How a virtual event needs careful preparation, but when done well opens up the whole world of opportunities from your own home office.

Jim James: 0:03

Hello. Welcome to this episode of speak PR today. I am delighted to have Tony Kaufman with me and she's the founder and CEO of the Standout Universe. Should I say Yeehaa because you're. Coming to us from Houston, Texas. Hi, Tony.

Toni Kaufman: 0:18

How are you, Jim? You know, it's so cute. Everybody has this image of Houston, right? Because our cops are on horseback. Sometimes you don't, but I had a, it should be an it person. And I remember bringing someone in from it was OSG overseas, overseas shipping group. And I was, doing some work for them at the it level. And I remember bringing in a young man from Russia and a young man from India to come over and help us set up all the servers and do the worldwide communications. Right. So it just so happened that the livestock show was on, which is the biggest one in the world right here in the Houston livestock show. And, and I said, you know what, guys, I'm going to take you over there. And so we, we ended up the night and I got them in the car and we drove them over there. And as we're driving to, what used to be the Astrodome, right? As we're driving towards it, you see all of the County, Melanie's, you know, all the County police and all the sheriffs and, and they're all just standing there by the gate, you know, having a good conversation, they got their boots, they got their hands, they got their guns. And the young man from Russia goes, Oh, look, they're in costume for us. No, not really.

Jim James: 1:28

He's wonderful, wonderful stereotypes that, that people have about Houston. Well, you're a nice warm part of the country. And you can tell from what I'm wearing for those of you that can't see me, I'm wearing a wooly hat and three layers because it's pretty chilly here in the UK now. You've got a huge amount of experience really Tony and what I love about you and on your website and on your LinkedIn, it says welcome. How may we serve you? And I, as you know, talk to a community of business owners, and I thought you have a massive amount of experience in online events. And people presenting themselves in your hosting. Now you said concurrently four day events online. So can we talk about how companies and individuals can create and leverage online events as a topic? That'd be great.

Toni Kaufman: 2:15

Absolutely. I mean, if you're, if you're new to the online world, if you're new to the business, there are, you know, there's as mint, it's multifaceted, it's like a diamond or so many ways to get into the industry. So many things you can specialize in, but it all comes down to one thing. Do you have the credentialing? Are you the authority? Can you, will you be seen as the go-to expert because that's basically step one, right. Is how are you coming across so that you can make your sales so that you can get your interviews so that you can get your, your, your, your impact on the world. And so, and, and I think you'll agree with James that the one thing that that I love about this entire community worldwide is I haven't met one person yet who doesn't want to make. A difference. Yeah. Mentality. How can I serve? And, and, and, and that applies to everybody from, from love doctors, you know, all the way down to people who are teaching you, how to eat better, you know, and how to, how to take care of your depression and how supplements and nutrients. I mean, there's just like this hugest expanse.

Jim James: 3:25

It seems as well as though online shows really enable a global audience for these opinion leaders in the way that before there might have been West coast, America, or Southeast England or far East practitioners, now it's global. So how do you see that playing out tone in which platforms from a technology point of view, do you see kind of making the most sense.

Toni Kaufman: 3:50

Well, you know, I have to take my hats off to to zoom very impressed that they've been able to, I mean, it was like they were in the right place at the right time. I wish I had invested. But the, the, the power of, of this online conferencing system is just, it just absolutely blows me away because I used to work in corporate America. I used to be a Microsoft technical evangelist, and I used to have to set up, you know, conference calls. Remember the conference tables.

Jim James: 4:21

Polyconn dialing yeah.

Toni Kaufman: 4:23

Polygon died. As a matter of fact, you're going to laugh at me. I'm still using a job bruh. Wow. 2015. And it still works. It's some good old technology. You guys, when you get good stuff, it lasts. Right.

Jim James: 4:37

So you're going to get a Blackberry out there for a moment. Tony. I was like, Oh,

Toni Kaufman: 4:41

that actually I saw someone using that the other day that I I was, it was just too funny,

Jim James: 4:45

yes. As zoom you think is a great platform.

Toni Kaufman: 4:49

Great platforming and there's many, many webinar platforms and there's many and they grow daily. Right. But I have been very impressed with the power, the resilience and the capacity of the servers to handle this. Yes. You know, worldwide without it, without a hiccup, without a glitch. Yeah. It's just, it just amazes me because I remember from the poly-com we then went to the television. You know, and that took, you know, a half, a million dollars to set up two rooms in two places of the world to be able to have a telephone, you know, a video conference. And now here we are getting it for 30 bucks a month.

Jim James: 5:25

Yeah. It's it really is incredible. Isn't it? Tandberg is the name we're looking for the Tandberg TV conferencing systems. They were a client of mine for a while in Asia. What about the functionality? Because there are some. Companies like swap card, for example, there's one called air room that has been in touch recently that are kind of taking almost trade show conferences online.

Toni Kaufman: 5:50

Yeah. As a matter of fact, we had we had one pitched to us just a couple of weeks ago and, and I, I mean, I literally saw the it's like, it's like gamification basically is what's happening is that we are, we're bringing in from, you know, me, I'm a boomer. You're probably a gen X-er right

Jim James: 6:07

in between. I think probably me, my blue, my boom is gone, but I haven't got a lot of generation there.

Toni Kaufman: 6:13

So, I guess what I'm saying is that we're now into like the third or fourth generation of game players, video game player. So that you're used to seeing your little Sims, you know, avatar walking through the house and do it all this. Well, this is exactly what's happening with it. Gamification and the artificial intelligence team, like the ones you just mentioned a couple of is that now if you want to join a conference, for example, I just worked at a conference that was four days long made over a million dollars. So, you know, People are making some serious sales online and on online conferences. But but what I've seen is the ability to literally walk up in your little avatar. You know, you go into this room, then it's this giant conference center and you walk up to the front desk and you pick what you're wearing and what you look like and all that kind of stuff. Right. And then at the front desk, you've got the Marquis telling you what events are going on in that conference center at that time. You can literally attend a variety of these meetings at the same time. I love it.

Jim James: 7:17

So we've got the platforms are really coming to their own. Are you seeing anyone doing any VR where people are sort of wearing. The VR headsets

Toni Kaufman: 7:27

that's the turning point, Jim. I mean, people have, are not going to live events, and now it's even easier and better to attend all the events you ever wanted. From the comfort of your own home.

Jim James: 7:41

Or in my case, the slight discomfort of your own garden studio as I like to call it.

Toni Kaufman: 7:48

Well, I tell you I've got the heater on because it's 73,

Jim James: 7:52

shocking, shocking, like to fire Tony. I come in later for you. I've got one burning in the house right now for the kids and the dog. They're all enjoying it, but I'm out in the, in the sort of zero degrees in it. In the shed here,

Toni Kaufman: 8:06

we're going to send you a heater.

Jim James: 8:07

Thank you I've got one, I think in China. But what about this challenge then? And this is, I guess, part of what you do as a as someone who has a background in television and production with your standout universe, because surely the challenge is that, an individual salesperson used to go to a trade show, for example, or a conference, and you'd have a community of people that you knew. How are people doing that?

Toni Kaufman: 8:31

We're doing exactly the same thing. For example, we are doing live online events. We are doing the VIP a dinner party before the night, before we are doing the breakout rooms for lunch, with our sponsors, we are doing the party, Hardy, Marty, you know, the happy hour at the end of the day, we just opened the zoom and everybody just. Has at added, right? We play music. We have, we played games. One of my best friends and business partner, Linda Kane has been doing blue diamond events forever. She actually brings in like an escape room on zoom. So, there's a lot of ways to a, there's a lot of ways to play, but the important thing to keep in mind is that you're my client and you've given me a wish what you want to accomplish in three days or two days or a one day. For example, we just ran a one day 12 hour summit. It was a gift giveaway with summit because we combined the 20 minute talks with the giveaway that they were giving. And it ran all day on Saturday by popular demand. We had the extended through Sunday

Jim James: 9:41

and I suppose when people don't have to travel, they could fit it in with their family schedule or the health schedule or the work schedule.

Toni Kaufman: 9:49

That's where we used to pay. You know, I used to spend, because I went to like seven or eight events per year. Right? So the travel, the hotel, the meals, you're looking at $2,500 on top of the program that you're going to invest in. Right. And now people are sitting at home watching this event, figuring out, you know what I really liked, Jim. I think I want to work with him. Let me listen to his offer. And because I didn't have to shell out 2000 bucks just to get to your event, I can afford to to buy your program.

Jim James: 10:22

As you said, there's all this discretionary income that hasn't been spent. And then the other thing presumably is about all the content, one of the. Issues that we addressed with the client that was going to an American virtual conference from the UK was about creating all the digital assets because they didn't really have enough show real bios in, in high Rez. What's your experience, Tony, of helping clients to create all of that. Cause they actually now have to have kind of a whole production suite. Don't they

Toni Kaufman: 10:55

Yes. There's a whole nother school of thought that that is, you know, show us your imperfections because that's, what's sexy. Okay.

Jim James: 11:02

Am I looking good then now? Cause I'm, I'm not in a very, I'm showing all my imperfections, including my location.

Toni Kaufman: 11:08

The imperfections are what attract people to work with you. It's not the perfection. It's, it's the ability to, to create that common character that allows people to say, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm right there with you, Jim. I'm going to listen to you a little bit longer. Because that is what happens with a sub when you're the host of a summit or a podcast is you become the authority figure. You become the go-to expert and you become the person they want to work with because you're doing it

Jim James: 11:38

and are you seeing this working for B2B clients as well? Industrial machinery, for example.

Toni Kaufman: 11:45

I know Facebook just launched a Facebook for business, but LinkedIn is still still King when it comes to B2B I share all of my events as an event on LinkedIn. And for example, the one we did last Thanksgiving, which was a week of kindness and gratitude, which is about to be repeated the week of Easter. I went to LinkedIn and I created the event as an event for business to business. I've got probably 8,000 people on, LinkedIn. And when I export that list to create the mailing list, to try to nurture a campaign. To try to tell them this is who I am. We probably met. You may have been one of my old computer students. I'd love to tell you what I'm doing now. And see if you're interested in one, two or three, get an answer back now, you know who you're dealing with and you can start tagging your list with what they want to hear.

Jim James: 12:35

That's another great and slightly unknown A feature isn't it of LinkedIn is actually you can export into Excel or comma separated file your contacts. Actually can't use, so that would then go into a mailing list. For example, I guess you have to have permission

Toni Kaufman: 12:50

to do that on Facebook, but I'm not telling you how

Jim James: 12:53

so what would you say to a, a person that wants to launch their brand into a B2B setting? Because. Often small companies could really leverage this global platform of virtual events.

Toni Kaufman: 13:09

All you need is a landing page to start with. All you need is a community page on a, on a Twitter and Instagram of clubhouse. You know LinkedIn, you can start off small and start off basically using free tools that are out there that we can use Facebook live. For example, what a great way to get seen, start building your audience. Participating and joining others in their communities to build your list faster. That would help a lot. Just get started and, you know, look for your mentors. You have to have a mentor guys have to have that. It doesn't have to be a million dollar mentor or even a six figure mentor. It could be someone that you can bring on as part of your team that has that in mind that you can get probably for less than $12,000 a year.

Jim James: 13:56

Wonderful. Tony. That's one of the roles that you play is as a mentor. I know if you want to get hold of you, Tony Coffman, how do they do that?

Toni Kaufman: 14:04

The first thing is is to write this down. It's Tony, get your pencils. T O S I Tony at and it's K for Kauffman, D for design, another D for development and an M for marketing inc.com K http://www. kddmInc.com

Jim James: 14:24

Perfect. Tony, thank you so much for joining me all the way from the warmth of Houston with a very warm personality.

Toni Kaufman: 14:30

We're sending it your way.

Jim James: 14:31

We're in the second beast over here in the UK. So we're embracing the warmth all the way from Texas.

Toni Kaufman: 14:36

Take care. God bless everyone. Be safe.

Jim James: 14:38

Thank you. So be in a scene to Tony Kaufman from the Standout Universe, the business that she runs over there in Houston, Texas. So many lessons to learn there and I'll put some in the show notes. In the meantime, I wish you the best of health, a profitable, or at least sustainable business. And that if you've got a business. Look at getting online. All those virtual events are there and it sounds like they're really ripe for the business development that you can build with someone like Tony to guide you. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of speak BR.