Even if there's

Gary Henderson: 30:06

fun and, and enjoying your personality and

Joan Love: 30:09

you know, cheering them on, like, that's what you need now, they're like, oh, okay. This is a real person that, you know, interacts with their guests, and that is really, really important for them to see. So again, so they, they don't just see you as just, you know, a logo or a handle.

Gary Henderson: 30:34

I love that. So, Joan, we, we talk about growing a business here, but we also talk about life. So what is life like for you? You're, you're a mom of three, you're a

Joan Love: 30:42

Um, I,

Gary Henderson: 30:43

are you all in on business or are you, are you pretty balanced? What does life look like?

Joan Love: 30:47

but, um, yeah, so I have three kids that are 11, 10, and five. And I mean, I love my business, I love my work, so I try to work every day till like five or six, and then I try my best to shut it down and. Just play with them. So I play soccer and volleyball and yes, I'm a gamer and I'm teaching them how to be a gamer. So, um, we love virtual reality and PlayStation and escape rooms and all of that stuff. And yeah, there's no me time. That would be nice of me time once in a while, but when you have three kids and, and a business and a lot of, um, people to coach, you're just, I'm just busy. Busy all the time.

Gary Henderson: 31:36

I think it's fun though, and I'm, I'm glad that you get to kind of shut it down

Joan Love: 31:39

I think it's, it's, it's important because

Gary Henderson: 31:41

them a little

Joan Love: 31:41

they're only small for

Gary Henderson: 31:43

cool and

Joan Love: 31:44

so long, and I know that this is something, I've been doing it for 15 years and I know I'm going to be doing it for a lot longer. So even though I know, I can know, I have the resources to grow the company even faster, and with the brands that I work. You know, I can make this a very, very, very much bigger business. I kind of don't want to right now, and that's why I love coaching and I love talking to entrepreneurs because it allows me to still have that time to spend with my family and spend it with my kids while I can.

Gary Henderson: 32:23

It makes absolutely total sense. So you run events for people in Miami,

Joan Love: 32:28

Um, so for events that I produce, I produce'em all around the world. So luckily Miami is a big hub and it's getting even bigger now that we have gotten Formula One and, and some things like that. But I travel a lot, so I'm, again, I'm in New York, I'm in Los Angeles, I'm in Paris. So I go all around the world doing that. And then as I am there doing events, I will meet up with people that I coach or, you know, do a smaller event, like you said, a piggyback event so that I can. You know, interact more with my audience. So that is the way that I, I do it.

Gary Henderson: 33:10

And do you, do you

Joan Love: 33:12

the coaching what I do right now is I may have a podcast on a YouTube

Gary Henderson: 33:16

or do you only

Joan Love: 33:16

teach a lot and I also reach out. I have a newsletter where I reach out and for ideas and suggestions. Because when you've been doing this for this long, there's things that I think about that to me are just, just so obvious. But for other people it isn't. So I do reach out. I'm like, Hey, is there anything else you wanna learn? You wanna know how to set up walkie talkies? What is, what's a step and repeat? You know, what questions you should. You know, ask when you're looking for a venue or when you're in a venue contract, what should you should be looking out for? So I'm always asking what do they wanna know from me? And then for now I have, um, I have like hour long coaching calls that people can get on with me because I don't really have a course or anything like that yet. I don't know if I'm interested. I really just like to talk to my community. Yeah,

Gary Henderson: 34:12

I, I relate so much with you. I don't have a course I have. I fought courses so much. I really, I, I, I don't consume courses as a, as a, like, that's not the way I learn. I'm not gonna sit down and watch like eight hours of videos or 12 hours of videos. Um, I really struggle to produce content that way, so I relate very much with, as you see here, we've got 30, 35 people in the room, and it's just you and I talking vibing with our community. Now. We'll have something to talk about all week because we'll be talking about running events and talking about what you're teaching us and making sure we have the people there and going to listen to your podcast, making sure that we're talking about your episodes.

Joan Love: 34:52

it's So much more personal. and you get to, I love hearing people's stories. It's like, okay, so what are you coaching? Who are you coaching? Where are you, what city are you? and and just being able to, I'm almost in my brain, I'm almost like, I'm customizing your event. You know, I'm customizing your, your event for your coaching and how you do it. And I enjoy that so much more. And events are so unique, if you think about it. So it's hard for me to wrap my brain around doing a course. I mean, it'd have to be like some magnanimous giant course because everyone's events needs are different and their goal can be slightly different. So that's a little bit difficult for me. So yeah, interacting with people, that's the way to go.

Gary Henderson: 35:33

I learned so much in the studio with Joanne love. A couple of my biggest takeaways. Really. I'm not going to lie. It's that post event sponsor deck. I never, ever, ever thought about that. And it makes so much sense. I even sent Suzanne Evans, one of my mentors, a message. And I said, yo, you gotta hear about this. Joanne love just told me. And she said, y'all Gary, we sent you one. Probably not that good, but man, that just blew my mind. Beyond that though. Focusing on one or two impactful things. Right. Rather than making the entire event an absolute spectacle. Focus on one or two things becoming super high impact. And then. I really like the concept of a piggyback event. I've ran those. Um, Joanne talked about running those. So I think the concept of running a piggyback event and making sure that you have the right team in place. I can't stress enough, the importance of team. If you're there and you're there to host the event. And you're there to, to speak and meet your guests and entertain whatever your goal is of the event. You need to be able to focus on that and you need to have team focusing on everything else. Right? Make sure you've got a technical director. Make sure you got someone there working on all the guests stuff. So your guests are taken care of. And for everything you can do, make sure you've got amazing quality. Photographers and videographers. So if you're enjoying the podcast, I want to make sure you follow the show. But I want to invite you to come and join our community. At Garry club, we're a community of creators. We have over 2,500 creators. We bring guests like Joe and love into the studio as a creator and our community. You get access live. So you get live access to the studio. You get to interact and meet our guests. You get to ask questions. If you have them, we have trainings and we actually pay creators every single day. So when you're a creator in our community, you get paid every single day. As long as you show up and you put on your work to grow your brand and grow your business. So, if that sounds fun to you. Go to gary.club/discord. gary.club/discord. Join our discord community. Right. Join our community. Come say hi, introduce yourself. I can't wait to meet you. I have an absolutely amazing day, everyone.