Have you ever wondered if summits can really work in a niche that isn't business coaching, marketing, or the typical online business space?
Today I'm sitting down with Janelle Hardy, a writer, somatic nervous system healer, and the creator of The Art of Personal Myth Making - a transformational memoir writing course that helps people write their stories while healing from trauma. Janelle has now hosted five virtual summits (two different ones, multiple times!), and her most recent event generated nearly $200,000 in combined summit and course revenue. And she did it with no sponsorships, in a deeply creative and healing-focused niche, with a community of sensitive, thoughtful people who often aren't associated with the "typical" online summit audience!
I've had the honor of working with Janelle on her summits for the past three years through the Launch with a Summit Accelerator, and watching her evolve and grow with each event has been one of my favorite things to witness. She brings such an intentional, value-driven approach to everything she does - and today, she's sharing all of it with you!
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Episode at a glance:
[0:00] - Janelle's Background and What Brought Her to Summits
Before Janelle ever hosted a summit, she was running a full-time business built around her memoir writing and healing program - but the cracks were starting to show. Conversion rates were dipping, her marketing felt exhausting, and she was starting to ask herself the hard questions about what came next. Janelle shares what was really going on behind the scenes in mid-2023 before she joined the Launch with a Summit Accelerator, including why she was drawn to the summit model specifically, and the very intentional reasons she had for wanting to host an event that lifted her speakers up rather than simply extracting value from them. She knew she needed something different - and she wanted to find a teacher who had the integrity to match her values.
"I was really looking for a way to do summits where it really is also about lifting your peers up and making sure that, yes, I'm serving my own business, but I'm also making sure my peers, the speakers, are set up well."
[8:04] - Janelle's First Summit Results and What Happened Next
Janelle's first summit - the Healing Through Writing Festival (she intentionally chose "festival" over "summit" because her audience didn't relate to that word) - was a massive amount of work for a modest financial return. She essentially broke even when you factor in her time and labor. But she still considered it an extraordinary success, and for good reason! She shares what those early results really meant to her, what changed in her business after that first event, and why she kept coming back to the summit model again and again (five times now!).
"Everything is building on each other in the direction of your thriving when you host a summit that's really aligned with the course you're launching."
[15:17] - The Numbers Behind Janelle's Most Recent Summit
Janelle walks through the real numbers from her most recent summit - her fifth overall, and the second edition of her Dirty, Messy, Alive series. Her all-access pass pricing sits between $85 and $195 (fast-action price to full price), she uses a three-hour tripwire timer instead of the typical 20-minute countdown (because it aligns with her values around nervous systems and not pressuring people), AND she gets conversion rates between 11 and 14%!
Her most recent summit generated nearly $200,000 in total revenue - over $100,000 of that in course sales for her $4,200 live program, with the rest in all-access pass sales. And she did it with only around $10,000 in Facebook ad spend, zero sponsorships, and 36 speakers.
[21:55] - Her Take on Facebook Ads, Sponsorships, and Summit Strategy
Janelle started running Facebook ads two summits ago, and she credits them with a significant portion of her registration growth - around 50/50 between ads and organic speaker promotion in her most recent virtual summit. She also shares her honest thoughts on sponsorships and why she's chosen not to pursue them, even as her summits have grown. She talks about what she would say to someone who's considering using a summit to launch a higher-ticket offer, and why following the structure - even when it feels like a lot - is what makes it work.
"If you really follow Krista's structure and process and really trust that it works, there's really no downside to hosting a summit. I can't think of a single one!"
[26:16] - Janelle's Work: Memoir Writing, Somatic Healing, and Why Story Is Medicine
I invited Janelle to share more about her actual work, because it's truly unlike anything else I've come across. She explains why humans are fundamentally wired for story, how our bodies hold experiences that our mind can't always access, and what makes her approach to memoir writing so different from journaling or traditional therapy. She also breaks down the important difference between journaling (which is often about processing and analysis) and story (which is about allowing experiences to breathe and settle before you engage with them)!
"We have to let the stories breathe, because whether it's a fairy tale or a personal story, part of my course involves learning how to tell our stories without stripping them of all juice by analyzing them to death."
About Janelle Hardy
Janelle Hardy is a writer, somatic nervous system healer and founder and teacher of The Art of Personal Mythmaking, a body-centric transformational memoir-writing course.
She also hosts two annual summits—the Healing Through Writing Festival and Dirty, Messy, Alive: Embodied Memoir-Writing Workshop Series.
She helps people write their memoirs while healing with body-based trauma healing techniques, and by using ancient tales such as fairy tales and myth.
Janelle's Website | Get 10 impactful writing prompts!
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